Home Depot was about to launch something big — really big — when the pandemic hit in the spring of 2020: a 12-foot skeleton.
“There were a lot of internal discussions. It was like, is there going to be Halloween this year?” said Lance Allen, senior merchant of decorative holiday at Home Depot. “Are customers going to think this is in poor taste? Should we go forward with it?’”
Home Depot did. And the towering skeleton arrived at the perfect time.
“Nobody could possibly need a 12-foot skeleton, but everybody wanted a 12-foot skeleton,” Allen said.
The retailer’s gamble upped the game for decorations. A population stuck at home and wanting some semblance of community entertainment created a Halloween phenomenon that’s now bigger than any one store. (Others carry various versions of the larger-than-life skeleton.)
And as stores race to get the latest and greatest Halloween score out as soon as possible, superfans say it’s about time.
Halloween is celebrated earlier
Home Depot’s 12-foot skeleton is affectionately known by fans across the internet and globe as “Skelly.” When Skelly was launched, the thinking was that he’d be out for a week or two leading up to Halloween night, Allen said, the usual consumer behavior observed at the time.
But the pandemic changed that timeline.
“Everybody started decorating in early October for something to do,” Allen said. “And we’ve really seen a shift in the market where now people are decorating for Halloween how we’ve seen with Christmas historically, planning out decorations five to six weeks, two months ahead of time.”
Mak Ralston, a Halloween fanatic known as Haunt Former on YouTube, who posts Halloween videos year-round, has noticed the shift.
“There used to be a kind of a calendar as to when I would expect things to come out in stores,” Ralston said, noting that orange and black and witches and skeletons used to roll in at the start of September, maybe mid-August.
“This year, I saw some stuff in stores for Halloween in June, early July,” he said. “It’s never been earlier.”
For some, it’s always Halloween
“Some average people who aren’t as invested don’t realize that for people who are really committed to both Halloween and the horror culture, they’re in it to win it like all year,” Ralston said.
“I can post a video about a horror movie or about a Halloween mask that’s coming out in October in February, and people eat it up,” he said.
Nate Rambaud, known as That Guy Nate on Youtube, started his channel by posting videos of abandoned stores such as Toys R Us, a niche interest on the video-sharing platform. Now with more than 440,000 subscribers, his bread and butter is a more spooky niche. He posts videos touring Spirit Halloween locations, which often occupy abandoned stores.
Rambaud has been to well over 300 Spirit Halloween locations in all 50 states.
“Halloween is so easy to attach to. It doesn’t require anybody else whatsoever,” said Rambaud.
Christmas “kind of requires other people, your family. You’re out buying stuff for people. And then kids sit around and wait for Christmas — that’s really all they can do for Christmas,” he said. “But Halloween — anyone can associate with Halloween and you can do it any time all the time.”
As a result of the year-round party, Skelly’s had some work done for his fifth birthday. Allen said the new Skellys for sale this season will have more UV additive to hold up against the sun longer, along with a more durable resin mixture to withstand colder temperatures. And he now has a dog.
“People are taking the skeletons on dates. They’re going out to the beach, he’s playing in the sand,” Allen said. “We’ve seen him at weddings.”
“A lot of times people will say, ‘I know this is not as good as everyone else’s, but I wanted to share this,’” Humphrey said. Group members join to find like-minded fans, he said, “but let’s be honest, people want to show off.”
Why are so many people so wild about Halloween?
Perhaps it all has to do with a fundamental part of the holiday: children.
Humphrey was out painting his fence recently when a girl walked by. She told him his house always has the best decorations.
“I didn’t realize kids memorize that. And that’s really kind of a badge of honor,” Humphrey said. ”Also, like, great, now I have no choice, I’m going to make sure I do a great job.”
Ralston recalled that growing up, he was the kid who carried around a skeleton instead of a teddy bear.
And Rambaud, whose videos showcase Halloween animatronics worth hundreds of dollars, remembers a simpler time from his childhood that helped spark his love for Halloween.
“My dad used to make what he would call a spook tunnel. He would take cardboard boxes, like refrigerator boxes, and he put them all together and made a maze that we had to crawl through,” he said. ”That was our little haunted house.”
To Humphrey, the holiday’s appeal can be summarized this way:
“Halloween is an extrovert day for introverts,” he said. “Why wouldn’t you want to celebrate that?”
Thinner benefits and coverage changes await many older Americans shopping for health insurance this fall. That’s if their plan is even still available in 2025.
More than a million people will probably have to find new coverage as major insurers cut costs and pull back from markets for Medicare Advantage plans, the privately run version of the federal government’s coverage program mostly for people ages 65 and older.
Industry experts also predict some price increases for Medicare prescription drug plans as required coverage improvements kick in.
“This could be bad news for Vice President Harris. If that premium is going up, that’s a very obvious sign that you’re paying more,” said Massey Whorley, an analyst for health care consulting company Avalere. “That has significant implications for how they’re viewing the performance of the current administration.”
Insurance agents say the distraction of the election adds another complication to an already challenging annual enrollment window that starts next month.
Insurers are pulling back from Medicare Advantage
Medicare Advantage plans will cover more than 35 million people next year, or around half of all people enrolled in Medicare, according to the federal government. Insurance agents say they expect more people than usual will have to find new coverage for 2025 because their insurer has either ended a plan or left their market.
The health insurer Humana expects more than half a million customers — about 10% of its total — to be affected as it pulls Medicare Advantage plans from places around the country. Many customers will be able to transfer to other Humana plans, but company leaders still anticipate losing a few hundred thousand customers.
CVS Health’s Aetna projects a similar loss, and other big insurers have said they are leaving several states.
Insurers say rising costs and care use, along with reimbursement cuts from the government, are forcing them to pull back.
Some people can expect a tough search
When insurers leave Medicare Advantage markets, they tend to stop selling plans that have lower quality ratings and those with a higher proportion of Black buyers, said Dr. Amal Trivedi, a Brown University public health researcher.
He noted that market exits can be particularly hard on people with several doctors and on patients with cognitive trouble like dementia.
Most markets will still have dozens of plan choices. But finding a new option involves understanding out-of-pocket costs for each choice, plus figuring out how physicians and regular prescriptions are covered.
