Category: Business

California fast food workers now earn $20 per hour. Franchisees are responding by cutting hours.

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Lawrence Cheng, whose family owns seven Wendy’s locations south of Los Angeles, works in the kitchen at his Wendy’s restaurant in Fountain Valley, Calif., June 20, 2024. Cheng used to have nearly a dozen employees at his Fountain Valley location during the day. Now, he only schedules seven for each shift as he scrambles to absorb a dramatic jump in labor costs after a new California law boosted the hourly wage for fast food workers on April 1 from $16 to $20 an hour. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

By JAIMIE DING Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lawrence Cheng, whose family owns seven Wendy’s locations south of Los Angeles, took orders at the register on a recent day and emptied steaming hot baskets of French fries and chicken nuggets, salting them with a flourish.

Cheng used to have nearly a dozen employees on the afternoon shift at his Fountain Valley location in Orange County. Now he only schedules seven for each shift as he scrambles to absorb a dramatic jump in labor costs after a new California law boosted the hourly wage for fast food workers on April 1 from $16 to $20 an hour.

“We kind of just cut where we can,” he said. “I schedule one less person, and then I come in for that time that I didn’t schedule and I work that hour.” Continue reading

So long plastic air pillows: Amazon shifting to recycled paper filling for packages in North America

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FILE – The Amazon logo is seen, June 15, 2023, at the Vivatech show in Paris. Amazon is moving from putting plastic air pillows in its packages to using recycled paper filling instead, a move that’s more environmentally friendly and secures items in boxes better. The company said Thursday, June 20, 2024 that it’s already replaced 95% of the plastic air fillers with paper filler in North America and is working toward complete removal by year’s end. (AP Photo/Michel Euler, File)

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN AP Business Writer

Amazon is shifting from the plastic air pillows used for packaging in North America to recycled paper because it’s more environmentally sound, and it says paper just works better.

The company said Thursday that it’s already replaced 95% of the plastic air pillows with paper filler in North America and is working toward complete removal by year’s end.

“We want to ensure that customers receive their items undamaged, while using as little packaging as possible to avoid waste, and prioritizing recyclable materials,” Amazon said. Continue reading

Facebook owner Meta seeks to train AI model on European data as it faces privacy concerns

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FILE – The Meta logo is seen at the Vivatech show in Paris, France, Wednesday, June 14, 2023. Meta said Monday, June 10, 2024, it wants to use data from users in privacy-conscious Europe to train its artificial intelligence models. It’s facing concerns about data protection while battling to keep up with rivals like OpenAI and Google. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)

By KELVIN CHAN AP Business Writer

LONDON (AP) — Meta wants to use data from users in privacy-conscious Europe to train its artificial intelligence models, the social media giant said Monday as it faces concerns about data protection while battling to keep up with rivals like OpenAI and Google.

The company, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, said that in order to better reflect the “languages, geography and cultural references” of its users in Europe, it needs to use public data from those users to teach its Llama AI large language model. Continue reading

Coffee, sculptures and financial advice. Banks try to make new branches less intimidating

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A Bank of American branch in the Williamsburg section in Brooklyn, New York, is shown on Thursday, May 16, 2024. The branch was previously used as a studio space for a sculptor. The clean, airy branch features sculptures by the artist who was previously in the space, as well as additional art from around the neighborhood. (AP Photo/Peter Morgan)

By KEN SWEET AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — It’s like Sephora or Starbucks now offered a checking account.

After years of closing or mostly neglecting physical bank branches across the U.S., the nation’s largest banks are spending hundreds of millions of dollars on refurbishing old locations or building new ones, and in the process changing the look, feel and purpose of the local bank branch.

Many of these branches are larger, airier, and meant to feel more comfortable for those walking in with difficult financial questions. Others are being designed as “third spaces” to allow local nonprofits or community representatives to hold workshops or seminars for customers or neighbors. They are a contrast to the marble-clad temples to finance built 50 or 75 years ago and the stale cookie-cutter branches that more recently cluttered suburban malls. Continue reading

New York will set aside money to help local news outlets hire and retain employees

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FILE – News Editor Chris Sciria puts the newspaper to bed for the last time from an empty newsroom at The Citizen’s 25 Dill St. location in Auburn, N.Y. on Friday, Oct. 22, 2021. After 51 years on Dill St. the newspaper moved its operation to a smaller office space. New York is offering up to $90 million in tax credits for news outlets to hire and retain journalists in an effort to help keep the shrinking local news industry afloat. (Kevin Rivoli/The Citizen via AP, File)

By MAYSOON KHAN Associated Press/Report for America

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York is offering up to $90 million in tax credits for news outlets to hire and retain journalists in an effort to help keep the shrinking local news industry afloat.

The U.S. newspaper industry has been in a long decline, driven by factors including a loss in advertising revenue as outlets have moved from primarily print to mostly digital. That prompted state lawmakers to help in a measure passed in the state budget.

New York’s three-year program allows some news organizations to tap into refundable tax credits each year, with a single outlet able to receive tax credits of up to $320,000 annually.

