BUSINESS DIGEST || Travel vouchers for displaced UAW

Travel vouchers for displaced UAW

YOUNGSTOWN

Kovach Companies Inc. in Youngstown is offering $300 travel vouchers to displaced United Auto Workers members to help them prepare for any possible relocations. If they choose to book with its company Travel Agent, they can get discounts on hotels. To redeem, members must fill out a form at rewardingtravelincentives.com/uaw.html, and a voucher will be emailed within 24 hours.

Jobless rate down

YOUNGSTOWN

The unemployment rate for Youngstown in November was 7 percent, down 0.2 percent from the same period in 2017 and 0.4 percent from the unemployment rate in October 2018. The rates aren’t seasonally adjusted and are prepared by the Ohio Bureau of Labor Market Information.

Wall Street faces annual losses

Wall Street capped a week of volatile trading Friday with an uneven finish and the market’s first weekly gain since November.

Losses in technology, energy and industrial stocks outweighed gains in retailers and other consumer-focused companies. Stocks spent much of the day wavering between small gains and losses, ultimately unable to maintain the momentum from a two-day winning streak.

Even so, the major stock indexes closed with their first weekly gain in what’s been an otherwise painful last month of the year.

Wells Fargo pays $575M to settle state investigations

NEW YORK

Wells Fargo will pay $575 million in a settlement with attorneys general from all 50 states and the District of Columbia that are investigating fake accounts opened without the knowledge of customers and a string of other dodgy practices.

Under the agreement announced Friday, the bank will also create teams to review and respond to customer complaints about its banking and sales practices.

The bank has been under a cloud since 2015 when it acknowledged that employees had opened millions of fake bank accounts for customers in order to meet sales goals. It has also said that it sold auto insurance and other financial products to customers who didn’t need them.

Wells Fargo already has been ordered to pay more than $1.2 billion in penalties and faced stricter regulations.

Bomb strikes tourist bus, killing 2 in Egypt

cairo

A roadside bomb hit a tourist bus Friday in an area near the Giza Pyramids, killing two Vietnamese tourists and wounding 12 others, Egypt’s Interior Ministry said.

It said the bus was traveling in the Marioutiyah area near the pyramids when the crude roadside bomb, concealed by a wall, went off. The wounded included 10 Vietnamese tourists. The other two wounded were the Egyptian bus driver and the guide.

This is the first attack to target foreign tourists in almost two years.

The attack takes place as Egypt’s vital tourism industry is showing signs of recovery after years in the doldrums because of the political turmoil and violence that followed a 2011 uprising that toppled former leader Hosni Mubarak.

Staff/wire reports