Business – Page 179

US rent prices finally showing signs of cooling down

September 13, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Americans are finally starting to see the red-hot rental market begin to cool off, after record growth.

A combination of strong demand, low supply and high inflation have kept pressure on rental prices nationwide, but for the first time in 20 months, asking rental prices saw negative growth, falling 0.1% from July to August, according to CoStar Group.

CoStar Group, a provider of online real estate marketplaces, information and analytics, said this points toward a “deteriorating rental market” in its report.

It is welcome relief for renters who have seen their rents rise while dealing with inflation.

Rent prices climbed during the first half of 2022, hitting a national average of $2,495, according to HouseCanary’s National Rental Report.

While rental prices are still rising year-over-year, the pace of growth is slowing. Asking rents fell to 7.1% in August, down from 8.4% at the end of July, according to CoStar.

Cities that saw the fastest growth in rents in 2021 are now witnessing the largest pullback.

Palm Beach, Floridda saw the most dramatic slowdown in growth, where asking rents decreased from 30.6% in the fourth quarter of 2021 to 8.2% at the end of August, according to CoStar. Phoenix followed close behind with year-over-year rents dropping to 5.2% in August compared to 21% at the end of 2021. Rents in Tampa, Florida have also seen decreases and Las Vegas also fell double digits so far this year.

Still, nearly half of all renters in the U.S. are paying 30% or more of their annual income on rent, according to a report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Marissa DuBee remembers having “sticker shock” when searching for a rental this summer.

DuBee, a 30-year-old social media marketer, and her fiance Troy, a commercial truck driver, had been renting a fully-furnished, 1,700 square foot, three-bedroom home in Greentown, Pennsylvania, for $1,250 a month. However, she told ABC News that their landlord decided to cash in on the hot-housing market this spring and sell the home, which meant they had to move into the basement of her mother’s house until they could find an affordable rental.

“It’s always tough to go back once you’ve been out on your own,” she said. “And we were very fortunate and lucky enough that my mom let us live there with open arms.”

DuBee said they currently pay $1,300 a month for a much smaller rental in the same town; a single-wide mobile home with three bedrooms. She said the two are trying to save as much as they can for their November 2023 wedding.

“The both of us are working as hard as we can to make ends meet to plan the wedding of our dreams. It definitely is challenging especially with the cost of everything just going up, but in the end we know it’ll all be worth it,” DuBee said.

Housing accounts for about one-third of inflation. The Consumer Price Index reached an annual rate of 8.3% in August, the highest in nearly 40 years, the Labor Department said. Average hourly earnings rose 5.2% in August from a year ago.

With a rental income of $4,000 a month, 22-year-old Grace Villiano thought she and her roommate would have plenty of options when they were looking for an apartment in Manhattan, New York. What they found instead was intense competition and bidding wars for too few apartments.

“Every apartment we would schedule an open house to see would be sent into contract within 20 minutes of us contacting the property,” Villiano said. “We would have people walking in front of us offering multiple thousands above asking. It was honestly, overall, very frustrating that we felt we could barely get our foot in the door and that we would ultimately have to agree to an apartment without being able to see it or perhaps even see a floor plan.”

While rent prices are showing signs of stabilizing in some markets, New York City rents remain at a record high. This summer, the average monthly rent in Manhattan topped $5,000 for the first time, according to a report by the real estate appraiser, Miller Samuel.

A New York City property manager, with over 2,000 rental units in Manhattan, said inflation is also impacting landlords. Speaking with ABC News on the condition of anonymity, the property manager said, “We’re paying more for utilities like water and gas, more for maintenance and staff, which is the main reason why rents have remained elevated.”

The property manager also said current rents in the city may seem artificially higher than they truly are because they are being compared with prices during the height of the pandemic, when many landlords were slashing rents and offering major perks to lure renters back to big cities.

For many Americans, rising mortgage rates continue to complicate the question of whether to buy or rent, experts said. In some markets, mortgage payments are the highest on record relative to monthly rent.

According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, the median monthly mortgage payment was almost one-and-a-half-times as much as the median monthly asking rent in the second quarter.

Analysts said that may have forced many people, especially first-time home buyers, to hold off on buying a home, adding further pressure on rental prices.