State Sen. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, a Democrat who sponsored the legislation, said preserving journalism jobs is vital for the health of democracy. As evidence, he cited the weakened New York news media’s failure to research the background of George Santos, a Republican who fabricated many details of his life story, until after he had been elected to Congress. Continue reading

FTX will return money to most customers less than 2 years after catastrophic crypto collapse

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FILE – The FTX logo appears on home plate umpire Jansen Visconti’s jacket at a baseball game with the Minnesota Twins on Sept. 27, 2022, in Minneapolis. Failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX says that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, and some will get more than that, according to its reorganization plan. FTX said in a court filing Tuesday, May 7, 2024 that it owes about $11.2 billion to its creditors. (AP Photo/Bruce Kluckhohn, File)

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN AP Business Writer

FTX says that nearly all of its customers will receive the money back that they are owed, two years after the cryptocurrency exchange imploded, and some will get more than that.

FTX said in a court filing late Tuesday that it owes about $11.2 billion to its creditors. The exchange estimates that it has between $14.5 billion and $16.3 billion to distribute to them.

The filing said that after paying claims in full, the plan provides for supplemental interest payments to creditors, to the extent that funds still remain. The interest rate for most creditors is 9%. Continue reading

New study calculates climate changes economic bite will hit about 38 trillion a year by 2049

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FILE – People watch the sunset at a park on an unseasonably warm day, Feb. 25, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo. A new study says climate change will reduce future global income by about 19% in the next 25 years compared to a fictional world that’s not warming. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

By SETH BORENSTEIN AP Science Writer

Climate change will reduce future global income by about 19% in the next 25 years compared to a fictional world that’s not warming, with the poorest areas and those least responsible for heating the atmosphere taking the biggest monetary hit, a new study said.

Climate change’s economic bite in how much people make is already locked in at about $38 trillion a year by 2049, according to Wednesday’s study in the journal Nature by researchers at Germany’s Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. By 2100 the financial cost could hit twice what previous studies estimate.

“Our analysis shows that climate change will cause massive economic damages within the next 25 years in almost all countries around the world, also in highly-developed ones such as Germany and the U.S., with a projected median income reduction of 11% each and France with 13%,” said study co-author Leonie Wenz, a climate scientist and economist. Continue reading

Record Store Day celebrates indie retail music sellers as they ride vinyl’s popularity wave

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Jeff Maimon, of Chicago, checks out some vinyl at Tracks In Wax record shop, Thursday, April 18, 2024, in Phoenix. Special LP releases, live performances and at least one giant block party are scheduled around the U.S. Saturday as hundreds of shops celebrate Record Store Day amid a surge of interest in vinyl and the day after the release of Taylor Swift’s latest album. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

By ANITA SNOW Associated Press

PHOENIX (AP) — Special LP releases, live performances and at least one giant block party are scheduled around the U.S. Saturday as hundreds of shops celebrate Record Store Day during a surge of interest in vinyl and the day after the release of Taylor Swift’s latest album.

There were no announced Record Store Day specials for the arrival of Swift’s “The Tortured Poets Department” on Friday, but her fans always anxiously look forward to the new albums and accompanying collectible LPs.

In suburban strip malls and big city downtowns, indie record stores are often the first to recognize and promote emerging artists. Years before Swift was setting Grammy records and selling out concerts in Japan, Bull Moose Music in Portland, Maine, was giving away one of her autographed guitars in an enter-to-win contest.

“We were carrying her music before all the big stores. We always knew she would be a star,” said Chris Brown of employee-owned Bull Moose and a co-founder of Record Store Day. Continue reading

Olympic gold is great, but athletes say some cash to go with it is even better

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FILE – Lamont Marcell Jacobs, of Italy poses with his gold medal following the men’s 100-meters final at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Monday, Aug. 2, 2021, in Tokyo. Track and field is set to become the first sport to introduce prize money at the Olympics, with World Athletics saying Wednesday, April 10, 2024, it would pay $50,000 to gold medalists in Paris. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco, File)

By HOWARD FENDRICH and EDDIE PELLS AP National Writers

NEW YORK (AP) — They compete for a trophy, a ring, the chance to be called a champion and, sometimes, a place in history. Most of the world’s best athletes in all sorts of sports compete for cold, hard cash, too.

After more than 100 years of striving to earn Olympic gold — but nothing else from the folks organizing the event — track and field athletes at the Paris Games will join that money-making club thanks to the sport’s governing body, World Athletics.

In a first-of-its-kind development, the runners, throwers and jumpers lining up at the Stade de France in August will be trying to win a $50,000 check to go with the gold. It’s a novel — some might say overdue — concept that has athletes in other sports wondering if they can get a piece of that action. Continue reading

Who wouldn’t like prices to start falling? Careful what you wish for, economists say

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FILE – Plastic bottles of Pepsi are displayed at a grocery store in New York on Nov. 15, 2023. Before inflation began heating up, a 2-liter bottle of soda it cost an average of $1.67 in supermarkets across America. Three years later it is going for $2.25 – a 35% increase.(AP Photo/Ted Shaffrey, File)

By PAUL WISEMAN AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Many Americans are in a sour mood about the economy for one main reason: Prices feel too high.

Maybe they’re not rising as fast as they had been, but average prices are still painfully above where they were three years ago. And they’re mostly heading higher still.

Consider a 2-liter bottle of soda: In February 2021, before inflation began heating up, it cost an average of $1.67 in supermarkets across America. Three years later? That bottle is going for $2.25 — a 35% increase.

Or egg prices. They soared in 2022, then fell back down. Yet they’re still 43% higher than they were three years ago.

Likewise, the average used-car price: It rocketed from roughly $23,000 in February 2021 to $31,000 in April 2022. By last month, the average was down to $26,752. But that’s still up 16% from February 2021. Continue reading