6 Most Important Things in Business Today

October 18, 2017 by Douglas A. McIntyre

Roy Price, the head of Amazon Studios, a division of Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN), who was accused of sexual harassment, has quit. He had been put on leave, and his ability to work at the company suspended.

International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) posted another quarterly drop in revenue, its 22nd in a row.

Racial comments by a well-know money manager have pushed him off three boards. According to Bloomberg:

Veteran investor Marc Faber left the boards of money manager Sprott Inc. and mining companies Novagold Resources Inc. and Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. after he claimed in his newsletter this month that “the U.S. would look like Zimbabwe” if it had been settled by black people instead of whites.

“The recent comments by Dr. Faber are deeply disappointing and are completely contradictory with the views of Sprott and its employees,” Sprott Chief Executive Officer Peter Grosskopf said in announcing Faber’s departure from the board. “We pride ourselves on being a diverse organization and comments of this sort will not be tolerated.”

The Los Angeles Police Department will start to use drones. According to CNBC:

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) signed off on a year-long test of drones on Tuesday, becoming the largest police department in the U.S. to deploy the technology.

Despite vociferous protest, the Los Angeles Police Commission — the civilian board which oversees the department — voted 3-1 in favor of the LAPD using the pilot program.

The drones are set to be deployed by the LAPD’s Metropolitan Division SWAT Team in order to resolve “dangerous, high-risk tactical situations and improve situational awareness capabilities during natural disasters and catastrophic incidents,” the draft proposal said.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has topped 23,000 for the first time ever.

Time Inc. (NYSE: TIME), the troubled mass media company, will lay off more people next month. According to the New York Post:

Time Inc. is readying another round of layoffs, sources said, with about 200 people expected to get the ax — half of which will come from the editorial ranks.

The layoffs are expected to hit by mid-November.

The move comes as Time’s business and its stock continue to languish despite Chief Executive Rich Battista’s pledge to Wall Street to shave $400 million in costs as part of the big restructuring plan.

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