Wire stories category, Page 31
Bud Light, top U.S. seller since 2001, loses sales crown to Modelo as backlash continues
After more than two decades as America’s best-selling beer, Bud Light has slipped into second place. Modelo Especial, a Mexican lager, overtook Bud Light in U.S. retail dollar sales in the month ending June 3, according to Nielsen data analyzed by Bump Williams Consulting. Modelo controlled 8.4% of U.S. grocery,...
It might seem tempting to not pay your student loans. Here’s why that’s a bad idea
NEW YORK — After three years, the pandemic-era freeze on student loan payments will end in late August. It might seem tempting to just keep not making payments, but the consequences can be severe, including a hit to your credit score and exclusion from future aid and benefits. More than...
Amazon says AWS is operating normally after outage that left publishers unable to operate websites
SEATTLE — Amazon’s cloud computing unit Amazon Web Services experienced an outage on Tuesday, affecting publishers that suddenly found themselves unable to operate their sites. The company said on its website that the root cause of the issue was tied to a service called AWS Lambda, which lets customers run...
Consumer price growth slowed last month as inflation shows signs of steady declineVideo
WASHINGTON — Consumer prices in the United States cooled last month, rising just 0.1% from April to May and extending the past year’s steady easing of inflation. At the same time, some measures of underlying price pressures remained high. Measured year over year, inflation slowed to just 4% in May...
Check fraud cases escalate dramatically — Americans warned against mailing checks
NEW YORK — Check fraud is back in a big way, fueled by a rise in organized crime that is forcing small businesses and individuals to take additional safety measures or to avoid sending checks through the mail altogether. Banks issued roughly 680,000 reports of check fraud to the Financial...
Wall Street rises, S&P 500 hits highest level in more than a yearVideo
NEW YORK — Wall Street climbed Monday ahead of a big week for central banks around the world, vaulting the S&P 500 to its highest level in more than a year. The benchmark index rose 40.07 points, or 0.9%, to 4,338.93 and its highest close since April 2022. The Dow...
Bulls run again on Wall Street as S&P 500 climbs 20% above October lowVideo
NEW YORK — Stocks rose just enough Thursday for Wall Street to barrel into a new bull market as the S&P 500 keeps rallying off its low from last autumn. The index rose 0.6% to carry it 20% above a bottom hit in October. That means Wall Street’s main measure...
U.S. applications for jobless benefits highest since October 2021
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week rose to its highest level since October 2021, but the labor market remains one of the healthiest parts of the U.S. economy. The Labor Department reported Thursday that U.S. applications for jobless claims were 261,000 for the week ending June...
Merck sues federal government, calling plan to negotiate Medicare drug prices extortion
Merck is suing the federal government over a plan to negotiate Medicare drug prices, calling the program a sham equivalent to extortion. The drugmaker is seeking to halt the program, which was laid out in the Inflation Reduction Act and is expected to save taxpayers billions of dollars in the...
Hundreds of journalists strike to demand leadership change at nation’s biggest newspaper chainVideo
NEW YORK — Journalists at two dozen local newspapers across the U.S. walked off the job Monday to demand an end to painful cost-cutting measures and a change of leadership at Gannett, the country’s biggest newspaper chain. The strike involves hundreds of journalists at newspapers in eight states, including the...
Crude prices are up after Saudi cuts, but energy prices way down from last year
Wall Street is relatively flat Monday following last week’s last surge propelled by U.S. jobs data that raised new questions about if or when a recession might arrive. Futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average are essentially unchanged heading into a week with little new data...
Saudi Arabia is slashing oil supply. It could mean higher gas prices for U.S. drivers
FRANKFURT, Germany — Saudi Arabia will reduce how much oil it sends to the global economy, taking a unilateral step to prop up the sagging price of crude after two previous cuts to supply by major producing countries in the OPEC+ alliance failed to push oil higher. The Saudi cut...
