Wire stories category, Page 77
Stocks drift lower on Wall Street; yields continue to ease
Stocks are closing lower on Wall Street after a wobbly day, giving back some of their big gains from a day earlier. The S&P 500 lost 0.8% Tuesday after flipping between small gains and losses throughout the day. A day before, it leaped 2.4% for its best performance since June....
Texas top utility regulator quits in fallout over blackouts
AUSTIN — Texas’ top utilities regulator resigned Monday in the widening fallout from blackouts triggered by an unusually heavy and widespread winter storm that left millions in the state without power and water for days. DeAnn Walker, the chairwoman of the Public Utility Commission, is the highest-ranking official to step...
Texas power company seeks bankruptcy protection after storm
The largest and oldest power cooperative in Texas is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing last month’s winter storm that left millions without power. Brazos Electric Power Cooperative, which serves 16 distribution member cooperatives that cater to more than 1.5 million Texans across 68 counties from the Texas Panhandle...
United expands order for Boeing 737 Max aircraft
United Airlines is expanding its order of Boeing 737 Max airplanes and taking some deliveries sooner as it ramps up for an anticipated increase in travel demand. Chief Operating Officer Andrew Nocella said in a memo on Monday that the company placed an order for 25 new 737 Max aircraft...
Countries urge drug companies to share vaccine know-how
PARIS — In an industrial neighborhood on the outskirts of Bangladesh’s largest city lies a factory with gleaming new equipment imported from Germany, its immaculate hallways lined with hermetically sealed rooms. It is operating at just a quarter of its capacity. It is one of three factories that The Associated...
Warren Buffett again encourages investors to bet on America
OMAHA, Neb. — Billionaire Warren Buffett encouraged investors to maintain their faith in America’s economy and the businesses his Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate owns in a reassuring letter to his shareholders Saturday. Buffett hardly even addressed the coronavirus that ravaged many businesses last year, instead focusing on the long-term prospects for...
A bumpy day for stocks leaves indexes mixed; yields ease
Stocks ended a bumpy Friday mostly lower on Wall Street. Technology stocks recovered slightly following several days of heavy selling, but the Nasdaq still posted its biggest weekly loss since October. On Friday the S&P 500 gave back 0.5%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.5%. Treasury yields fell...
U.S. consumers rebound to boost spending 2.4% as income jumps
WASHINGTON — Bouncing back from months of retrenchment, America’s consumers stepped up their spending by a solid 2.4% in January in a sign that the economy may be making a tentative recovery from the pandemic recession. Friday’s report from the Commerce Department also showed that personal incomes, which provide the...
Best Buy cuts 5,000 jobs even as sales soared during pandemic
NEW YORK — Best Buy said Thursday that it laid off 5,000 full-time store workers earlier this month, even as the company’s sales soared during the pandemic as homebound people bought laptops, TVs and other gadgets. The company said it cut the jobs because more shoppers are choosing to buy...
Twitter to let users charge followers to see premium posts
Twitter is branching out from advertising to find more ways to make money — both for itself and for its most prolific users, whether those are businesses, celebrities or regular people. In an investor presentation Thursday, the social media company announced a new feature called “Super Follows,” which will let...
Twitter to let users charge followers to see premium postsVideo
Twitter is branching out from advertising to find more ways to make money — both for itself and for its most prolific users, whether those are businesses, celebrities or regular people. In an investor presentation Thursday, the social media company announced a new feature called “Super Follows,” which will let...
Is it a truck? Or duck? USPS unveils new delivery vehicles
The U.S. Postal Service on Tuesday unveiled a new-generation vehicle coming to its fleet. The striking design — likened to a duck or “Pixar”-inspired car — is a major change from current delivery vehicles seen on the roads. Car and Driver called it a “visual abomination,” but probably better at...
