A7
B USINESS
THE BULLETIN " FRIDAY, JANUARY 1, 2021
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DOW
30,606.48 +196.92
BRIEFING
Jobless claims
down 19,000
The number of Amer-
icans seeking unemploy-
ment benefits last week
fell by 19,000 to 787,000,
still a historically high
level as a resurgent coro-
navirus maintains its grip
on the U.S. economy.
While at the lowest
level in four weeks, the
figures released Thursday
by the Labor Department
are nearly four times
higher than last year at
this time before the coro-
navirus struck. Employers
continue to cut jobs as ris-
ing infections keep many
people at home and state
and local governments
re-impose tighter restric-
tions on businesses and
public activities.
Jobless claims were
running around 225,000
per week before the pan-
demic struck with force
in March when weekly
jobless claims surged to
6.9 million and sent U.S.
economy into a deep re-
cession.
Amazon gets into
podcast business
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Salt Lake City’s two
major newspapers have
printed daily editions for
more than a century, but
now the presses will only
be whirring once a week
as they join other news
organizations nationwide
in shifting their focus on-
line to stay afloat.
The Salt Lake Tri-
bune and Deseret News
printed their final daily
newspapers Thursday as
they joined others like the
Tampa Bay Times and the
Arkansas Democrat-Ga-
zette that made the same
decision in response to
declining print and circu-
lation revenues that have
upended the industry
and led to a new era of
journalism.
The Tribune, which
won the Pulitzer Prize for
local reporting in 2017,
will publish one print
newspaper each week on
Sunday. The newspaper
had printed daily for 149
years.
The Deseret News will
also print one newspa-
per every weekend and
also offer a monthly mag-
azine. The newspaper
had printed papers daily
throughout its 170-year
history.
The newspapers,
which will publish daily
online, announced they
would stop printing daily
in October.
— BUlletin wire reports
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OREGON | TOBACCO TAXES
Smokers will pay $2 more per pack
BY FEDOR ZARKHIN
The Oregonian
Smokers will pay $2 more
in taxes per pack of cigarettes
starting Friday, the day a series
of steep voter-approved to-
bacco taxes go into effect and
dramatically change Oregon’s
nicotine landscape.
State cigarette taxes will
more than double, giving Ore-
gon the sixth-highest cigarette
taxes in the country at a total
of $3.33.
Electronic cigarettes also will
be taxed for the first time in
Oregon, and the cap on cigar
taxes will double.
Tobacco is by far Oregon’s
leading cause of preventable
deaths, with about 7,800 fatali-
ties in 2018, the latest state data
available shows. That’s more
than the next six leading causes
of preventable death com-
bined, including obesity, alco-
hol use and car crashes.
Research has shown that
high taxes lead to less smok-
ing. Using the results from one
recent study of U.S. smoking
habits and tax rates, Oregon’s
smoking rate could drop to
about 10%, down from the
15% that state officials logged
in 2019.
The average cost of a pack
of cigarettes will likely jump
to around $8.33, similar to the
current average price in Wash-
ington.
This 2016
file photo
shows ciga-
rette prices
before Cali-
fornia raised
its tobacco
tax by $2 per
pack in 2016
to $2.87 per
pack.
Maggie Beck/
file photo
See Cigarettes / A8
Pandemic | Food sustainability
Cooped-up Americans
opt for backyard chickens
Markets
end year
on record
highs
BY DAMIAN J. TROISE
AND ALEX VEIGA
The Associated Press
Amazon is jumping
into the podcast business.
The online shopping
giant is buying Wondery,
a 4-year-old producer of
popular true crime pod-
casts such as “Dr. Death”
and “Dirty John,” which
was later turned into a TV
series.
An explosion of new
podcasts has led to a
number of acquisitions as
competing platforms try
to grow their audiences
and their ad revenue.
The music streaming
platform Spotify bought
two podcast companies
in 2019 and it’s added
high-profile hosts to its
roster, including Prince
Harry and Meghan Mar-
kle.
Wondery podcasts will
be part of Amazon’s
music streaming service,
but it will still be avail-
able on other platforms
as well.
Terms of the acquisi-
tion were not released.
Utah papers print
final daily editions
GOLD
$1,893.10 +2.10
Terry Chea/AP photos
Ron and Allison Abta hold hens in front of their backyard chicken run in Ross, California .