“People don’t like change when it comes to health insurance because you don’t know what’s on the other side of the fence,” said Tricia Neuman, a Medicare expert at KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care.
Plans that don’t leave markets may raise deductibles and trim perks like cards used to pay for utilities or food.
Those proved popular in recent years as inflation rose, said Danielle Roberts, co-founder of the Fort Worth, Texas, insurance agency Boomer Benefits.
“It’s really difficult for a person on a fixed income to choose a health plan for the right reasons … when $900 on a flex card in free groceries sounds pretty good,” she said.
Don’t “sleep” on picking a Medicare plan
Prices also could rise for some so-called standalone Part D prescription drug plans, which people pair with traditional Medicare coverage. KFF says that population includes more than 13 million people.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Friday that premiums for these plans will decrease about 4% on average to $40 next year.
But brokers and agents say premiums can vary widely, and they still expect some increases. They also expect fewer plan choices and changes to formularies, or lists of covered drugs. Roberts said she has already seen premium hikes of $30 or more from some plans for next year.
Any price shift will hit a customer base known to switch plans for premium changes as small as $1, said Fran Soistman, CEO of the online insurance marketplace eHealth.
The changes come as a congressional-approved coverage overhaul takes hold. Most notably, out-of-pocket drug costs will be capped at $2,000 for those on Medicare, an effort championed by Democrats and President Joe Biden in 2022.
In the long run, these changes will lead to a “much richer benefit,” Whorley said.
KFF’s Neuman noted that the cap on drug costs will be especially helpful to cancer patients and others with expensive prescriptions. She estimates about 1.5 million people will benefit.
To ward off big premium spikes because of the changes, the Biden administration will pull billions of dollars from the Medicare trust fund to pay insurers to keep premium prices down, a move some Republicans have criticized. Insurers will not be allowed to raise premium prices beyond $35 next year.
People will be able to sign up for 2025 coverage between Oct. 15 and Dec. 7. Experts say all the potential changes make it important for shoppers to study closely any new choices or coverage they expect to renew.
“This is not a year to sleep on it, just re-enroll in the status quo,” said Whorley, the health care analyst.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Private equity firms Vista Equity Partners and Blackstone are buying software maker Smartsheet for approximately $8.4 billion in cash.
Vista and Blackstone said Tuesday that they will pay $56.50 per Smartsheet Inc. share. The agreement includes a 45-day “go-shop” period during which Smartsheet and its advisers seek alternative acquisition proposals from certain third parties and possibly enter into talks with other parties that make alternative offers. Smartsheet’s board will have the right to end the deal with Vista and Blackstone to accept a superior proposal. The go-shop period expires on Nov. 8.
“We look forward to partnering closely with Blackstone and Smartsheet to support its ambitious goal of making its platform accessible for every organization, team and worker relying on collaborative work to achieve successful outcomes,” Monti Saroya, co-head of Vista’s Flagship Fund and senior managing director, and John Stalder, managing director at Vista, said in a statement.
The announcement comes shortly after the Federal Reserve said that it cut its benchmark interest rate by an unusually large half-point. The central bank’s action lowered its key rate to roughly 4.8%, down from a two-decade high of 5.3%. A rate cut gives more favorable conditions for businesses looking at making acquisitions.
The deal, which was approved by Smartsheet’s board, is expected to close in the company’s fiscal fourth quarter. It still needs approval from Smartsheet’s shareholders.
Once the transaction closes, Smartsheet will become privately held. The Bellevue, Washington company will continue to run under the Smartsheet name and brand.
NEW YORK (AP) — The Commerce Department said Monday it’s seeking a ban on the sale of connected and autonomous vehicles in the U.S. that are equipped with Chinese and Russian software and hardware with the stated goal of protecting national security and U.S. drivers.
While there is minimal Chinese and Russian software deployed in the U.S, the issue is more complicated for hardware. There are more Chinese parts on U.S. vehicles than software, and software can be changed much faster than physical parts.
Replacing hardware also could require complex engineering and assembly line changes. That’s why Commerce officials said the prohibitions on the software would take effect for the 2027 model year and the prohibitions on hardware would take effect for the model year of 2030, or Jan. 1, 2029, for units without a model year.
The measure announced Monday is proactive but critical, the agency said, given that all the bells and whistles in cars like microphones, cameras, GPS tracking and Bluetooth technology could make Americans more vulnerable to bad actors and potentially expose personal information, from the home address of drivers, to where their children go to school.
In extreme situations, a foreign adversary could shut down or take simultaneous control of multiple vehicles operating in the United States, causing crashes and blocking roads, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told reporters on a call Sunday.
“This is not about trade or economic advantage,” Raimondo said. “This is a strictly national security action. The good news is right now, we don’t have many Chinese or Russian cars on our road.”
But Raimondo said Europe and other regions in the world where Chinese vehicles have become commonplace very quickly should serve as “a cautionary tale” for the U.S.
Security concerns around the extensive software-driven functions in Chinese vehicles have arisen in Europe, where Chinese electric cars have rapidly gained market share.
Imported Chinese-owned vehicle brands had 7.6% of the market for electric vehicles in Europe in 2023, more than doubling from 2.9% in 2020, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. The share of all electric vehicles imported from China is still higher when Western-owned brands manufactured in China, such as BMW and Tesla are included: some 21.7%.
“Who controls these data flows and software updates is a far from trivial question, the answers to which encroach on matters of national security, cybersecurity, and individual privacy,” Janka Oertel, director of the Asia program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on the council’s website.
Vehicles are now “mobility platforms” that monitor driver and passenger behavior and track their surroundings.
A senior administration official said that it is clear from terms of service contracts included with the technology that data from vehicles ends up in China.
Raimondo said that the U.S. won’t wait until its roads are populated with Chinese or Russian cars.
“We’re issuing a proposed rule to address these new national security threats before suppliers, automakers and car components linked to China or Russia become commonplace and widespread in the U.S. automotive sector,” Raimondo said.
It is difficult to know when China could reach that level of saturation, a senior adminstration official said, but the Commerce Department says China hopes to enter the U.S. market and several Chinese companies have already announced plans to enter the automotive software space.
The Commerce Department added Russia to the regulations since the country is trying to “breathe new life into its auto industry,” senior administration officials said on the call.
