MOBILE APPS
Raizlabs acquired by Chicago company
Raizlabs, a Boston based mobile app developer, has been acquired by Rightpoint, a marketing agency based in Chicago. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. It’s the second recent acquisition by Rightpoint of a Boston-based company. In April of 2016, the company acquired Agency Oasis, a digital marketing agency. Raizlabs, which also has an office in Oakland, Calif., has built mobile apps for major companies including Six Flags, L.L. Bean, Runkeeper, and Care.com. — HIAWATHA BRAY
SOCIAL MEDIA
Twitter officially boosts its character count
Twitter says it’s ending its iconic 140-character limit — and giving nearly everyone 280 characters. Users tweeting in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean will still have the original limit. That’s because writing in those languages uses fewer characters. The company says 9 percent of tweets written in English hit the 140-character limit. People end up spending more time editing tweets or don’t send them out at all. Twitter hopes that the expanded limit will get more people tweeting more, helping its lackluster user growth. Twitter has been testing the new limit for weeks and started to roll it out Tuesday. The company has been slowly easing restrictions to let people cram more characters into a tweet. It stopped counting polls, photos, videos and other things toward the limit. Even before it did so, users found creative ways to get around the limit. This includes multi-part tweets and screenshots of blocks of text. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
HEALTH CARE
Humana to cut 1,300 positions
The health insurer Humana is cutting about 1,300 positions a couple months after starting an early retirement program. A spokesman said Tuesday that the positions amount to less than 3 percent of the insurer’s workforce. Those who lose jobs can apply for another position with Humana, which also has 1,450 openings. The final number of cuts has not been determined. The insurer said more than 1,150 people volunteered for early retirement, and will leave next year. Humana Inc., based in Louisville, Ky., is one of the nation’s biggest providers of Medicare Advantage coverage, which involves privately run versions of the federal Medicare program for people who are over 65 or disabled. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
FOOD
FDA to move ahead with law requiring posted calories in restaurants, stores
The Trump administration is moving ahead with Obama-era requirements to post calorie counts in restaurants, supermarkets, convenience stores, and pizza delivery chains nationwide next year. Despite years of opposition by some food sellers, the Food and Drug Administration is offering only minor compromises to industry complaints about the difficulties of displaying calories at takeout chains, self-service buffets, and other non-restaurant food locations. The FDA posted a preliminary guidance online Tuesday to help businesses comply with the law. Trump appointees have delayed or upended regulations passed by the Obama administration including rules for water pollution, fuel emissions and policing for-profit universities. But the menu labeling rules, championed by former first lady Michelle Obama, appear on track to take effect next May after years of delays. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
WEIGHT LOSS
Weight Watchers continues to soar, boosted by Oprah
Weight Watchers International Inc.’s improbable rally has fresh momentum. The weight-loss company’s shares rose as much as 22 percent on Tuesday before closing up more than 13 percent after it boosted its profit forecast. Weight Watchers also continued its streak of adding subscribers, another sign that its technology investments and marketing campaign are paying off. Key to the effort is board member Oprah Winfrey, who acquired a stake in the business two years ago and agreed to become the face of the program. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
OFFICE SUPPLIES
Office Depot launches division offering business services
Office Depot Inc. is launching a new division called BizBox to sell a slew of business services — everything from payroll to social-media marketing — in its bid to reverse declining sales and evolve beyond traditional workplace supplies. The venture will be offered as a monthly subscription starting at $70 and will be powered by its own Web platform. Third-party experts will help customers set up e-mail advertising, website design, accounting functions, and other services. The launch is part of chief executive Gerry Smith’s plan to offset a sales slump in pens and paper by becoming a services provider. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
ECONOMY
Number of job openings stable
US employers posted roughly the same number of open jobs in September as the previous month, partly because hurricanes held back hiring at restaurants and hotels. The Labor Department said Tuesday that 6.09 million jobs were available at the end of September, not far from the record high of 6.14 million reached in July. The number of open jobs in restaurants and hotels fell 111,000 from August. That reflects widespread damage in the wake of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which struck many vacation spots in Texas, Florida, and other southeastern states. — ASSOCIATED PRESS
RETAIL
Walmart Pay close to surpassing Apple Pay
Walmart’s app is close to surpassing Apple Pay in usage for mobile payments in the United States, giving the world’s largest retailer even more clout as a growing number of people shop with their smartphones. Available in 4,774 stores, Walmart Pay is enrolling tens of thousands of new users a day, up from thousands four or five months ago, said Daniel Eckert, who runs the business. Two-thirds of the customers who try it also use it a second time within 21 days, he said, giving him confidence Walmart Pay will surpass Apple Pay in the United States in terms of use by shoppers in stores where they’re accepted. Walmart is the biggest retailer rejecting Apple Pay. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
PAY EQUITY
New Zealand pledges to close wage gap in public service jobs in four years
The first country to give women the vote has another world-leading ambition: closing the gender pay gap. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (left), the world’s youngest female leader, says her government aims to achieve pay equity for women in the public service within four years as a catalyst for widespread change. More than 120 years after her nation granted universal suffrage, Ardern hopes it can again be a flag-bearer for equal rights. New Zealand ranked ninth out of 144 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report for 2017, well ahead of neighboring Australia, which placed 35th. While its pay gap has dropped to 9.4 percent this year from 16.2 percent in 1998, according to Statistics New Zealand data, the Ministry for Women says progress on closing it has stalled in the last decade. — BLOOMBERG NEWS
RESTAURANTS
Starbucks to open an Italian eatery
After years of trying to win over lunch and dinner crowds, Starbucks is preparing to open its first stand-alone Italian restaurant. The company is teaming up with Princi, a small chain of 24-hour bakeries in Milan and London, to offer customers freshly made items including focaccia sandwiches, margherita pizzas, and tiramisu. The first stage of the partnership debuted Tuesday, when Starbucks opened a Princi bakery in its upscale Reserve Roastery in Seattle. The company plans to eventually open bakeries inside all of its Reserve locations, and next year hopes to open stand-alone Princi eateries across the country. The openings will be in New York, Seattle and Chicago. — WASHINGTON POST