But there are reasons for optimism. Analysts said a record volume of apartment construction over the next year could help ease a supply crunch, which in turn, would work to keep rental prices in check.

CoStar projects rent growth will continue to slow in the coming months, ending the year 6.2% higher than last year. Things are expected to decelerate even further in 2023, when CoStar projects rents to rise 4.9%.

While renters don’t have much control over rising prices, experts said renewing your current lease will likely give you the smallest increase in rent, since renewal rates typically tend to be lower than rents being offered to new renters. They they also recommend locking in a longer-term lease to avoid higher annual rent increases.

CPI rises 8.3% in August, consumers still squeezed by high prices

September 13, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Inflation data released on Tuesday revealed that prices rose slightly in August, worsening the cost woes for U.S. households as the Federal Reserve readies to decide on another interest rate hike next week.

The data calls into question whether inflation has peaked.

On a monthly basis, the consumer price index rose 0.1% in August, inching upward from the flat month-to-month movement in July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The consumer price index, or CPI, rose 8.3% over the past year in August, a slight slowdown from 8.5% in July, according to the bureau.

The data arrives a little more than a week before Federal Reserve officials meet to determine what investors expect to be another borrowing cost increase aimed at fighting inflation.

The Fed has instituted a series of aggressive interest rate hikes in recent months as it tries to slash price increases by slowing the economy and choking off demand. But the approach risks tipping the U.S. into an economic downturn and putting millions out of work.

The rate increases appear to have slowed key sectors of the economy, sending mortgage rates higher and slowing the construction of new homes, for instance.

But other indicators suggest the U.S. economy continues to hum. U.S. hiring fell from its breakneck pace but remained robust in August, with the economy adding 315,000 jobs and the unemployment rate rising to 3.7% as more people sought work, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics in early September.

Speaking at a conference held by the conservative-leaning Cato Institute, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday that the central bank must act “forthrightly, strongly” to dial back inflation, leading many economists to expect another 75-basis point interest rate hike from the central bank later this month.

The Fed is performing a “delicate balancing act,” said Scott Schuh, an economics professor at the University of West Virginia. “The Fed is raising rates but trying to avoid an increase in the unemployment rate.”

“It seems somewhat reasonable to expect the inflation rate to continue to come down for the next few months and quarters,” he added.

Prices in some areas of the economy have already fallen significantly.

The national average price for a gallon of gas stood at $3.72 on Monday, having fallen well below a peak of $5.01 in mid-June, according to AAA.

Consumer expectations for inflation have fallen significantly too, according to data released by the New York Federal Reserve on Monday.

In August, the median of consumer responses showed that they expect inflation to fall to 5.7% in one year and 2.8% in three years, a New York Federal Reserve survey showed. Those figures were down from 6.2% and 3.2%, respectively, in July.

The latest price data will show whether inflation has continued to fall

September 13, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The release of inflation data on Tuesday will show whether near-historic inflation in the nation continues to slow.

The data, which will reveal how prices moved in August, arrives little more than a week before Federal Reserve officials meet to determine what investors expect to be another borrowing cost increase aimed at fighting inflation.

The most recent data from the consumer price index, or CPI, showed a slowdown of price increases. The CPI rose 8.5% over the past year as of July, a marked slowdown from 9.1% in June, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The August report is expected to show that the CPI rose 8% year-over-year in August, continuing its descent from the peak in June, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists.

The rate increases appear to have slowed key sectors of the economy, sending mortgage rates higher and slowing the construction of new homes, for instance.

“It seems somewhat reasonable to expect the inflation rate to continue to come down for the next few months and quarters,” he added.

Prices in some areas of the economy have already fallen significantly.

The national average price for a gallon of gas stood at $3.72 on Monday, having fallen well below a peak of $5.01 in mid-June, according to AAA.

Consumer expectations for inflation have fallen significantly too, according to data released by the New York Federal Reserve on Monday.

USDA flags some HelloFresh meal kit ground beef for possible E. coli contamination

September 13, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service issued a public health alert Saturday over ground beef products in HelloFresh meal kits that were shipped in July over a possible E. coli contamination.

