Economy

If you are traveling this holiday weekend, you’ll have plenty of company. The AAA projects nearly 35 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home. But that is down about one percent from last year.

AAA officials say lower gas prices compared to last year and some improvement in the economy is still not strong enough to spur an increase in travelers.

Breaking down the numbers, automobile travel is expected to increase slightly over last year, but air travelers are expected to decline.

There are reports that there may be a buyer for Bausch & Lomb. The Wall Street Journal, Reuters and The New York Times are among the media reporting that a Canadian company called Valeant Pharmaceuticals is getting close to finalizing a deal to buy the Rochester-based eye care company for about $9 billion.

B & L is now owned by the private-equity firm Warburg Pincus, which had entertained offers for the company earlier this year.  

The impact and severity of weather events like the tornado that hit Oklahoma City earlier this week are increasing due to a changing global climate, according to research from the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

“We get more extremes everywhere, so really it’s climate disruption, the term global warming is not really the best term to use because what we’re seeing, and what we’re expecting to see from all the models, is a lot of extreme events. Not per se the number, but the extremity of them,” says Laurie Johnson, chief economist for the NRDC’s climate and clean air program.

And, she says, more of the related economic fallout from these disasters is being carried by taxpayers.

There's the possibility that the Hickey Freeman plant in Rochester could be sold again.  The CEO of the company that operates that plant, Doug Williams, has confirmed for WXXI News that he's in talks with a Canadian company, Samuelsohn, which is interested in buying the Rochester clothing factory.

Williams says this deal would be a positive move for the local Hickey Freeman plant, and could add jobs here.

Hickey Freeman now employs nearly 400 workers in Rochester.  If the deal goes through, there's no word yet exactly how many more jobs could be added locally.