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  • Santa Fe Tackles Rental Rates With First-In-US Minimum Wage Approach

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    SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — Santa Fe has long referred to itself as “The City Different” for its distinct atmosphere and a blending of cultures that stretches back centuries. Now, it’s trying something different — something officials hope will prevent a cultural erosion as residents are priced out of their homes.

    It’s the first city in the United States to directly link wages to housing affordability, aiming to counter high rents by tying minimum wage increases to consumer prices as well as fair market rental prices.

    Many see the new ordinance as a big step forward for workers, but Mayor Alan Webber also sees it as an important tool for addressing an affordability crisis that threatens the very fabric of Santa Fe.

    “The purpose is to make a serious difference in assuring that people who work here can live here,” he said. “Santa Fe’s history and culture is really reflected in the diversity of our people. It’s that diversity that we’re trying to preserve.”

    Santa Fe’s minimum wage will increase to $17.50 starting in 2027. The annual increase historically has been tied to consumer prices, but going forward a new blended formula will be used to calculate the annual increase, with the Consumer Price Index making up one half and fair market rent data making up the other.

    There’s a 5% cap in case costs skyrocket, and if consumer prices or rents tank in any particular year, the minimum wage will not be reduced.

    Santa Fe first adopted a living wage in 2002. The ordinance has been expanded over the years and the mission this time was to deal with median housing prices and rental costs that were far above any other major market in New Mexico.

    University of New Mexico finance professor Reilly White presented the city with 25 years of data that showed changes in fair market rents and consumer prices. He said people earning minimum wage were falling behind.

    “It became clear that any index that was made had to be duly weighted in favor of some of this real estate side and some of the cost of living side,” White said.

    Crafting the ordinance was like threading a needle, the mayor said, explaining that the aim was to benefit workers while not overly burdening the mom-and-pop shops that are the backbone of Santa Fe’s economy.

    About 9,000 workers will see a bump in wages once the ordinance kicks in. That’s about 20% of the city’s workforce.

    Diego Ortiz will be among them. The 42-year-old father has called Santa Fe home for nearly three decades, working construction jobs to support his family.

    Choosing between paying rent, buying groceries and helping his children is a constant worry. He also talked about wanting his children to be able to focus on their studies. His son is having to delay school so he can work and save money, he said.

    “If there’s economic stability where we can get a good wage with the sweat of our brow, then we’re going to be able to pay our rent, pay our bills, or get a house,” he said. “Our families will be better and that will be a big change.”

    According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the lowest income renters are disproportionately Black, Native American and Latino.

    “Raising the minimum wage is an important thing to do in terms of affordability. Certainly part of the problem is an income problem,” said Dan Emmanuel, a senior researcher with the coalition. But he also warned that raising wages wouldn’t address affordability for seniors or those with disabilities who are not part of the workforce but make up a large share of low-income renters.

    Providing an income boost to a subset of the population also won’t necessarily resolve the underlying shortage of housing that’s driving up prices overall, said Issi Romem, an economist and fellow at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California-Berkeley.

    That’s why Santa Fe officials say they’re working to permit more homes and apartment units.

    On the edge of town, leasing flags whipped in the wind Wednesday as construction crews were busy building new complexes with adjacent swaths of dirt cleared for more. Mayor Webber said the uptick in permitting already is paying off — rental prices grew by just 0.5% this year.

    Santa Fe also is counting on revenue from a so-called mansion tax, which targets home sales over $1 million, to fuel a trust fund for affordable housing projects.

    Webber said the stakes are high and the city must tackle affordability from every angle.

    “Can the people who work here afford to live here?” he asked. “Can we keep Santa Fe diverse? Can we continue to be ‘The City Different’ in spite of the economic pressures that are at work?”

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

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  • Black Friday: What Time Do Stores Open?

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    Black Friday has become something of an anachronism in the e-commerce era. The day after Thanksgiving marks the official start of the holiday shopping season, but retailers already have spent weeks flooding their websites and customers’ email inboxes with early Black Friday offers.

    While sales trends have been shifting, the best bargains may still be from Black Friday through Cyber Monday. That may be especially true for big ticket items, seasonal merchandise and the latest trendy products.

    Consumer advocates note, however, that deep discounts are not a once-a-year opportunity. They advise shoppers to comparison shop, research price histories and to read the fine print to make sure they are buying what they really wanted at a good price.

    That said, some people enjoy stepping out from behind a computer or phone screen to take in the holiday atmosphere and music at a local mall or shopping area. Some retailers are offering exclusives to get them through the door. A number of stores that were closed on Thanksgiving reopen early Friday as retailers work to kick the holiday shopping season into high gear.

