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The Federal Aviation Administration reopened the airspace around El Paso International Airport in Texas on Wednesday morning, just hours after it announced a 10-day closure that would have grounded all flights to and from the airport.The Federal Aviation Administration said in a social media post that it has lifted the temporary closure of the airspace over El Paso, saying there was no threat to commercial aviation and that all flights will resume.Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the FAA and the Defense Department “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralized and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.”He said normal flights are resuming Wednesday morning.He did not say how many drones were involved or what specifically was done to disable them.The shutdown announced just hours earlier “for special security reasons” had been expected to create significant disruptions given the duration and the size of the metropolitan area.El Paso, a border city with a population of nearly 700,000 people and larger when you include the surrounding metro area, is hub of cross-border commerce alongside the neighboring city of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. The brief closure does not include Mexican airspace.The airport said in an Instagram post after the closure was announced that all flights to and from the airport would be grounded from late Tuesday through late on February 20, including commercial, cargo, and general aviation flights. It suggested travelers contact their airlines to get up-to-date flight information.Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes El Paso, had urged the FAA to lift the restrictions in a statement Wednesday morning. There was no advance notice given to her office, the city of El Paso or airport operations, she said.“The highly consequential decision by FAA to shut down the El Paso Airport for 10 days is unprecedented and has resulted in significant concern within the community,” Escobar said. “From what my office and I have been able to gather overnight and early this morning there is no immediate threat to the community or surrounding areas.”The airport describes itself as the gateway to west Texas, southern New Mexico, and northern Mexico. Southwest, United, American, and Delta all operate flights there, among others.A similar temporary flight restriction for special security reasons over the same time period was imposed around Santa Teresa, New Mexico, which is about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northwest of the El Paso airport.Southwest Airlines said in a statement that it has paused all operations to and from El Paso at the direction of the FAA.“We have notified affected customers and will share additional information as it becomes available,” Southwest Airlines said. “Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of its customers and employees.” Darlene Superville, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Kraft Heinz said Wednesday it’s pausing its plans to split into two companies.Steve Cahillane, a former Kellogg Co. chief who became CEO of Kraft Heinz on Jan. 1, said he wants to ensure that all of the company’s resources are focused on profitable growth.“I have seen that the opportunity is larger than expected and that many of our challenges are fixable and within our control,” Cahillane said in a statement.The company’s shares dropped 5.2% in early trading Wednesday as Kraft Heinz reported lower quarterly and annual results.Kraft Heinz announced in September it was splitting into two companies a decade after a merger of the brands created one of the biggest food manufacturers on the planet.One of the companies would include stronger-selling brands such as Heinz, Philadelphia cream cheese and Kraft Mac & Cheese. The other would include slower-selling brands like Maxwell House, Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles and Lunchables.At the time, Kraft Heinz said it expected the split to be finalized in the second half of this year.On Wednesday, the company said it will pivot from the split and invest $600 million in marketing, sales and product development.In its fourth-quarter earnings release Wednesday, CEO Steve Cahillane said Kraft Heinz’s balance sheet and free cash flow potential were strong.“We are confident in the opportunity ahead and believe this investment will accelerate our return to profitable growth,” Callihane said. Dee-Ann Durbin, AP Business Writer
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E-Commerce
U.S. employers added a surprisingly strong 130,000 jobs last month, but government revisions cut 2024-2025 U.S. payrolls by hundreds of thousands.The unemployment rate fell to 4.3%, the Labor Department said Wednesday.The report included major revisions that reduced the number of jobs created last year to just 181,000, weakest since the pandemic year of 2020, and less than half the previously reported 584,000.The job market has been sluggish for months even though the economy is registering solid growth.But the January numbers came in stronger than the 75,000 economists had expected. Healthcare accounted for nearly 82,000, or more than 60%, of last month’s new jobs. Factories added 5,000, snapping a streak of 13 straight months of job losses. The federal government shed 34,000 jobs.Average hourly wages rose a solid 0.4% from December to January.The unemployment rate fell from 4.4% in December as the number of employed Americans rose and the number of unemployed fell.Weak hiring over the past year reflects the lingering impact of high interest rates, billionaire Elon Musk’s purge last year of the federal workforce and uncertainty arising from President Donald Trump’s erratic trade policies, which have left businesses unsure about hiring.Dreary numbers have been coming in ahead of Wednesday’s report. Employers posted just 6.5 million job openings in December, fewest in more than five years.Payroll processor ADP reported last week that private employers added 22,000 jobs in January, far fewer than economists had forecast. And the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that companies slashed more than 108,000 jobs last month, the most since October and the worst January for job cuts since 2009.Several well-known companies announced layoffs last month. UPS is cutting 30,000 jobs. Chemicals giant Dow, shifting to more automation and artificial intelligence, is cutting 4,500 jobs. And Amazon is slashing 16,000 corporate jobs, its second round of mass layoffs in three months.The sluggish job market doesn’t match the economy’s performance.From July to September, America’s gross domestic productits output of goods and servicesgalloped ahead at a 4.4% annual pace, fastest in two years. Consumer spending was strong, and growth got a boost from rising exports and tumbling imports. And that came on top of solid 3.8% growth from April through June.Economists are puzzling out whether job creation will eventually accelerate to catch up to strong growth, perhaps as President Donald Trump’s tax cuts translate into big tax refunds that consumers start spending this year. But there are other possibilities. GDP growth could slow and fall into line with a weak labor market or advances in AI and automation could mean that the economy can roar ahead without creating many jobs.Wednesday’s report included the government’s annual benchmark revisions, meant to take into account the more-accurate jobs numbers that employers report to state unemployment agencies. They cut 898,000 jobs from payrolls in the year ending March 2025.Despite recent high-profile layoffs, the unemployment rate has looked better than the hiring numbers.That is partly because President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has reduced the number of foreign-born people competing for work.As a result, the number of new jobs that the economy needs to create to keep the unemployment rate from risingthe “break-even” pointhas tumbled. In 2023, when immigrants were pouring into the United States, it reached a high of 250,000, according to economist Anton Cheremukhin of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. By mid-2025, Cheremukhin found, it was down to 30,000. Researchers at the Brookings Institution believe it could now be as low as 20,000 and headed lower.The combination of weak hiring but low unemployment means that most American workers are enjoying job security. But those who are looking for jobsespecially young people who can be competing at the entry level with AI and automationoften struggle to land one. Paul Wiseman, AP Economics Writer
Category:
E-Commerce
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