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  • Journalists Work in Dire Conditions to Tell Gaza’s Story, Knowing That Could Make Them Targets

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    BEIRUT (AP) — Minutes after journalists gathered outside a Gaza hospital to survey the damage of an Israeli strike, Ibrahim Qannan pointed his camera up at the battered building as the others climbed its external stairs. Then Qannan watched in horror — while broadcasting live — as a second strike killed the friends and colleagues he knew so well.

    “We live side by side with death,” Qannan, a correspondent for the Cairo-based Al-Ghad TV said in an interview.

    “I still cannot believe that five of our colleagues were struck in front of me on camera and I try to hold up and look strong to carry the message. May no one feel such feelings. They are painful feelings.”

    Like the vast majority of Gaza’s population, most of its journalists have seen their homes destroyed or damaged during the war and have been repeatedly displaced after evacuation orders by Israel’s military. Many have mourned the deaths of family members.

    But journalists and advocates say the trials go well beyond. Every workday, they say, is shadowed by an awareness that covering the news in Gaza makes them singularly visible in the conflict, putting them at extraordinary risk.

    For journalists in Gaza, “it’s about dying or living, escaping violence or not. It’s something we cannot compare (to other wartime journalism) at any level,” said Mohamed Salama, a former reporter in Egypt who is now an academic, researching the life of news workers in the Strip.


    Israel calls strikes ‘a tragic mishap’ but also levels accusations

    After the August strikes, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted that the military was not deliberately targeting journalists and called the killings a “tragic mishap.” After a preliminary review, the military said the attack had targeted what it believed to be a Hamas surveillance camera and that six of the people killed were militants, but offered no evidence.

    Late last month, the AP and Reuters — which lost a cameraman and a freelancer in the attack on the hospital — demanded that Israel provide a full account of what happened and “take every step to protect those who continue to cover this conflict.” The news organizations issued their statement on the one-month anniversary of the strikes.

    Israeli officials have previously accused some journalists in Gaza of being current or former militants. They include Anas al-Sharif, a well-known correspondent for Al Jazeera who was killed in an early August strike on a media tent outside another Gaza hospital. Four other journalists were also killed in the attack.

    The Israeli military, citing documents it purportedly found in Gaza, as well as other intelligence, had long claimed that al-Sharif was a member of Hamas. He was killed after what press advocates said was an Israeli “smear campaign” stepped up when al-Sharif cried on air over starvation in the territory.

    There is a long, sometimes tragic history of journalists risking personal safety to cover conflicts. But the risks, trials and toll of doing so have never been higher than they are in Gaza right now, experts say.

    Since the war was ignited by the Hamas attack on Israel nearly two years ago, 195 Palestinian media workers have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

    The toll recently prompted Brown University’s Costs of War project to label Gaza a “news graveyard.” Journalist deaths in Gaza have now surpassed the combined number killed during the U.S. Civil War, World Wars I and II, the Vietnam and Korean wars, the war in Yugoslavia that ended in 2001 and the Afghanistan War, the project said in a report issued earlier this year.

    In a separate survey of Gaza news workers last year by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, nine in 10 said their homes had been destroyed in the war. About one in five said they had been injured and about the same number had lost family members. That was before Israel resumed fighting in March after a brief ceasefire.

    One Gaza journalist, Nour Swirki, told the AP in an interview that since her home was destroyed early in the war she has been displaced seven times. Swirki and her husband, who is also a journalist, arranged for their son and daughter to exit Gaza in 2024 and stay with family in Egypt while the couple continued to work.

    “I preferred their safety to my motherhood,” said Swirki, who works for the Saudi-based Asharq News and was a friend of Dagga’s.

    “Death is there (in Gaza) every moment, every second and everywhere,” Swirki said. She is reminded of that reality whenever she skims through photos and videos stored on her phone and is met by the faces and voices of the many colleagues and friends who have been killed in the war.

    “We get afraid and terrified and we work under the harshest conditions,” she said, “but we still stand up and work.”


    Journalists are pressured by violence, hunger

    Qannan, who saw his colleagues killed in the August strike, said Israel’s refusal to let foreign reporters enter Gaza puts tremendous pressure on local journalists, many of whom see their work as a duty to their fellow Palestinians.

    He recounted working without a break since the war’s start, grabbing sleep between live broadcasts. His family has been displaced seven times. Now he and other journalists struggle to find food. In a recent social media post, he and fellow journalists gathered to cook a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of pasta that had cost them the equivalent of $60.

    Yet when he goes on camera, Qannan said he makes an effort to appear strong in hopes of reassuring viewers. In fact, he and others journalists are exhausted and scared, he said.

