Resolute profits ahead of forecasts Business News
Twitter bans ex-KKK head
Former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke has been banned from Twitter for breaking the social media platform’s site’s rules forbidding hate speech.
The company said Friday that Duke’s account “has been permanently suspended for repeated violations of the Twitter rules on hateful conduct.”
It didn’t specify what exactly Duke posted that triggered the ban, but its policy on hateful conduct prohibits promoting violence or threatening attacks against people based on religious affiliation, race and ethnic origin.
Twitter said the ban was in line with its recently updated policy aimed at cutting down on harmful links. Under the new rules, the company may suspend accounts dedicated to sharing hateful content or that try to get around its blocks on sharing links to the material.
Duke was the leader of the white supremacist KKK from 1974 to 1978.
Resolute Forest Products Inc. reported better than expected second-quarter earning despite weaker paper demand.
The Montreal-based paper company, which operates a pulp mill in Calhoun, Tennessee, had net income of $6 million, or 7 cents per share.
Resolute Forest Products (RFP +32.6%) moves higher after Q2 results beat estimate despite 18.9% Y/Y decline to $612M revenue, driven by weaker paper demand.
Market pulp segment posted a Q/Q growth of $13M in operating income with price gain of 6% while tissue segment got impacted by lower sales. Losses, adjusted for non-recurring gains, came to 25 cents per share.
The results announced Thursday pushed up shares of Resolute Forest by 14.3% on Thursday, but the company’s stock gave up most of the previous day’s gain on Friday.
“The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic slowdown have brought with them unprecedented challenges and business uncertainty,” said Yves Laflamme, president and chief executive officer for the Montreal-based company. “We’ve seen stronger pulp pricing and higher lumber shipments in the second quarter, offset by a weaker paper segment, which reflects lower demand levels since the onset of the pandemic and our resulting capacity adjustments.”
The maker of paper and wood products posted revenue of
$612 million in the spring quarter, aided by more demand for tissues and lumber but hurt by drop in overall paper demand.
Trader Joe’s labels blasted as racist
Trader Joe’s, which indicated earlier this month it might change the names of some of its products after an online petition denounced them as racist, now says it will stick with labels like Trader Jose’s and Trader Ming’s for Mexican and Asian food.
“We want to be clear: we disagree that any of these labels are racist,” the popular grocery chain said in a statement posted on its website. It added, “We do not make decisions based on petitions.”
The petition posted on change. org by a high school student claims the names create “a narrative of exoticism that perpetuates harmful stereotypes.”
Other Trader Joe’s names cited include Arabian Joe for Middle Eastern food, Trader Giotto’s for Italian and Trader Joe San for Japanese cuisine.
After the petition was launched Trader Joe’s issued a statement saying it has been in the process of updating product labels and hoped to conclude that effort soon.
“While this approach to product naming may have been rooted in a lighthearted attempt at inclusiveness, we recognize that it may now have the opposite effect — one that is contrary to the welcoming, rewarding customer experience we strive to create every day,” company spokeswoman Kenya Friend-Daniel said at the time.