Walgreens agrees to be acquired by private equity firm for almost $10 billion

Boston Globe

07-03-2025

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TECH
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Trump open to again extending TikTok deadline if necessary
President Trump said he would 'probably' extend the deadline for the sale for social video app TikTok if a deal is not reached by April 5. Trump said Thursday there was 'a lot of interest' in TikTok and that 'right now we have at least another month, so we don't need an extension' in response to questions at the White House about the app's status. At the same time, Trump said he is willing to extend the deadline if necessary. 'If I needed an extension, I'd probably get it extended,' Trump said. 'We have a lot of interest in TikTok. And China is going to play a role, so hopefully China will approve of the deal, but they are going to play a role,' he added, without specifying the interested buyers. A bipartisan law previously set a Jan. 19 deadline for Chinese parent company ByteDance Ltd. to sell the app and the service's US operations temporarily went dark. But Trump upon taking office signed an executive order offering a reprieve for 75 additional days. Since then, Trump has said that he wants to help broker a sale — and that he believes the US government should be granted a 50 percent stake in the company as a condition. It's not clear if Trump could legally offer a significant additional extension under the law, called the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, without an agreement. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
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HEALTH
Rise in vaping is offsetting the US decline in smoking rates
Disposable flavored electronic cigarette devices displayed for sale at a store in Pinecrest, Fla.
Rebecca Blackwell/Associated Press
The latest data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that vaping is climbing more quickly than smokers quit cigarettes. The number of US adults who exclusively smoke cigarettes decreased by 6.8 million between 2017 and 2023, according to the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. However, approximately 7.2 million adults started exclusively using e-cigarettes, according to the study. Tobacco companies, including Altria Group Inc. and Philip Morris International Inc., have increasingly shifted their focus toward alternative products such as e-cigarettes, heated tobacco, and nicotine pouches. They market these products as less harmful than traditional cigarettes, helping to retain existing customers who want to switch. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
TRADE
Toys are expected to cost more by fall due to new US tariffs on Chinese imports
Mash'ems, from Basic Fun!, displayed at the Toy Fair, in New York's Javits Center.
Richard Drew/Associated Press
As toy inventors, toy manufacturers, and buyers for stores that sell toys met for a four-day annual trade show in New York last weekend, a topic besides which items were destined for holiday wish lists permeated the displays. President Trump had announced days before that he planned to increase the extra tariff he put on Chinese imports in February to 20 percent. Would he? By Tuesday, the last day of the Toy Fair, attendees had their answer, and the talk about how it would affect the prices of playthings grew more urgent. Nearly 80 percent of the toys sold in the United States are sourced from China, according to The Toy Association, a national industry group that sponsors the show formerly known as the North American International Toy Fair. Many toy makers are now renegotiating prices with retailers and taking a hard look at their products to see if they can cut costs. Greg Ahearn, president and CEO of The Toy Association, said price increases of 15 percent to 20 percent are expected on games, dolls, cars, and other toys by the back-to-school shopping season. The price range that US consumers are willing to pay is anywhere from $4.99 to $19.99, leaving little wiggle room to raise prices, he said. 'It's untenable,' Ahearn said, noting that small businesses make up roughly 96 percent of the American toy industry. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
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ECONOMY
The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits falls as labor market remains sturdy
Attendees at a health care career fair at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, N.C.
Allison Joyce/Bloomberg
Applications for US jobless benefits fell last week as the labor market remains sturdy ahead of an expected purge of federal government employees. The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits fell by 21,000 to 221,000 for the week ending March 1, the Labor Department said Thursday. That's significantly fewer than the 236,000 new applications analysts expected. Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs, which have remained mostly in a range between 200,000 and 250,000 for years. The four-week average, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, inched up by 250 to 224,250. Some analysts expect layoffs ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency to show up in the report in the coming weeks or months. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEDIA
Nearing split with NBC News, MSNBC starts building a news operation
MSNBC television anchor Rachel Maddow, host of the Rachel Maddow Show.
Steven Senne/Associated Press
Throughout much of its 28-year history, MSNBC has leaned on NBC News to help provide the hard-news reporting that appears on its air, supplementing the work of its own anchors and opinion hosts. But that will all change when, most likely this year, MSNBC is spun off from the network as part of a new corporate entity that is being called SpinCo, along with several other cable channels owned by Comcast. Ahead of that split, MSNBC is in the process of building out an independent newsgathering and reporting operation that will include a bureau in Washington and a newsroom in New York, away from its longtime base at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. That news operation will be led by veteran executive Scott Matthews, who will serve as MSNBC's senior vice president of newsgathering, network president Rebecca Kutler announced to employees in a memo Thursday morning that was provided to The Washington Post. Matthews, who begins at MSNBC on March 17, will be hiring more than 100 journalists as part of the network's news operation. The network has already announced the addition of Politico journalist Eugene Daniels as a senior Washington correspondent and Post journalist Jackie Alemany as a Washington correspondent. Daniels and Alemany will also serve as co-hosts of a weekend morning show, along with Post opinion columnist Jonathan Capehart. In further preparations to gather its own news, MSNBC will be hiring a head of talent, a head of content strategy and a Washington bureau chief, in addition to domestic and international correspondents, producers and photographers. — WASHINGTON POST
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GROCERY
Kroger gives upbeat outlook while questions swirl around CEO
Kroger CEO William Rodney McMullen has resigned.
Mariam Zuhaib/Associated Press
Kroger Co. forecast higher-than-expected sales guidance, seeking to pacify concerns as questions linger about its chief executive's abrupt exit. The Cincinnati-based grocer said comparable sales excluding fuel will grow between 2 percent and 3 percent, the higher end of what Wall Street analysts surveyed by Bloomberg were expecting. But its adjusted earnings forecast for the fiscal year was lower than expectations, partly as lower pharmacy margins and other investments weigh on profit. Shares rose 3 percent at 11 a.m. in New York trading on Thursday. The grocer's stock is up around 24 percent over the last 12 months, ahead of the S&P 500 Index. Kroger, the nation's biggest grocer by sales, is seeking a new path forward after the company said Monday its long-tenured CEO, Rodney McMullen, resigned following the board's investigation into his personal conduct. With his departure, Kroger has a relatively new bench of senior executives, including interim CEO Ron Sargent and incoming chief financial officer David Kennerley, who joins the company next week. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
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RETAIL
Macy's signals rocky year ahead as trade war begins
A Macy's department store is in Bay Shore, Long Island, N.Y.
Ted Shaffrey/Associated Press
Macy's, the largest department store in the United States, saw slightly improved sales during the holiday season, but it and other retailers have warned of a rocky year ahead as tariffs push up prices and sow uncertainty for shoppers. Macy's said Thursday that comparable sales across all of its stores, which include Bloomingdale's and Bluemercury, rose 0.2 percent last quarter, its best result in nearly three years. Although a modest improvement, the result was welcomed as the retailer faces many challenges, including consumers squeezed by inflation, shrinking margins, and a bizarre accounting error. Macy's is in the midst of a turnaround plan that includes closing underperforming locations: It has closed more than 60 of 150 planned stores so far. Like other retailers, Macy's gave a cautious outlook for this year. It expects to bring in less revenue, in part because of the store closures, and for comparable sales to fall as much as 2 percent. The company's shares fell .68 percent in trading on Thursday.