General Business
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks edged higher on Wall Street in midday trading Tuesday as investors considered reports that the U.S. will delay a new round of tariffs on Chinese goods as the nations continue negotiating a trade deal.
The proposed tariffs scheduled to begin on Sunday threaten to hit U.S. consumers particularly hard by raising the prices of popular products including cellphones and laptops.
Both nations have been working toward a “phase 1” deal that Wall Street hopes can lead to an eventual long-term resolution.
Technology companies were the biggest gainers. Micron rose 1.9% and Nvidia climbed 1.5%. The sector is particularly sensitive to trade as many of the companies rely on China for sales and supply chains.
Energy and health care stocks also rose.
Several communications companies slipped. Comcast fell 2% and Netflix fell 1.3%.
KEEPING SCORE: The S&P 500 index rose less than 0.1% as of 11:45 a.m. Eastern time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 6 points to 27,852. The Nasdaq rose 0.2%. The Russell 2000 index of smaller company stocks rose 0.2%.
European markets fell and Asian markets were mixed.
TRADE WOES: It’s been a volatile month so far for trade relations as the U.S. and China stay mostly quiet on their latest push for a deal. China helped ease some of the tension last week when it made the conciliatory gesture of planning to waive tariffs on American soybeans and pork, which have been hurting American farmers.
Wall Street was rattled early last week when President Donald Trump said that a deal could possibly wait until after the 2020 elections. The longstanding trade war has been hanging over U.S. businesses and prompting them to hold back on spending and other investments. It also continues to threaten economic growth, which is being...
FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Mario Draghi took over as head of the European Central Bank eight years ago amid market speculation that the euro currency union might break up. Christine Lagarde succeeds him with more breathing room - but facing serious challenges from a weak economy, policy differences among her own officials, and questions about how much more central banks can do to help.
Analysts do not expect Lagarde to announce any changes in the bank's interest rates and bond-purchase stimulus program when she holds her first rate-setting meeting and news conference on Thursday. The bank enacted a stimulus package in September to nudge the economy along in the face of headwinds like the U.S.-China trade conflict and Britain's departure from the European Union.
It's the first chance to hear how Lagarde communicates with markets and the public, a chief task for the head of an institution that affects the lives of 342 million people in the 19 countries that use the euro. That is not an easy task; the bank's policy to keep one of its key interest rates below zero has come under criticism from Germany news media as penalizing savers, while any imprecise remark from Lagarde can set off big market movements.
Lagarde may “err on the side of caution and continuity" at first, said Frederik Ducrozet, senior European economist at Pictet Wealth Management. That would be a contrast to Draghi's first meeting in 2011 when the bank cut interest rates during a debt crisis that threatened to break up the currency union.
Lagarde's challenges include managing dissent within the ECB over stimulus policy after a minority of governing council members openly criticized the stimulus package that was decided at Draghi's next-to-last meeting. That job may be supported by Lagarde's extensive political experience from serving as head of the...
A New York judge sided with Exxon Mobil Tuesday in a closely-watched environmental case, concluding the oil giant did not mislead investors in its climate change disclosures. The ruling by Barry Ostrager, a judge in the New York state court, rejected arguments by the state's attorney general that the company duped investors by downplaying the costs of mitigating climate change. "The court finds that the Office of the Attorney General failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that ExxonMobil made any material misrepresentation" of significance, Ostrager wrote.
A private whisky collection, considered to be the world's largest, will soon go up for auction and could be yours -- for a cool $10.5 million. The collection, named none other than "The Perfect Collection," includes more than 3,900 bottles of primarily single malt Scotch whisky, according to a press release from the Scottish-based company Whisky Auctioneer. A handful of the bottles are valued individually at more than $1 million.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday announced agreement on a modified North American trade pact, handing President Donald Trump a major Capitol Hill win on the same day that Democrats announced their impeachment charges against him.
The California Democrat said the revamped U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement is a significant improvement over the original North American Free Trade Agreement, crediting Democratic negotiators for winning stronger provisions on enforcing the agreement.