The meal kits containing the affected ground beef packages were shipped to consumers from July 2 to July 21, according to the alert.

Consumers should look for the Hello Fresh 10-ounce plastic vacuum-sealed packages containing “GROUND BEEF 85% LEAN/15% FAT” with codes “EST#46841 L1 22 155” or “EST#46841 L5 22 155” on the side of the packaging, the FSIS said.

“The ground beef packages bear ‘EST.46841’ inside the USDA mark of inspection and on the plastic ground beef package,” the statement read.

The FSIS said it isn’t issuing a recall because the affected products are no longer available for purchase, but the agency said it has concerns for anyone who still has the package in their freezers. If so, they are asked not to cook or eat the product and throw it away immediately.

The FSIS said it is investigating an E. coli outbreak and that raw ground beef is the probable source of the reported illnesses.

UK rail, postal workers cancel strikes after Queen’s death

September 9, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — British rail and postal workers on Thursday canceled scheduled strikes after Queen Elizabeth II died earlier that day.

The moves pause worker protests that in recent months have involved hundreds of thousands of workers and at times disrupted train and mail services across England.

The Communication Workers Union, or CWU, which represents 115,000 workers at the Royal Mail, called off a 48-hour strike that began on Thursday and was scheduled to continue on Friday.

“Following the very sad news of the passing of the Queen and out of respect for her service to the country and her family, the union has decided to call off tomorrow’s planned strike action,” the Communication Workers Union said in a tweet on Thursday.

A strike by the postal workers late last month across 1,500 locations, the first of several strikes planned for the ensuing weeks, marked the biggest work stoppage in England since 2009.

Postal workers are seeking a wage increase amid the country’s near-historic inflation, which reached a 40-year high of 10.1% in July.

CWU said its members would not accept an “imposed” 2% pay raise, the BBC reported. Royal Mail said that the workers rejected an offer with raises of up to 5.5%.

Meanwhile, roughly 40,000 rail workers with the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, or RMT, canceled a two-day strike set for Sept. 15 and 17.

“RMT joins the whole nation in paying its respects to Queen Elizabeth,” the union said in a statement. “We express our deepest condolences to her family, friends and the country.”

The rail workers, who work at Network Rail and 14 train operators, have carried out intermittent strikes since June, when it appeared that their employers would reject a demand for a 7% pay raise.

Network Rail made an offer in July with raises worth more than 5%, but it depended on workers accepting “modernising reforms,” the BBC reported. RMT rejected the offer, saying it amounted to a pay cut in inflation-adjusted terms and would require cutting a third of front-line maintenance roles.

In a statement, Network Rail confirmed that RMT had called off the strike, saying it would alert riders “when we receive more information on any confirmed or proposed industrial action.”

British PM Liz Truss reveals plan to freeze energy prices. Would it work in US?

September 9, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(LONDON) — New British Prime Minister Liz Truss on Thursday responded to skyrocketing energy prices in dramatic fashion with plans for a freeze on natural gas and electricity bills for millions of households that face massive rate increases as the winter months approach.

The policy could amount to one of the country’s largest government interventions in recent history, costing tens of billions of pounds and reducing prices on a wide scale.

The plan arrives amid an energy shortage brought about by the Russia-Ukraine war, which has worsened Britain’s inflation crisis, helping send price increases in the country soaring to a 40-year high of 10.1%.

Britain is hardly alone with its inflation woes. Sky-high inflation has strained economies and household budgets across the world, including in the United States, where cost hikes have slowed but remain near decades-long highs.

Rather than price controls, U.S. inflation policy has relied on a series of aggressive borrowing cost increases as the Federal Reserve tries to slash price increases by slowing the economy and choking off demand. But the approach risks tipping the U.S. into an economic downturn and putting millions out of work.

Economists who spoke with ABC News acknowledged the potential effectiveness of the British policy as a means of targeting that nation’s energy price spike but they differed sharply on whether the plan offers a blueprint that the U.S. should consider for sectors of high inflation.

Here’s how the British policy will work, and whether experts think it could be implemented in the U.S.:

What does Britain’s energy price cap do?

The plan, which would go into effect next month and last two years, caps the annual cost of natural gas and electricity for a typical British household at £2,500. The plan would do the same for many non-domestic institutions, such as schools; but those price caps only last six months.

