WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Trade Commission on Wednesday rejected a bid by Amazon.com Inc to quash demands that both Chief Executive Andy Jassy and Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos testify at an investigative hearing. Last month, Amazon questioned what it called the agency’s “burdensome” requests in its investigation of the sign-up and cancellation processes…
NEW YORK (AP) — Home Depot workers in Philadelphia have filed a petition with the federal labor board to form what could be the first store-wide union at the world’s largest home improvement retailer. The petition, filed with the National Labor Relations Board this week, seeks to form a collective bargaining unit for 274 employees…
(Reuters) -Homebuilder Lennar Corp on Wednesday reported a better-than-expected profit in the third quarter, benefiting from record-high property prices as demand far outpaced supply that was crippled by raw material and labor shortages. While homebuilders have been enjoying steeper prices for a while, the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to continue raising interest rates to clamp…
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A last-minute deal prevented a railroad strike for now, but many rail workers remain unhappy with working conditions, including some who protested outside their workplaces Wednesday ahead of votes to approve the new contracts. Handfuls of workers gathered outside railyards across the country in pickets organized by a newly formed workers…
NEW YORK (AP) — Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates combined characteristic optimism with sobering questions about persistent gender inequality and hunger at an event focused on reaching global development goals that the Gateses’ foundation convened on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly. Bill Gates again made the case for investments in agricultural technologies…
By David Shepardson WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will consider adopting more stringent greenhouse gas emissions rules for heavy trucks after Congress passed new incentives to speed the adoption of zero-emission vehicles, the agency told Reuters. In March, the EPA proposed new rules to cut smog-forming and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from…
By Herbert Lash NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. stocks rose, then slumped while Treasury yields surged and then fell on Wednesday as markets reacted wildly to a bleak economic picture next year after the Federal Reserve adhered to a tough stance to fight inflation by jacking up interest rates. The three main stock indices jolted…
By Pete Schroeder, Lananh Nguyen and Saeed Azhar WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Some of the country’s top bank chiefs endorsed U.S. Federal Reserve rate hikes as a means to tame soaring inflation, noting that consumers continue to hold up well, when appearing before Congress during a wide-ranging and mostly sedate hearing on Wednesday. In testimony before the…
By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. existing home sales dropped for a seventh straight month in August as affordability deteriorated further amid surging mortgage rates and stubbornly high house prices, though the pace of decline moderated from prior months. The report from the National Association of Realtors on Wednesday followed news this week that…
JOHANNESBURG (AP) — South African President Cyril Ramaphosa had an urgent meeting scheduled with his Cabinet on Wednesday to discuss the country’s electricity crisis, which has led to unprecedented levels of nationwide power blackouts in Africa’s most developed economy. The troubled state-owned power utility Eskom, which produces about 95% of the country’s electricity, is implementing…
