The daily business briefing: August 4, 2017

1. Toyota and Mazda team up on $1.6 billion U.S. plant

Toyota and rival automaker Mazda announced Friday that they will team up to build a $1.6 billion assembly plant in the U.S. The plant reportedly will be able to crank out 300,000 vehicles a year. It is expected to open in 2021 and employ 4,000 workers. The news marks a victory for President Trump, who has pressured automakers to make cars in the U.S. and threatened to impose border taxes on vehicles made elsewhere for sale in America. Trump touted the deal in a tweet early Friday, calling it "A great investment in American manufacturing!"

Reuters Donald Trump

2. Jobs report shows hiring remained strong in July

U.S. employers added 209,000 non-farm jobs in July, beating economists' predictions of healthy gains of around 180,000 jobs and continuing a trend of strong hiring this year. The improvement came after a surge of 222,000 new jobs in June. The unemployment rate edged down to 4.3 percent from 4.4 percent last month. The improving employment picture suggests that the path is clear for the Federal Reserve to start next month to reduce the massive bond portfolio it piled up to help the economy recover following the 2008 financial crisis. The jobs report helped U.S. stock futures hang onto light gains early Friday, and also pushed the number of jobs created while President Trump has been in office over 1 million.

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The Washington Post Politico

3. Yelp shares skyrocket on profit, Eat24 sale

Yelp shares shot up by almost 20 percent in premarket trading on Friday after the company reported an unexpected quarterly profit and said it had agreed to sell its Eat24 online food ordering business to GrubHub in a $287.5 million all-cash deal. Yelp acquired Eat24 in 2015 for $134 million, and Yelp Chief Financial Officer Lanny Baker said the sale "demonstrates the value we've created over the last two years." GrubHub shares recovered after briefly falling by about 7 percent in after-hours trading.

CNBC

4. Power restored to North Carolina's Outer Banks

Emergency crews have restored power to North Carolina's Outer Banks after a seven-day outage, clearing the way for thousands of people evacuated from the popular tourist islands to return on Friday. About 60,000 people were forced to leave Hatteras and Ocracoke islands last week after construction crews working on a bridge accidentally cut an underground power cable serving the islands. The outage left normally jammed beaches empty at the height of the summer season, placing huge strain on the local economy. Workers reconnected the severed line on Wednesday, and tested the lines on Thursday, clearing the way for the mandatory evacuation to be lifted.

The New York Times

5. Secret Service leaves Trump Tower office over lease dispute

The Secret Service has left a command post in Trump Tower in Manhattan due to a dispute with President Trump's company over lease terms, The Washington Post reported Thursday, citing two people familiar with the negotiations. The old Secret Service command post was a floor below Trump's apartment; the new one, which agents moved into in early July, is in a trailer on the sidewalk more than 50 floors below. No details on the cause of the squabble were immediately released, although two people with knowledge of the talks said there were disagreements about price and other conditions. A spokeswoman for the Trump Organization said the government should look for office space someplace else.

The Washington Post