“There is no question of course that this trade agreement is much better than NAFTA," Pelosi said in announcing the agreement, saying the pact is “infinitely better than what was initially proposed by the administration."
Trump said the revamped trade pact will “be great" for the United States.
“It will be the best and most important trade deal ever made by the USA. Good for everybody - Farmers, Manufacturers, Energy, Unions - tremendous support. Importantly, we will finally end our Country’s worst Trade Deal, NAFTA!,” the president said in a tweet.
In Mexico City, Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said Monday night that there would be a meeting of the three countries’ negotiating teams Tuesday “to announce the advances achieved” on the trade agreement. U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer is slated to appear.
The announcement came on the same morning that Democrats outlined impeachment charges against Trump. The pact is Trump's top Capitol Hill priority along with funding for his long-sought border fence.
Vice President Mike Pence, a foot soldier in the administration's campaign to sell the accord, said Pelosi had “acquiesced" in slating the pact for a vote this year.
“The USMCA will create even more jobs for the hardworking...
NEW YORK (AP) — Exxon Mobil prevailed Tuesday in a lawsuit accusing the energy giant of downplaying the toll that climate change regulations could take on its business, with a judge saying the state attorney general's case didn't prove the company deceived investors — but also didn't excuse it of any accountability for global warming.
New York Attorney General Letitia James' office didn't prove “that Exxon Mobil made any material misstatements or omissions about its practices and procedures that misled any reasonable investor,” state judge Barry Ostrager in Manhattan wrote in dismissing the case.
“Nothing in this opinion is intended to absolve Exxon Mobil from responsibility for contributing to climate change through the emission of greenhouse gases,” he added. “But Exxon Mobil is in the business of producing energy, and this is a securities fraud case, not a climate change case.”
ExxonMobil Corp. hailed the ruling in a trial that it said stemmed from a “baseless investigation.”
“We provided our investors with accurate information on the risks of climate change,” the Irving, Texas-based company said in a statement. “Lawsuits that waste millions of dollars of taxpayer money do nothing to advance meaningful actions that reduce the risks of climate change.”
James' office didn't immediately have a statement. The Democrat's office had hoped the court would order Exxon to pay an estimated $476 million to $1.6 billion in restitution to shareholders.
The lawsuit accused Exxon Mobil of essentially keeping two sets of books — telling the public that it was fully taking into account the costs of potential future climate regulations in a warming world, while lowballing those costs behind the scenes as it made investment decisions and assessed the...
DETROIT (AP) — A company agreed to pay $4 million to settle a lawsuit over thousands of defective streetlights in Detroit, a newspaper reported.
The city sued Leotek Electronics USA last spring, alleging that roughly 20,000 lights were failing. The faulty lights were an embarrassment, especially after Detroit officials had pointed to brighter streets as proof of a turnaround in neighborhood services.
The Detroit News reported Monday that the settlement won't cover the full cost of replacing the lights. The News said the Public Lighting Authority is spending $3 million to complete the $7 million project.
Leotek must pay $4 million by Dec. 23, according to records obtained by the newspaper.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said the settlement was fair and that the city was “glad to have this matter resolved."
Thor Scordelis, general manager of San Jose, California-based Leotek USA, offered a similar statement.
"Leotek worked with PLA to clarify and remedy the situation including field visits, technical assistance and luminaire replacements based on our standard warranty," Scordelis said, referring to the Public Lighting Authority.
ARGENTEUIL, France (AP) — Adrien Lachevre and Nailat Msoili live a few kilometers (miles) apart in Paris' northwest suburbs, but their paths had never crossed until Lachevre picked Msoili up in his gray Fiat on Tuesday morning.
An app had matched their schedules and morning commutes, and the two had arranged to meet at a nearly deserted gas station well before dawn, hoping to beat the traffic that has clogged highways in recent days.
As a general strike across France stretched into its sixth day, they were among many commuters who have turned to technology — and strangers — to get by.
