Walgreens to pay millions to customers who received Theranos blood tests

MORTGAGES

The average long-term US mortgage rate fell again this week but remains near the 22-year high it hit three weeks ago, little relief for house hunters facing persistently high prices and a near-historic low number of homes for sale. Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday that the average rate on the benchmark 30-year home loan fell to 7.12 percent from 7.18 percent last week. A year ago, the rate averaged 5.89 percent. — ASSOCIATED PRESS

WORKPLACE

Grindr has lost about 45 percent of its staff as it enforces a strict return-to-office policy that was introduced after a majority of employees announced a plan to unionize. About 80 of the 178 employees at the LGBTQ+ dating app company were forced to resign after the company in August mandated workers return to work in person two days a week at assigned “hub” offices or be fired, the Communications Workers of America said in a statement Wednesday. The West Hollywood, Calif.-based company also gave a severance package to staff who were unable to relocate, in what the CWA alleged was an attempt “to silence workers from speaking out about their working conditions,” according to a statement from the organization. The CWA filed a new labor complaint against the company on Wednesday, the second such complaint in about a month. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

AIRLINES

The outspoken chief of Ryanair was pelted with cream pies by environmental activists while preparing for his airline’s protest at European Commission headquarters in Belgium. Michael O’Leary was sorting out boxes alongside a cardboard cutout of EC President Ursula von der Leyen when an activist suddenly approached and smeared a cream pie across his face. Her attack was quickly followed by another, landing this time on the back of his head, according to a video posted on social media. The activists shouted “Welcome in Belgium” and told him to stop pollution with planes. O’Leary, covered in cream, replied “well done,” then removed his jacket and continued preparing for his event. O’Leary was in Brussels to promote Ryanair’s petition urging the EC to protect overflights across Europe when air traffic controllers go on strike. The Irish discounter was forced to cancel hundreds of flights this summer because of ATC strikes and has said more than 1 million people have signed its petition. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

AUTOMOTIVE

Ford said Thursday it raised the pay of 8,000 US hourly workers represented by the United Auto Workers union just a week before its union contract expires. The raises, negotiated in the 2019 contract with the UAW, lift the pay of the workers by $4.33 an hour, or $9,000 a year, the automaker said in a statement. The move accelerates how quickly the workers reach the top pay rate of about $32 an hour, reducing the time from eight years to as fast as four years, Ford said. The UAW is seeking a 46 percent wage increase in the current round of bargaining and rejected Ford’s initial counterproposal, which offered a 15 percent raise, including bonuses. The current four-year contract for Ford’s 57,000 US hourly workers expires on Sept. 14. UAW President Shawn Fain has threatened a walkout of nearly 150,000 hourly workers at Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis if a pact isn’t reached by the deadline. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

HOTELS

Hilton is partnering with Tesla to install 20,000 universal electrical vehicle chargers at 2,000 of its hotels in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The McLean, Va.-based company said it plans to have at least six wall-mounted chargers at selected hotels that will work with any electric vehicle model, beginning in 2024. The move would make Hilton’s EV charging network the largest of any hospitality company, the hotel group said. It would also expand Tesla’s dominance in EV charging. Hotels and inns have lagged on offering EV charging to road trippers. A recent survey of 17,000 hotels in the American Hotel and Lodging Association found only about a quarter offered the amenity. Hilton has chargers at less than a third of its properties. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

INTERNATIONAL

Businesses in London’s West End have been more affected by the loss of tax-free shopping for tourists than by the UK’s stubborn cost-of-living crisis, according to an industry group. A survey from the New West End Company found that 92 percent of retail, hospitality, leisure, and food and drink businesses say they’ve been impacted by the end of VAT-free shopping following Brexit. That compares with 58 percent impacted by the cost-of-living crisis and inflation. The findings come as members of Parliament prepared to debate tax-free shopping for international visitors. Visitors from outside the European Union were able to reclaim tax paid on their shopping until January 2021, when the policy expired. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

INTERNATIONAL

The euro-area economy barely grew in the second quarter as new data showing a dismal performance for exports forced a downward revision in overall growth numbers for the region. Gross domestic product rose only 0.1 percent in the three months through June, compared with a prior increase measured at 0.3 percent. The report on Thursday will provide European Central Bank policymakers with harder evidence of the weakness taking hold in the euro-zone economy, a week before they prepare to decide whether another interest-rate increase is warranted to tame inflation. — BLOOMBERG NEWS

HACKING

China-linked hackers breached the corporate account of a Microsoft engineer and are suspected of using that access to steal a valuable key that enabled the hack of senior US officials’ email accounts, the company said in a blog post. The hackers used the key to forge authentication tokens to access email accounts on Microsoft’s cloud servers, including those belonging to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Representative Don Bacon, and State Department officials earlier this year. Microsoft said the key had been improperly stored within a “crash dump,” which is data stored after a computer or application unexpectedly crashes. The crash dump was then moved into Microsoft’s production environment, where a compromised account belonging to a Microsoft employee could access it. The key was stolen sometime after April 2021, the company said. — BLOOMBERG NEWS