The average annual cost for natural gas and electricity was otherwise scheduled to spike next month from £1,971 to £3,549, and thereby take up a sizable proportion of monthly spending for many British households.

Under the plan, the British government will pay energy suppliers the shortfall leftover from the reduction in the retail price. Truss, a member of the Conservative party, has not announced the cost of the measure but some estimates put the cost at roughly £150 billion, making it more than twice the size of the initiative that allowed British companies to keep paying workers amid COVID.

“This is a huge piece of state intervention ironically overseen by a conservative government suspicious of the state,” said Matthew Goodwin, a London-based professor of politics at the University of Kent.

Moreover, energy suppliers will receive the same amount of payment for their goods that they would have if the retail price had jumped, since the government is covering the shortfall.

This payment mechanism causes the large price tag for the British government and differentiates the policy from the price controls imposed in the U.S. during World War II, for instance, in which companies were asked to sacrifice profits for the war effort, said Hal Singer, a managing director at the consulting firm Econ One and adjunct professor at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business.

“The reason why the U.K. policy is costly is because Truss is insisting that energy suppliers continue to be compensated at market rates,” Singer told ABC News.

Should a policy like this be implemented in the U.S.?

The energy crisis caused by the Russia-Ukraine war has not impacted the U.S. as much as many countries, especially those in Europe.

However, overall inflation in the U.S. remains historically high, with price hikes for goods such such as rent and groceries far worse than cost increases in other areas of the economy. That dynamic raises the question of whether an approach like the one announced by Britain could work to address particularly severe areas of U.S. inflation.

Singer, of Econ One, said the U.S. should pursue such a strategy to bring down costs like skyrocketing rents, which result in part from the outsized market control retained by landlords.

“We absolutely should be pursuing these alternative remedies to address what many of us are starting to see now as the exercise of market power,” he said. “There’s a comparable crisis in the U.S. in terms of rents for apartments and homes.”

But Orazem sharply disagreed, saying that price controls would worsen the root problem behind inflation: a supply shortage. Price controls risk undercutting the incentive that high prices give to companies for increased investment and ramped up supply, which in theory should bring the market to equilibrium, he said.

“Creating supply shortages in the middle of inflation that’s created by supply shortages seems ludicrous to me,” he said. “You’re not solving the problem by exacerbating the problem.”

Social media preys on vulnerability of users to create algorithms, author says

September 8, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Social media companies have deliberately manipulated the desires and fears of its users to drive their engagement metrics which has created an addiction, according to an author.

In his new book, The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World, New York Times reporter Max Fisher explores how the major social media and technology companies have managed to gain so much power at the expense of their users.

He spoke with “ABC News Prime” about the dilemmas he explores in his book, conversations with industry insiders about the products they’ve helped to create, and whether or not he’d let his child use social media.

PRIME: Congratulations, Max, and thanks so much for joining us.

FISHER: Thank you for having me.

PRIME: So you talk about how social media platforms have really spent a lot of time focusing on making sure that we stay wired and connected in an effort to make sure they keep making a lot of money. Explain the algorithm basically behind that.

FISHER: So when you open up a social media platform, what you think you’re seeing are posts, thoughts and sentiment from people in your community, from your friends, and you think when you interact with them, when you post something and get a response, what you’re seeing is the feedback from your community and what they like and don’t like. And that is not the case.

What you are actually seeing, what you actually are experiencing are emotions and sentiments and interactions that have been predetermined and pre-selected, often personalized just for you, by these incredibly sophisticated artificial intelligence systems that govern the platforms that have determined the precise sorts of emotions, interactions and sequence of sentiments that will get you not just to spend more time browsing and scrolling on social platforms, what will get you engaged yourself and will solicit specific reactions from you. Because we’re talking about billions of people, the overwhelming majority of Americans, for instance, that has profound consequences for the way our society works and for our politics.

PRIME: You use the word consequences a few times there. I’m really curious what you see as social media’s real-world consequences.

