Business Briefs – September 23, 2019

GM Strike Enters 2nd Week With No Clear End in Sight

NEW YORK (AP) – The strike against General Motors by 49,000 United Auto Workers entered its second week Monday with progress reported in negotiations but no clear end in sight. Bargainers met all weekend and returned to the table Monday morning as the strike entered its eighth day.

Global Postal Union Meets Amid Trump Threat to Pull Us Out

GENEVA (AP) – The effects of President Donald Trump’s standoff with China could soon be coming to a post office near you, and higher shipping rates for some packages are the likely outcome. The administration is threatening to pull the United States out of the 145-year-old Universal Postal Union, complaining that some postal carriers like China’s aren’t paying enough to have foreign shipments delivered to U.S. recipients. A showdown looms at a special UPU congress that begins Tuesday in Geneva.

Fund Compensating Boeing Crash Victims Starts Taking Claims

NEW YORK (AP) – A $50 million fund for compensating victims of the two Boeing Max plane crashes is open for business. The fund administrators say they have begun taking applications, and they set a Dec. 31 deadline for submitting claims. In all, 346 passengers and airline crew members died in the crashes, one off the coast of Indonesia, the other in Ethiopia.

Apple Keeps Mac Pro Assembly In Texas After Tariff Relief

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Apple will continue manufacturing its Mac Pro computers in Texas after the Trump administration approved its request to waive tariffs on certain parts from China. The commitment announced Monday clears up several months of uncertainty as Apple mulled shifting the Mac Pro’s assembly of from an Austin, Texas, plant the company has been using since 2013. But Apple apparently had a change of heart after getting a break on China tariffs that threatened to drive up the cost of the $6,000 Mac Pro.

Can a New Space Race Connect The World to the Internet?

NEW YORK (AP) – Tech giants and billionaires hope a new, cheaper crop of internet-beaming satellites and balloons can get internet to those who don’t have it. They face technical and financial challenges. Previous efforts to zoom fleets of satellites to space ended in failure. And the internet service that does result may still be too expensive to help the people who can’t get online.

Diabetes Drug Victims Demand Justice in French Trial

PARIS (AP) – Victims of a diabetes drug suspected in hundreds of deaths pleaded for justice as a massive trial involving more than 4,000 plaintiffs opened Monday for French pharmaceutical giant Servier Laboratoires and France’s medicines watchdog. The company and the oversight body stand accused of involuntary manslaughter, fraud and other charges. A 2010 study said Mediator was suspected in 1,000-2,000 deaths, with doctors linking it to heart and lung problems.

Johnson Says He’ll Tell Trump: Hands Off U.K. Health Service

NEW YORK (AP) – Britain’s prime minister has promised to tell U.S. President Donald Trump that any notion of American firms buying parts of the U.K.’s beloved, state-funded health service will be off the table in future trade negotiations, and that the United States will have to open its markets to British goods if it wants to make a deal.