    Here are the Black Friday store hours for some prominent national chains.

    Best Buy stores will be open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

    Costco stores will open at 9 a.m.

    Dick’s Sporting Goods stores lists its hours as 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. for Black Friday, but says on its website that hours may vary by location and to check with your local store for specific hours.

    Home Depot stores will open at 6 a.m. and close at the store’s regular hours. Specific closing hours may vary by store.

    JCPenney stores will open at 5 a.m.

    Most Kohl’s stores will open at 5 a.m.

    Lowe’s will open at 6 a.m.

    Macy’s stores will be open from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. Hours vary by location.

    Sam’s Club stores will be open during their regular hours.

    Target stores will open at 6 a.m. and close at their regular time.

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

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  • How Trading Wild Turkeys for Other Animals Became a Conservation Success Story

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    CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — No one wants a weasel on their Thanksgiving table, but swapping turkeys for other animals was once surprisingly common.

    Trading turkeys – for wildlife management, not dinner – was a key part of one of North America’s biggest conservation success stories. After dwindling to a few thousand birds in the late 1880s, the wild turkey population has grown to about 7 million birds in 49 states, plus more in Canada and Mexico, according to the National Wild Turkey Federation.

    In many cases, restoration relied on trades. The exchange rates varied, but Oklahoma once swapped walleye and prairie chickens for turkeys from Arkansas and Missouri. Colorado traded mountain goats for turkeys from Idaho. The Canadian province of Ontario ended up with 274 turkeys from New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Michigan, Missouri and Iowa in exchange for moose, river otters, and partridge.

    “Wildlife biologists don’t suffer from a lack of creativity,” said Patt Dorsey, director of conservation for the National Wild Turkey Federation’s western region.

    West Virginia in particular appears to have had an abundance of turkeys to share. In 1969, it sent 26 turkeys to New Hampshire in exchange for 25 fishers, a member of the weasel family once prized for its pelt. Later trades involved otters and bobwhite quail.

    “They were like our currency for all our wildlife that we restored,” said Holly Morris, furbearer and small game project leader at the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources. “It’s just a way to help out other agencies. We’re all in the same mission.”

    Wild turkeys were abundant across the U.S. until the mid-1800s, when the clearing of forestland and unregulated hunting led the population to plummet. Early restoration efforts in the 1940s and 50s involved raising turkeys on farms, but that didn’t work well, Dorsey said.

    “Turkeys that had been raised in a pen didn’t do very well in the wild,” she said. “That’s when we started capturing them out of the wild and moving them around to other places to restore their population, and they really took off.”

    In New Hampshire, wild turkeys hadn’t been seen for more than 100 years when the state got the West Virginia flock. Though those birds quickly succumbed to a harsh winter, another flock sent from New York in 1975 fared better. With careful management that included moving birds around the state dozens of times over the ensuing decades, the population has grown to roughly 40,000 birds, said Dan Ellingwood, a biologist with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. That’s likely well beyond the expectations at the time of reintroduction, he said.

    “Turkeys are incredibly adaptive,” he said. “Winter severity has changed, the landscape has changed, and yet the population really took off.”

    Turkeys play an important role in a healthy ecosystem as both predator and prey, he said, and are a popular draw for hunters. But the restoration effort also is important just for the sake of ensuring native species continue to persist, he said.

    Dorsey, at the National Wild Turkey Federation agreed, noting that turkey restoration projects also helped states revive their populations of other species.

    “A lot of good work gets done on the back of the wild turkey,” she said.

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  • Trump Administration Says Lower Prices for 15 Medicare Drugs Will Save Taxpayers Billions

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    NEW YORK (AP) — Pharmaceutical companies have agreed to slash the Medicare prices for 15 prescription drugs after months of negotiations, reductions that are expected to produce billions in savings for taxpayers and older adults, the Trump administration said.

    But the net prices it unveiled for a 30-day supply of each drug are not what Medicare recipients will pay at their pharmacy counters, since those final amounts will depend on each individual’s plan and how much they spend on prescriptions in a given year.

    Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. touted the deals as part of the administration’s efforts to address affordability concerns among Americans. The Medicare drug negotiation program that made them possible is mandated by law and began under President Joe Biden’s administration.

    “President Trump directed us to stop at nothing to lower health care costs for the American people,” Kennedy said in a statement Tuesday evening. “As we work to Make America Healthy Again, we will use every tool at our disposal to deliver affordable health care to seniors.”