    Qannan says his fears have increased since he aired video of his colleagues being killed in the hospital attack, because it could draw the attention of the Israeli military. “The situation is terrifying more than the human brain can imagine,” he said. “The fear that we are living and fear of being targeted are worse than is being described.”

    Another Gaza journalist, Mohammed Subeh, said the Israeli strike that killed the Al Jazeera reporter earlier in August left him with shrapnel lodged in his back and an injury to his foot. But hospitals are so overwhelmed with critical cases that he’s been unable to get treatment.

    “A journalist in Gaza lives between covering the war on the ground, following the news and at the same time trying to take care of his safety and the safety of his family,” said Subeh, who reports for Al-Ekhbariya, a Saudi Arabian news channel.

    Salama, who together with colleagues interviewed more than 20 Gaza journalists for their academic research, said that unlike foreign correspondents covering a war, Palestinian reporters have experienced decades of conflict firsthand. That experience makes them uniquely capable of telling Gaza’s story, he said — but they can never step away from it.

    “You don’t have the luxury to break your soul away from what is happening on the ground,” said Salama, now a doctoral student at the University of Maryland.

    Subeh, who works for the Saudi news channel, said he’d thought repeatedly of quitting and trying to flee. But, despite the extreme difficulties and dangers, he can’t bring himself to do it.

    “I feel that my presence here is important and that the voice of Gaza should be sent to the world from its own residents,” he said. “Journalism is not only a job for me, but a mission.”

    Mroue reported from Beirut and Geller from New York.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Trump Is Reviving Large Sales of Coal From Public Lands. Will Anyone Want It?

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    BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — U.S. officials in the coming days are set to hold the government’s biggest coal sales in more than a decade, offering 600 million tons from publicly owned reserves next to strip mines in Montana and Wyoming.

    The sales are a signature piece of President Donald Trump’s ambitions for companies to dig more coal from federal lands and burn it for electricity. Yet most power plants served by those mines plan to quit burning coal altogether within 10 years, an Associated Press data analysis shows.

    Three other mines poised for expansions or new leases under Trump also face declining demand as power plants use less of their coal and in some cases shut down, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the nonprofit Global Energy Monitor.

    Those market realities raise a fundamental question about the Republican administration’s push to revive a heavily polluting industry that long has been in decline: Who’s going to buy all that coal?

    The question looms over the administration’s enthusiastic embrace of coal, a leading contributor to climate change. It also shows the uncertainty inherent in inserting those policies into markets where energy-producing customers make long-term decisions with massive implications, not just for their own viability but for the future of the planet, in an ever-shifting political landscape.


    Rushing to approve projects

    The upcoming lease sales in Montana and Wyoming are in the Powder River Basin, home to the most productive U.S. coal fields.

    Officials say they will go forward beginning Monday despite the government shutdown. The administration exempted from furlough those workers who process fossil fuel permits and leases.

    Democratic President Joe Biden last year acted to block future coal leases in the region, citing their potential to make climate change worse. Burning the coal from the two leases being sold in coming days would generate more than 1 billion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide, according to a Department of Energy formula.

    Trump rejected climate change as a “con job” during a Sept. 23 speech to the U.N. General Assembly, an assessment that puts him at odds with scientists. He praised coal as “beautiful” and boasted about the abundance of U.S. supplies while deriding solar and wind power. Administration officials said Wednesday that they were canceling $8 billion in grants for clean energy projects in 16 states won by Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

    In response to an order from Trump on his first day in office in January, coal lease sales that had been shelved or stalled were revived and rushed to approval, with considerations of greenhouse gas emissions dismissed. Administration officials have advanced coal mine expansions and lease sales in Utah, North Dakota, Tennessee and Alabama, in addition to Montana and Wyoming.

    Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said Monday that the administration is opening more than 20,000 square miles (52,000 square kilometers) of federal lands to mining. That is an area bigger than New Hampshire and Vermont combined.

    The administration also sharply reduced royalty rates for coal from federal lands, ordered a coal-fired power plant in Michigan to stay open past planned retirement dates and pledged $625 million to recommission or modernize coal plants amid growing electricity demand from artificial intelligence and data centers.

    “We’re putting American miners back to work,” Burgum said, flanked by coal miners and Republican politicians. “We’ve got a demand curve coming at us in terms of the demand for electricity that is literally going through the roof.”

    The AP’s finding that power plants served by mines on public lands are burning less coal reflects an industrywide decline that began in 2007.

    Energy experts and economists were not surprised. They expressed doubt that coal would ever reclaim dominance in the power sector. Interior Department officials did not respond to questions about future demand for coal from public lands.

    But it will take time for more electricity from planned natural gas and solar projects to come online. That means Trump’s actions could give a short-term bump to coal, said Umed Paliwal, an expert in electricity markets at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

    “Eventually coal will get pushed out of the market,” Paliwal said. “The economics will just eat the coal generation over time.”