The proposed rule would prohibit the import and sale of vehicles with Russia and China-manufactured software and hardware that would allow the vehicle to communicate externally through Bluetooth, cellular, satellite or Wi-Fi modules. It would also prohibit the sale or import of software components made in Russia or the People’s Republic of China that collectively allow a highly autonomous vehicle to operate without a driver behind the wheel. The ban would include vehicles made in the U.S. using Chinese and Russian technology.
The proposed rule would apply to all vehicles, but would exclude those not used on public roads, such as agricultural or mining vehicles.
U.S. automakers said they share the government’s national security goal, but at present there is little connected vehicle hardware or software coming to the U.S. supply chain from China.
Yet the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a large industry group, said the new rules will make some automakers scramble for new parts suppliers. “You can’t just flip a switch and change the world’s most complex supply chain overnight,” John Bozzella, the alliance’s CEO, said in a statement.
The lead time in the new rules will be long enough for some automakers to make the changes, “but may be too short for others,” Bozzella said.
Commerce officials met with all the major auto companies around the world while it drafted the proposed rule to better understand supply chain networks, according to senior administration officials, and also met with a variety of industry associations.
The Commerce Department is inviting public comments, which are due 30 days after publication of a rule before it’s finalized. That should happen by the end of the Biden Administration.
The new rule follows steps taken earlier this month by the Biden administration to crack down on cheap products sold out of China, including electric vehicles, expanding a push to reduce U.S. dependence on Beijing and bolster homegrown industry.
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AP Business Writers David McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, and Tom Krisher in Detroit contributed to this report.
General Motors is now offering adapters to help its electric vehicle owners access Tesla chargers.
The Detroit automaker said Wednesday that it is opening up access to more than 17,800 Tesla Superchargers for its customers, with the use of a GM approved NACS DC adapter. Customers in the United States will be able to buy the adapter for $225 through GM vehicle brand mobile apps.
By using the Tesla Supercharger network, GM EV vehicle owners will have access to more than 231,800 public Level 2 and DC fast chargers in North America.
“Enabling access to even more publicly available fast chargers represents yet another way GM is focused on further improving the customer experience and making the transition to electric more seamless,” Wade Sheffer, vice president of GM Energy, said in a statement.
Last year the White House announced that Tesla would make some of its charging stations available to all U.S. electric vehicles by the end of 2024. The plan was to make at least 7,500 chargers from Tesla’s Supercharger and Destination Charger network available to non-Tesla EVs by this year, the White House said.
The plan to open the nation’s largest and most reliable charging network to all drivers is a potential game-changer in promoting EV use, a key component of President Joe Biden’s pledge to fight climate change. Biden has set a goal that 50% of new U.S. car sales be electric by 2030, and he has promised to install 500,000 chargers across America and build a network of fast-charging stations across 53,000 miles of freeways from coast to coast.
GM said that approved NACS DC adapters will be made available to U.S. customers first, followed by Canadian customers later this year.
The company is not the only automaker to start using Tesla’s network. In February Ford announced that its EV owners could use much of Tesla’s network, as long as they used an adapter that the company provided for free and began shipping in March. Rivian said in 2023 that it would be joining Tesla’s network this year, with existing vehicles needing an adapter. The company said at the time that vehicles made in 2025 and beyond would come standard with a Tesla charging port.
Coco loved being the life of the party — cracking jokes, doing pranks and making people laugh, her mom, Julianna Arnold, recalled recently.
“Her favorite pastime was fashion,” Arnold said. “She didn’t like looking at magazines or going to fancy stores, but preferred to make her own creations from used clothing she would find at thrift stores…. And they always looked fabulous on her.”
In 2022, two weeks after she turned 17, Coco left home just outside New York City to meet with a dealer she’d messaged through Instagram who promised to sell her Percocet. She never made it home. She was found dead the next day, two blocks from the address that the guy had provided her.
Whatever the dealer gave Coco, her mother said, was not Percocet. It was a fake pill laced with fentanyl, which can be lethal in a dose as small as the tip of a pencil.
Fentanyl overdoses have become a leading cause of death for minors in the last five years or so, even as overall drug use has dropped slightly. In a 2022 analysis of fentanyl-laced prescription pills, the DEA found that six out of 10 contained a potentially lethal dose of the drug.
And social media, where tainted, fake prescription drugs can be obtained with just a few clicks, is a big part of the problem. Experts, law enforcement and children’s advocates say companies like Snap, TikTok, Telegram and Meta Platforms, which owns Instagram, are not doing enough to keep children safe.
A few taps away
The stories of these victims often play out similarly: The kids hear you can get pills on social media. A few taps later and then a package arrives. They retreat to the sanctity of their bedroom and take a pill. Fifteen minutes later, they’re dead. No one even knows until the next morning.
Paul DelPonte, executive director and CEO of the National Crime Prevention Council, likened this crisis to a Johnson & Johnson incident in 1982 when seven people died due to Tylenol bottles that had been tampered with. In that case, J&J recalled all bottles and stopped production until they discovered the source of the problem.
“As a result, we now have tamper-resistant caps on over-the-counter medicines and in other products. That’s corporate responsibility,” he said. “For years, social media companies have known this has been happening, yet they continue to operate their platforms without any significant changes.”
While data on the prevalence of drug sales on social platforms is hard to come by, the National Crime Prevention Council estimates 80% of teen and young adult fentanyl poisoning deaths can be traced to some social media contact.
In a sweeping 2023 report on the problem, Colorado’s attorney general called the availability of fentanyl and other illicit substances online “staggering.”
“Due to their ubiquity, convenience, and lack of regulation, social media platforms have become a major venue for drug distribution,” the report said. “Where once a teen might have had to seek out a street dealer, hassle friends, or learn to navigate the dark web to access illicit drugs, young people can now locate drug dealers using their smartphones — with the relative ease of ordering food delivery or calling a ride-share service.”
Accidental overdoses in the U.S. have decreased slightly each year since 2021 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. DelPonte attributes this in part to more education and awareness about the issue. Among young people ages 0 to 19, there were 1,622 overdose deaths in 2021, then 1,590 in 2022, and 1,511 last year.
The decline, DelPonte said, is “very small.”