    The announcement marks the completion of a second round of negotiations under a 2022 law that allows Medicare to haggle over the price it pays on the most popular and expensive prescription drugs used by older Americans, bringing the total number of negotiated drug prices to 25. The new round of negotiated prices will go into effect in 2027. Reduced prices for the inaugural round of 10 drugs negotiated by the Biden administration last year will go into effect in January.


    Price negotiations apply to drugs treating diabetes, asthma, cancers and more

    The latest negotiated prices apply to some of the prescription medications on which Medicare spends the most money, including the massively popular GLP-1 weight-loss and diabetes drugs Ozempic, Rybelsus and Wegovy. Some of the other drugs involved in the negotiations include Trelegy Ellipta, which treats asthma; Otezla, a psoriatic arthritis drug; and various drugs that treat diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome and different forms of cancer.

    Dr. Mehmet Oz, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator, said the administration delivered “substantially better outcomes for taxpayers and seniors in the Medicare Part D program” than the previous year’s deals.

    Under the first round of Medicare price negotiations, the Biden administration said the program would have saved about $6 billion on net covered prescription drug costs, or about 22%, if it had been in effect the previous year. The Trump administration said its latest round would have saved the government about $8.5 billion in net spending, or 36%, if it had been in effect last year.

    It’s unclear exactly how much money the newly announced deals could save Medicare beneficiaries when they are buying prescription drugs at the pharmacy because those costs are determined by various individual factors.

    A new rule that kicked off this year also caps out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries at $2,000, giving some relief to older adults affected by high-cost prescriptions. The administration said estimated out-of-pocket savings for Medicare beneficiaries with drug plans is about $685 million.

    Spencer Perlman, director of health care research at Veda Partners, said the Trump administration’s improved outcomes probably resulted from the mix of drugs being negotiated and lessons learned from the first year of negotiations.

    Net drug prices are proprietary, he said, but “if we take the administration at their word, I think it demonstrates that they have secured meaningful price concessions for seniors, meaning the Medicare Drug Price Negotiation Program is working as intended.”


    Medicare recipients can’t get GLP-1 drugs for obesity, but the administration is making changes

    The GLP-1 weight-loss drugs that were part of the negotiations have been especially scrutinized for their high out-of-pocket costs. Yet it’s still unclear to what extent Medicare beneficiaries who want to use the drugs to treat obesity will be able to do so.

    Medicare has long been prohibited from paying for weight-loss treatments, but a separate deal recently announced between the Trump administration and two pharmaceutical companies included plans for a pilot program that will expand coverage for the drugs to additional high-risk obese and overweight people.

    The Trump administration this year has also negotiated several unrelated deals with drug companies to lower the cost of their products for the wider population.

    Pharmaceutical companies, meanwhile, have sued over the Medicare drug negotiations enabled by the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and remain opposed to them.

    “Whether it is the IRA or MFN, government price setting for medicines is the wrong policy for America,” Alex Schriver, senior vice president of public affairs at the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, said in a statement. “These flawed policies also threaten future medical innovation by siphoning $300 billion from biopharmaceutical research, undermining the American economy and our ability to compete globally.”

    Next year, Medicare will negotiate prices for another round of 15 drugs, including physician-administered drugs for the first time.

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  • Bangkok Court Issues an Arrest Warrant for Thai Co-Owner of Miss Universe Pageant

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    BANGKOK (AP) — A court in Thailand said Wednesday that it has issued an arrest warrant for a co-owner of the Miss Universe Organization in connection with a fraud case.

    Jakkaphong “Anne” Jakrajutatip was charged with fraud then released on bail in 2023. She failed to appear as required in a Bangkok court on Tuesday. Since she did not notify the court about her absence, she was deemed to be a flight risk, according to a statement from the Bangkok South District Court.

    The court rescheduled the hearing for Dec. 26.

    According to the court’s statement, Jakkaphong and her company, JKN Global Group Public Co. Ltd., were sued for allegedly defrauding Raweewat Maschamadol in selling him the company’s corporate bonds in 2023. Raweewat says the investment caused him to lose 30 million baht ($930,362).

    Financially troubled JKN defaulted on payments to investors beginning in 2023 and began debt rehabilitation procedures with the Central Bankruptcy Court in 2024. The company says it has debts totaling about 3 billion baht ($93 million).

    JKN acquired the rights to the Miss Universe pageant from IMG Worldwide LLC in 2022. In 2023, it sold 50% of its Miss Universe shares to Legacy Holding Group USA, which is owned by a Mexican businessman, Raúl Rocha Cantú.