Use of carpool apps, big and small, has spiked. So has demand for shared bikes and electric scooters that you activate with your phone and pick up and drop off where you want. Commuters are finding places to sleep near their workplaces via Facebook or online couch-surfing communities.
All this is changing the nature of French strikes, undercutting unions’ power to paralyze the country.
Only about a fifth of French trains ran normally on Tuesday, and many Paris subway lines remained closed as transit workers and other unions protested President Emmanuel Macron’s proposed overhaul of the country's pension system. Teachers, health care workers and bus drivers were among those taking to the streets.
Carpooling startups are among the big winners.
Msoili, a receptionist in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis, usually takes a train and a bus to work each morning. For the first two days of the walkout, she stayed at a friend’s house close to her job.
When the strike outlasted the weekend, she took a colleague’s recommendation and signed up for BlaBlaLines, a city ride-sharing service set up by popular French long-distance carpooling company BlaBlaCar.
BlaBlaLines drivers, unlike those...
PARIS (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron has called on the European Union to move forward quickly on Brexit talks after Britain holds a general election on Thursday.
Macron said EU members need to preserve “the method that has worked up to now, that is to say: unity.” He spoke Tuesday at a meeting in Paris with the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, at the presidential Elysee Palace.
The EU's heads of states and governments are meeting Thursday and Friday at a summit in Brussels. Macron called on the bloc to defend its interests “without yielding to pressure."
Michel said the EU leaders will discuss the bloc's future relationship with Britain on Friday.
“We will, of course, take into account the results of the (U.K.) election,” he said.
British voters go to the polls Thursday in a key parliament election that will affect the U.K.'s future ties with the bloc. Britain is now scheduled to leave the EU on Jan. 31.
MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian government said Tuesday that the presidents of Russia and Ukraine discussed a new contract for natural gas supplies during peace talks in Paris on Monday, but failed to reach a deal.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “so far we can't say a solution to the problem was found," adding that the two countries agreed to “keep talking” about the issue.
Talks on a replacing a contract expiring this year have dragged on because of disputes over price and debt, raising fears of disruptions in Russian gas supplies to Europe via Ukraine.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk said Ukraine was prepared to venture into a “gas war" in order to negotiate a deal. The country's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said last month that the deal was a priority for Ukraine and important for Europe’s energy security.
Relations between Russia and Ukraine have been poor since Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014 and Moscow supported a separatist insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A cut to the tax coal companies pay to fund a trust for sick miners will cost taxpayers at least $15 billion by 2050, according to a new report from a national watchdog group.
An excise tax rate on mined coal that funds the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund expired at the beginning of 2019 due to inaction by Congress. That led to a reduction in the amount coal companies pay into the fund, which pays benefits and medical bills for miners diagnosed with black lung disease.
“By failing to extend the excise tax, Congress is shifting billions of dollars in liabilities from coal companies to taxpayers,” said Autumn Hanna, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. The Washington-based group released a report on Tuesday that said the fund's debt could be as high as $26 billion by 2050.
The U.S. Department of Labor earlier this year confirmed to The Associated Press that a funding shortfall in the Black Lung Trust Fund would be covered by borrowing from the U.S. Treasury.
A excise tax rate of $1.10 per ton of underground mined coal was cut by more than half to about 50 cents in the new year. The fund took in about $450 million in revenue in fiscal year 2017.
The cut came as a surge of black lung disease scars miners' lungs at younger ages than ever. Dr. Brandon Crum, who has watched the epidemic unfold at his Pikeville, Kentucky, radiology clinic, said earlier this year that he has seen 200 miners diagnosed with a severe form of black lung disease in less than four years. The nation had 31 such diagnoses in the 1990s, according to the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
The mining industry supported the higher tax rate’s expiration.
Black lung disease, or pneumoconiosis, is caused by inhaling dust in the lungs and has no...
Check the calendar. No, this isn’t a dream. It really is December, and Christmas Day is staring you straight in the face.
And if you celebrate Hanukkah, it’s coming even sooner.