A decade ago, people looking to buy illicit drugs online would visit the dark web. But this was quickly eclipsed by social media and messaging platforms’ rise. Using popular social media sites, encrypted chats, legitimate payment and shipping services, dealers moved into the light. Social platforms say they are constantly working to address the issue, while law enforcement has made some inroads.
Last May, for instance, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s “Operation Last Mile,” targeting Mexico’s Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartels, led to 3,337 arrests and the seizure of nearly 44 million fentanyl pills and other deadly drugs. More than 1,100 associated cases involved social media apps and encrypted communications platforms, the DEA said.
On Instagram, as recently as this summer, a simple hashtag search for popular prescription drugs brought up numerous results with accounts offering to sell illicit pills to anyone looking. Many accounts directed users to Snapchat or Telegram, where experts say encryption and alleged lax moderation make it even easier to engage in illegal activity. Money is sent through payment platforms and the drugs can be delivered by mail, DelPonte said.
Meta, for its part, has made it more difficult to search for drugs on its platform in recent weeks.
‘Never in a million years’
Mikayla Brown sits for a photo in the room of her son, Elijah, who died of a fentanyl overdose at 15, in Atascadero, Calif., Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, as two of his skateboards hang on the wall. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Mikayla Brown lost her son Elijah, who went by Eli, to a suspected fentanyl overdose in 2023, two weeks after his 15th birthday. Eli loved skateboarding, video games and cooking. His favorite was spicy Cajun pasta his mom made and he just started to get into cooking himself.
Eli began experimenting with marijuana in high school and he was going through what seemed like a phase many teenagers go through, his mom said. The family decided he’d go live with his biological father about three hours away in Woodland Hills in Los Angeles, to try to get a handle on what Brown called Eli’s “rebellion era.”
Brown said the family “never in a million years” would have thought he was getting into anything more dangerous than that. There was one exception, about a year before he passed away, his mom found him acting funny and he admitted to having taken Xanax, a prescription anti-anxiety drug.
On a September evening last year, Eli arrived home from a friend’s house, had dinner with his dad and stayed up late to watch a movie.
His father sent him to bed around “2 a.m., I guess,” Brown said. “And then when his alarm went off in the morning to wake up Eli for school he found him in his room…”
Eli was unresponsive. His cause of death was accidental fentanyl overdose. But he wasn’t trying to buy fentanyl, he was looking for Xanax, and, like Coco, ended up with tainted pills that killed him.
A framed photo of Elijah Ott, who died of a fentanyl overdose at 15, stands next to a vase of flowers as his mother, Mikayla Brown, works in the kitchen in Atascadero, Calif., Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
With his stepson’s name tattooed below his ear, Tyler Brown, stepfather of Elijah Ott, who died of a fentanyl overdose at 15, looks at a park bench dedicated to Elijah in Paso Robles, Calif., Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Until recently, a search for #Xanax on Instagram led to a warning page specifying that “This may be associated with the sale of drugs” and that the “sale, purchase of trade of illicit drugs can cause harm to yourself and others and is illegal in most countries.” A blue “Get help” link directed users to federal substance abuse resources. Underneath that link, users could click to “see results anyway.” After it was pointed out by the AP, the company quickly removed the ability to “see results anyway” for location-specific hashtags such as #xanaxdallas or #xanaxchicago. Later, it also removed the “see results” option entirely for common drugs such as Xanax, cocaine and Adderall, among others.
Meta also said it investigated accounts shared by The Associated Press and concluded they were not drug dealers, but financial scam artists based in Africa pretending to sell drugs locally.
Meta says it blocks and filters “hundreds” of terms associated with illicit drug sales and links to recovery and substance abuse resources when possible. But drug dealers and other bad actors constantly shift their strategies, coming up with fresh ways to avoid detection.
David Decary-Hetu, a professor at the School of Criminology at the University of Montreal, said Meta, in particular, has been “quite effective” in targeting people who sell drugs on its social platforms. But, he added, “it doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen.”
In a statement, Meta said drug dealers “are criminals who stop at nothing to sell their dangerous products. This is a challenge that spans across platforms, industries, and communities, and it requires all of us working together to address it.”
The company added that it works with law enforcement and proactively took down 2 million pieces of content, 99.7% before they were reported in the first three months of 2024.
“Our hearts go out to the families suffering at the hands of these criminals and we are committed to working with others to prevent these tragedies,” Meta added.
Mikayla Brown, left, comforts her son, Jax, as they stand in front of a park bench dedicated to her son, Elijah Ott, who died of a fentanyl overdose at 15, in Paso Robles, Calif., Friday, Aug. 2, 2024. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
A persistent problem
Coco’s mother had many discussions with her daughter about being careful online.
The teen was in therapy — social media really affected her and she developed anxiety and depression, Arnold said. She frequently checked Coco’s social media and limited her time on Snapchat to 15 minutes per day.
“She knew about a lot of this stuff. We had talked about it. But then when this came up on Instagram, you know, I wasn’t checking and I couldn’t check all of her direct messages. It’s hard to know as a parent, no matter how on top of it you are,” she said.
Coco’s death is still under investigation, Arnold said.
Arnold said it took five months to remove the dealer’s profile from Instagram. Occasionally, she checks to see if he’s there under another name.
“I typed in something that I thought maybe could work, you know, based on what his previous handle had been. And there he was. He was back up under a different a different handle,” she said. “But I recognized his photo and I reported it to the police. And now again, it’s taking months to get it taken down.”
Experts often single out Snapchat as a particularly dangerous platform, something the company vehemently disagrees with. In October 2022, a group of parents who say their children bought fentanyl from drug dealers they met through Snapchat sued the company for wrongful death and negligence, calling it a “haven for drug trafficking.”
“Despite Snap promoting and portraying Snapchat as a ‘goofy’ app for kids to use to send each other silly pictures, its known common use is as an ‘open-air drug market,’” the lawsuit claims. Snapchat’s role in illicit drug sales to teens, it continues, “was the foreseeable result of the designs, structures, and policies Snap chose to implement to increase its revenues.”
The vast majority of fentanyl deaths among young people, the lawsuit says, involve kids who don’t know they are ingesting fentanyl. Rather, they are buying what they believe is marijuana, MDMA or prescription drugs like OxyContin. In January, a judge ruled that the lawsuit could move to trial.
It’ll be yet another test for Section 230, a 1996 law that generally exempts internet companies from liability for material users post on their networks.