    The coal sales in Montana and Wyoming were requested by Navajo Nation-owned company. The Navajo Transitional Energy Co. (NTEC) has been one of the largest industry players since buying several major mines in the Powder River Basin during a 2019 bankruptcy auction. Those mines supply 34 power plants in 19 states.

    Twenty-one of the plants are scheduled to stop burning coal in the next decade. They include all five plants using coal from NTEC’s Spring Creek mine in Montana.

    In filings with federal officials, the company said the fair market value of 167 million tons of federal coal next to the Spring Creek mine was just over $126,000.

    That is less than one-tenth of a penny per ton, a fraction of what coal brought in its heyday. By comparison, the last large-scale lease sale in the Powder River Basin, also for 167 million tons of coal, drew a bid of $35 million in 2013. Federal officials rejected that as too low.

    NTEC said the low value was supported by prior government reviews predicting fewer buyers for coal. The company said taxpayers would benefit in future years from royalties on any coal mined.

    “The market for coal will decline significantly over the next two decades. There are fewer coal mines expanding their reserves, there are fewer buyers of thermal coal and there are more regulatory constraints,” the company said.

    In central Wyoming on Wednesday, the government will sell 440 million tons of coal next to NTEC’s Antelope Mine. Just over half of the 29 power plants served by the mine are scheduled to stop burning coal by 2035.

    Among them is the Rawhide plant in northern Colorado. It is due to quit coal in 2029 but will keep making electricity with natural gas and 30 megawatts of solar panels.


    Aging plants and optimism

    The largest U.S. coal company has offered a more optimistic take on coal’s future. Because new nuclear and gas plants are years away, Peabody Energy suggested in September that demand for coal in the U.S. could increase 250 million tons annually — up almost 50% from current volumes.

    Peabody’s projection was based on the premise that existing power plants can burn more coal. That amount, known as plant capacity, dropped by about half in recent years.

    “U.S. coal is clearly in comeback mode,” Peabody’s president, James Grech, said in a recent conference call with analysts. “The U.S. has more energy in its coal reserves than any nation has in any one energy source.”

    No large coal power plants have come online in the U.S. since 2013. Most existing plants are 40 years old or older. Money pledged by the administration to refurbish older plants will not go very far given that a single boiler component at a plant can cost $25 million to replace, said Nikhil Kumar with GridLab, an energy consulting group.

    That leads back to the question of who will buy the coal.

    “I don’t see where you get all this coal consumed at remaining facilities,” Kumar said.

    Gruver reported from Wellington, Colorado. Associated Press writer Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed to this report.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Hungary Clings to Russian Oil and Gas as EU and NATO Push to Cut Supplies

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    BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — As the European Union pushes to fully sever its reliance on Russian energy and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump urges NATO members to abandon Russian oil, one country’s populist government stands firm.

    Hungary and its leader, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, have long argued Russian energy imports are indispensable for the country’s economy and switching to fossil fuels sourced from elsewhere would cause an immediate economic collapse.

    Orbán, who has long had the friendliest ties to the Kremlin of any EU leader, has vigorously opposed the bloc’s efforts to sanction Moscow after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and blasted attempts to hit Russia’s energy revenues that help finance the war.

    As the rest of Europe has weaned off Russian energy, Hungary has maintained, and even increased, its Russian imports, insisting no viable alternative exists.

    But some energy experts — as well as Orbán’s critics, who see his commitment to Russian energy as a symptom of his affinity for President Vladimir Putin — say the Hungarian leader’s position is more about politics than pipelines.


    Orbán warns economy would be ‘on its knees’

    Hungary’s leaders argue its landlocked geography in the heart of Central Europe make it dependent on Russian fossil fuels delivered by pipelines built while Hungary was under Soviet dominance.

    With no alternative sources and infrastructure to bring oil and gas to Hungary, officials say, the country’s economy would cease to function without Russian supplies.

    “If Hungary is cut off from Russian oil and natural gas, then immediately, within a minute, Hungarian economic performance will drop by 4%,” Orbán told state radio in September. “This would be catastrophic, the Hungarian economy would be on its knees.”

    But László Miklós, a chemical engineer and energy industry analyst, told The Associated Press there was “no rational explanation” for Orbán’s government’s reluctance to seek alternative fuel sources and ample infrastructure is already in place to supply Hungary with affordable, non-Russian oil and gas.

    “Disconnection from Russian energy in an integrated European market should not be a problem, all conditions are there. It’s the intention that is missing,” Miklós said.


    Cutting off Russian imports

    Yet as the EU sought to deprive Putin of revenue that helps fuel the war, it also granted a temporary exemption for supplies delivered by pipeline to three landlocked countries: the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.

