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House passes $3.5T Biden blueprint after deal with moderates
WASHINGTON: House Democratic leaders have compromised with moderates and muscled President Joe Bidens multitrillion-dollar budget blueprint over a key hurdle. The 220-212 vote Tuesday hoped to end a standoff that halted proceedings but signaled challenges ahead. A band of moderate lawmakers was threatening to withhold their support for the $3.5 trillion plan. They were demanding the House first approve a $1 trillion public works package thats already passed the Senate. House leaders are offering them a Sept. 27 date for a vote on the bipartisan bill as a compromise. Tuesdays votes is a key first step toward approval of the broader Biden package this fall.
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Modest gains nudge Nasdaq above 15,000 for the first time
NEW YORK: Stocks closed modestly higher on Wall Street Tuesday, enough to nudge the Nasdaq composite to a record high and past 15,000 for the first time. The broader S&P 500 index also set a record high. Banks, consumer-focused companies and small-company stocks outpaced the rest of the market. The price of crude oil had its second solid gain in a row, clawing back some more of the ground it lost over the previous two weeks. Halliburton, Occidental Petroleum and Valero Energy all rose 3% or more. Travel-related companies also rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.29%.
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July home sales up 1% as prices reach unprecedented levels
WASHINGTON: Sales of new homes rose a modest 1% in July after a string of declines while new home prices set records. The Commerce Department reported Tuesday that July sales increase left sales at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 708,000. Sales had fallen in April, May and June as builders confronted problems with surging lumber prices and a shortage of construction workers. Home prices, however, have continued to rise, setting new records in July. The median price of a new home sold in July climbed to an all-time high of $390,500, up 18.4% from a year ago.
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From CVS to Chevron, FDA decision triggers vaccine mandates
NEW YORK: From Walt Disney World and Chevron to CVS and a Michigan university, a flurry of private and public employers are requiring workers to get vaccinated after the federal government gave full approval to Pfizers COVID-19 vaccine. And the number is certain to grow much higher. For the past eight months, the coronavirus shot was dispensed in the U.S. under emergency authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. Some workers and unions objected to getting the vaccine and some employers were reluctant to require it because it had yet to receive full FDA approval. That happened on Monday.
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With sales still surging, Best Buy raises prospects for 2021
NEW YORK: Best Buy Co. is raising its full-year sales outlook after the nations largest consumer electronics chain posted fiscal second-quarter results that beat analysts projections. Best Buy joins a slew of other retailers including Walmart, Target and Macys that have posted strong results for the quarter, underscoring that the consumer remains resilient. The Richfield, Minnesota-based company was not broadsided during the pandemic like many other retailers, particularly nonessential merchants, because Americans stuck at home stepped up spending on webcams, laptops and other technology used to get them through lockdowns and working, learning from home. But the latest results show that shoppers appetite for consumer gadgets remains strong.
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US examining Boeings treatment of safety-related employees
WASHINGTON: Federal officials are taking another look at the safety climate inside aircraft maker Boeing. The Federal Aviation Administration says 35% of people in a key engineering unit have raised concerns about their ability to work independently of the company and communicate with safety regulators. The FAA says it is looking more closely at the situation. The investigation raises further questions about a longstanding FAA practice of relying on employees of aircraft manufacturers to perform safety-related analysis. The policy is supposed to take advantage of the employees specialized knowledge, but its come under scrutiny since two deadly crashes involving the Boeing 737 Max, a plane that the FAA certified.
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Walmart to launch delivery service for other businesses
NEW YORK: Walmart says it will start farming out its delivery service. It plans to use contract workers, autonomous vehicles and other means to transport rival retailers products directly to their customers homes as fast as just a few hours. The nations largest retailer said it will dispatch contract workers from its Spark delivery network to merchants stores to pick up items and then bring them to shoppers. Over the past year, Walmart has doubled Sparks coverage to more than 500 cities nationwide, providing access to more than 20 million households. Walmart aims to tap into its ties with local communities, particularly businesses in rural areas that have struggled to provide their own delivery services.
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Waymo expanding autonomous ride service to San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO: Waymo, the Google self-driving vehicle spinoff, is moving to expand its autonomous ride-hailing service to San Francisco. The company says trusted tester customers in the city will be able to hail a ride in Jaguar I-Pace self-driving electric vehicles. For now the vehicles will have human backup drivers on board. But at some point the company plans to run the vehicles autonomously like it now does in the Phoenix area. Waymo says in a statement that it began the program last week with a few testers and is now expanding it. The approach is similar to what Waymo did in Phoenix when it started a limited ride-hailing service in 2017. The company says it has given thousands of fully autonomous rides in metro Phoenix since October of 2020.
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The S&P 500 rose 6.70 points, or 0.2%, to 4,486.23. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 30.55 points, or 0.1%, to 35,366.26. The Nasdaq added 77.15 points, or 0.5%, to 15,019.80. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies advanced 22.61 points, or 1%, to 2,230.91.
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