Where did the holiday season go? Well, no time to reminisce now.
It’s down to the wire, but there are still methods to save money on your last-minute holiday purchases. Here are four simple ways to do it.
1. JINGLE ALL THE WAY TO THE STORE
You’re not the only one still shopping. In fact, Dec. 21 — dubbed Super Saturday because it’s the last Saturday before Christmas — is expected to be the second busiest shopping day, after Black Friday, according to ShopperTrak data from Sensormatic Solutions.
Your first instinct may be to shop online and avoid the crowded mall. But not so fast, says Christopher Newman, associate professor of marketing at the University of Mississippi.
“Shoppers can increase the chance that they get the right product at the best price by shopping in store, rather than online, just before Christmas,” Newman said in an email.
“This ensures that they aren’t limited to choosing from just the products that could ship in time for the holiday.”
Last-minute online shopping may also carry hefty shipping fees. Dec. 14 is the widely accepted cutoff for Christmas ground shipping this year, according to Rob Garf, vice president of Strategy and Insights for Retail & Consumer Goods at Salesforce.
If you order online after that, you’ll likely have to pay to expedite the shipment.
2. OR BUY ONLINE, PICK UP IN STORE
If you’d rather not shop entirely at the store or entirely online, try shopping online and picking up your items at the store. In fact, buying online and retrieving your purchases from the store is a good option for shoppers, Garf says.
“It gives...
NEW YORK (AP) — Judge rules for ExxonMobil in New York lawsuit claiming company downplayed the impact of future climate regulations.
VICTORIA, Texas (AP) — One person was killed in the crash of a small cargo airplane in south Texas, authorities said.
Air traffic controllers lost radio contact with the single-engine Cessna 208 shortly after 8 p.m. Monday near Victoria, about 125 miles (200 kilometers) southwest of Houston, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The FAA said the wreckage of the aircraft was found in a field about 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) north of Victoria.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said the pilot was killed in the crash.
Houston TV station KHOU reported that the plane had been contracted to carry UPS packages. The company said in a statement that the crash did not involve a UPS aircraft or employees and that the plane had been traveling from Victoria to Houston.
Authorities didn't immediately release the pilot's name.
LONDON (AP) — With two days until polling day, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson sought Tuesday to get his election campaign back onto Brexit after coming under fire for his lack of empathy for looking away from an image of a child sleeping on a hospital floor while seeking treatment.
The story of 4-year-old Jack Williment-Barr has overshadowed campaigning for Thursday's general election as Johnson and his Conservatives hunt for crucial last-minute votes. The opposition Labour Party has painted Jack's plight — a sick child forced to lie for hours on a floor because no hospital bed was free — as a symptom of Britain's ailing health system, which has suffered under years of Conservative government austerity measures.
As Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party kept up its relentless focus on problems with the National Health Service, Johnson's Conservative Party tried to focus voters' minds on the prospect of an uncertain result and divided Parliament, which would endanger Johnson's plan to lead Britain out of the European Union on Jan 31.
All 650 seats in the House of Commons seats are up for grabs in this election, which is being held more than two years early in a bid to break Britain's political impasse over Brexit.
Opinion polls give the Conservatives a lead over Labour, but all parties are nervous about the verdict of a volatile electorate that is weary after years of wrangling over Brexit.
Johnson's clumsy reaction to Jack's plight was a late misstep in a largely gaffe-free campaign. A video of the prime minister briefly declining to look at a cellphone photo of Jack on a journalist's phone — and then placing the phone in his pocket — has been viewed more than a million times.
In the clip of the interview, ITV reporter Joe Pike said to Johnson: "You refuse to look at the photo. You've taken my phone and put...
MADRID (AP) — The next U.S. president should stop subsidizing fossil fuels to help tackle climate change, billionaire Michael Bloomberg said Tuesday, highlighting an issue that is the central pillar of his bid for the Democratic nomination in the 2020 presidential race.
