Category: Business

Read time : 3 mins

Level : Advanced

By JOHN SEEWER Associated Press

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Going to the gym was always part of Kari Hamra’s routine until last year’s government-ordered shutdowns forced her to replace the workouts with daily rides on her Peloton stationary bike.

That’s when she discovered something surprising — she did not miss the gym. At least not the driving back and forth, filling water bottles, changing clothes and most of all, taking time away from her husband and two boys.

Now that her gym in Springfield, Missouri, is open again, she’s slowly returning. But finding a more convenient exercise schedule at home and seeing a surge of COVID-19 cases in her hometown this summer have her questioning how much she needs the gym. She figures that if there never had been a coronavirus outbreak “I would still be a gym rat.”
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Read time : 4 mins

Level : Advanced

By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — With the U.S. economy humming, corporate profits flowing and stock prices peaking, investors on Wall Street are beginning to pose an anxious question: Is it all downhill from here?

Financial markets are always trying to set prices now for where the economy and corporate profits are likely to be in the future. And even though readings across the economy are still at eye-popping levels, investors see some areas of concern.

New variants of the coronavirus are threatening to weaken economies around the world. Many of the U.S. government’s pandemic relief efforts are fading. Inflation is raging as supplies of goods and components fall short of surging demand. And the beginning of the end of the Federal Reserve’s assistance for markets is coming into sight.
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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Advanced

By COLLEEN BARRY Associated Press

VENICE, Italy (AP) — Away from the once-maddening crowds of St. Mark’s Square, tiny Certosa island could be a template for building a sustainable future in Venice as it tries to relaunch its tourism industry without boomeranging back to pre-pandemic day-tripping hordes.

Private investment has converted the forgotten public island just a 15-minute waterbus ride from St. Mark’s Square into a multi-faceted urban park where Venetians and Venice conoscenti can mix, free from the tensions inherent to the lagoon city’s perennial plague of mass tourism.

“This is the B-side of the Venetian LP,” said Alberto Sonino, who heads the development project that includes a hotel, marina, restaurant and woodland. “Everyone knows the first song of the A-side of our long-play, almost nobody, not even the most expert or locals, know the lagoon as an interesting natural and cultural environment.”
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Read time : 4 mins

Level : Intermediate

By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Five years ago Wednesday, Britons voted in a referendum that was meant to bring certainty to the U.K.’s unsettled relationship with its European neighbors.

Fat chance.

Voters’ decision on June 23, 2016 was narrow but clear: By 52% to 48%, they chose to leave the European Union. It took over four years to actually make the break and the former partners are still bickering, like many divorced couples, over money and trust.

And five years after a fractious referendum campaign that sparked family arguments and neighborhood disputes, Britain is still as split over Europe as ever.
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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Intermediate

By GRAHAM DUNBAR AP Sports Writer

GENEVA (AP) — Reacting to a bottle-snatching trend at the European Championship started by Cristiano Ronaldo, players on the 24 teams have been asked to stop removing strategically placed sponsor drinks from the news conference platforms, UEFA said Thursday.

Ronaldo, Paul Pogba and Manuel Locatelli all removed sponsor bottles away from the view of cameras when taking their seats at official media sessions this week.

Euro 2020 tournament director Martin Kallen said UEFA has “communicated with the teams regarding this matter.”

“It is important because the revenues of the sponsors are important for the tournament and for European football,” Kallen said in a briefing.
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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Advanced

By FRANK BAJAK AP Technology Writer

BOSTON (AP) — If your business falls victim to ransomware and you want simple advice on whether to pay the criminals, don’t expect much help from the U.S. government. The answer is apt to be: It depends.

“It is the position of the U.S. government that we strongly discourage the payment of ransoms,” Eric Goldstein, a top cybersecurity official in the Department of Homeland Security, told a congressional hearing last week.

But paying carries no penalties and refusing would be almost suicidal for many companies, especially the small and medium-sized. Too many are unprepared. The consequences could also be dire for the nation itself. Recent high-profile extortive attacks led to runs on East Coast gas stations and threatened meat supplies.
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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Intermediate

By KEN SWEET AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Ally Financial said Wednesday that it is ending overdraft fees entirely on all of its bank products, becoming the first large U.S. bank to end overdraft fees across its entire business.

It’s a major move by Ally, one of the nation’s largest banks, and for the industry, which has been reliant on overdraft fees for decades to boost profits, often at the expense of poorer Americans who can’t afford to pay such fees in the first place.

Critics of the practice often cite what they call the $38 cup of coffee, where a bank customer uses a debit card to buy a coffee, overdrafts, and ends up paying a $35 fee on top of the $3 drink.
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Level : Advanced

By KELVIN CHAN and DAVID McHUGH AP Business Writers

LONDON (AP) — The Group of Seven wealthy democracies agreed Saturday to support a global minimum corporate tax of at least 15% to deter multinational companies from avoiding taxes by stashing profits in low-rate countries.

G-7 finance ministers meeting in London also endorsed proposals to make the world’s biggest companies – including U.S.-based tech giants – pay taxes in countries where they have lots of sales but no physical headquarters.

British Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, the host, said the deal would “reform the global tax system to make it fit for the global digital age and crucially to make sure that it’s fair, so that the right companies pay the right tax in the right places.”
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Read time : 2 mins

Level : Intermediate

NEW YORK (AP) — Looking to draw in the next generation of investors, Fidelity Investments is launching a new type of account for teenagers to save, spend and invest their money.

The account is for 13- to 17-year-olds, and it will allow them to deposit cash, have a debit card and trade stocks and funds. The teens can make their own trades through a simplified experience on Fidelity’s mobile app, with zero account fees or minimum balances, though the youth account requires a parent or guardian to have their own Fidelity account as well.
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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Advanced

By ARITZ PARRA and RENATA BRITO Associated Press

MADRID (AP) — Spain approved a pioneering law Tuesday that gives delivery platforms a mid-August deadline to hire workers currently freelancing for them and that requires transparency of artificial intelligence used to manage workforces.

The royal decree passed by the center-left ruling coalition immediately affects some 30,000 couriers. It comes in the wake of a ruling by Spain’s top court last year and at a time when other countries in Europe and elsewhere are deciding on a labor model for the so-called gig economy, which is often blamed for precarious jobs and low salaries.
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