In a statement, Snap said it is “heartbroken by the fentanyl epidemic and are deeply committed to the fight against it.”
“We’ve invested in advanced technology to detect and remove illicit drug-related content, work extensively with law enforcement helping to bring dealers to justice, and continue to raise awareness and evolve our service to help keep our community safe. Criminals have no place on Snapchat,” said Jacqueline Beauchere, Global Head of Platform Safety at the company.
While Snap wouldn’t comment on the lawsuit itself, the company argues its design actually makes it more difficult for bad actors to operate. For instance, the company says, it doesn’t allow people to get messages from people they haven’t added as friends or have a phone contact, and location sharing is off by default.
Regulatory remedies?
Advocates are hoping that regulation of tech companies could help address the problem, as it might help with other dangers kids face on social media. In July, the Senate passed the Kids Online Safety Act, legislation designed to protect children from dangerous online content. It still awaits a vote in the House. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., meanwhile, introduced a bill that would require social media companies to report illicit fentanyl, methamphetamine and fake pill activity occurring on their platforms to law enforcement.
“We must do more at the federal level to combat the flow of fentanyl into our communities, and it starts by holding social media companies accountable for their part in facilitating illicit drug sales,” Shaheen said.
But for parents like Arnold, Brown and others who already lost their children to overdoses, it is too late.
“Social media companies have the ability to make their platforms drug-free zones,” DelPonte said. “Instead, they keep evading the meaningful changes to keep the public safe.”
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has reached an agreement with a credit collection company to avoid the foreclosure of their historic hotel as he runs for U.S. Senate, the resort announced Thursday.
The Republican governor’s family had been set to appear in court Friday to ask a judge to halt the auction of The Greenbrier resort’s hotel, which had been scheduled for Tuesday. That hearing has been canceled.
“It’s taken care of, and we move forward, and The Greenbrier is as whole as it can possibly be,” Justice said at a news briefing. “The Greenbrier is going to be in our family forevermore.”
The 710-room hotel has hosted U.S. presidents, royalty and congressional retreats. The resort held a PGA Tour golf tournament from 2010 until 2019 and has welcomed NFL teams for training camp and practices. A once-secret 112,000-square-foot (10,080-square-meter) underground bunker built for Congress at the Greenbrier in case of nuclear attack during the Cold War now hosts tours.
The hotel came under threat of auction after JPMorgan Chase sold a longstanding loan taken out by the governor to a credit collection company, McCormick 101 — a subsidiary of Beltway Capital — which declared it to be in default. In a statement, the Justice family said it had reached an agreement with Beltway Capital to “receive a specific amount to be paid in full by October 24, 2024.”
The family said it had already secured the money, although the Justices did not specify the amount.
“Beltway reserves its rights if the Justice family fails to perform,” the statement reads.
A message left with Beltway Capital wasn’t immediately returned Thursday.
Justice defended his family’s business practices at Thursday’s briefing and repeated past claims that JPMorgan Chase’s sale of The Greenbrier loan was a politically motivated effort to hurt his U.S. Senate campaign.
“We had a 14-year working relationship with JPMorgan, and then shortly after the primary where I was the winner — hands down, you’re going to the U.S. Senate, no matter what anybody says under the sun — it makes, it made, total no sense other than political, it made no sense at all,” he said.
Justice said that his family had made payments on the JPMorgan loan as recently as June and that it was notified the loan had been sold in July without prior warning. JPMorgan Chase did not respond to an email seeking comment.
If the hotel had been sold, Justice said, “there would have been carnage and devastation like you can’t imagine to the great people of The Greenbrier,” referring to jobs that could have been lost.
The auction, which had been set to occur at a courthouse Tuesday in the small city of Lewisburg, involved 60.5 acres, including the hotel and parking lot.
Justice family attorneys filed a motion this week for a preliminary injunction to try to halt the auction of The Greenbrier. They claimed that a 2014 deed of trust approved by the governor was defective because JPMorgan didn’t obtain consent from the Greenbrier Hotel Corp.’s directors or owners, and that auctioning the property violates the company’s obligation to act in “good faith and deal fairly” with the corporation.
They also argued, in part, that the auction would harm the economy and threaten hundreds of jobs.
About 400 employees at The Greenbrier hotel received notice this week from an attorney for the health care provider Amalgamated National Health Fund saying they would lose coverage Tuesday, the scheduled date of the auction, unless the Justice family paid $2.4 million in missing contributions.
Peter Bostic, a union official with the Workers United Mid-Atlantic Regional Joint Board, said that the Justice family hasn’t contributed to employees’ health fund in four months, and that an additional $1.2 million in contributions will soon be due, according to the letter the board received from Ronald Richman, an attorney with Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, the firm representing the fund.
The letter also said some contributions were taken out of employees’ paychecks but never transferred to the fund, concerning union officials.
Justice dismissed concerns about the claims Thursday, telling reporters that “insurance payments were made and were being made on a regular basis.”
“There is no way that the great union employees at The Greenbrier are going to go without insurance,” he said. “There is no possible way.”
Justice is running for U.S. Senate against Democrat Glenn Elliott, a former mayor of Wheeling. Justice, who owns dozens of companies and had a net worth estimated at $513 million by Forbes Magazine in 2021, has been accused in court cases of being late in paying millions for family business debts and fines for unsafe working conditions at his coal mines.
He began serving the first of his two terms as governor in 2017, after buying The Greenbrier out of bankruptcy in 2009.
Justice’s family also owns The Greenbrier Sporting Club, a private luxury community with a members-only “resort within a resort.” That property was scheduled to be auctioned off this year in an attempt by Carter Bank & Trust of Martinsville, Virginia, to recover more than $300 million in business loans defaulted by the governor’s family, but a court battle delayed that process.
NEW YORK (AP) — Most U.S. stocks fell Thursday following a mixed round of data on the economy, keeping them on track for their worst week since April.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.3% for a third straight drop, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 219 points, or 0.5%. The Nasdaq composite held up better than the rest of the market and added 0.3% thanks to gains for Tesla and a handful of other Big Tech stocks.
Treasury yields also slipped a bit in the bond market following the mixed economic reports. One suggested U.S. companies slowed their hiring last month, falling well short of economists’ forecasts for an acceleration. Another report, though, said fewer U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits last week than expected. That’s an indication layoffs remain low.