Bloomberg, who launched his presidential campaign less than three weeks ago, spoke during a whirlwind trip to the United Nations global climate conference in Madrid.
By taking aim at fossil fuel subsidies, Bloomberg is challenging both a powerful American industry and Republican President Donald Trump, who has championed the extraction of oil, gas and coal.
Fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal are one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions warming the planet. Scientists say their use needs to end by the middle of the century if average temperatures on Earth are to rise no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100, the target set in the Paris climate accord four years ago.
“The next president of the United States should end all subsidies for fossil fuel companies and fossil fuel extraction, and that includes tax breaks and other special treatment," Bloomberg said during an event on sustainable finances organized by the conference host, Spain.
“He or she should reinvest that funding into clean energy, which will also create a lot of new jobs," Bloomberg added.
According to a report by the International Monetary Fund, effective fossil fuel subsidies in the United States amounted to $649 billion in 2015. Only China spent more tax money — $1.4 trillion — to keep fossil fuel prices low that year.
The IMF report calculated that if prices reflected the true costs of fossil fuels, including the environmental damage they cause, consumption would have dropped so much...
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. productivity fell in the summer, the first decline in nearly four years, underscoring the struggles companies are facing in boosting worker efficiency.
The Labor Department said Tuesday that productivity edged down at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 0.2% in the July-September quarter, the first quarterly drop since the fourth quarter of 2015. The new report represented a slight revision from an initial estimate of a 0.3% drop in productivity.
Labor costs were up at an annual rate of 2.5% in the third quarter, a sharp rebound from a tiny 0.1% increase in the second quarter.
Productivity, the amount of output per hour of work, is crucial to boosting living standards. Rising output means that employers can pay their workers more with the increased production without having to raise their prices, a move that can trigger higher inflation.
However, productivity gains during the current record-long expansion, now in its 11th year, have lagged significantly, averaging annual gains of just 1.3% from 2007 through 2018. That is just half the 2.7% annual productivity gains seen from 2000 to 2007.
President Donald Trump sold his $1.5 trillion tax cut in 2017 in part as a way to spur productivity by increasing businesses investment in productivity-enhancing computers, machinery and other equipment. However, in recent quarters, business investment has been weak.
Over the past year, productivity has grown 1.5% while labor costs are up 2.2%. The moderate rise in labor costs even with unemployment falling to a half-century low was a key reason the Federal Reserve has been a major reason that the Federal Reserve felt it had room to cut interest rates three times this year to spur economic growth without worrying that the moves could trigger unwanted...
GENEVA (AP) — Global commerce will lose its ultimate umpire Tuesday, leaving countries unable to reach a final resolution of disputes at the World Trade Organization and instead facing what critics call “the law of the jungle.’’
The United States, under a president who favors a go-it-alone approach to economics and diplomacy, appears to prefer it that way.
The terms of two of the last three judges on the WTO’s appellate body end Tuesday. Their departure will deprive the de facto Supreme Court of world trade of its ability to issue rulings.
Among the disputes left in limbo are seven cases that have been brought against Trump’s decision last year to declare foreign steel and aluminum a threat to U.S. national security and to hit them with import taxes.
The WTO’s lower court - its dispute settlement body - can hear cases. But its decisions will go nowhere if the loser appeals to a higher court that is no longer functioning.
Without having to worry about rebukes from the WTO, countries could use tariffs and other sanctions to limit imports. Such rising protectionism could create uncertainty and discourage trade.
“We are in a crisis moment for our global trading system,’’ said U.S. Rep. Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla, who sits on the House Ways and Means subcommittee on trade. “As of tomorrow, the court will cease to exist.’’
The loss of a global trade court of final appeals, Murphy said, is “really dangerous for American businesses.’’
The panel is supposed to have seven judges. But their ranks have dwindled because the United States - under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump - has blocked new appointments to protest the way the WTO does business.
Trump and his top trade negotiator, Robert Lighthizer, are especially vociferous...
