Category: Business

Read time : 3 mins

Level : Advanced

By TOM KRISHER and CHRISTOPHER RUGABER AP Business Writers

DETROIT (AP) — It’s a question occupying the minds of millions of employees who have worked from home the past year: Will they still be allowed to work remotely — at least some days — once the pandemic has faded?

On Wednesday, one of America’s corporate titans, Ford Motor Co., supplied its own answer: It told about 30,000 of its employees worldwide who have worked from home that they can continue to do so indefinitely, with flexible hours approved by their managers. Their schedules will become a work-office “hybrid”: They’ll commute to work mainly for group meetings and projects best-suited for face-to-face interaction.
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Read time : 2 mins

Level : Intermediate

By DANICA KIRKA Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — U.K. trade with the European Union plunged in January as Britain’s departure from the bloc and widespread coronavirus restrictions dealt a double blow to the nation’s struggling economy.

Goods exports to the EU fell 40.7% from a month earlier and imports dropped 28.8%, the Office for National Statistics said Friday. The figures contributed to a 2.9% month-on-month decline in overall economic output.

Britain left the European single market on Jan. 1, ending almost half a century of free trade and triggering tariffs, increased paperwork and border delays on both sides of the English Channel.
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Read time : 4 mins

Level : Intermediate

By STEPHEN WADE AP Sports Writer

TOKYO (AP) — The new president of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee has begun holding weekly news conferences hoping to win over a doubting Japanese public with the postponed games opening in just under five months.

Seiko Hashimoto is trying to assure everyone that the Olympics will be safe and secure, a phrase she repeated a dozen times Friday in her inaugural news conference.

Polls show about 80% of Japanese think the games should be postponed again or canceled amid the pandemic.
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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Advanced

By CATHY BUSSEWITZ and ELAINE KURTENBACH AP Business writers

BANGKOK (AP) — Oil prices pressed higher Monday after strikes on major oil facilities in Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, shook energy markets already rattled by a decision by oil producers last week to not lift output.

Brent crude, the international standard, surpassed $70 per barrel for the first time in over a year, gaining $1.14 to $70.47 a barrel. It surged $2.62 on Friday.

Benchmark U.S. crude oil added $1.10 to $67.19 per barrel, up 1.7%, falling back from bigger gains earlier in the day. It jumped $2.26 to $66.09 per barrel on Friday.
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Read time : 3 mins

Level : Intermediate

By FRANK JORDANS Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — Companies that sell refrigerators, washers, hairdryers or TVs in the European Union will need to ensure those appliances can be repaired for up to 10 years, to help reduce the vast mountain of electrical waste that piles up each year on the continent.

The “right to repair,” as it is sometimes called, comes into force across the 27-nation bloc Monday. It is part of a broader effort to cut the environmental footprint of manufactured goods by making them more durable and energy efficient.
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Level : Intermediate

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER and SETH BORENSTEIN Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — World leaders welcomed the United States’ official return to the Paris climate accord Friday, but politically trickier steps lie just ahead for President Joe Biden, including setting a tough national target in coming months for cutting damaging fossil fuel emissions.

And even as Biden noted the country’s first day back in the climate pact, the globe’s dangerous warming was just one of a long list of urgent problems he raised in a video speech to European leaders on Friday, a month into his administration. Before bringing up climate issues, he touched on the global pandemic, sputtering national economies and tense relations with China, among other matters that threaten to impede and delay tackling the nation’s status as the world’s top carbon polluter after China.

Despite all the other challenges, Biden said, speaking to the Munich security conference, “we can no longer delay or do the bare minimum to address climate change. This is a global existential crisis, and all of us will suffer if we fail.”
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Read time : 2 mins

Level : Intermediate

By PAN PYLAS Associated Press

LONDON (AP) — Japanese carmaker Nissan confirmed Friday that it will maintain its operations in Britain in the wake of the post-Brexit trade deal between the country and the European Union.

The news was greeted by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson as a “great vote of confidence.”

The future of Nissan’s car plant in the northeast England city of Sunderland was thrown into doubt in the wake of Britain’s vote to leave the EU in June 2016, a decision that could have led to tariffs and quotas on trade between the two sides.

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Read time : 2 mins

Level : Advanced

By DAVID McHUGH AP Business Writer

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — With more than a trillion euros in stimulus still in the pipeline to the economy, the European Central Bank left its key bond-purchase program unchanged Thursday as the 19-country eurozone endures a winter economic slowdown due to the pandemic.

Attention will focus on post-decision remarks by bank President Christine Lagarde about the outlook for the recovery in the 19 countries that use the euro currency. The ECB faces potential concerns over political turbulence in heavily indebted Italy, where the government survived a confidence vote this week, and over the stronger euro, which can weigh on exports and growth.

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Level : Advanced

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE AP Technology Writer

SAN RAMON, Calif. (AP) — Netflix’s video streaming service has surpassed 200 million subscribers for the first time as its expanding line-up of TV series and movies continues to captivate people stuck at home during the ongoing battle against the pandemic.

The subscriber milestone highlighted Netflix’s fourth-quarter results released Tuesday. The service added another 8.5 million subscribers during the October-December period, capping Netflix’s biggest year since its inception as a DVD-by-mail service in 1997. Netflix ended the year with nearly 204 million worldwide subscribers.
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Read time : 1 min

Level : Intermediate