BEIJING (AP) — China’s leaders effectively acknowledged the struggling economy won’t hit its official 5.5% growth target this year and said Thursday they will try to prop up sagging consumer demand but will stick to strict anti-COVID-19 tactics that disrupted manufacturing and trade. The announcement after a Communist Party planning meeting reflected the high cost…
Members of the United Auto Workers union on Thursday rescinded an increase in strike pay that had been approved earlier in their annual convention. The Detroit Free Press reported that after some delegates raised concerns about the potential cost of the $500 a week strike pay, it was dropped. But a previous increase in strike…
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon on Thursday reported its second-consecutive quarterly loss but its revenue topped Wall Street expectations, sending its stock sharply higher. The Seattle-based e-commerce giant also said it is making progress in controlling some of the excess costs from its massive expansion during the COVID-19 pandemic. Amazon lost $2.03 billion, or 20…
Meta Platforms says it will no longer pay U.S. news organizations to have their material appear in Facebook’s News Tab as it reallocates resources in the face of the economic downturn and changing user behavior. The company said Thursday that most people “do not come to Facebook for news, and as a business it doesn’t…
DALLAS (AP) — Southwest Airlines’ second-quarter profit doubled to $760 million on record revenue, but it warned that rising costs and lower productivity are likely to continue in the second half of the year. Shares fell 7% Thursday in midday trading. Air travel has bounced back this year from pandemic depths, and that is particularly…
NEW YORK (AP) — For more than a decade, US Bank pressured its employees to open fake accounts in their customers’ names in order to meet unrealistic sales goals, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said Thursday, in a case that is deeply similar to the sales practices scandal uncovered at Wells Fargo last decade. The…
PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron is welcoming Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to his presidential palace Thursday and offering him dinner in controversial talks that mark another step in the Saudi leader’s diplomatic rehabilitation — a move that has drawn harsh criticism in France after the gruesome Saudi killing of U.S.-based Saudi…
Sales of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine and treatment in the second quarter propelled the pharmaceutical giant to the largest quarterly sales in its history. The coronavirus vaccine Comirnaty brought in $8.85 billion in sales, and the treatment Paxlovid added another $8.12 billion as company revenue totaled $27.74 billion. Pfizer said Thursday that it earned $9.91 billion,…
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer Americans applied for jobless benefits last week, but the previous week’s number was revised upward significantly, with claims breaching the 250,000 level in back-to-back weeks for the first time in more than eight months. Applications for jobless aid for the week ending July 23 declined by 5,000 to 256,000 from the…
NEW YORK (AP) — The head of the nation’s financial watchdog is having second thoughts about how useful fines are in deterring illegal behavior in the financial industry, saying some companies have gotten so big that the money makes little difference. In an interview with The Associated Press, Rohit Chopra signaled that the Consumer Financial…
