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Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Motormouth: Can I use new oil in an old car?

Business / Business News /

Q: I have retained the old family Buick LeSabre that my father bought new in 1973. It's been a garage queen and has only 44,000 miles. I've been told that engines made prior to 1992 require additives that are no longer in today's motor oil and these were taken out because they didn't react well with catalytic converters. Running the old engines ...Read more

Ellen M. Banner/Seattle Times/TNS

Inside Amazon warehouses, workers worry about risk of unsafe chemicals

Business / Business News /

At 4 a.m. in a sprawling Amazon warehouse south of Tacoma, Washington, Ellie Zingg noticed a jug of mold remover was leaking.

While sitting in the warehouse, awaiting Amazon associates who would unpack and send the product back out of the facility, chemicals in the mold remover were eating through a plastic container. Zingg, who had less than ...Read more

Heather Khalifa/The Philadelphia Inquirer/Heather Khalifa

Breastfeeding at work is 'mentally and physically taxing' even in the best conditions

Business / Business News /

PHILADELPHIA — Breastfeeding has been a major part of psychiatrist Johanna Beck’s life for most of the last three years. It’s required careful planning, persistence, and three different kinds of breast pumps so she can express milk while continuing her work tasks and seeing patients.

“There is a big burden of pumping at work,” Beck ...Read more

Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times/TNS

This LA firm hired kids to debone poultry with sharp knives, drive fork lifts, Labor Department says

Business / Business News /

A Southern California poultry processor illegally employed children as young as 14 to debone meat with sharp knives and move pallets with power-driven lifts, the Labor Department said.

The poultry processor, which supplies grocery stores including Ralphs and Aldi, must pay nearly $3.8 million in fines and back wages after an investigation found...Read more

Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS

People are flocking from California to Vegas -- and not just to visit

Business / Business News /

Las Vegas remains a top destination nationwide for people looking to relocate, and Los Angeles is the prime city they are moving from, according to Redfin, an online real estate brokerage.

The Las Vegas Valley ranked second in the nation for people relocating from other states, behind Sacramento, which topped the list with approximately 5,000 ...Read more

Katy Kildee/The Detroit News/TNS

Q&A: UAW's Fain on targeting non-union auto plants, foreign transplants, EV startups after 'record contracts' with Detroit 3

Business / Business News /

DETROIT — United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain has become one of the nation's highest-profile labor leaders since becoming the Detroit-based union's top official in March. Fain, 55, took office after narrowly defeating incumbent Ray Curry in a runoff election. Fain, who was an international administrative representative in the Stellantis ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Spotify cuts 17% of its global workforce in the latest round of cuts

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Spotify on Monday said it is laying off 17% of its global workforce, marking the third round of cuts this year for the Swedish audio giant as it tries to reduce costs amid an economic slowdown.

The layoffs will affect about 1,500 people at many of the company's locations, including in Los Angeles, according to a person familiar with the ...Read more

Ford/TNS/TNS

Ford sales down year-over-year in November as EV sales hit record

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Ford Motor Co.'s U.S. sales fell 0.5% in November, though electric vehicle sales hit a record high.

Ford on Monday reported selling 145,559 vehicles last month, down from 146,364 in November 2022. Sales of EVs were up 43% to almost 9,000 vehicles with Ford No. 2 behind Tesla Inc. Hybrid vehicle sales, meanwhile, rose 75%.

The record high EV ...Read more

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America/TNS

EV tax credit rules tighten restrictions on foreign-made batteries

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The Treasury and Energy departments on Friday proposed rules that would establish which electric vehicles will qualify for tax credits under new thresholds aimed to limit battery ingredients that are made in or sourced from adversaries like China.

The proposal falls short of a strict interpretation of last year’s climate spending law, which ...Read more

Inflation has depleted pandemic-era savings for many Americans

Business / Business News /

Inflation has sapped 40% of Americans of their pandemic savings, making consumer spending even more reliant on the job market.

