And now it’s time for the Business Minute report…brought to you by…Minuteman Press:

Two Beaver County school districts have received grants totaling 50-thousand dollars that will help match school ciricula to workforce needs. Funding from the PDE in the amount of $50,000 will allow teachers from Freedom and Hopewell to visit area businesses so they can shape classroom instruction to fit its latest skills demanded by area employers, State Representative Rob Matzie announced this week. He said the funding, $25,000 each to the districts will advance career readiness for Beaver County students seeking jobs in high-demand fields. The funding will help provide a successful path from the classroom to the workplace by allowing teachers to learn what skills employers need and to supplement their teaching in a way that equips students to hit the ground running.

The Beaver County Board of Commissioners approved an agreement between the county and Tyler Technologies for the reassessment of all real property consisting of approximately 96,000 parcels within the county. Reassessment commences on January 9,2020. The cost, to be funded by the county is $6,422,349.00. Twenty nine resolutions, including the reassessment one were unanimously approved by the commissioners.

IKEA is agreeing to pay $46 million to the parents of a 2-year-old boy who died of injuries suffered when a 70-pound recalled dresser tipped over onto him. The family’s lawyers disclosed the agreement Monday. Jozef Dudek died in 2017 of his injuries, and his parents sued the Swedish home furnishings company in a Philadelphia court in 2018. The Dudeks accused IKEA of knowing that its Malm dressers posed a tip-over hazard and that they had injured or killed a number of children, but that the company had failed to warn consumers that the dressers shouldn’t be used without being anchored to a wall.

The new jobs report just come out this morning. Brandon McConahay reports….

…and U.S. stocks edged higher in early trading on today but lost some of their momentum from a record-setting rally a day earlier as investors digested a weak jobs report. Technology and health care stocks rose. Chipmaker Nvidia and Intuitive Surgical, a surgical device maker, were among the earlier winners. Banks fell broadly. Energy stocks slid along with declining oil prices. The government reported that employers added 145,000 jobs in December, short of forecasts. The benchmark S&P 500 index was up 0.2%. Bond prices rose, sending yields slightly lower. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.83%. And that’s today’s Business Minute report, brought to you by Minuteman Press.