FISHER: There’s this one experiment that I write about in the book where these researchers took two really big groups of people over four weeks, and half of them they said “just live your life as normal,” and half of them they said, “deactivate your Facebook account, take it off your phone.” And the consequences were staggering. One thing they found is that people who deactivated Facebook reported higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction, equivalent to about a third the effect of going to therapy…it’s certainly a lot cheaper than going to therapy.

It’s also a suggestion that people weren’t using social media because it makes them happy, in fact, they were using it because they are addicted to it and had a hard time turning it off and needed this experiment to force them to turn it off. And another change they found was that people who deactivated it became significantly less polarized [in] the way that they saw the news, [in] the way that they saw other people in their community.

PRIME: Do you have a social media account?

FISHER: You know this is the thing that is tough about social media. It is so dominant in our world, in the way that we consume information, in the way that we interact with people in our lives and our family and friends, that you kind of have to be on it. You probably have to have a smartphone, you probably have to be on social media to some extent. But the number one thing I think you can do is to understand what it’s doing to you, understand its effects, understand the way that it distorts what it shows you and the way that people in your community seem to be acting.

It’s designed to be engaging but the types of interactions that are engaging, that really activate certain chemicals in your brain and make you want to spend more time on it, are: fear, moral outrage is by far the most engaging sentiment, and also any sense of hostility towards people that are not in your social in-group.

PRIME: I just want to take a look at the subtitle because you say “The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World.” Is that accurate? Has social media really rewired our brains?

FISHER: They have indeed found that your actual brain chemistry is changed as a result of social media use. There are a lot of things in our lives that change our brain chemistry, and they’re called drugs. And that can be caffeine, that might be alcohol, it may be recreational drugs, it might be cigarettes. Social media functions in very much the same way. The reason that it’s designed like that and it’s explicitly designed like that, the people who designed the platforms knowingly used slot machines, dopamine delivery, these addictive, physically addictive features, to get people to spend more time on there, is that it also changes your behavior and changes the way that you think in all sorts of ways that were not intentional on the part of the platforms but are certainly consequential.

PRIME: You also talk about the 2020 election, Jan. 6 insurrection, that there was so much misinformation out there and that social media companies did very little to try to tamp that down. Do you feel like the genie is out of the bottle at this point, or are they able to control misinformation?

FISHER: So, it’s funny. There a lot of people who work at the big social media companies whose job is to reduce misinformation, reduce extremism on platforms, reduce recruitment for extremist far right terrorist groups, but they are fighting a losing and in many senses, unwinnable battle. Not because there’s something about social media that means that misinformation and hate are going to always be on there but because these platforms are deliberately designed to ramp up engagement in the most ruthless possible ways these companies can come up with.

So it’s out of the bottle in the sense that you can’t clean it up as long as the companies are doing that but it’s also, at least in theory, relatively easy to fix because all the companies have to do is turn off these engagement-maximizing features, and a lot of this problem goes away. But they’re not going to do that.

PRIME: Based on the people that you interviewed who are both still inside the system and who’ve left, is there a sense that you can kind of turn this around and use social media as a force for good?

FISHER: So yeah, a lot of these people who I’ve talked, some some of them are dissidents in Silicon Valley or people who were whistleblowers, some of the researchers who were outside of Silicon Valley, a lot of them are still true believers in the theoretical potential of a more neutral social media that does not have these engagement-maximizing features is something that can be and sometimes really is a really dramatic and major force for good in the world. But the problem is just these engagement-maximizing features are just overpowering that good and creating a lot of harm in the world.

PRIME: Last quick, quick question. Would you let a child of yours have social media?

FISHER: Oh, my God. No, I wouldn’t let myself have social media if I could get myself off of it. The thing is that it’s not just that there’s a lot of harmful things in social media, but young kids and adolescents especially have a very exaggerated social need and that means they spend a lot more time on social media. They are some of the best customers of these platforms, in fact. And it means that the effects, the things that affect you and me, affect them much more drastically.

PRIME: Max Fisher, we thank you so much. And to our viewers, you can purchase “The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World” anywhere books are sold.

Google workers battle company over ‘life and death’ abortion policies

September 7, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — Immediately after the Supreme Court released a ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, in June, a slew of major U.S. companies, like Meta and JPMorgan Chase, announced that they would cover travel costs for employees who seek legal abortions outside their home state.