Generous government stimulus payments and lock-downs that kept people at home led to “windfall” savings, Stephen Stanley, chief U.S. economist at Santander U.S. Capital Markets, said in a research note Monday. How ...Read more

Spencer Platt/Getty Images North America/TNS

Starbucks suffers record 11-day rout as sales concerns build

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Starbucks Corp. shares suffered a record run of losses as concern builds that sales trends at the coffee giant have cooled in recent weeks.

The stock dropped 1.6% on Monday, declining for a 11th consecutive session in what is the longest rout since Starbucks’ public debut in 1992. In total, the slump has erased 9.4% of Starbucks’ market ...Read more

Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel/TNS

DeSantis' Disney chief tells employees they owe $2 million in back taxes, but he's working on a fix

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Employees at Gov. Ron DeSantis’ Disney World oversight district owe the Internal Revenue Service more than $2 million in back taxes, according to an internal memo obtained by the Orlando Sentinel.

The issue stems from free Disney passes employees and retirees received for years as part of their benefits, district administrator Glen Gilzean ...Read more

Natrice Miller/The Atlanta Journal-Constitution/TNS

Solar power is growing. Now Georgia wants to store more of its energy

Business / Business News /

A decade ago, Georgia Power, the state’s largest electric utility, took its first major step toward a future powered by the sun when it installed thousands of solar panels on 150 acres outside the town of Social Circle.

The project was the utility’s first large-scale solar installation. And though Georgia still relies heavily on fossil ...Read more

Royal Caribbean/Royal Caribbean/TNS

Port Canaveral head says it's getting Royal Caribbean's next new world's largest cruise ship

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With less than two months before the world’s largest cruise ship Icon of the Seas debuts in Miami, the CEO of Port Canaveral confirmed Royal Caribbean will be sending sister ship Star of the Seas to Central Florida when it debuts in 2025.

In an email statement, Capt. John Murray reacted to news of the ship’s homeport assignment, although ...Read more

Tesla: UAW seeks to unionize car maker, battle expected with CEO Elon Musk

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The United Auto Workers, freshly victorious against the Big Three U.S. auto companies, now has set its sights on Tesla.

The powerful labor union announced a campaign this week to unionize the pioneering electric car maker, and a dozen other non-unionized car companies, to boost wages, benefits and workers’ rights. It emerged this fall from ...Read more

It's been the year of the worker. West Hollywood employers are so over it

Business / Business News /

Across the country, many American workers have enjoyed pay hikes unlike anything seen in decades. And for many American businesses, this also has been a good year for profits, with some corporations notching record or near-record gains.

But don't try to sing that song of good times in West Hollywood: Business owners there say that paying ...Read more

Business leaders promise a new era of manufacturing in St. Louis

Business / Business News /

ST. LOUIS — On Tuesday morning, a former Boeing CEO took the stage before a crowd of Missouri's political and business leaders and offered a bold prediction: After decades of losses in manufacturing, the sector is poised for a turnaround in St. Louis.

Dennis Muilenburg, the former Boeing CEO who chairs the project's board, acknowledged the ...Read more

Chris Jackson/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS

What banks really mean when they put trillions into ESG

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In recent years, many of the world’s biggest banks have published reports chronicling the vast sums they say they’re channeling into environmental and social activities. Now, senior people inside the industry are raising questions about those statements.

Banks including Morgan Stanley, HSBC Holdings Plc, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and ...Read more

Illumina says there is outside interest in buying Grail

Business / Business News /

San Diego's DNA sequencing giant, Illumina told investors this week that it has received outside interest from potential buyers for Grail, the early cancer detection company it acquired in a deal that is tangled in anititrust challenges.

Since Illumina purchased Grail in 2021, the $7.1 billion acquisition has been challenged by U.S. and ...Read more

Prefab homebuilder Veev to shutter after funders abandon former 'unicorn'

Business / Business News /

Bay Area prefabricated construction startup Veev, which promised to slash the time and costs required to build new homes, has announced to its employees that it plans to shutter operations after acquiring unicorn status just last year.

The company, with offices in Hayward and Israel, said in a statement that the closure comes because the ...Read more