    Jakkaphong, who is transgender, resigned from all of the company’s positions in June after being accused by Thailand’s Securities and Exchange Commission of falsifying the company’s 2023 financial statements. She remains its largest shareholder.

    Her whereabouts remain unclear. She did not appear at the 74th Miss Universe competition, which was held in Bangkok earlier this month.

    This year’s competition was marred by various problems, including a sharp-tongued scolding by a Thai organizer of Fátima Bosch Fernández of Mexico, who was crowned Miss Universe 2025 on Nov. 19. Two judges reportedly dropped out, with one suggesting that there was an element of rigging to the contest. Separately, Thai police investigated allegations that publicity for the event included illegal promotion of online casinos.

    On Monday, JKN denied rumors that Jakkaphong had liquidated the company’s assets and fled the country, but there has been no immediate reaction regarding the arrest warrant. She could not be reached for comment.

    Jakkaphong is a well-known celebrity in Thailand who has starred in reality shows and is outspoken about her identity as a transgender woman.

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

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  • Asian Shares Mixed After Wall Street Gets a Lift From Hopes for a Fed Rate Cut

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    BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares were mixed on Tuesday after U.S. stocks rallied on hopes the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates soon.

    U.S. futures edged lower and oil prices also declined.

    Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was trading less than 0.1% higher, at 48,644.92, after reopening from a holiday.

    In South Korea, the Kospi also traded in a narrow range and was nearly flat at 3,848.00. Taiwan’s Taiex was up 1.4%.

    Chinese markets advanced. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng climbed 0.6% to 25,875.36, while the Shanghai Composite index jumped 1.1% to 3,880.22.

    E-commerce giant Alibaba, which was due to report its earnings late Tuesday, gained 2.4%.

    Australia’s S&P/ASX gave up 0.2% to 8,510.30.

    U.S. markets will be closed on Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday. A day later, it’s on to the rush of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

    The U.S. stock market rallied on Monday, at the start of a week with shortened trading because of the Thanksgiving holiday.

    The S&P 500 climbed 1.5% to 6,705.12 in one of its best days since the summer. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4% to 46,448.27, and the Nasdaq composite jumped 2.7% to 22,872.01.

    Stocks got a lift from rising hopes that the Fed will cut its main interest rate again at its next meeting in December, a move that could boost the economy and investment prices.

    The market also benefited from strength for stocks caught up in the artificial-intelligence frenzy. Alphabet, which has been getting praise for its newest Gemini AI model, rallied 6.3% and was one of the strongest forces lifting the S&P 500. Nvidia rose 2.1%.

    Despite all the recent fear, the S&P 500 remains within 2.7% of its record set last month.

    Several tests for the market lie ahead this week. One of the biggest will arrive Tuesday when the U.S. government will deliver data on inflation at the wholesale level in September.

    Economists expect it to show a 2.6% rise in prices from a year earlier, the same as in August. A higher-than-expected reading could deter the Fed from cutting its main interest rate in December for a third time this year, because lower rates can worsen inflation. Some Fed officials have already argued against a December cut in part because inflation has stubbornly remained above their 2% target.

    Traders are nevertheless betting on a nearly 85% probability that the Fed will cut rates next month, up from 71% on Friday and from less than a coin flip’s chance seen a week ago, according to data from CME Group.

    In other dealings early Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 28 cents to $58.56 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, shed 33 cents to $62.39 per barrel.

    The dollar fell to 156.81 Japanese yen from 156.91 yen. The euro slipped to $1.1517 from $1.1521.

    Bitcoin fell 1.1% to $88,200. It was near $125,000 last month.

    AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Stan Choe contributed.

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  • Asian Shares Mostly Gain and US Futures Also Advance After Wall St Ends With Gains

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    BANGKOK (AP) — Asian shares were mostly higher and U.S. futures advanced Monday after Wall Street ended on an upbeat note after much drama last week.

    Markets in Japan were closed for a holiday.

    Hong Kong’s benchmark, the Hang Seng, rose 1.3% to 25,550.89. It got a boost from a 4.7% gain for e-commerce giant Alibaba, which has reported strong demand for its new Qwen AI app. Alibaba is due to report earnings on Tuesday.

    The Shanghai Composite index, one of the few regional markets to decline, fell 0.3% to 3,821.68.

    Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 1.1% to 8,507.60

    In South Korea, the Kospi climbed as technology shares settled after a rough few days of volatility spurred by worries over the craze for artificial intelligence will be sustained.

    Taiwan’s Taiex added 0.4% and the Sensex in India edged 0.1% higher.

