MoneyWatch

Disney-branded hand sanitizers featuring Baby Yoda and Mickey Mouse are being recalled by Best Brands Consumer Products, the company said in a notice posted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. FDA testing detected the presence of methanol in the Mickey Mouse-themed sanitizer and benzene in the Star Wars Mandalorian version, …

To Applebee’s franchise executive Wayne Pankratz, surging gas prices are an opportunity for his business, rather than a downside. That’s because, as he told managers at franchise owner Apple Central in an emailed memo, the pool of people who work at Applebee’s live “paycheck to paycheck” and will be forced …

Citigroup, the nation’s fourth-largest bank, is angering Texas Republicans over its latest workplace benefit: Offering to cover the travel expenses of employees who live in states with restrictive reproductive health care laws, including the state’s recently enacted law banning most abortions after six weeks. Citi disclosed the new policy in a …

The international push to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine is playing out on the local level in the U.S. as gas stations affiliated with Russia’s second-biggest oil company, Lukoil, face a backlash. Lawmakers in Newark, New Jersey, this week voted to suspend Lukoil licenses in the city, with …

Americans are getting walloped by higher inflation. A recent estimate by economists at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School found that the average household must spend $3,500 more in order to buy the same amount of goods and services they did in 2000. But despite inflation hitting a 40-year high …

Peloton Interactive’s troubles now include calls from an activist investor that the company oust co-founder and CEO John Foley and start looking for a possible buyer in the wake of a massive stock price drop over the past year.  The seller of home-fitness equipment would be an attractive target for …

Robotic vacuum cleaners halted in their tracks. Doorbell cameras stopped watching for package thieves, though some of those deliveries were canceled anyway. Netflix and Disney movies got interrupted and the Associated Press had trouble publishing the news. A major outage in Amazon’s cloud computing network Tuesday severely disrupted services at …

Inflation around the U.S. is at its highest level in decades, with rising prices on many goods and services — from meat and produce to gasoline and cars — eating into Americans’ budgets.  Although no one is completely immune from inflation, personal finance experts say there are sensible ways to trim …

Butterball is recalling more than 14,000 pounds of ground turkey products sold nationwide because they may contain small pieces of hard blue plastic. The ground turkey items were produced on September 28, 2021, at the Butterball facility in Mt. Olive, North Carolina, according to a notice posted Wednesday by the …

Macy’s will host its annual Independence Day fireworks celebration in New York City next month, marking another sign that American life is returning to some sort of normal as local COVID restrictions are relaxed across the nation.  Macy’s has organized a fireworks celebration every July 4 since 1976, but this …