Anticipating 2021 boom, Q4 GDP revised up slightly to 4.1%
WASHINGTON — The economy grew at a 4.1% pace in the final three months of 2020, slightly faster than first estimated, ending a year in which the overall economy, ravaged by a global pandemic, shrank more than in any year in the past seven decades. The influx of new government...
Tech rout pulls Nasdaq down 3.5%, biggest loss since October
Rising bond yields triggered a broad sell-off on Wall Street Thursday that erased the market’s gains for the week and handed the Nasdaq composite its biggest loss in nearly four months. The S&P 500 dropped 2.4%, led lower by heavy selling in technology and communications companies. The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell...
U.S. jobless claims fall to 730,000 but layoffs remain high
WASHINGTON — The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell sharply last week but remained high by historical standards. Applications for benefits declined 111,000 from the previous week to a seasonally adjusted 730,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. It is the lowest figure since late November. Still, before the virus...
Facebook says it will pay $1B over 3 years to news industryVideo
Facebook, following in Google’s footsteps, says it plans to invest $1 billion to “support the news industry” over the next three years. The social networking giant, which has been tussling with Australia over a law that would make social platforms pay news organizations, said it has invested $600 million since...
Federal judge says California can enforce net neutrality law
SACRAMENTO — A federal judge ruled that California can for the first time enforce its tough net neutrality law, clearing the way for the state to ban internet providers from slowing down or blocking access to websites and applications that don’t pay for premium service. Former Gov. Jerry Brown signed...
Chairman Jerome Powell: Fed is in no hurry to raise interest ratesVideo
WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell told Congress on Wednesday that the central bank will not start raising interest rates until it believes its goals on maximum employment and inflation have been reached. Powell also warned that many who had worked in industries hardest hit by the pandemic and...
USPS selects Oshkosh Defense to build greener mail truck
WASHINGTON — The United States Post Office said Tuesday that it has chosen Oshkosh Defense to build its next-generation mail-delivery vehicle, part of an effort to make the USPS more environmentally friendly by switching a portion of its huge fleet to electric vehicles. Oshkosh Defense, a division of Wisconsin-based Oshkosh...
Board leaders of Texas’ grid operator resign after outagesVideo
AUSTIN, Texas — Top board leaders of Texas’ embattled power grid operator said Tuesday they will resign following outrage over more than 4 million customers losing electricity last week during a deadly winter storm, including families whose frigid homes lacked heat for days in subfreezing temperatures. The resignations are the...
Technology sector leads stock market lower; bond yields rise
Declines in technology stocks are dragging the broader market lower Tuesday as investors remain increasingly focused on a big tick up in bond yields and what it means for the overall market. Major indexes pared a good part of their losses by the afternoon. The S&P 500 index was down...
Microsoft, EU publishers team up to push for news payments
Microsoft is teaming up with European publishers to push for a system to make big tech platforms pay for news, raising the stakes in the brewing battle over whether Google and Facebook should pay for journalism. The U.S. tech giant and four big European Union news industry lobbying groups unveiled...
Engine failure spurs Boeing 777 groundings in U.S. and JapanVideo
Japan ordered a halt to all flights of Boeing Co. 777s equipped with the engine that failed Saturday over Denver as U.S. aviation regulators ordered emergency inspections of the model’s fan blades. Japan’s transport ministry on Sunday ordered ANA Holdings Inc. and Japan Airlines Co. to ground Boeing 777 planes...
Suze Orman on women, money and surviving the pandemic
Women are bearing a tremendous financial burden during the pandemic, primarily because of leaving the workforce, by choice or by force. The Associated Press spoke with Suze Orman, personal finance expert and author of the podcast Women & Money, about how women can survive and emerge from this period. Responses...
Federal Reserve sees modest pickup in hiring this month
WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve says there’s evidence that hiring has picked up in recent weeks, though the job market remains badly damaged by the pandemic. In its semi-annual monetary policy report released Friday, the Fed said it has been watching job data compiled by payroll processor ADP. The Fed...