    That carve out, Miklós said, has allowed the Hungarian government and the national oil and gas conglomerate MOL to take in major windfall profits and deliver billions of dollars to Russia’s budget.

    “People think that Hungary purchases Russian energy for economic benefit. This is wrong,” said Miklós, who previously served as MOL’s director of corporate relations. “Hungary buys Russian energy because the Hungarian government wants to help Russia arm itself … MOL and the Hungarian government’s significant profits are a side effect of that.”


    Transitioning to a western route

    The EU’s push to cut Russia off from energy revenues has sparked fury from Hungary’s leaders, who portray the steps as misguided and ideologically motivated.

    “It is quite astonishing that the leaders of European countries … are unable to see that each country’s geographical location determines where it can purchase energy sources,” Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in a September social media post. “We can dream about buying gas and oil from places that are not connected by pipelines, but we cannot heat our homes, boil water or run factories with dreams.”

    Despite insistence that a lack of infrastructure precludes a transition to non-Russian energy sources, other countries in the region, similarly landlocked, have brought Russian oil first to a trickle, then to a stop.

    Earlier this year, leaders of the Czech Republic, which previously received about half its oil from Russia via the Druzhba pipeline, celebrated the country’s “oil independence day” after doubling the capacity of an Italian pipeline, the last infrastructural development necessary to end Russian oil imports.

    Hungary, which currently receives the vast majority of its crude from Russia via the Druzhba pipeline, already has a second pipeline in place: the Adria, which runs from Croatia’s Adriatic Sea.

    MOL says it requires around 14 million tons (12.7 million metric tons) of crude per year, but recent tests on the Adria pipeline showed it is incapable of reliably delivering such a quantity.

    The Croatian oil transport company Janaf disputes that claim, saying it is prepared to cover both Hungary and neighboring Slovakia’s total annual demands for crude oil.

    Miklós said even if Adria were incapable of providing for all of Hungary’s oil needs, it can still play a major role in decreasing imports from Russia.

    “It is possible to bring oil from elsewhere, the Adria pipeline has been available for several decades,” he said. “If what they say is true and they need 14 to 15 million tons (per year), it would still be logical to take 10 million tons from the Adria and bring the rest on Druzhba.”


    The cost of finding alternatives

    Hungary’s government has portrayed EU efforts to cease Russian energy imports as an existential threat to a popular, government-backed household utility reduction program. In May, Orbán claimed in a video that household electricity bills would double and gas bills would nearly triple if Russian supplies were eliminated.

    Yet according to Borbála Takácsné Tóth, a gas industry research analyst, the price Hungary pays for Russian gas is based on European benchmark prices and is not substantially cheaper than what other countries pay for non-Russian gas.

    Tóth, who works at the Regional Centre for Energy Policy Research, an independent institute affiliated with Corvinus University of Budapest, said her group’s modeling shows breaking with Russian gas would likely cause “a temporary increase of 1.5 to 2 euros per megawatt hour,” a price hike she called “minimal, below 5%.”

    Despite the rhetorical commitment to Russian energy from Hungary’s politicians, national energy company MOL has undertaken investments in recent years to diversify its supplies and outfit its refineries in Hungary and Slovakia to process non-Russian crude.

    The company said in an email that due to a multiyear, $500 million investment, “we will be (in) a much better position to have a more diverse crude oil sourcing capability” by the end of 2026.

    Miklós said that despite the Hungarian government’s determination to continue purchasing Russian energy, EU regulations will soon bring that to an end.

    “Things will clearly never be the same again, because the European Union has learned that, to put it simply, Russia cannot be trusted,” he said. “It is a matter of political will to break away from Russian energy sources. There is a small price to pay for this, which every other European country is paying.”

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Research Reports & Trade Ideas – Yahoo Finance

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    Market Update: ADM

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    Technical Assessment: Bullish in the Intermediate-Term

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    Analyst Report: Paychex Inc.

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  • France Urges Tougher Action Against Russia, Saying Drones Should Be Shot Down and Oil Ships Stopped

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    COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Europe must take a more aggressive approach with Russia by shooting down drones that enter European airspace and boarding shadow fleet ships illicitly transporting oil to deprive Moscow of war revenue, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday.

    Speaking at a European summit in Copenhagen, Macron and other European leaders called for more sanctions against Russia — notably targeting its energy sector — and emphasized that Ukraine is on the front line in a widening hybrid war against Europe.

    Macron urged the more than 40 leaders at the European Political Community summit to simply protect their interests without signaling their intentions to Russia.

    “I think the main answer should be more unpredictability and more strategic ambiguity,” he said.

    “It’s very important to have a clear message: drones which would violate our territories are just taking a big risk. They can be destroyed, full stop,” he said. “We are not here to provide the full notice. We will do what we have to do.”