Google went a step further. Having already expanded its abortion coverage to include such travel, the company told employees it would allow them to apply to relocate without their providing a reason why.

More recently, after receiving questions from federal lawmakers, the company last month began rolling out a product update that will set default results on Google Maps and local locations for the search query “abortion clinics near me” to only include institutions that perform abortions.

The change will exclude from default results institutions that do not provide the operation, such as pregnancy centers that often attempt to dissuade a woman from seeking an abortion.

Users who choose to manually expand the results beyond those displayed, however, will be able to see institutions that do not provide abortions, a Google spokesperson said.

In addition, Google Maps and local search results will include labels showing whether an institution does or might not provide an abortion, a Google spokesperson said.

Still, outspoken employees at Google say the company hasn’t gone far enough in its response to the overturning of Roe — both on product performance and employee treatment.

The Alphabet Workers Union, or AWU, an advocacy group made up of more than 1,000 employees, has called on Google to strengthen its approach to abortion-related issues or risk an escalation in employee pressure. The AWU functions as a “minority union,” which means it pressures the company through worker organizing but does not formally represent workers in collective bargaining.

The confrontation between workers and management at one of the world’s largest tech companies sits at the convergence of several hot button issues: abortion access, content moderation online and the growing militancy of employees amid a surge of labor organizing nationwide.

“With this new labor movement, workers feel that it’s their due to have a say in what’s going on,” Nelson Lichtenstein, the director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told ABC News.

“Workers can come together and make demands on their company on any issue — it doesn’t have to be a wage question or bread and butter,” he added.

Google should extend abortion-related health benefits to contract workers, whom AWU estimates make up roughly half of company staff, the group says.

Moreover, AWU has called on Google to remove pregnancy centers entirely from search results that appear after a query such as “abortion clinic near me,” rather than merely setting the default search results in Google Maps and local locations to exclude such groups. Under the current policy, the app and site display pregnancy centers in an expanded set of search returns.

Alejandra Beatty, a technical program manager who has worked at Alphabet for six years and serves as the Southwest chapter lead with the AWU, applauded the steps that the company has taken on abortion-related issues since the Dobbs decision but said the company still could do more to protect users and employees.

“We’re excited to see some progress,” she told ABC News. “But we recognize that there is still so much more to do.”

A Google spokesperson said that the recent update prioritizing and labeling abortion clinics on Google Maps and in local search results is part of a wider effort to improve search results when a user is seeking a specific service, such as a particular COVID vaccine brand or electric vehicle charging facility.

“We’re now rolling out an update that makes it easier for people to find places that offer the services they’ve searched for, or broaden their results to see more options,” a company spokesperson said.

“We get confirmation that places provide a particular service in a number of ways, including regularly calling businesses directly and working with authoritative data sources. We followed our standard testing and evaluation process to confirm that these updates are more helpful for people,” the spokesperson added.

Google did not respond to a request for comment on the demand from AWU that it extend abortion-related health coverage to contract workers.

Beatty, the Alphabet employee and member of the ALU, said that the group’s call for the removal of pregnancy centers from search results seeking abortion clinics is a matter of keeping harmful disinformation off of the platform.

“We think it is important search results do not mislead users, so while the additional tagging with services is certainly more useful, it’s still letting the fake clinic be in the list,” she said.

“A good analogy would be how much disinformation spread during the outbreak of Covid-19,” she added. “If websites had started to spring up offering counseling to those seeking vaccinations, they would’ve been immediately removed.”

Google retains a duty to provide accurate search results for the high-stakes pursuit of an abortion, said Joan Donovan, research director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University.

“Google has become the go-to place for information related to life and death issues, and as a result Google has more than just a responsibility but a duty to ensure that people are getting the right information about abortion services every time across all Google products,” she told ABC News.

Donovan’s prescription for the company appeared to align with Google’s shift toward default results that prioritize institutions that provide abortions.

“It’s very important that if someone is searching for an abortion, the top results should be about obtaining those services first and foremost,” she said.

Beatty, the Google employee, said the AWU will escalate its pressure on Google if the company does not provide contract workers with abortion-related health benefits and remove pregnancy centers from search results; though the group does not yet have specific plans.