    The future for the S&P 500 rose 0.6% while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.3%.

    This week, U.S. markets will be closed Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday, which will be followed by the Black Friday and Cyber Monday retail rushes.

    After last week’s ups and downs over AI and Nvidia, traders will focus more on “the backbone of U.S. growth, the consumer, whose spending still drives two-thirds of GDP,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

    Data on the U.S. economy was scarce during the 6-week U.S. government shutdown, leaving investors struggling to parse trends in the economy.

    “This makes any sniff of holiday activity — foot traffic, discount depth, card authorizations — disproportionately important. In a data desert, even a puddle looks like a lake,” he said.

    On Friday, the S&P 500 gained 1% to 6,602.99 and the Dow climbed 1.1% to 46,245.41. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.9% to 22,273.08. Nearly 90% of stocks in the S&P 500 advanced.

    Markets took heart from a speech by the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, John Williams, who told a conference in Chile that he sees “room for a further adjustment” to interest rates.

    In the bond market, Treasury yields eased Friday on hopes for cuts from the Fed. Traders are now betting on a nearly 72% probability of a December cut, up sharply from 39% a day before, according to data from CME Group. That helped send the yield on the 10-year Treasury to 4.06% from 4.10% late Thursday.

    In other dealings early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 6 cents to $58.00 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 4 cents to $61.90 a barrel.

    The U.S. dollar rose to 156.65 Japanese yen from 156.47 yen. The euro edged to $1.1519 from $1.1516.

    Bitcoin was up 3.2% at $87,350. On Friday, it briefly plunged below $81,000 before pulling back toward $85,000. That’s down from nearly $125,000 last month and brought it back to where it was in April, when markets were shaking because of President Donald Trump’s higher tariffs.

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  • Fed won’t get key inflation data before next rate decision as BLS cancels October CPI release

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    The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics is the principal Federal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and price changes in the economy.

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    The Bureau of Labor Statistics said it was canceling the release of the October consumer price index, leaving the Federal Reserve without a key piece of inflation data to ponder when it next decides on interest rates on Dec. 10.

    The CPI data, previously scheduled to be released on Nov. 7, was canceled because the government shutdown made it impossible for the BLS to “retroactively collect” certain parts of survey data, the agency said on its website.

    November’s CPI data, previously scheduled to be released on Dec. 10, will now be released on Dec. 18 after the Fed decision, the BLS said.

    Bureau data collectors compile the index through several methods, including personal visits and phone calls that were not possible during the shutdown. The BLS also uses online data and household surveys that also would make it difficult to retroactively collect information.

    In addition to the Fed announcement, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis said another key inflation measure, the personal consumption expenditures price index, “is to be rescheduled” though no firm date has been announced. The Fed uses the PCE price index as its main inflation forecasting tool. The gauge had been set for release Nov. 26.

    Fed officials have voiced concerns about being in a data fog as they try to formulate monetary policy. The central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee approved a quarter percentage point rate cut in late October, but minutes from the meeting reflected worries over getting an incomplete picture.

    “This is a temporary state of affairs. And we’re going to do our jobs, we’re going to collect every scrap of data we can find, evaluate it, and think carefully about it,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said after the October meeting. “What do you do if you’re driving in the fog? You slow down. … There’s a possibility that it would make sense to be more cautious about moving.”

    However, New York Fed President John Williams said Friday he thinks the Fed probably has “room for a further adjustment in the near term,” implying the likelihood of a cut sometime soon.

    Other Fed officials, such as Governor Christopher Waller, have said policymakers still have enough information to make informed decisions, even with the data drought from the shutdown.

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  • Eurovision Plans Changes to Voting, Security After Allegations of Israeli Government ‘Interference’

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    GENEVA (AP) — Organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest announced plans to change the voting system of the popular musical extravaganza to ensure fairness, a move that follows allegations of “interference” by Israel’s government.

    The European Broadcasting Union, a Geneva-based union of public broadcasters that runs the event, said Friday that the changes were “designed to strengthen trust, transparency and audience engagement.”

    Israel has competed in Eurovision for more than 50 years and won four times. But calls for Israel to be kicked out swelled over the conduct of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza.

    The allegations of Israeli government interference have added a new twist to the debate.

    In September, Dutch public broadcaster AVROTROS — citing human suffering in the Gaza war — said that it could no longer justify Israel’s participation in the contest. Several other countries took a similar stance.

    The Dutch broadcaster went on to say there had been “proven interference by the Israeli government during the last edition of the Song Contest, with the event being used as a political instrument.” The statement didn’t elaborate.

