Business notebook

Small business contractors are invited to a series of free July workshops on consecutive Thursdays in Columbia on becoming bonded or increasing their bonding.

Three of the four workshops – starting this week – will be held at the Earlewood Park community center. A July 16 workshop is scheduled for the nearby Eau Claire Print Building, 3907 Ensor Ave. Participants who complete the workshop course will be bonded, the city of Columbia said in a news release.

All workshops begin at 6 p.m. and end at 9 p.m. They are open to a range of small businesses to include women-owed, minority-owned or veteran-owned, said Tina Herbert, director of Columbia’s Office of Business Opportunities. That office is co-sponsoring the workshops with the U.S. Department of Transportation, which conduct the training.

The Earlewood Park workshops, at 1113 Parkside Drive, are to be held this week, July 23 and July 30. To register for the workshops go to http://thealliance4u.com/register/

Greece’s prospects for staying in Europe’s currency union darkened Tuesday after the new Greek finance minister showed up for an emergency meeting in Brussels without a specific new proposal, leaving European finance ministers aghast and unable to judge whether a deal for another bailout package was possible.

Greece’s failure to present a detailed plan at a meeting called to review its demands after a referendum Sunday turned what had been billed as a last-chance opportunity for Greece into yet another display of the substantive and stylistic gulf between the left-wing government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his country’s big creditors, starting with Germany and other European countries that use the euro.

The new finance minister, Euclid Tsakalotos, signaled that Greece was to put a plan forward as soon as Tuesday night, and a government official said later that Greece was seeking a short-term infusion of new aid to help it make big debt payments due this month.

IN BRIEF

▪  Starting in May, Carnival Corp. plans to offer trips from Miami to the Caribbean island nation, the company announced Tuesday. It would become the first American such company to visit Cuba since the 1960 trade embargo. The trips will be through its new brand, fathom, which focuses on trips where passengers sail to a destination in order to volunteer there.

From Staff and Wire Reports