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Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Electric heavy-duty trucks will be able to run from Baja to Canada, West Coast leaders pledge

Business / Business News /

It’s one of the busiest freight corridors in the United States, and it’s getting cleaner.

In the latest in the global effort to clean up heavy-duty freight, representatives from three countries gathered Wednesday at the Port of Long Beach to launch the British Columbia to Baja California Zero Emissions Vehicle corridor, or BC2BC, which, ...Read more

David Guralnick/The Detroit News/TNS

Automakers enter energy storage business as data centers face backlash

Business / Business News /

U.S. consumers are increasingly expressing opposition to data center developments across the country, raising questions about whether that pushback could extend to automakers in the stationary battery energy storage business that supplies data centers.

From Saline Township to Washington Township in Michigan and across the country, some ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

US FTC probing YouTube over social media policies

Business / Business News /

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has been investigating whether Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube violated consumer protection laws when it suspended the accounts of users, according to people familiar with the probe.

The antitrust and consumer protection agency has been probing YouTube since last year and is in the final stages of preparing a ...Read more

Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Insurance executives warn Newsom plan to shift utility wildfire liability would raise premiums

Business / Business News /

Insurance company executives warned Gov. Gavin Newsom in a letter Wednesday that his plan to shift utility wildfire liability to property insurers would raise premiums across California.

"The party whose equipment ignites a catastrophic fire should bear the economic consequence of that fire," the 15 executives wrote. "Shifting those costs to ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Amazon to close Mechanical Turk amid rise of AI

Business / Business News /

Amazon announced Tuesday it will shutter Mechanical Turk, the 21-year-old crowdsourced labor market platform founder Jeff Bezos once called “artificial artificial intelligence.”

The rising use of AI could have delivered the fatal blow.

The Seattle-based e-commerce giant launched Mechanical Turk, which users commonly call MTurk, in 2005. ...Read more

Carlos Gonzalez/Star Tribune/TNS

Minnesota quartz company caught in fallout from lung disease outbreak sickening California workers

Business / Business News /

Gustavo Reyes Gonzalez spent years in Southern California cutting and polishing slabs of crushed quartz manufactured by Minnesota’s Cambria and several other companies, fashioning the stone into popular and affordable kitchen and bathroom countertops.

Cutting the stone, he said through a translator, produced clouds of dust in the Southern ...Read more

Shari L. Gross/Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Memory chip shortage drives up computer prices at Best Buy, other retailers

Business / Business News /

Computer sales drove much of Best Buy’s revenue growth this summer, but it was because of higher prices, not because more were sold.

The cause of inflation in this case: data centers.

Companies are shifting memory chip production toward more lucrative data center products to meet demand from the artificial intelligence boom, tightening ...Read more

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America/TNS

Alphabet loses $700 billion in market value as AI questions rise

Business / Business News /

For much of the last year, Alphabet Inc. has been the Big Tech stock to beat as investors bet that it was the most-likely winner from the artificial intelligence boom.

Alphabet shares hit an all-time high on May 13 after soaring more than 150% in the previous 12 months, putting them among the 25 best performers in the S&P 500 Index over that ...Read more

Luke Ramseth/The Detroit News/TNS

Ex-Belvidere Stellantis workers must wait years longer to return home

Business / Business News /

Former employees of Stellantis NV's shuttered Belvidere Assembly Plant know by now not to get their hopes up.

The automaker announced earlier this month that it plans to reopen and build a new version of the Jeep Cherokee at the northern Illinois plant starting in late 2029. That's roughly two years after production of a midsize pickup ...Read more

Eric Thayer/Getty Images North America/TNS

Apple's rare Bay Area layoffs hit Vision Pro and Siri teams amid AI shakeup

Business / Business News /

Apple is laying off close to 150 employees, the latest tech titan to reduce staff amid the artificial intelligence boom.

Recent government filings showed that the iPhone maker is cutting 147 positions, mostly from its headquarters in Cupertino, California. It also disclosed layoffs in Sunnyvale.