    Macron pointed to a decision by French authorities to stop an oil tanker on the European Union’s shadow fleet sanction list, and detain two of its crew, as an effective way to act. Naval experts believe the ship may have been involved in drone flights over Denmark.

    He said that Russia finances “30 to 40% of the war effort” via the shadow fleet.

    Macron said that by seizing the ships, for a week or two, “we completely break the efficiency of the organization. So the shadow fleet is a very good target if you want to improve our efficiency to reduce these capacities.”

    He said that the same ship was checked by Estonian authorities in March.

    Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, who hosted the summit days after a series of drone incidents at Denmark’s airports and military bases, said: “It must be clear to everyone now, Russia will not stop until they are forced to do so.”

    Russia, she said, is “a threat not only to Ukraine but to all of us. Today, we have one major task ahead of us. We have to make our common Europe so strong that the war against us becomes unthinkable, and we have to do it now.”

    Frederiksen warned her partners that Europe “can no longer be naive. The war was never just about Ukraine. It is about Europe. All our nations, all our citizens, our values and our freedom.”

    Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk urged the leaders to abandon any “illusions” they might have about Russia’s intentions. He said that Poland has been a constant victim of Russian intimidation, most notably a major drone intrusion last month.

    Poland has since vowed to shoot down Russian drones that enter its airspace.

    “The first illusion was, and is, that there’s no war,” Tusk said, referring to those who talk about the war in Ukraine as a “full-scale aggression” or use other euphemisms. “No. It’s war. A new type of war. Very complex, but it’s war.”

    Another illusion, Tusk said, is “that it is impossible for Ukraine and for all of us to win this war. It’s absurd. The only Russian advantage, the only one, is mentality. We are much bigger than them,” in terms of economic might and population, he said.

    Tusk, whose country borders Belarus and Ukraine, added: “We know that if they win against Ukraine, it is also in the future the end of my country and of Europe. I have no doubts.”

    U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that it was important to ramp up economic pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.

    “The economic pressure is having an effect, and we need to continue that. Pressure through further sanctions, bearing down on energy in particular, and on the shadow fleet,” Starmer said before leaving the summit early to return to the U.K. in the aftermath of an attack outside a synagogue in Manchester, England.

    It’s also vital to put “Ukraine in the strongest possible position, and that then means more on air defenses, more on long-range (missiles) and anti-drone” capabilities that must be sent to the country, now in the fourth year of war.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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    Analyst Report: CarMax Inc

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  • Greece General Strike Disrupts Services Across the Country

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    ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A nationwide general strike in Greece left ferries tied up in port and disrupted public transportation across the capital on Wednesday, as public and private sector workers protest changes to the country’s labor laws.

    No taxis in Athens or trains will run for the duration of the 24-hour strike, while buses and the city’s subway, tram and trolley services were operating on a reduced schedule.

    The strike was disrupting services across the country, including in schools, courts, public hospitals and municipalities. Two protest marches were planned in central Athens, with demonstrations also set for other cities.

    Unions representing civil servants and private sector workers called the strike to protest labor law changes that will introduce more flexibility, including allowing overtime that could stretch shifts to 13 hours in a day. Under the new regulations, working hours that include overtime would be capped at 48 hours per week, with a maximum 150 overtime hours allowed per year.

    Unions argue the new rules leave workers vulnerable to labor abuses by employers.

    “We say no to the 13-hour (shift). Exhaustion is not development, human tolerance has limits,” the private sector umbrella union, the General Confederation of Workers of Greece, said in a statement. The union called for a 37½-hour working week and the return of collective bargaining agreements.

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  • Asian Shares Are Mixed as Markets Shrug off a Likely US Government Shutdown

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    Shares were mixed in Asia on Wednesday, with Chinese markets closed for a weeklong holiday, as a U.S. government shutdown loomed.

    Japan’s Nikkei 225 index shed 1.2% to 44,411.26 after the Bank of Japan reported a slight improvement in business sentiment among major manufacturers.

    The BOJ’s quarterly tankan adds to the likelihood the central bank will raise its key interest rate soon, to counter inflation that has topped its target range of about 2% for some time.

    Political uncertainty is also looming over Japan’s markets, with the ruling Liberal Democratic Party due to chose a new leader and prime minister later this week to replace embattled Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba.

    Although markets and offices in mainland China are closed Oct. 1-8 for the National Day holiday, China’s central bank said it plans a 1.1 trillion yuan ($160 billion) reverse repo operation on Oct. 9, to increase the amount of cash in circulation and stimulate consumer spending and business investment.

    Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.8% to 3,450.62, while Taiwan’s Taiex added 1.3% on heavy buying of semiconductor-related shares.

    Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.4% to 8,812.90.