BY TERENCE CHEA • The Associated Press
ROSS, Calif. —
T
he coronavirus pandemic is coming home to roost in America’s backyards. Forced to hunker down at
home, more people are setting up coops and raising their own chickens, which provide an earthy hobby,
animal companionship and a steady supply of fresh eggs.
“These chickens are their parents fi-
Amateur chicken-keeping has
been growing in popularity in re-
agreed to
like my favorite thing, nally
cent years as people seek environ-
buy chicks.
mental sustainability in the food
honestly. They actually “These
they eat. The pandemic is acceler-
chickens are
ating those trends, some breeders have personalities once like my fa-
and poultry groups say, prompting you get to know them.” vorite thing,
more people to make the leap into
honestly,”
poultry parenthood.
said 12-year-
— Violet Abta, whose
Businesses that sell chicks, coops parents set up a chicken old Violet,
and other supplies say they have
holding a dark
coop in August
seen a surge in demand since the
feathered hen in
pandemic took hold in March and
her woodsy back-
health officials ordered residents to stay home.
yard. “They actually have personal-
Allison and Ron Abta of Northern Califor-
ities once you get to know them.”
nia’s Marin County had for years talked about
The baby birds lived inside the family’s home
setting up a backyard coop. They took the
for six weeks before moving into the chicken
plunge in August.
run in the yard.
The couple’s three kids were thrilled when
See Chickens / A8
A heritage hen sits on a wire
enclosure at Mill Valley Chick-
ens in Mill Valley, California.
Girl Scouts call on bakers to address child labor
The Associated Press
The Girl Scouts of the USA
said Wednesday that child la-
bor has no place in its iconic
cookies and called on the two
companies that bake them
to act quickly to address any
potential abuses linked to
the palm oil in their supply
chains.
The comments were sent
“Our investment in the development of our world’s youth
must not be facilitated by the under-development of some.”
— Girl Scouts of the USA
in the form of a tweet to As-
sociated Press reporters who
released an investigation Tues-
day linking Girl Scout cookies
and the supply chains of other
well-known food brands to an
estimated tens of thousands of
children who often work un-
paid for long hours in hazard-
ous conditions to help harvest
palm fruits on plantations in
Indonesia and Malaysia.
“Child labor has no place
in Girl Scout Cookie produc-
tion,” the Girl Scouts tweeted.
“Our investment in the
development of our world’s
youth must not be facilitated
by the under-development of
some.”
See Scouts / A8
Wall Street closed out a tu-
multuous year for stocks with
more record highs Thursday,
a fitting coda to the market’s
stunning comeback from its
historic plunge in the early
weeks of the coronavirus pan-
demic.
The benchmark S&P 500
index finished with a gain of
16.3% for the year, or a total
return of about 18%, including
dividends.
The Nasdaq composite,
powered by high-flying Big
Tech stocks, soared 43.6%. The
Dow Jones Industrial Average
gained 7.2%, with Apple and
Microsoft leading the way.
The market’s milestone-set-
ting finish follows a mostly
upward grind for stocks in re-
cent weeks, fueled by cautious
optimism that the U.S. econ-
omy and corporate profits will
bounce back in 2021 now that
the distribution of COVID-19
vaccines is under way.
“We came into the year ex-
pecting slow growth and it
turned out to be the fastest
bear market recovery in his-
tory,” said Sunitha Thomas,
national portfolio advisor at
Northern Trust Wealth Man-
agement.
The virus pandemic shocked
markets early in the year. The
S&P 500 fell 8.4% in February,
then plunged 12.5% in March
as the pandemic essentially
froze the global economy. Busi-
nesses shut down in the face
of the virus threat and tighter
government restrictions. Peo-
ple shifted to working, shop-
ping and doing pretty much
everything else from home.
The dire economic situation
weighed heavily on almost any
company that relied on direct
consumer spending or a physi-
cal presence, including airlines,
restaurants, hotels and mall-
based retailers.
Volatility spiked. The Dow
had several day-to-day swings
of about 2,000 points. And the
S&P 500 rose or fell by at least
1% on twice as many days in
2020 than it did, on average,
since 1950.
The VIX, which measures
how much volatility inves-
tors expect from the S&P 500,
climbed to a record high 82.69
in March and remained above
its historical average for much
of the year.
The wave of selling acceler-
ated as the economic fallout
from the pandemic widened,
leaving many long-term inves-
tors looking on as their gains
after a blockbuster 2019 for
stocks evaporated. Five months
later, the market recouped all
of its losses.
See Markets / A8