Many of the roles were in software engineering ...Read more

Bizuayehu Tesfaye @bizutesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS

Starter home prices have more than doubled in Las Vegas in 10 years, report says

Business / Business News /

Starter home prices in the Las Vegas Valley have more than doubled in the past decade, according to a new report from Zillow.

The latest numbers from the online real estate marketplace paint a bleak picture for potential first-time homebuyers, as the price of a starter home in the valley sits at $312,141 in July, down 3.2 percent from the same ...Read more

Real estate Q&A: Under 'as-is' contract, is buyer responsible for water damage seller hid?

Business / Business News /

Q: We bought our first house two months ago and signed an “as-is” contract. After the first heavy rain, water poured in around a bedroom window. When we pulled up the new laminate, we found the subfloor was already rotted and had been painted over. The sellers must have known. Do we have any recourse, or did we give that up when we agreed to...Read more

George Chan/Getty Images North America/TNS

Facebook and Instagram must put kids on a clock under landmark $17 billion Meta deal

Business / Business News /

California and dozens of other states won sweeping new restrictions on how Facebook and Instagram treat children Wednesday, including daily time limits, overnight lockouts and stronger parental controls, along with as much as $17 billion from Meta.

U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers approved the agreement in Oakland, abruptly ending a ...Read more

Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Meta's $18 billion social media settlement by the numbers

Business / Business News /

Meta Platforms Inc.’s plan to pay up to $18 billion in a sweeping settlement with almost every U.S. state will resolve a slew of legal claims related to teenage users on the company’s social media platforms.

But there are strings attached.

Of the overall amount, the company has pledged to shell out about $12.7 billion in installments to ...Read more

Karen Ducey/The Seattle Times/TNS

Starbucks union calls for boycott as contract negotiations drag

Business / Business News /

The fight between the union representing thousands of Starbucks baristas and their employer is heating up, as workers call for a boycott.

Starbucks Workers United announced the boycott — spurred by stalled contract negotiations — on Tuesday. Unionized employees are pressing customers to not spend money at Starbucks until a contract with ...Read more

Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images North America/TNS

Meta says it will pay up to $18 billion over social media claims

Business / Business News /

Meta Platforms Inc. said it agreed to pay up to $18 billion in landmark settlements to resolve social media claims from U.S. states that would require the company to make major changes to how it operates platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

Key parts of the deal, disclosed in a court filing Wednesday, require the company to put new guardrails...Read more

Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/TNS

US diesel supplies hit record low as demand season looms

Business / Business News /

U.S. supplies of diesel have fallen to the lowest seasonal level ever, threatening to push prices even higher for the global economy’s workhorse fuel just as heating and agricultural seasons kick into gear.

Stocks of distillate fuel oil — a category of fuels that most prominently includes diesel — stood at 103.4 million barrels in the ...Read more

Ellen M. Banner/The Seattle Times/TNS

FAA requires some Boeing 787 inspections for fatigue cracks

Business / Business News /

The Federal Aviation Administration is requiring inspections of dozens of Boeing 787 planes to check for cracks in the wings.

The regulator issued a final airworthiness directive Wednesday, following a proposed rule in March, that requires some 787 operators to inspect certain structural components to ensure any cracks are caught and repaired. ...Read more

Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images North America/TNS

Meta says it will pay up to $18 billion over social media claims

Business / Business News /

Meta Platforms Inc. said it agreed to pay up to $18 billion in landmark settlements to resolve social media claims from U.S. states that would require the company to make major changes to how it operates platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

Key parts of the deal, disclosed in a court filing Wednesday, require the company to put new guardrails...Read more

Mikhail Primakov/Dreamstime/TNS

Time limits, 'school mode': Meta agrees to curb kids' access

Business / Business News /

Meta Platforms Inc. agreed to implement a raft of restrictions for teens on its Facebook and Instagram apps as part of a multibillion-dollar settlement with multiple U.S. states on Wednesday. The landmark agreement requires the company to put new guardrails on Facebook and Instagram, including limits on how much time youths can spend scrolling ...Read more