TLALPUJAHUA, Mexico (Reuters) – In Tlalpujahua, Mexico, the spirit of Christmas is baked into the small town’s very existence. While people around the world prepare to decorate Christmas trees and buy gifts to celebrate the holiday, in Tlalpujahua thousands of workers do the delicate work of blowing glass into Christmas ornaments that are then hand-painted. (More…)
By Elizabeth Dilts Marshall and Maria Caspani NEW YORK(Reuters) – While news of the Omicron coronavirus variant threatens to derail U.S. companies’ return-to-office-plans, employers trying to get workers back into offices said they are encountering a different, unforeseen challenge: keeping the lights on. The disruptions to the global supply chain caused by factory shutdowns in (More…)
By Jonathan Landay and Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The World Bank is finalizing a proposal to deliver up to $500 million from a frozen Afghanistan aid fund to humanitarian agencies, people familiar with the plans told Reuters, but it leaves out tens of thousands of public sector workers and remains complicated by U.S. sanctions. (More…)
By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. producer prices increased solidly in October, driven by surging costs for gasoline and motor vehicle retailing, suggesting that high inflation could persist for a while amid tight global supply chains related to the pandemic. The Federal Reserve last week restated its belief that current high inflation is “expected (More…)
By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy created the fewest jobs in seven months in August as hiring in the leisure and hospitality sector stalled amid a resurgence in COVID-19 infections, which weighed on demand at restaurants and hotels. But other details of the Labor Department’s closely watched employment report on Friday were (More…)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. economy likely created 166,000 fewer jobs in the 12 months through March than previously estimated, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Wednesday. The reading is a preliminary estimate of the BLS’ annual “benchmark” revision to the closely watched payrolls data. The leisure and hospitality sector, which was (More…)
By Natalia Zinets, William James and Elizabeth Piper KYIV/LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A defiant President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday a Belarusian sprinter defected at the Olympic Games only because she had been “manipulated” by outside forces and shrugged off a coordinated barrage of new Western sanctions. At an hours-long news conference on the anniversary of an (More…)
By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A measure of U.S. services industry activity jumped to a record high in July, boosted by the shift in spending to services from goods, but businesses continued to pay higher prices for inputs because of supply constraints. The Institute for Supply Management survey on Wednesday also showed a rebound (More…)
By James Pomfret and Sara Cheng HONG KONG (Reuters) -The first person convicted under Hong Kong’s national security law was jailed for nine years on Friday for terrorist activities and inciting secession, judges said, in a watershed ruling with long-term implications for the city’s judicial landscape. Former waiter Tong Ying-kit, 24, was accused of driving (More…)
By Lucia Mutikani WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits increased last week for the first time in 1-1/2 months, but layoffs are easing amid a reopening economy and a shortage of people willing to work. While other data on Thursday showed factory activity in the mid-Atlantic region continuing (More…)