A report released later in the morning offered more optimism, saying growth for businesses in the finance, health care and other services industries was stronger last month than economists expected.
“Generally, business is good,” one respondent said in the survey compiled by the Institute for Supply Management. “However, there are concerns of slowing foot traffic at restaurants and other venues where our products are sold.”
Stocks have struggled this week after another dud of a report on U.S. manufacturing reignited worries about the slowing U.S. economy and how much it could hurt corporate profits. That has raised the stakes for a highly anticipated report scheduled for Friday.
That’s when the U.S. government will say how many jobs U.S. employers added last month, and economists are expecting an acceleration of hiring. The job market’s performance could dictate how big of a cut to interest rates the Federal Reserve will deliver at its next meeting later this month.
After keeping its main interest rate at a two-decade high to stifle inflation, the Federal Reserve has hinted it’s about to begin cutting rates in order to protect the job market and keep the overall economy from sliding into a recession. The question on Wall Street is if that ends up being too little, too late.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 3.73% from 3.76% late Wednesday. It’s down from 4.70% in April, which is a significant move for the bond market.
Perhaps more importantly for investors, the 10-year yield is flirting with the end of a more than two-year stretch where it was lower than the two-year Treasury yield. That’s an unusual occurrence called an “inverted yield curve.” Usually, longer-term yields are higher than shorter-term yields.
Many investors see an inverted yield curve as a warning of a coming recession, and the inversion since the summer of 2022 has been a key talking point for market pessimists. Often, an inverted yield curve flips back to normal ahead of a recession as traders cement their expectations for coming cuts to interest rates by the Fed. But the 2020 pandemic created a recession and resulting recovery that have often defied predictions and conventional wisdoms.
The two-year Treasury yield was sitting at 3.74%, just above the 10-year yield.
On Wall Street, Old Dominion Freight Line fell to one of the sharpest losses in the S&P 500 after reporting discouraging revenue trends for August. It cited “softness in the domestic economy,” along with lower fuel surcharge revenue for the weakness. The freight company’s stock fell 4.9%.
Verizon’s stock slipped 0.4% after it announced it’s buying Frontier Communications in a $20 billion deal to strengthen its fiber network. Frontier Communications, which soared nearly 38% the day before, gave back 9.5%.
On the winning end of Wall Street was Tesla. It rose 4.9% after laying out a roadmap for upcoming artificial-intelligence developments, including the possibility of full self-driving in Europe and China.
JetBlue Airways flew 7.2% higher after raising its forecast for revenue in the summer. It said it’s seeing better performance in the Latin America region particularly and that it picked up business when technology outages in July forced rivals to cancel flights.
All told, the S&P 500 dipped 16.66 points to 5,503.41. The Dow dropped 219.22 to 40,755.75, and the Nasdaq composite rose 43.36 to 17,127.66.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Asia and Europe.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.1% after strong data on growth in wages there raised expectations for another hike to interest rates.
Verizon is buying Frontier Communications in a $20 billion deal to strengthen its fiber network.
Verizon Communications Inc. said Thursday that the acquisition will also shore up its foray into artificial intelligence as well as connected smart devices.
Frontier has concentrated heavily on its fiber network capabilities over about four years, investing $4.1 billion upgrading and expanding its fiber network. It now gets more than half of its revenue from fiber products.
The price tag for Frontier, based in Dallas, is sizeable given its 2.2 million fiber subscribers across 25 states. Verizon has approximately 7.4 million Fios connections in nine states and Washington, D.C.
Frontier has 7.2 million fiber locations and has plans to build out an additional 2.8 million fiber locations by the end of 2026.
“The acquisition of Frontier is a strategic fit,” Verizon Chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg said in a prepared statement. “It will build on Verizon’s two decades of leadership at the forefront of fiber and is an opportunity to become more competitive in more markets throughout the United States, enhancing our ability to deliver premium offerings to millions more customers across a combined fiber network.”
There are skeptics of the potential for Verizon’s $20 billion acquisition, however.
“The real issue is simply that Frontier’s paltry 3.5% national fiber coverage (again, according to the FCC’s broadband map as of end of 2023) would leave Verizon with a combined fiber footprint that still covers less than 13% of the country, with a path to potentially take that only to about 17% of the country,” Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson Research wrote. “A fiber footprint covering 17% of the U.S. is nowhere near large enough to be the basis of a strategy for a national wireless operator.”
Verizon, based in New York City, will pay $38.50 for each Frontier share. The deal is expected to close in about 18 months. It still needs approval from Frontier shareholders.
Shares of Frontier Communications Parents Inc., which were halted briefly on Wednesday after a report from the Wall Street Journal about the deal sent the stock up nearly 40%, fell 9% Thursday. Verizon’s stock dipped slightly.
DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) — Ford Motor Co. has joined the ranks of companies that have pulled back on diversity, equity and inclusion policies while facing pressure from conservative groups.
CEO Jim Farley sent a memo to all employees early Wednesday outlining the changes, including a decision to stop taking part in external culture surveys and an annual survey by the Human Rights Campaign that measures workplace inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees.
“We will continue to put our effort and resources into taking care of our customers, our team, and our communities versus publicly commenting on the many polarizing issues of the day,” the memo said. “There will of course be times when we will speak out on core issues if we believe our voice can make a positive difference.”
Farley wrote that Ford is mindful that employees and customers have a wide range of beliefs “and the external and legal environment related to political and social issues continues to evolve.” The company, he wrote, has been looking at its policies during the past year.
Ford, he wrote, doesn’t use hiring quotas or tie compensation to specific diversity goals, and it remains committed to “fostering a safe and inclusive workplace.”
Robby Starbuck, a conservative political commentator who has gone after companies such as Lowe’s, Tractor Supply and John Deere, wrote in a Wednesday post on X that he was investigating Ford’s “woke” policies.
Starbuck posted Farley’s memo, the contents of which were confirmed by Ford. The company said Wednesday that the memo speaks for itself and declined further comment.
In a statement, the Human Rights Campaign said Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford was cowering to an “internet troll” by abandoning its longtime values and policies.
“Their shortsighted decision will hurt the company’s long-term business success,” the statement said.