    That same month, the CEO of Israeli public broadcaster Kan, Golan Yochpaz, said that there was “no reason why we should not continue to be a significant part of this cultural event, which must not become political.”

    Kan also said then that it was “convinced” that the EBU “will continue to maintain the apolitical, professional and cultural character of the competition, especially on the eve of the 70th anniversary of Eurovision” next year.

    As part of the new Eurovision measures, in next year’s contest — scheduled to take place in May in Vienna — the number of votes per payment method will be reduced by half to 10, the EBU said.

    In addition, “professional juries” will return to the semifinals for the first time since 2022 — a move that will give roughly 50-50 percentage weight between audience and jury votes, it said.

    Organizers will also enhance safeguards to thwart “suspicious or coordinated voting activity” and strengthen security systems that “monitor, detect and prevent fraudulent patterns,” EBU said.

    Contest director Martin Green said that the neutrality and integrity of the competition is of “paramount importance” to the EBU, its members, and audiences, adding that the event “should remain a neutral space and must not be instrumentalized.”

    The EBU’s general assembly on Dec. 4-5 is poised to consider whether Israel can participate next year. A vote on that participation will only take place if member broadcasters decide the new steps are “not sufficient,” Green said.

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  • US Transportation Department Endorses a Female Crash Test Dummy That More Closely Resembles Women

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    The U.S. government on Thursday released a new crash test dummy design that advocates believe will help make cars safer for women.

    The Department of Transportation will consider using the dummy in the government’s vehicle crash test five star-ratings once a final rule is adopted, the agency said in a news release.

    Women are 73% more likely to be injured in a head-on crash, and they are 17% more likely to be killed in a car crash, than men.

    The standard crash test dummy used in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration five-star vehicle testing was developed in 1978 and was modeled after a 5-foot-9 (175-centimeter), 171-pound (78-kilogram) man. The female dummy is smaller and has a rubber jacket to represent breasts. It’s routinely tested in the passenger or back seat but seldom in the driver’s seat, even though the majority of licensed drivers are women.

    The new female dummy endorsed by the department more accurately reflects differences between men and women, including the shape of the neck, collarbone, pelvis, and legs. It’s outfitted with more than 150 sensors, the department said.

    Some American automakers have been skeptical, arguing the new model may exaggerate injury risks and undercut the value of some safety features such as seat belts and airbags.

    Lawmakers and transportation secretaries from the past two presidential administrations have expressed support for new crash test rules and safety requirements but developments have been slow.

    U.S. Sens. Deb Fischer, a Republican from Nebraska, and Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois, both released statements welcoming the female crash test dummy announcement.

    “Any progress here is good because there’s simply no good reason why women are more likely to be injured or die in car crashes,” Duckworth said.

    Fischer introduced legislation, the She Drives Act, that would require the most advanced testing devices available, including a female crash test dummy. Duckworth is a co-sponsor.

    “It’s far past time to make these testing standards permanent, which will help save thousands of lives and make America’s roads safer for all drivers,” Fischer said.

    The department said the new specifications will be available for manufacturers to build models and for the automotive industry to begin testing them in vehicles.

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  • Trump Administration Announces Plan for New Oil Drilling off the Coasts of California and Florida

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration announced on Thursday new oil drilling off the California and Florida coasts for the first time in decades, advancing a project that critics say could harm coastal communities and ecosystems, as President Donald Trump seeks to expand U.S. oil production.

    The oil industry has been seeking access to new offshore areas, including Southern California and off the coast of Florida, as a way to boost U.S. energy security and jobs. The federal government has not allowed drilling in federal waters in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, which includes offshore Florida and part of offshore Alabama, since 1995, because of concerns about oil spills. California has some offshore oil rigs, but there has been no new leasing in federal waters since the mid-1980s.

    Since taking office for a second time in January, Trump has systematically reversed former President Joe Biden’s focus on slowing climate change to pursue what the Republican calls U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market. Trump, who recently called climate change “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” created a National Energy Dominance Council and directed it to move quickly to drive up already record-high U.S. energy production, particularly fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas.

    Meanwhile, Trump’s administration has blocked renewable energy sources such as offshore wind and canceled billions of dollars in grants that supported hundreds of clean energy projects across the country.

    Even before it was released, the offshore drilling plan has been met with strong opposition from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is eyeing a 2028 presidential run and has emerged as a leading Trump critic. Newsom pronounced the idea “dead on arrival” in a social media post. The proposal also is likely to draw bipartisan opposition in Florida. Tourism and access to clean beaches are key parts of the economy in both states.