“As more and more states pass incredibly restrictive laws, like Tennessee and Texas have done, we know we must take action,” she said.

The AWU sent a petition in mid-August signed by hundreds of employees calling on Google to extend abortion-related health care benefits, including reimbursement for travel costs, to contract employees.

As of late last month, the company hadn’t responded, Beatty said. “It’s not that unusual,” she added. “There’s a fair number of petitions happening these days.”

The AWU will continue to advocate on issues related not only to working conditions but to the performance of Google products, she said.

“As stewards of being able to share information in an equitable and democratic way, it is our job to make sure that continues,” she said.

Apple product launch live updates: iPhone 14, new Watch Ultra debut

September 7, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(CUPERTINO, Calif.) — Apple is expected to release a new line of iPhone models and other updated products at a launch event on Wednesday.

The event, which starts at 1 p.m. ET, will take place at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is expected to present the newest products for the occasion, which Apple has promoted with the teaser tagline “far out.”

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Sep 07, 2:42 PM EDT
Apple’s new iPhone 14 Pro will cost either $999 or $1,099

The iPhone 14 Pro will cost $999, and larger 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Pro Max will cost $1,099, the company said at a launch event on Wednesday.

The iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max will be available for preorder on Sept. 9 and purchase on Sept. 16, the company said.

Sep 07, 2:33 PM EDT
Apple releases new iPhone 14 Pro

Apple released on Wednesday a new iPhone 14 Pro with advanced camera and video settings, the company said at a launch event. The model will also be available in the larger 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Pro Max model.

The iPhone 14 Pro draws on the new A16 bionic chip, which enables an always-on display, high-resolution photo and video, and greater memory bandwidth, the company said.

The advanced photo and video capabilities owe to a new 48 megapixel camera with a quad pixel sensor.

The new model of the iPhone 14 includes a “dynamic island,” a set-aside section of the screen that offers alerts that can expand and change size without distracting from an app in use.

A new low-power mode will extend the duration that the phone can last on a single charge, the company said.

Sep 07, 2:17 PM EDT
New iPhone 14 will cost either $799 or $899

The new iPhone model will cost either $799 for a standard 6.1-inch size, or $899 for a larger 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Plus, the company said at a launch event on Wednesday.

The standard iPhone 14 will be available for preorder on Sept. 9 and purchase on Sept. 16, while the iPhone 14 Plus will be available for purchase on Oct. 7.

The iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus will include a slew of new features, such as enhanced Emergency SOS via satellite, which will be available free for two years for iPhone 14 owners.

The new iPhone model is compatible with 5G cellular networks, which will allow for faster download times and better streaming, the company said.

Sep 07, 2:06 PM EDT
Apple releases new iPhone model

Apple released a new iPhone model on Wednesday that will be available in two sizes and feature an improved camera, among other updates, the company said at a launch event.

The iPhone 14 will be available in a standard 6.1-inch size as well as a larger 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Plus.

The new camera on the iPhone 14 will include a larger sensor and faster aperture, which will provide 49% improvement in low-light capture, the company said.

The new iPhone model will also feature an “action mode” for video recording that will stabilize shots as a user moves.

Sep 07, 1:56 PM EDT
New model of AirPods will cost $249

Apple will release a new model of AirPods that costs $249, the company said at its launch event on Wednesday.

The AirPods Pro will be available for order on Sept. 9 and purchase on Sept. 23.

The new ear buds also include a customizable sound profile, enhanced noise cancellation and longer use on a single charge.

Using a photo taken of the user on their iPhone, the AirPods will provide a custom audio experience based on the unique shape of a given person’s head and ears, the company said.

The AirPods Pro will offer up to six hours of use on a single charge, a 33% increase from the previous model.

Sep 07, 1:42 PM EDT
Apple debuts new Apple Watch Ultra

Apple released a new smartwatch on Wednesday for active and outdoor users called Apple Watch Ultra that will cost $799, the company said.

The watch features precision GPS that operates in remote locations, as well as a redesigned compass app to further aid navigation.

In addition, the product carries a built-in 86 decibel siren that can alert people nearby in an emergency.

The Apple Watch Ultra includes a slew of other features, including a titanium case with edge protection, a second speaker, cellular built into all models, a customizable action button that gives access to other features and 36 hours of battery on a single charge.

