Business category, Page 247
Global energy-related carbon emissions flat in 2019
BERLIN — Global energy-related emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide remained steady last year, with declines in rich countries balancing out a rise in poor nations, according to data published Tuesday. The International Energy Agency said emissions of the main man-made greenhouse gas stayed at 33 gigatons in 2019, even as...
Federal judge approves T-Mobile’s $26.5B takeover of Sprint
NEW YORK — A federal judge has approved T-Mobile’s $26.5 billion takeover of Sprint, rejecting objections from a group of states and removing a major obstacle to a shakeup in the wireless industry. After the deal closes, the number of major U.S. wireless companies would shrink from four to three....
Alphabet heads my list of balance-sheet powerhouses
The wealthiest people don’t always have the biggest salaries. And the wealthiest companies aren’t necessarily those with the best earnings lately. I believe that companies with a great balance sheet deserve recognition. So, in 2001 I started compiling an annual list of Balance Sheet Powerhouses. To make it, a company...
Trump budget targets loan program that could help Lordstown
DETROIT — The Trump administration’s budget proposal scraps a loan program that could help an upstart electric vehicle company’s plans to reuse the now-closed General Motors factory in Lordstown, Ohio. In a summary of the budget for the coming fiscal year, the administration said Monday it wants to eliminate the...
Chinese military stole masses of Americans’ data, U.S. says
WASHINGTON — Four members of the Chinese military have been charged with breaking into the networks of the Equifax credit reporting agency and stealing the personal information of tens of millions of Americans, the Justice Department said Monday, blaming Beijing for one of the largest hacks in history to target...
Schick owner retreats from $1.37B buyout of Harry’s
SHELTON, Conn. — The company that owns Schick has terminated its attempt to buy the upstart shaving company Harry’s for $1.37 billion, just days after the United States sued to block the acquisition. Edgewell Personal Care Co. said Monday that it will move forward as a standalone company. It also...
2nd big mall deal in as many weeks; Simon buys Taubman
The Simon Property Group will buy mall operator Taubman Realty in a deal valued at around $3.6 billion as those properties continue to struggle along with their retail tenants. Simon Property Group Inc. is the nation’s largest mall operator. It said Monday that its operating partnership, Simon Property Group, LP,...
Sony, Amazon drop out of major European tech show over virus
LONDON — Sony and Amazon are the latest companies to pull out of a major European technology show due to fears over the outbreak of the new coronavirus. Sony said Monday it’s scrapping its appearance at Mobile World Congress, the world’s biggest mobile industry trade fair, in Barcelona, Spain, this...
Unique Illinois privacy law leads to $550M Facebook deal
CHICAGO — Adam Pezen, Carlo Licata and Nimesh Patel are among millions of people who have been tagged in Facebook photos at some point in the past decade, sometimes at the suggestion of an automated tagging feature powered by facial recognition technology. It was their Illinois addresses, though, that put...
U.S. employers add a strong 225K jobs; unemployment up to 3.6%
WASHINGTON — Hiring jumped at the beginning of the year as U.S. employers added 225,000 jobs, bolstering an economy that faces threats from China’s viral outbreak, an ongoing trade war and struggles at Boeing. The Labor Department also said Friday that a half-million people streamed into the job market in...
Online mattress pioneer Casper soars in debut tradingVideo
NEW YORK — Shares of online mattress pioneer Casper Sleep Inc. popped in their debut trading Thursday on the New York Stock Exchange. But the New York-based company still faces challenges ahead to prove to investors it can profitably sell mattresses as it becomes a bigger name in the so-called...
U.S. agency approves vehicle designed not to have human driverVideo
DETROIT — For the first time, the U.S. government’s highway safety agency has approved a company’s request to deploy a self-driving vehicle that doesn’t meet federal safety standards for human-driven cars and trucks. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration granted temporary approval for Silicon Valley robotics company Nuro to run...