    Plans to allow drilling off California, Alaska and Florida’s coast

    The administration’s plan proposes six offshore lease sales off the coast of California.

    It also calls for new drilling off the coast of Florida in areas at least 100 miles from that state’s shore. The area targeted for leasing is adjacent to an area in the Central Gulf of Mexico that already contains thousands of wells and hundreds of drilling platforms.

    The five-year plan also would compel more than 20 lease sales off the coast of Alaska, including a newly designated area known as the High Arctic, more than 200 miles offshore in the Arctic Ocean.

    All offshore areas “with the potential to generate jobs, new revenue and additional production to advance America’s energy dominance should be considered for inclusion,” the American Petroleum Institute and other groups said in a joint letter to the Trump administration in June.

    The groups cited California’s history as an oil-producing state. “Undiscovered resources could be readily produced given the array of existing infrastructure in the area, particularly in southern California,” the letter said.


    Opposition from California and Florida

    Sen. Rick Scott, a Florida Republican and Trump ally, helped persuade Trump officials to drop a similar offshore plan in 2018 when he was governor. Last week, Scott and fellow Florida Republican Sen. Ashley Moody’ co-sponsored a bill to maintain a moratorium on offshore drilling in the state that Trump signed in his first term.

    “As Floridians, we know how vital our beautiful beaches and coastal waters are to our state’s economy, environment and way of life,″ Scott said in a statement. “I will always work to keep Florida’s shores pristine and protect our natural treasures for generations to come.”

    A Newsom spokesman said Trump officials had not formally shared the plan, but said “expensive and riskier offshore drilling would put our communities at risk and undermine the economic stability of our coastal economies.”

    California has been a leader in restricting offshore oil drilling since the infamous 1969 Santa Barbara spill that helped spark the modern environmental movement. While there have been no new federal leases offered since the mid-1980s, drilling from existing platforms continues.

    Newsom expressed support for greater offshore controls after a 2021 spill off Huntington Beach and has backed a congressional effort to ban new offshore drilling on the West Coast.

    A Texas-based company, with support from the Trump administration, is seeking to restart production in waters off Santa Barbara damaged by a 2015 oil spill. The administration has hailed the plan by Houston-based Sable Offshore Corp. as the kind of project Trump wants to increase U.S. energy production as the federal government removes regulatory barriers.

    Trump signed an executive order on the first day of his second term reversing former President Joe Biden’s ban on future offshore oil drilling on the East and West coasts. A federal court later struck down Biden’s order to withdraw 625 million acres of federal waters from oil development.


    Environmental and economic concerns over oil spills

    Democratic lawmakers, including California Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff and Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, warned that opening vast coastlines to new offshore drilling “would devastate coastal economies, jeopardize our national security, ravage coastal ecosystems, and put millions of Americans’ health and safety at risk.”

    Oil spills “not only cause irreparable environmental damage, but also suppress the value of coastal homes, harm tourism economies and weaken coastal infrastructure,” the lawmakers said in a letter signed by dozens of Democrats. One disastrous oil spill can cost taxpayers billions in lost revenue, cleanup costs and ecosystem restoration, they said.

    Joseph Gordon, campaign director for the environmental group Oceana, called the Trump administration’s latest plan “an oil spill nightmare.”

    Coastal communities “depend on healthy oceans for economic security and their cherished way of life,” he said. “We need to protect our coasts from more offshore drilling, not put them up for sale to the oil and gas industry. There’s too much at stake to risk more horrific oil spills that will haunt our coastlines for generations to come.”

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  • Research Reports & Trade Ideas – Yahoo Finance

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    Analyst Report: Williams-Sonoma, Inc.

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  • US Homes Sales Rose in October as Homebuyers Seized on Declining Mortgage Rates

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    Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes increased last month to the fastest pace since February as lower mortgage rates helped pull more homebuyers into the market.

    Existing home sales rose 1.2% in October from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.10 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday.

    Sales climbed 1.7% compared with October last year. The latest sales figure topped the roughly 4.09 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.

    The national median sales price increased 2.1% in October from a year earlier to $415,200, an all-time high for any October on data going back to 1999. Home prices have risen on an annual basis for 28 months in a row.

    Sales have remained sluggish this year, but have gotten a boost this fall as the average rate on a 30-year mortgage declined to its lowest level in more than a year.

    Even so, affordability and uncertainty over the economy and job market remain significant hurdles for many aspiring homeowners after years of skyrocketing home prices.

    That’s kept existing U.S. home sales stuck at around a 4-million annual pace going back to 2023. Historically, sales have typically hovered around 5.2 million a year.

