• Today (Wednesday), President Joe Biden has announced his new anti-crime efforts
• Biden’s plan is mainly addressing gun violence and to provide more funding to those cities who are in need of more police 
• Biden will have a “zero tolerance” policy (different from Trump’s) which will give no flexibility to gun dealers who do not comply with federal laws concerning the selling of firearms

• Today (Wednesday) A House panel was led with legislation that has the potential to take market power for from the “tech giants” such as Apple, Facebook, Amazon, and Google
• This new legislation could force the companies to disconnect their platforms from other lines of their business
• This is meant to allow breathing space for new innovators in many areas of the tech industry

The post Legislative News – 06-23-2021 appeared first on Easy Ad - Local Small Business Resources.

• Under Armour has announced that they are raising their wages for hourly retail workers in Canada and the United States, which affects over 8,000 jobs
• This increase in wage will be effective June 6 
• The part- and full-time employees who will see a compensation bump represent about 90% of the company’s retail and distribution workforce

• A mature wind sector developed in the U.K. has plans to expand in the coming years 
• Compared to Europe, The U.S. has lacked lately in Renewable energy infrastructure, but major projects are in development 
• In the final phase of a development recently named as “the world’s largest offshore wind farm” is set to use 14 megawatt versions of General Electric’s Renewable energy “Haliade-X” turbines
• Today (Tuesday), GE says that a warranty and service contract has been finalized
• The Dogger Bank Wind Farm will be situated off the coast of northeast England in the North Sea and have a total capacity of 3.6 GW

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Wednesday that a laboratory origin of Covid-19 is “one possibility”
• The remarks from the top Biden administration health official came during growing calls to investigate the origins of the virus

• Wednesday, Lumber futures fell for the eighth day in a row and threatened to crash the months-long frenzy that pushed lumber prices to record levels during the pandemic
• July Lumber Futures have fallen about 5% to $1,201 per 1,000 board feet
• More recently, sawmills have been unable to keep up with demand as expectations have been set high

• Service to London Heathrow starts August 11 and to London Gatwick on Sept. 29 from New York’s Kennedy Airport
• Jet blue has made plans to launch service to London for more than two years
• Earlier this year, the carrier unveiled a new Mint business-class cabin
• In regards to the pricing of a round trip ticket on JetBlue, the Mint-class  has recently been posted at $1,968.45 and $618 for economy

• Facebook plants to turn its live online events product into an option called pay-per view for sports leagues broadcasting games 
• This feature is said to help business, including sports companies, and make more money in our world of changing content consumption
• The company believes that high school sports teams and smaller leagues that use this feature will allow users to make money for virtual attendance and keep profits for tickets
• The pay-per-view model isn’t a new concept, as other media networks like Showtime and HBO have used this especially for boxing, wrestling, and MMA

The post Business News – 5-19-2021 appeared first on Easy Ad - Local Small Business Resources.

• Despite a policy banning anti-vaccine messaging on its platform, Facebook continued to host frames with claims that users can overlay onto their profile pictures 
• After CNBC reached out for comment about one such frame claiming, “my immune system works better than the” followed by a graphic of a syringe, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed the image had violated its policies and was removed
• CNBC was quickly able to find well over a dozen other examples of profile picture frames that touted similar messages or at least toed the line of Facebook’s policy

• The amount of available sublease office space in San Francisco more than tripled during the pandemic, and tech companies are paying the price
• Dropbox and Salesforce have taken among the biggest impairments in the industry for their vacated space
• Airbnb said in its earnings report on Thursday that it took a $113 million charge in the first quarter “related to office space in San Francisco that we deemed no longer necessary”

• The semiconductor chip shortage is expected to cost the global automotive industry $110 billion in revenue in 2021, according to consulting firm AlixPartners
• The forecast is up by 81.5% from an initial forecast of $60.6 billion in late January
• A number of factors have contributed to the increase, including a fire at a chip supplier plant near Tokyo and weather-related kinks in the automotive supply chain

• Dogecoin’s price soared as high as 56 cents early Friday, according to Coin Metrics data
• Elon Musk tweeted that he was working with dogecoin developers to improve the efficiency of transactions
• Crypto exchange Coinbase said it would offer dogecoin support in the next six to eight weeks

The post Business News – 5-14-2021 appeared first on Easy Ad - Local Small Business Resources.