Journalists to strike at the largest U.S. newspaper chain
Journalists across the U.S. will walk off their jobs next week at roughly two dozen newsrooms run by Gannett, the largest newspaper chain in the the country, their union said Thursday. The mostly one-day strike, which will start Monday, aims to protest Gannett’s leadership and cost-cutting measures imposed since its...
FTC charges Amazon with privacy violations over Alexa and Ring cameras
WASHINGTON — Amazon will pay more than $30 million to settle alleged privacy violations involving its voice assistant Alexa and its doorbell camera Ring. The Federal Trade Commission voted to file charges in two separate cases Wednesday that could also force the company to delete certain data collected by its...
Conservatives call for boycott of Chick-fil-A for being ‘woke’
The latest target of conservative outcry is no longer Target. Hundreds of social media users took to Twitter on Wednesday to call for a boycott of Chick-fil-A over the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) page on the restaurant’s website. “(T)hey Chose Go Woke, Go Broke,” Twitter user MAGA American Patriot...
Job openings surge to 10.1 million, upping odds for Fed hikeVideo
Vacancies at U.S. employers unexpectedly surged in April to the highest in three months, giving the Federal Reserve more reason to consider hiking interest rates again soon. The number of available positions increased to 10.1 million from an upwardly revised 9.75 million in March, the Labor Department’s Job Openings and...
Master business skills without paying for an MBA
Lindsay Mack earned her bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University in 2005. Nearly 15 years later, when she considered the best way to grow her business acumen, an MBA was not it. Mack, who is from Philadelphia, grew her career without an MBA. When ready to advance her skills in platform...
Amazon workers stage walkout over job cuts, return-to-office mandate
SEATTLE — A group of corporate Amazon workers upset about the company’s environmental impact, recent layoffs and a return-to-office mandate is planning a walkout at the company’s Seattle headquarters Wednesday. The lunchtime protest comes a week after Amazon’s annual shareholder meeting and a month after a policy took effect requiring...
CEOs got smaller raises. It would still take a typical worker 2 lifetimes to make their annual pay
After ballooning for years, CEO pay growth is finally slowing. The typical compensation package for chief executives who run S&P 500 companies rose just 0.9% last year, to a median of $14.8 million, according to data analyzed for The Associated Press by Equilar. That means half the CEOs in the...
Millennial Money: 3 signs you may need a credit card hiatus
When your finances start to spiral and it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with credit card payments or build toward financial goals, switching your payment method temporarily to cash or debit could help. Spending with credit cards can stimulate the brain’s reward center and drive you to make more...
Liz Weston: 5 ways to simplify and reduce your money clutter
Professional organizers might define household clutter as a pile of unmade decisions. Money clutter is much the same. Those credit cards you no longer use but haven’t closed? That’s money clutter. So is the retirement account you left behind three jobs ago and the financial paperwork you keep but no...
3 ways to pay for your summer vacation
A summer vacation can feel like a seasonal rite of passage — a sacred time to break away from the demands of everyday life in favor of fun and relaxation. But summer can also be an expensive time to travel, which makes it hard to budget enough money for your...
Target removes some LGBTQ merchandise from stores ahead of June Pride month after threats to workers
NEW YORK — Target is removing certain items from its stores and making other changes to its LGBTQ merchandise nationwide ahead of Pride month, after an intense backlash from some customers including violent confrontations with its workers. “Since introducing this year’s collection, we’ve experienced threats impacting our team members’ sense...
Ford to keep AM radio on ’24 models, restore it on 2 electrics from ’23
DETROIT— Owners of new Ford vehicles will be able to tune in to AM radio in their cars, trucks and SUVs after all. CEO Jim Farley wrote in social media postings Tuesday that the company is reversing a decision to scrub the band after speaking with government policy leaders who...
Millennial Money: How to pick a socially responsible bank
It has never been easier to open a bank account, especially with the spread of online services, but there has also never been so much choice about where to put your money. If you’re overwhelmed by your banking options, think about your ability to shape social change with your money....