    To close that gap will take a drastic increase in the number of homes on the market and a more meaningful decline in mortgage rates, said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist, whose 2026 forecast calls for a 14% increase in home sales.

    “I don’t think we will get there next year,” Yun said. “We need 1 million more home sales to get us back to normal. I’m only looking at an additional half-million home sales next year.”

    Homes purchased last month likely went under contract in August and September, when the average rate on a 30-year mortgage ranged from 6.63% to 6.26%, according to Freddie Mac. The decline in mortgage rates accelerated in October, pulling the average rate down to 6.17% — its lowest level since Oct. 3, 2024. It has ticked higher in the weeks since then.

    Home shoppers who can afford to buy at current mortgage rates are benefiting from a wider selection of properties on the market this year than a year ago.

    There were 1.52 million unsold homes at the end of last month, down 0.7% from September and up 10.9% from October last year, NAR said. However, the latest inventory snapshot remains well below the roughly 2 million homes for sale that was typical before the COVID-19 pandemic.

    “To the degree pre-Covid conditions were more normal, we are still tight on inventory,” said Yun.

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  • Asian Shares Surge as Nvidia’s Strong Quarterly Earnings Lift Sentiments

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    MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Most Asian shares surged on Thursday after Nvidia reported stronger than expected quarterly earnings, soothing worries that AI-driven stock prices may have shot too high.

    U.S. futures and oil prices were higher.

    Japan’s Nikkei 225 index initially surged as much as 4.2% before giving up some early gains. By early afternoon, it was up 2.6% at 49,801.81 as technology stocks rallied, with investor sentiment boosted by Nvidia’s report of $57 billion in quarterly revenue after trading closed in the U.S., significantly above expectations.

    South Korea’s Kospi added 3% to 4,047.57, with gains led by technology and energy stocks. Investors were encouraged by Nvidia’s earnings and reports that the U.S. may delay planned semiconductor tariffs.

    Samsung Electronics gained 6.1%, while SK Hynix added 3.5%.

    Chinese markets saw more modest gains. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index edged 0.1% higher to 25,867.87, while the Shanghai Composite index added 0.4% to 3,961.71. Taiwan’s Taiex rose 3.2%.

    Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 1.2% to 8,546.10, also led by gains for technology stocks.

    The S&P 500 rose 0.4% after veering between a small loss and a leap of 1.1% earlier in the day. That broke a four-day losing streak, the longest in nearly three months for the index, which has been shaking because of worries that stock prices have shot too high and that the Federal Reserve may not deliver as many cuts to interest rates as expected.

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 47 points, or 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.6%.

    Constellation Energy led the market and rallied 5.3% after the U.S. Department of Energy said it’s lending $1 billion to help restart Constellation’s nuclear power plant at Three Mile Island. Lowe’s rose 4% after the home-improvement retailer reported a stronger profit for the summer than analysts expected.

    They helped offset a 2.8% drop for Target, which reported weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The retailer also hinted that challenges may continue through the critical holiday shopping season.

    The market’s focus, though, remained on Nvidia. Wall Street’s most influential stock climbed 2.8% as traders made their final moves ahead of the chip company’s latest profit report, which arrived after trading finished for the day. Nvidia surged 5.1% in after-hours trading.

    Nvidia is now the largest stock on Wall Street, having briefly topped $5 trillion in value. That means its movements have more of an effect on the S&P 500 than any other stock, and it can single-handedly steer the index’s direction some days.

    One way Nvidia can quiet criticism that it shot too high, which has dragged its stock down by roughly 10% from late last month, is to keep delivering bigger profits. That’s because stock prices tend to track profits over the long term.

    Nvidia has become a bellwether for the broader frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology, because other companies are using its chips to ramp up their AI efforts

    Traders also made their final moves ahead of a September jobs report coming from the U.S. government on Thursday.

    The job market has been slowing enough this year that the Fed has already cut its main interest rate twice. Lower rates can give a boost to the economy and to prices for investments, and the expectation on Wall Street had been for more cuts, including at the Fed’s next meeting in December.

    In other dealings on Thursday, US benchmark crude oil added 16 cents to $59.41 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, edged 16 cents higher to $63.67 per barrel.

    The U.S. dollar rose to 157.32 Japanese yen from 157.15 yen. it has been trading at nearly the highest level this year on expectations that the government will delay efforts to rein in Japan’s national debt as Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi raises spending to help spur the economy.

    The euro fell to $1.1520 from $1.1538.

    AP Business Writers Stan Choe and Matt Ott contributed.

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