PARIS (AP) — Cranking up pressure on President Emmanuel Macron, thousands of union activists marched through French cities Tuesday and airport employees and teachers joined nationwide strikes to demand that the government scrap upcoming changes to the country's national retirement system.
As a crippling transportation strike entered a sixth straight day, commuters and tourists in Paris used used apps, shared bikes and creativity to find ways to get to work, school and museums.
Many French commuters still express support for the strikes, fearing their own pensions will shrink under President Emmanuel Macron's new plan. But some admitted their patience is wearing thin with the transportation woes — and with train workers who are striking to keep their right to retire years earlier than others.
The number of striking workers was lower Tuesday than when the strike movement kicked off last Thursday and brought 800,000 people to the streets. But unions hope Tuesday's demonstrations send a loud message to the government as it prepares to unveil details of the new retirement plan Wednesday.
Unions fear it will force people to work longer for smaller pensions, even though the government says it won't raise the official retirement age of 62.
Under a sea of red union flags, thousands of activists and workers from across the economy, young and old, gathered at the gold-domed Invalides monument for a march past the Montparnasse neighborhood to southern Paris.
Paris deployed thousands of police and ordered shops and restaurants closed along the march route, after clashing with rioters on the margins of last week's protest.
Demonstrations were also held in other cities, from Marseille on the Mediterranean to Bordeaux, Lyon and Lille.
Nationwide, only about a fifth of French...
US productivity drops 0.2% in third quarter, first decline since late 2015.
LONDON (AP) — If Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn wins Britain's general election on Thursday, he’s promising a remix of British society, with a strong emphasis on raising the lot of Britain’s disenfranchised and forcing tax-dodging corporations and wealthy individuals to pick up part of the tab.
Corbyn’s key theme is that decades of unbridled free market capitalism in Britain has created a capitalist elite at the expense of working people, who have seen public services slashed and aspirations dampened.
The 70-year-old Corbyn presents himself today much as he did when he was a little known politician on the backbenches of Parliament: as a slightly rumpled figure battle-hardened by decades of jousting against capitalism and big business. The only obvious change has been the addition of new suits and ties so that he doesn’t look under-dressed when confronting his main rival, Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, in Parliament or in televised debates.
While Johnson has taken his party to the right, Corbyn has tacked to the left and endured the departure of some prominent Labour figures turned off by his approach to Brexit and the anti-Semitism that some feel has developed in the Labour Party.
Corbyn, who shocked the political establishment by seizing control of the Labour Party in 2015, has not changed his approach in a bid for more support from the center. He vehemently rejects the “New Labour” business-friendly policies that help propel fellow Labour member Tony Blair to three consecutive election victories. Instead Corbyn has proudly placed the party in the European socialist tradition, endorsing a platform that would give the state a much bigger role in redistributing wealth to the working classes.
While Johnson is fond of boasting that Britain is the greatest place on earth to live, Corbyn...
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — One Kreps brother uses a wheelchair and the other doesn't, yet they are able to play sports together on a level playing field thanks to an augmented reality system developed at the University of Michigan.
The technology, called iGYM, allows people with mobility disabilities and their non-disabled peers to exercise together in a fun environment. The system carries several games.
“This is something that’s kind of neat, where they can both play,” said father Erik Kreps, who brought 10-year-old Darren and 9-year-old Bryan to Ann Arbor on a recent Sunday to use the iGYM system.
Bryan, who has a neuromuscular disorder, uses a wheelchair and a walker to help him get around. Both mobility aids are welcome on the court that iGYM projects onto the floor.
In one game — a cross between soccer and air hockey — as players enter the court, a virtual circle appears around them and that circle moves with them as they traverse the arena. In this game, they expand the circle to strike a virtual ball into their opponent's goal.
The playing field is leveled thus: While Darren is able to run around the court, kicking to expand his circle and strike the virtual ball, Bryan presses a kick-button to widen the ring surrounding his wheelchair.
“It is fun to hit a ball around,” said Darren, who smiled widely throughout several games with his brother.