    Markets appeared to be taking a potential shutdown of the U.S. government in stride ahead of a midnight U.S. Eastern time deadline. Past U.S. government shutdowns have had a limited impact on the economy and stock market, and many investors expect something similar this time around.

    Many economists and professional investors expect something similar this time around.

    The S&P 500 rose 0.4% to 6,688.46 to close out its fifth straight winning month after setting a record last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2%, to set its own all-time high at 46,397.89.

    The Nasdaq composite ticked 0.3% higher to 22,660.01.

    A second report suggested the job market may be remaining in its “low-hire, low-fire” state. U.S. employers were advertising roughly the same number of job openings at the end of August as the month before. The hope on Wall Street had been for a number that’s neither too high nor too low, one balanced enough to keep the Fed on track to continue cutting interest rates.

    When Wall Street will get the next data reports on the job market is uncertain, since a government shutdown would cause delays for several important reports, including Friday’s on how many jobs U.S. employers created and destroyed in September.

    The Department of Labor has said that the Bureau of Labor Statistics will completely cease operations if there’s a lapse. The agency already was strained by Trump’s firing of Erika McEntarfer as BLS commissioner on Aug. 1 after the July jobs report showed a rapid slowdown in hiring, with job gains in May and June revised much lower than initially estimated.

    Late Tuesday, the White House was withdrawing the nomination of E.J. Antoni to lead the bureau, according to an AP source who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a White House action that hadn’t been publicly announced.

    Oil-related companies weighed on the market as the price of crude fell again as traders see too much oil washing around the world. Baker Hughes sank 3.6%, and Schlumberger fell 2.1%.

    Early Wednesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil was up 11 cents at $62.48 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 12 cents to $66.15 per barrel.

    The U.S. dollar rose to 147.98 Japanese yen from 147.94 yen. The euro inched up to $1.1738 from $1.1734.

    AP Business Writers Stan Choe and Matt Ott contributed.

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  • US Consumer Confidence Declines Again as Americans Fret Over Prices, Job Market

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. consumer confidence declines again in September as Americans’ pessimism over a inflation and weakening job market grew again.

    The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index fell by 3.6 points to 94.2 in September, down from August’s 97.8. That’s a bigger drop than analysts were expecting and the lowest reading since April, when President Donald Trump rolled out his sweeping tariff policy.

    A measure of Americans’ short-term expectations for their income, business conditions and the job market fell to 73.4, remaining well below 80, the marker that can signal a recession ahead.

    Consumers’ assessments of their current economic situation dipped by 7 points to 125.4.

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  • Lin-Manuel Miranda Gave Millions to Puerto Rican Artists After Hurricane Maria. He’s Pledging More

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    SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — As Hurricane Maria roared over Puerto Rico in September 2017, Marena Pérez and Aureo Andino hunkered down inside their ballet studio. The couple never imagined that they, their daughter and Pérez’s parents would live there for three months, sleeping on pullout couches and relying on a gas generator.

    The Category 4 hurricane flooded Pérez and Andino’s house with 4 feet of water. Unable to return home, the founders and directors of Mauro Ballet decided to open their doors to the community, teaching a free dance class each afternoon.

    “It became an oasis for dancers in Puerto Rico,” said Andino. But Mauro Ballet still struggled — the dance company didn’t make money for 18 months.

    Instead of being forgotten, artists assumed essential roles, helping the archipelago grieve from Maria’s devastation and articulating the challenges Puerto Ricans faced.

    “You can use the arts in so many ways to express your feelings, and to heal,” said Pérez.

    The Flamboyan Arts Fund has supported 110 Puerto Rican arts organizations and 900 artists. Now the Miranda family and the D.C.-based Flamboyan Foundation are committing an additional $10 million to Puerto Rican arts and culture.

    “It just gives us too much back,” said Miranda, 45. “If you have ever enjoyed the work that comes from this island and its descendants, to invest in that future is important.”

    The destruction was so vast that Marianne Ramírez Aponte, executive director and chief curator of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in San Juan, worried the cultural sector could not overcome it.

    What happened instead was “quite the opposite,” she said.

    Arts groups opened their spaces as relief hubs and activated mutual aid networks. “Cultural brigades” deployed their talents to comfort and entertain.

    “It was a horrible situation, but we were able to prove the importance of art in the social process,” said Yari Helfeld, executive director of the community theater company Y No Había Luz.

    Helfeld got requests to perform from isolated communities in Puerto Rico’s central mountains just weeks after the storm. She was surprised to be asked for theater when people still struggled to access food and water.

    “They said, ‘You’re helping heal the spirit,’” said Helfeld.

    Artists could also channel and contextualize the public frustration over the U.S. territory’s slow recovery. Maria exposed the consequences of what many Puerto Ricans still consider a colonial relationship with the U.S.

