Business News

Stock market today: Wall Street climbs to kick off a big week for earnings reports

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks have clawed back some of their losses from last week. The S&P 500 rose 0.9% Monday to recover more than a quarter of last week’s rout. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.7%, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 1.1%. Technology stocks led the way as yields stabilized in the bond market. Bank stocks were also strong following better profits than expected from Truist Financial and others. They helped offset a drop for Tesla, which announced more cuts to prices over the weekend. Tesla is one of roughly 150 companies in the S&P 500 set to report its earnings this week.

Kroger, Albertsons — still hoping to merge — agree to sell more stores to satisfy regulators

Supermarket chains Kroger and Albertsons say they will sell more of their stores in an effort to quell the federal government’s concerns about their proposed merger. The companies said Monday they would now sell 579 Kroger and Albertsons stores to C&S Wholesale Grocers, a New Hampshire-based grocery company, for $2.9 billion. Kroger and Albertsons announced their proposed merger in 2022, and last fall they said they would sell 413 stores to C&S in markets where stores overlap. But the U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued to block the merger in February, saying a lack of competition would raise grocery prices and the planned sale to C&S was inadequate.

Express files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, announces store closures, possible sale

NEW YORK (AP) — Express Inc. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and the fashion retailer is seeking to sell the majority of its stores. Columbus, Ohio-based Express is also the parent of Bonbons and Upwest brands. It said Monday it planned to close 95 of its Express stores and all its UpWest stores. Express also said that it received a non-binding letter of intent from a group led by WHP Global to potentially purchase the majority of its stores and operations. Express said it had filed for Chapter 11 protection to facilitate the proposed transaction.

Tennessee’s GOP governor says Volkswagen plant workers made a mistake in union vote

GALLATIN, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee Republican Gov. Bill Lee says he thinks workers at a Volkswagen plant in Chattanooga made a mistake by voting to unionize under the United Auto Workers in a landslide election. Before the vote, Lee and five other Southern Republican governors spoke out publicly against the campaign, arguing that if autoworkers were to vote for union representation, it would jeopardize jobs. Instead, the union wound up pulling 73% of the vote at a facility whose workers had narrowly rejected the union in 2019 and 2014. Next up, workers at Mercedes factories near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, will vote on UAW representation in May.

Celebrity handbag designer sentenced to 18 months in prison for smuggling crocodile handbags

MIAMI (AP) — A leading fashion designer whose accessories were used by celebrities from Britney Spears to the cast of the “Sex and the City” TV series was sentenced Monday to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty in Miami federal court to charges of smuggling crocodile handbags from her native Colombia. Nancy Gonzalez was arrested in 2022 in Colombia and later extradited to the U.S. for running a sprawling multiyear conspiracy that involved recruiting couriers to transport her high-end handbags on commercial flights to high-end showrooms and New York fashion events in violation of U.S. wildlife laws.

Delta Air Lines, facing another union attempt to organize flight attendants, is raising their pay

Delta Air Lines is raising pay for flight attendants and other nonunion workers by 5%. And the airline is boosting starting pay for all its U.S. jobs to at least $19 an hour. Delta CEO Ed Bastian announced the pay raises in a memo Monday to employees. The pay raises come as Delta braces for another attempt by a union to represent its flight attendants. The Association of Flight Attendants hopes to qualify for another vote among Delta cabin crews by year end. Union President Sara Nelson says Delta’s huge profits should translate into industry-leading pay and benefits for flight attendants, but they are not.

Work starts on bullet train rail line from Sin City to the City of Angels

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A $12 billion high-speed passenger rail line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area has started construction. Monday’s ceremony in Las Vegas drew U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg along with local and Brightline West company officials. The company plans to have trains running by 2028 from just south of the Las Vegas Strip to a commuter rail hub in Rancho Cucamonga, California. The track will be in the median of Interstate 15, where motorists in traffic jams would see trains whisk past at speeds comparable to Japan’s bullet trains. A Brightline sister company already operates a fast train between Miami and Orlando in Florida.

Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne Johnson pledged $10M for Maui wildfire survivors. They gave much more.

The Entertainment Industry Foundation says the People’s Fund of Maui, an initiative started by Oprah Winfrey and Dwayne Johnson to benefit survivors of the wildfires in Maui, has given away almost $60 million. The fund deposited $1,200 a month for six months into the bank account of 8,100 residents who lost their homes. Johnson and Winfrey initially committed $10 million to the fund and also asked others donate. That request was met with some criticism, given especially Winfrey’s wealth and estate in Maui. The nonprofit Entertainment Industry Foundation administered the fund and indicated the bulk of the money ultimately came from Winfrey and Johnson.

The EU ratchets up pressure on TikTok’s new rewards app over risks to kids, warns of suspension

LONDON (AP) — The European Union is demanding TikTok provide more information about a new app that pays users to watch videos and warned that it could order the video sharing platform to suspend addictive features that pose a risk to kids. The 27-nation EU’s executive Commission said it was opening formal proceedings to determine whether TikTok breached the bloc’s new digital rules when it rolled out its TikTok Lite app in France and Spain. TikTok Lite is a slimmed down version of the main TikTok app that lets users earn rewards. The commission wants to see the risk assessment that TikTok should have carried out before deploying the app in the European Union.

Report urges fixes to online child exploitation CyberTipline before AI makes it worse

A tipline set up 26 years ago to combat online child exploitation is “enormously valuable” but hasn’t lived up to its potential. That’s what a new report from the Stanford Internet Observatory released on Monday has found. The report says CyberTipline needs technological and other improvements to help law enforcement go after abusers and rescue victims. The sheer amount of tips are overwhelming law enforcement, but the report’s authors say the core problems are more than just volume. For instance, many of the reports tech companies send in are “low quality” and don’t have enough details, according to the report. That makes it hard for law enforcement to know which reports to prioritize.