Asia stocks surge after Trump acquitted, China virus aid
Asian stock markets surged Thursday after President Donald Trump was acquitted in an impeachment trial and China promised tax cuts and other help to businesses reeling from a virus outbreak. Tokyo’s market benchmark rose more than 2% and indexes in Shanghai, Seoul and Hong Kong also advanced. Oil prices gained....
YouTube, Venmo: Artificial intelligence firm must stop scraping faces from sitesVideo
Payment service Venmo joined YouTube and Twitter on Wednesday in demanding that a facial recognition company stop harvesting user images to identify the people in them, which the startup does as part of its work with police. Venmo said Wednesday it is sending a cease-and-desist letter to New York-based Clearview...
Super Bowl betting brings big business to sports booksVideo
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Gamblers in Nevada wagered $154.7 million on this year’s Super Bowl, an increase from last year but still below the high set in 2018. The Nevada Gaming Control Board released its Super Bowl betting figures on Tuesday, a day later than expected, because of technical difficulties...
Disney Plus streamer hits nearly 29 million subscribers in 3 months
NEW YORK — Disney said its Disney Plus streaming service reached nearly 29 million paid subscribers in less than three months, an impressive start for what the company has positioned as its future as more people drop cable subscriptions. But as expected, starting up a new service comes with huge...
Macy’s to close 125 stores, shed 2,000 corporate jobs
NEW YORK — Macy’s said Tuesday it is closing 125 of its least productive stores and cutting 2,000 corporate jobs as the struggling department store tries to reinvent itself in the age of online shopping. The store closures represent about one fifth of Macy’s current total. They include about 30...
Kennametal quarterly sales drop, company posts loss
Hurt by weak markets, Kennametal Inc. said Monday it lost $6.2 million for its October-through-December quarter, as sales dropped by about 14%. Kennametal, a producer of industrial tools, said it lost seven cents per shares in that quarter on sales of $505.1 million, compared to a gain of 66 cents...
Sales were up during holidays, but 1K more stores about to go under
The 10,800 stores closed by retailers last year wasn’t enough: just one month into 2020, they have announced plans to close 1,000 more. “It’s sad, there are a lot of things closing,” said Patti Maher, 57, of Orland Park, Ill., browsing liquidation sales at Papyrus in Chicago. The greeting card...
HP, Progressive show value and momentum
The stock market in the past couple of years has been a momentum market in which rich stocks get richer and poor stocks get poorer. That may change fairly soon. But for the moment, investors would be smart to look at stocks that possess both value and momentum. Here, folks,...
YouTube: No ‘deepfakes’ or ‘birther’ videos in 2020 election
YouTube is making clear there will be no “birtherism” on its platform during this year’s U.S. presidential election — a belated response to a type of conspiracy theory more prevalent in the 2012 race. The Google-owned video service is also reiterating that it won’t allow election-related “deepfake” videos and anything...
Watch the best and worst of Super Bowl adsVideo
During advertising’s biggest night, Super Bowl Sunday, marketers battled it out to bolster their brands and promote new products. Advertisers paid up to $5.6 million for 30 seconds, and almost 100 million people tuned into the big game. This year, Hyundai and Jeep scored with whimsical humor by poking fun...
Stocks sink on fears virus outbreak will dent the economy
Stocks fell sharply on Wall Street Friday as fears spread through the markets that a virus outbreak emanating from China will dent global growth. The Dow Jones Industrial Average skidded more than 600 points and the S&P 500 index erased its gains for January. Technology companies, which do a lot...
U.S. workers’ compensation growth slowed a bit in 2019
WASHINGTON — Americans’ pay and benefits rose at a solid pace last year, but at a slower rate than in 2018, the Labor Department said Friday. Total salaries and benefits such as health insurance rose 2.7% in 2019, according to the government’s employment cost index, down from 2.9% in the...
Amazon is big … really, really big; workforce hits 500K
NEW YORK — Need more proof that Amazon is big? It came this week. Amazon’s U.S. workforce topped 500,000 for the first time, up 43% from the year before and more than triple what it was five years ago, the company said Friday. It gained 150,000 workers last year, more...