    Help from federal and local government came slowly and sometimes not at all. Federally imposed austerity measures tied to massive public debt exacerbated economic woes. Power outages disrupted daily life.

    Poetry, paintings and performances confronting these realities helped people “process intellectually, emotionally, what had happened to the country,” said Ramírez Aponte.

    Artists like Rayze Michelle Ostolaza Oquendo expressed the territory’s hopes and disappointments.

    “I have a dream, and it’s simple: to be allowed to be from here, to die on this land and whistle like the coquí, it’s not much to ask,” she wrote in her 2024 poem “Ser Puertorriqueño,” or “To Be Puerto Rican.”

    Money from the Flamboyan Arts Fund supported fellowships for Ostolaza Oquendo and other writers. It helped pay studio rent and wages, and restored a flooded wing of the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico.

    The funding bolstered the sector’s resilience, equipping museums and cultural centers with solar panels and batteries, emergency food and first-aid kits to continue arts programming and support communities after disasters. A sweeping effort to digitize 1,200 art pieces and artifacts across the archipelago became a lifeline during the COVID-19 pandemic, when museums could continue their programming online.

    The Miranda Family Fund and the Flamboyan Foundation planned to wind down the project after granting all $22 million. Instead, they’re committing more and encouraging donors to join them.

    “Because it’s been successful, but mostly because it’s needed still, we’ve decided to continue it,” said Kristin Ehrgood, who co-founded the Flamboyan Foundation with her husband Vadim Nikitine and serves as its CEO. “Funding for arts and arts organizations continues to decline.”

    President Donald Trump has proposed eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, all of which support Puerto Rican institutions. The Puerto Rico Humanities Council saw its 2025 general operating grant cut by over half.

    Ehrgood said the two families want the new funds to also go beyond emergency relief, amplifying Puerto Rico’s talent and even stimulating its economy.

    Miranda called Bad Bunny’s approach “brilliant.”

    There are more artists who can carry those messages, if they’re backed.

    “To support voices that speak on behalf of the island and tell the story of the island is a net plus,” said Miranda. “Puerto Rico always tell us what’s going on.”

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Progressive Nonprofits Condemn Trump’s Targeting of George Soros and His Foundations

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Dozens of progressive nonprofits condemned President Donald Trump’s general attacks on his political opponents and a specific report of a potential investigation into billionaire George Soros’ philanthropy, Open Society Foundations.

    “Targeting those you disagree with is a threat to the democratic values our organizations work tirelessly to defend, and is an attempt to silence those who disagree with President Trump,” the groups — including the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and Oxfam America — said in a statement Monday. “It is a continuation of the attacks on law firms, universities and the media. It is an attack on our most sacred value of free speech.”

    The comments follow a report in the New York Times that the U.S. Department of Justice had directed prosecutors to consider possible charges against Open Society Foundations, echoing accusations Trump made in August that Soros and his foundations were funding violent protests.

    Soros’ office sent a letter to “friends and colleagues” on Monday, stating, “Allegations that George or OSF are in any way engaged in unlawful activity or in fomenting or promoting violence are 100% false.” The letter also asked supporters to “make your voice heard” for the values they stand for, as well as signing a petition from the People for the American Way looking to “stop the weaponization of the Justice Department.”

    In a statement Thursday, Open Society Foundations said they “unequivocally condemn terrorism and do not fund terrorism,” and that their work in the U.S. is dedicated to strengthening democracy. The foundations have not been contacted about any potential investigations or had any direct contact from the federal government, a spokesperson said.

    Later on Thursday, Trump ordered a crackdown on “left-wing terrorism,” specifically naming Soros and billionaire Reid Hoffman, who helped start PayPal and the networking site LinkedIn. Hoffman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

    In response, the nonprofits said they stood in solidarity with Open Society Foundations. Soros has also been a major donor to Democratic candidates and causes in the U.S.

    The groups supporting OSF Monday include both tax-exempt charitable nonprofits, social welfare groups, which are allowed to do more political lobbying, and the Working Families Party, which supports progressive political candidates.

    Interfaith Alliance, which advocates for religious freedom and social justice, was one of the groups that signed onto condemn the targeting of the Open Society Foundations. Its president and CEO, Rev. Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, said nonprofits and especially religious groups need to stand up for people and groups that the administration targets.

    “I think people on all sides of the political spectrum should be showing up right now, recognizing the danger of what this is,” he said. “Just as they showed up, for instance, around Jimmy Kimmel from very different parts of the political spectrum, recognizing the danger of the suppression of free speech. This is another example of that.”

    Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • Albertsons Recalls Several Deli Items Due to Potential Listeria Contamination

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Albertsons Companies has recalled several of its store-made deli products because they may contain listeria bacteria, in a move that arrives shortly after federal health officials warned consumers to not eat certain pasta meals sold at Walmart and Trader Joe’s over similar contamination concerns.