The technology is a one-of-a-kind, said iGYM creator Roland Graf, a professor at the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design and a media artist, designer and inventor.
“We have done pretty extensive research on this. Currently, there is nothing else like iGYM, as most other accessible gaming technologies either limit it to small screens or are developed for people with cognitive...
Today’s market is an extremely competitive place that requires constant change and evolution to keep up the pace. The advent of Digital Marketing turned the tables of advertisement and became the de facto media to make your brand reach new potential customers.
There are several digital advertising options you can study and implement on your brand, but one of the most sought and successful types of ads are the Pay Per Click (PPC) ads.
In this article, you’ll find a quick rundown of what PPC ads are and what are the advantages of using them.
What is a Pay Per Click Ad?
…
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Are you speaking for the first time at a conference? It’s quite nerve-wracking, isn’t it? The amount of pressure from this one event can feel so overwhelming, especially if you haven’t done it before. Don’t worry, though.
There are three easy things you can do to prepare for a conference so you can deliver your speech eloquently and confidently.
1. Write the speech
You can’t deliver a speech without the actual speech. So sit down and write it before your big conference. You want to write a speech that is both informative and engaging. The last thing you want is for your audience to drift off while you’re presenting on stage.…
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Careful planning is the secret to every successful trip, and work travel is no different. Amsterdam is one of the most interesting and non-standard cities in Europe and it’s definitely worth visiting it at least once. This is a city with unlimited opportunities for self-expression, a real paradise for art lovers; the beautiful European capital with countless cafes and winding canals.
Going on a business trip, it is worth remembering that almost every inhabitant of the country speaks, at least, in English. Many of them also know German, and somewhere around 40% of them can speak French. Entering the building, local residents always greet everyone, and this applies not only to business offices but also to public places, shops, and railway compartments.…
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The line between work and personal life can often become blurry. In some cases work can and does encroach, becomes an all encompassing thing. Entrepreneurs spend weeks, sometimes months on end attempting to reach the break-even point of their new business. In other cases, bosses may be breathing down your neck, expecting you to be reachable at all hours of the day or night.
You need to strike a balance in this delicate ecosystem between work and work related matters and your life outside of it. Being “all work and no play” is not only hazardous to your mental and physical health, but can negatively impact relationships.…
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The digital age has made marketing a paradise for many, but the environment for email marketers isn’t so simple. There’s basically an all out war that makes it difficult to send mass emails. While it can be a challenge to keep an email marketing campaign alive and well, the good news is that it’s certainly not impossible. Plus, a positive email marketing campaign can be amazingly beneficial and bring in organic leads for any business. Email marketing is simple, once you have a routine in place, and it can be highly effective.
In this article, we’ll discuss seven ways in which you can send bulk emails without having to worry about your emails going to spam.…
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Customers are the lifeblood of any business and without customers, a business won’t survive very long. Unfortunately, you can’t rely on existing customers to remain loyal. Because of this, it’s important to have strategies in place to find new customers, so you can replace the ones who don’t place repeat orders and continue to expand your customer case.
There are lots of tools you can use. For example, Nuwber.com lets you search by name and address, so see who’s living in the same street as existing customers and find their contact details. Or perform a more general search and harvest names and telephone numbers.…
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Web hosting and digital technology are the two most important factors of business success in the highly competitive business landscape of today. Regardless of the business scale, small, medium, or large, organizations have realized the significance, importance, and worth of incorporating proper web hosting solutions into their business processes and workflows.
Staying competitive today goes far beyond just having a functioning and responsive website. The majority of modern consumers are either online or mobile or both. All trade transactions have been shifted to the net. Businesses got a clear sign that it’s time to move forward and choose the right web hosting support.…
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Standing out on Instagram can be pretty difficult. With over a billion users each month, it takes real strategy to get noticed. It can feel overwhelming if you’re not sure how to navigate the platform to find and engage followers. Keeping those users around also takes know-how.
Fortunately, there are some hands-on ways to increase Instagram followers, likes and fans. These tips have real impact on engagement. Keep reading to learn more.
