AND NOW IT’S TIME FOR THE ‘BUSINESS MINUTE’ REPORT…BROUGHT YOU BY MINUTEMAN PRESS:

A federal appeals court ruling will prevent Philadelphia employers from asking job applicants for their salary history. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’s ruling Thursday partially reversed a lower court’s 2018 decision that said the city couldn’t ban employers from asking about salary history but could ban them from using it to determine wages. The Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce sued the city after the law was passed in 2017, saying the law would violate employers’ First Amendment rights. Supporters of the law have said the practice of asking for a salary history can help perpetuate a cycle of lower salaries for women.

A new report recommends Pennsylvania’s Legislature increase licensing fees and take other steps to put the state Bureau of Dog Law Enforcement on more sound financial footing. The report released Thursday by Auditor General Eugene DePasquale says the agency could run out of money sometime this summer. It also recommends that lawmakers increase penalties for kennels that fail inspections but remain open while they appeal. The bureau has 41 dog law wardens and inspects about 2,600 kennels. Dog licenses currently cost $6.50 a year for dogs that have been spayed or neutered, or $8.50 if they haven’t.

Japanese automaker Honda is reporting a nearly 31% dive in its October-December profit as strong demand for its motorcycles failed to make up for falling vehicles sales.  Honda Motor Co. reported Friday quarterly profit of 116.4 billion yen, or $1.1 billion, down from 168 billion yen the previous year. Sales for the three months slipped 6%. Honda said the damage from the outbreak of a virus that began in central China is not reflected in its forecasts through March 2020. Tokyo-based Honda said its three auto-assembly plants in Wuhan, the city at the center of the virus outbreak, will remain closed through Feb. 13.

U.S. stocks are falling in early trading on Friday, following other markets around the world lower. The S&P 500 is still on track to close out its best week in eight months. Stocks have rallied sharply since Monday and had erased all their earlier losses from worries about a new virus from China that’s rapidly spreading. Those gains were so strong that some market watchers caution stocks may have gotten ahead of themselves. Energy stocks had some of the day’s sharpest losses as the price of oil fell again. Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 1.58%.

AND THAT’S THE ‘BUSINESS MINUTE’ REPORT…BROUGHT YOU BY MINUTEMAN PRESS.