A new battery optimization coming this fall will extend the battery life to 60 hours, the company said.

Sep 07, 1:31 PM EDT
New low-cost Apple Watch model will cost either $249 or $299

The new model Apple Watch SE will cost $249 for GPS features, and $299 for GPS plus cellular capability, the company said at a launch event on Wednesday.

The model offers a low-cost alternative to the new Series 8 Apple Watch, which costs either $299 for GPS or $399 for GPS plus cellular, the company said.

The Apple Watch SE includes some of the features of the Series 8 announced by Apple on Wednesday, such as an always-on display screen that is “swim proof, dust proof, and crack resistant,” the company said.

Sep 07, 1:25 PM EDT
New Apple Watch will cost either $399 or $499, company says

The new model of the Apple Watch will cost $399 for GPS features, and $499 for GPS plus cellular capability, the company said at a launch event on Wednesday.

The Apple Series 8 will also include car crash detection that alerts emergency services to a vehicle accident, as well as low-power mode that extends the product’s battery life, the company said.

The crash detection automatically alerts emergency responders with a user’s location, and alerts a user’s emergency contacts, the company said.

The low-power mode, meanwhile, will allow the Apple Watch to last 36 hours on a single charge, the company said.

Sep 07, 1:14 PM EDT
Apple announces new Series 8 model of Apple Watch

Apple announced a new model of Apple Watch at its product launch event on Wednesday.

The Apple Watch Series 8 features an always-on display, and is “swim proof, dust proof and crack resistant,” the company said.

The new model of the Apple Watch includes advanced features for women to track their menstrual cycles, including a temperature sensor that offers an estimate for the last time a woman wearing the watch has ovulated.

The Apple Watch Series 8 offers fitness aids, emergency call services and detailed health information like blood oxygen levels.

The Apple Watch “keeps you connected to the things you care about most, encourages you to stay active, and monitors your health and gets you help when you need it,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said.

Sep 07, 12:51 PM EDT
Apple launch event follows mixed results in latest earnings

The Apple product launch event on Wednesday follows mixed results in the company’s latest earnings report, which came out in late July.

Third quarter earnings showed that Apple outpaced analyst expectations for profit and revenue, as the company brought in $83 billion.

Growth, however, slowed for the company. Sales jumped 2% year-over-year in the third quarter, a marked decline from 9% year-over-year growth in the prior quarter.

Over the quarter, Apple felt the crunch of supply chain constraints brought about by the COVID pandemic, though such limits affected the company “less than we anticipated at the beginning of the quarter,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said on an earnings call with investors in July.

Still, as Apple readies to launch a new iPhone model on Wednesday, the company recently passed a sales milestone for the product.

The iPhone surpassed Google’s Android to capture more than 50% of the U.S. smartphone market for the

Sep 07, 11:34 AM EDT
Apple stock flat on Wednesday ahead of launch event

Shares in Apple stood largely unchanged on Wednesday morning prior to the company’s product launch event.

As with many tech companies, Apple’s stock has taken a pummeling this year. The stock price has fallen more than 13% since the outset of 2022, and dropped nearly 7% over the past month.

Despite a difficult year, Apple stock has outperformed major indices like the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq. The S&P 500 has fallen more than 17% in 2022, and the Nasdaq has dropped more than 25% over that period.

Since the Apple launch event last year, on Sept. 14, the company’s stock is up about 3.5%, as of Wednesday morning.

Sep 07, 11:09 AM EDT
Apple event expected to feature new iPhone model

The event on Wednesday is the first of the company’s annual product launch events to take place in person since 2019, prior to the pandemic.

Apple is expected to release a set of four iPhone models that could be called the iPhone 14. The new line is widely expected to feature an improved camera, among other updates.

Besides the standard 6.1-inch iPhone 14, the company is expected to release a bigger 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Max.

In addition to the iPhone, the company could announce a new line of Apple Watches and AirPods.

The company is developing new health-related features that could alert a person to an increase in blood pressure as well as a change in body temperature related to fertility, The Wall Street Journal reported last September.

Apple product launch live updates: iPhone 14 expected to debut