1. Create a Professional Looking Profile
Instagram users decide fairly quickly whether they want to follow a profile simply by taking a quick scroll through the feed and browsing at the photos.…
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If you regularly travel for business, you’ll know how important it is to adjust yourself to the climate and customs of the place that you’re heading to. So, if you find yourself preparing for your first trip to Australia on business, you’ll no doubt have a few questions about how things work over here.
Australians are known for their laidback way of life and happy-go-lucky attitudes, but how does that translate to their work ethic and ways of doing business? We’ve done all the research for you and have created this handy guide to everything you need to know about travelling to Australia for business.…
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You love working at home. But is it a drag on your finances?
It’s no secret that running a home office involves overhead costs that traditional office-dwellers don’t have to deal with personally. Managing them doesn’t have to be a full-time job, though.
Many home office workers pursue part- or full-time work-at-home opportunities that provide scalable income potential. Fundraising distribution is a great example: Full- and part-time fundraising distributors sell high-profit fundraising products that help charitable organizations, school clubs, faith groups, and others raise funds for their work. According to the experts at ABC Fundraising, fundraising distributors working full-time from home can earn $5,000 per month or more.…
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The Tri-Cities Area Journal of Business has a new chief executive officer, publisher, editor and graphic designer, though regular readers and customers likely will be familiar with the names behind the titles. Melanie Hair, who has served as publisher and general manager at the Journal of Business since founding it in 2002, will serve as…
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It took almost eight years and a lot of on-again, off-again negotiations with different prospective buyers, but the Tri-City Herald building in downtown Kennewick has new owners. Pasco investors Mike Detrick Sr., his son Mike Detrick Jr. and their wives bought the building at 333 W. Canal Drive for $3.9 million in October with plans…
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Tri-City fast food restaurant owners say there’s no way to avoid raising prices when the latest minimum wage increases kick in at the start of 2020, requiring workers be paid at least $13.50 an hour. “Anybody who thinks that prices aren’t going to go up, you’re fooling yourself,” said Tom Tierney, owner of the Tri-Cities’…
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A “green” office building will brighten and lighten up a busy west Pasco neighborhood, courtesy of green paint and green energy. The Wrigley Place development is intended to be the first solar-powered commercial building in the Tri-Cities. Developer Dennis Gisi said Wrigley Drive LLC is behind the $5 million investment on Wrigley Drive, just west…
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Richland council to review final traffic report at Dec. 3 meeting Richland is close to deciding the best way to improve traffic flow and reduce congestion for drivers moving north and south through the city. The top-ranked project calls for removing a number of traffic signals at intersections along the bypass highway. The final proposal,…
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By Andy Perdue The American Viticultural Areas system in the United States is a way for the federal government to officially recognize a wine grape growing region. At this point, Washington has 14 federally approved AVAs. In the Tri-Cities, wineries and grape growers are awaiting approval of the state’s newest AVA: Candy Mountain. The brown…
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Young adults can complete free, individualized program to earn GED diploma, get help finding a job The opening of TC Futures in Kennewick has created a home base for young adults looking to earn their GED diploma, get help finding a job or even wash laundry and grab a bite to eat. The site at…
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In the Tri-City area, retail jobs are among the top five most in demand. That’s according to the state’s recently released Employment Security Department’s employer demand reports. Retail salespeople, retail sales supervisors, registered nurses, physicians and surgeons, and teacher assistants were the top five jobs advertised online in August in Benton County. There were 144…
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The residential construction industry provides a rewarding career path for women. Builders and remodelers across Washington state are seeking skilled artisans and professionals, including carpenters, architects, engineers, plumbers, electricians and painters. In the U.S., women make up about 50 percent of the workforce, but only 9 percent of women work in the construction/home building industry,…
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Port of Kennewick sells former raceway to city, which has big plans to develop it West Richland is close to completing its purchase of the Tri-City Raceway, paving the way for a new police station and a chance to woo future tenants to the property on the west end of town. City officials say moving…
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