    The Boise, Idaho-based supermarket giant on Saturday said it was pulling five deli items because they contain a recalled bowtie pasta ingredient made by Nate’s Fine Foods. Albertsons is urging consumers to not eat these products — which were supplied by refrigerated goods distributor Fresh Creative Foods — and is instructing those impacted to throw them away or initiate a return at their local store for a full refund.

    The products under recall include certain ready-to-eat basil pesto pasta salad offerings, as well as pasta dishes with chicken, spinach and other ingredients. Consumers can determine if an item they bought is impacted by looking at the list of product names, sell thru dates and other identifying information on Albertsons’ website.

    The recalled items were sold in various Albertsons-owned stores — including Albertsons Market, Safeway and Von’s — across more than a dozen states.

    “Listeria monocytogenes can survive in refrigerated temperatures and can easily spread to other foods and surfaces,” Albertsons warned in its release. The company also noted that the FDA instructs consumers to be extra vigilant when cleaning any surfaces or containers that may have come into contact with products recalled for possible listeria contamination.

    The Associated Press reached out to Nate’s Fine Foods in California and Fresh Creative Foods, a division of Oregon-based Reser’s Fine Foods, for further statements on Sunday.

    Albertsons on Saturday said that there had been no reports of injuries or illnesses related to its recalled products. But the company’s recall comes amid wider warnings from U.S. health officials about potential listeria contamination in ready-made meals sold by other retailers, some of which have previously been linked to a deadly outbreak.

    Last week, the U.S. Agriculture Department issued a public health alert warning consumers to not eat Trader Joe’s “Cajun Style Blackened Chicken Breast Fettuccine Alfredo” with best-by dates of Sept. 20, Sept. 24 and Sept. 27 — as well as “Marketside Linguine with Beef Meatballs & Marinara Sauce” sold at Walmart with best-by dates of Sept. 22 through Oct. 1, due to potential listeria contamination.

    No recall has been issued for either of those products, but Trader Joe’s in a company advisory urged consumers to discard or return its impacted chicken alfredo — and Walmart officials also said they put a stop on sales.

    Similar to the bowtie pasta recalled at Albertsons, the pasta in these goods came from Nate’s Fine Foods.

    Listeria infections can cause serious illness, particularly in older adults, people with weakened immune systems and those who are pregnant or their newborns. Symptoms include fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions.

    Roughly 1,600 people in the U.S. get sick each year from listeria infections and about 260 die, per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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  • 58M Pounds of Corn Dogs and Sausage-On-A-Stick Products Recalled Because Wood Pieces May Be Inside

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    NEW YORK (AP) — About 58 million pounds of corn dogs and other sausage-on-a-stick products are being recalled across the U.S. because pieces of wood may be embedded in the batter, with several consumers reporting injuries to date.

    According to a Saturday notice published by the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, the recall covers select “State Fair Corn Dogs on a Stick” and “Jimmy Dean Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick” products from Texas-based Hillshire Brands, which is a subsidiary of Tyson Foods.

    The contamination problem was discovered after Hillshire received multiple consumer complaints, the service notes, five of which involved injuries. The company later determined that a “limited number” of these products included “extraneous pieces of wooden stick within the batter,” Tyson said in a corresponding announcement — adding that it opted to initiate a recall “out of an abundance of caution.”

    The recalled corn dogs and sausage-on-a-stick goods were produced between March 17 and as recently Friday, per Saturday’s recall notices. Tyson, which is headquartered in Arkansas, says the issue was isolated to one facility located in Haltom City, Texas.

    FSIS is worried that some of these recalled products may be in consumers’ refrigerators and freezers in households across the U.S. — as well as some schools and other institutions. In addition to being sold online and to retailers nationwide, the agency noted Saturday, these products were also sold to school districts and Defense Department facilities.

    Consumers in possession of the now recalled “State Fair Corn Dogs on a Stick” and “Jimmy Dean Pancakes & Sausage on a Stick” are urged to throw them away or return them to their place of purchase.

    To determine which corn dogs and other sausage goods are subject to this recall, consumers should check the product’s name, use by dates and other identifying information published online by the FSIS and Tyson. The products being recalled should also have an establishment number of “EST-582” or “P-894” printed on the packaging.

    It’s unclear if consumers who purchased these now-recalled products will be eligible for a refund. The Associated Press reached out to contacts for Hillshire Brands and Tyson for further information Sunday.

    Foreign object contamination is one of the top reasons for food recalls in the U.S. Beyond plastic, metal fragments, bits of bugs and more “extraneous” materials have prompted recalls by making their way into packaged goods.

    Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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