NEW YORK (AP) — The merger between entertainment giant Paramount and media company Skydance is set to go ahead after Edgar Bronfman Jr. withdrew a competing offer.
Bronfman, executive chairman of streaming service Fubo, told Paramount’s special committee of directors Monday night that he would not proceed with his bid.
“While there may have been differences, we believe that everyone involved in the sale process is united in the belief that Paramount’s best days are ahead,” he said.
Bronfman, the former chairman and CEO of Warner Music, had intitially offered $4.3 billion for Shari Redstone’s National Amusements, the controlling shareholder of Paramount, according to multiple media reports. He then upped that bid to $6 billion.
Paramount agreed last month to a merger deal with Skydance that will inject desperately needed cash into a legacy studio that has struggled to adapt to a shifting entertainment landscape.
Since then, during what’s known as a “go shop” period, a special committee of Paramount’s board had reached out to more than 50 third parties to determine whether they were interested in making offers. The go shop period was extended for Bronfman, but has now closed.
Shari Redstone’s National Amusements has owned more than three-quarters of Paramount’s Class A voting shares through the estate of her late father, Sumner Redstone. She had battled to maintain control of the company that owns CBS, which is behind blockbuster films such as “Top Gun” and “The Godfather.”
The deal signals the rise of a new power player, Skydance founder David Ellison, the son of billionaire Larry Ellison, who founded the software company Oracle.
Skydance, based in Santa Monica, California, has helped produce some major Paramount hits in recent years, including Tom Cruise films like “Top Gun: Maverick” and installments of the “Mission Impossible” series.
The proposed combined company of Paramount and Skydance is valued at around $28 billion. The deal is expected to close in September 2025, pending regulatory approval.
Paramount, founded in 1914 as a distributor, is one of Hollywood’s oldest studios and has had a hand in releasing numerous films — from “Sunset Boulevard” and “The Godfather,” to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “Titanic.”
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) — Romanian authorities towed away a fleet of luxury vehicles Saturday from the home of the divisive social media personality Andrew Tate, days after he was placed under house arrest following new human trafficking allegations.
Tate, 37, and his brother Tristan Tate, 36, both former kickboxers and dual British-U.S. citizens with millions of followers on social media and known for their misogynistic views, are already awaiting trial in Romania, along with two women. They were charged with human trafficking and forming a criminal gang to exploit women. Andrew Tate was also charged with rape in that case.
The luxury vehicles, impounded from their home near the capital, included a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, a Mercedes-Benz, McLaren and a more humble-looking classic red Lada. The seizure came two days after Romania’s anti-organized crime agency, DIICOT, raided four homes in Bucharest and nearby Ilfov county and detained six people, including the Tate brothers. Officers also confiscated thousands of dollars in cash, laptops and data storage drives.
One of the Tates’ lawyers, Georgiana Popa, told reporters outside the brothers’ home Saturday that the seizures are “legal, but unfounded” and said it has been contested.
“The cars are not (the brothers’) property,” she said, without providing additional information.
A masked police officer watches as a Ferrari vehicle is removed by authorities from Andrew Tate’s residence on the outskirts of Bucharest, Romania, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
A masked police officer looks at a Ferrari 812 Competizione being removed from Andrew Tate’s residence on the outskirts of Bucharest, Romania, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
The Tate brothers appeared on Thursday at a Bucharest court as prosecutors sought to remand them in custody. But a judge denied that request and placed Andrew Tate under house and Tristan Tate under judicial control, which typically involves restricting contact with certain people and having to periodically report to the police. The brothers’ spokesperson, Mateea Petrescu, said that the Tates firmly deny all allegations against them and “remain steadfast in proving their innocence.”
In the new case, DIICOT, said that it’s investigating allegations of human trafficking, including the trafficking of minors, sexual intercourse with a minor, forming an organized criminal group, money laundering, and influencing statements.
The agency also said the defendants used the coercive “loverboy” method to exploit 34 vulnerable victims, who were forced to produce pornographic materials for a fee online, and that more than $2.8 million (2.5 million euros) it generated was kept by the defendants.
An unnamed foreign man also sexually exploited a 17-year-old foreigner, DIICOT alleges, and said that he kept all of the $1.5 million (1.3 million euros) made from the criminal activity. The same man “repeatedly had sexual relations and acts” with a 15-year-old, the agency alleges.
A masked police officer walks as a Lamborghini car is removed by authorities from Andrew Tate’s residence on the outskirts of Bucharest, Romania, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
A Russian made Lada 1500 car is removed by authorities from Andrew Tate’s residence on the outskirts of Bucharest, Romania, Saturday, Aug. 24, 2024. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Andrew Tate, who has 9.9 million X followers, has repeatedly claimed that prosecutors have no evidence against him and that there is a political conspiracy to silence him. He was previously banned from various social media platforms for misogynistic views and hate speech.
Authorities have previously confiscated some of the brothers’ assets.
After the Tates’ arrest in December 2022, authorities seized 15 luxury cars, 14 designer watches and cash in several currencies. The total value of the goods, authorities said at the time, was estimated at 3.6 million euros ($3.9 million). In April, the Bucharest Tribunal ruled the prosecutors’ case file against them met the legal criteria and that a trial could start, but didn’t set a date for it to begin.
Last month, a court overturned an earlier decision that allowed the Tate brothers to leave Romania as they await trial. The court’s decision is final and can’t be appealed.
Delta Air Lines said Friday that its chief operating officer will leave the company next week after a little more than a year in the airline business to take another job.
The departure of Michael Spanos comes a few weeks after Delta canceled thousands of flights during a botched recovery from a global technology outage,
Spanos spent most of his career at PepsiCo and the Pepsi Bottling Group and was CEO of amusement-park operator Six Flags Entertainment before joining Delta in June 2023. He is one of three executive vice presidents of the Atlanta-based airline.
In a regulatory filing, Delta gave no reason for Spanos’ departure — only that he would receive severance benefits that he is due under the company’s plan for officers and directors. Spanos received compensation valued at $8.6 million last year, mostly in stock awards.
CEO Ed Bastian said in a note to employees that Spanos told him “earlier this summer” he was considering leaving Delta. A spokesperson said this happened before the technology outage.
Bastian wrote that Spanos will move in September to another company, which he did not identify. The CEO credited Spanos with improving Delta’s performance, and added that Delta will not name a new chief operating officer.
Chief operating officers typically run the day-to-day affairs of a company and report directly to the CEO. They are often considered the second-ranking executive, but at Delta, President Glen Hauenstein is generally seen as playing that role.
Delta was hit harder than any other U.S. carrier by last month’s technology outage that started with a faulty upgrade from cybersecurity-software provider CrowdStrike to computers running on Microsoft Windows.
Other airlines recovered within a couple days, but Delta canceled about 7,000 flights over five days as it struggled to reposition crews and match them with planes.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Supermarket chain Albertsons told a federal judge Monday that it might have to lay off workers, close stores and even exit some markets if its planned merger with Kroger isn’t allowed to proceed.
The two companies proposed what would be the largest supermarket merger in U.S. history in October 2022. But the Federal Trade Commission sued to prevent the $24.6 billion deal, alleging it would eliminate competition and raise grocery prices in a time of already high food price inflation.
In the three-week hearing that opened Monday, the FTC is seeking a preliminary injunction that would block the merger while its complaint goes before an in-house administrative law judge.
“This lawsuit is part of an effort aimed at helping Americans feed their families,” the FTC’s chief trial counsel, Susan Musser, said in her opening arguments on Monday.
Musser said Kroger and Albertsons currently compete in 22 states, closely matching each other on price, quality, private label products and services like store pickup. Shoppers benefit from that competition, she said, and will lose those benefits if the merger is allowed to proceed.
Customers also are wary of the merger, the lawyer said. In Santa Fe, New Mexico, for example, 278 shoppers wrote to the FTC to express their concerns about a combined Kroger and Albertsons, which would own five of the city’s eight supermarkets.
But Kroger and Albertsons insist the FTC’s objections don’t take into account the rising competition in the grocery sector. Walmart’s grocery sales totaled $247 billion last year compared to $63 billion in 2003, for example; Costco’s sales have grown more than 400% in the same period.
“Consumers are blurring the line of where they buy groceries,” Albertsons attorney Enu Mainigi said.
Mainigi said Albertsons’ customers now spend 88 cents of every dollar at competitors that range from Aldi and Trader Joe’s to Dollar General. Albertsons can’t compete with larger rivals that have national scale, but joining forces with Kroger would help it do that, she said.
Kroger attorney Matthew Wolf also defended the proposed merger.
“The savings that come from the merger are obvious and intuitive. Kroger may have the best price on Pepsi. Albertsons may have the best price on Coke. Put them together, they have the best price on both,” Wolf said.
The two sides also disagree on Kroger and Albertsons’ plan to sell 579 stores in places where their stores overlap. The buyer would be C&S Wholesale Grocers, a New Hampshire-based supplier to independent supermarkets that also owns the Grand Union and Piggly Wiggly store brands.
The FTC says C&S is ill-prepared to take on those stores. Laura Hall, the FTC’s senior trial counsel, cited internal documents that indicated C&S executives were skeptical about the quality of the stores they would get and may want the option to sell or close them.
But Wolf said C&S has the experience and infrastructure to run the divested stores and would be the eighth-largest supermarket company in the U.S., if the merger plan goes through.
The commission also alleges that workers’ wages and benefits would decline if Kroger and Albertsons no longer compete with each other.
Before the hearing, several members of the United Food and Commercial Workers International union gathered outside the federal courthouse in downtown Portland to speak out against the proposed deal.
“Enough is enough,” said Carol McMillian, a bakery manager at a Kroger-owned grocery store in Colorado. “We can no longer stand by and allow corporate greed that puts profit before people. Our workers, our communities and our customers deserve better.”
The labor union also expressed concern that potential store closures could create so-called food and pharmacy “deserts” for consumers.
For people in many communities across the U.S., when a grocery store shutters, “their only source of food actually is walking to the nearest gas station,” said Kim Cordova, the president of UFCW Local 7, which represents over 23,000 members in Colorado and Wyoming.
Mainigi argued the deal could actually bolster union jobs, since many of Kroger’s and Albertsons’ competitors, like Walmart or Costco, have few unionized workers.
U.S. District Judge Adrienne Nelson is expected to hear from around 40 witnesses, including the CEOs of Kroger and Albertsons, before deciding whether to issue the preliminary injunction. If she does decide to temporarily block the merger, the FTC’s in-house hearings are scheduled to begin Oct. 1.
But Nelson’s decision will seal the merger’s fate, according to Wolf. He said the FTC’s in-house administrative process is so long and cumbersome that merger deals almost always fall apart before it’s through. Earlier this month, Kroger sued the FTC, alleging the agency’s internal proceedings were unconstitutional and saying it wants the merger’s merits decided in federal court.
The attorneys general of Arizona, California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Wyoming all joined the case on the FTC’s side. Washington and Colorado filed separate cases in state courts seeking to block the merger.
Kroger, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, operates 2,800 stores in 35 states, including brands like Ralphs, Smith’s and Harris Teeter. Albertsons, based in Boise, Idaho, operates 2,273 stores in 34 states, including brands like Safeway, Jewel Osco and Shaw’s. Together, the companies employ around 710,000 people.
NEW YORK (AP) — If you’ve noticed that you’re paying more than before for the same amount of groceries, you’re not the only one. Inflation is easing, but grocery prices are still high — up 21%, on average, since inflation started to surge more than three years ago.
Unlike some other items, you can’t just stop buying groceries when they get pricey. There’s nothing you can do about inflation, but you can find ways to save on groceries so they don’t heavily affect your wallet or your eating habits. These include using coupons, budgeting and buying in bulk.
Here’s are some expert recommendations for saving on groceries:
Try coupons
Kiersten Torok started using coupons back when she was in high school, after her parents lost their jobs during the 2008 recession. She began relying on them even more in 2020, when she lost her own job during the pandemic. Now she’s using her social media platform to help others learn how to save.
“When times like these come up, coupons are a necessity for so many Americans,” said Torok, known on Instagram and TikTok as Torok Coupon Hunter.
Many might think that using coupons means cutting them out of a magazine. While you can certainly still do that, there are now easier ways to get the discounts. Many stores, like Walmart and Target, have coupons available on their apps.
“All you have to do is scan an item in a store, the coupons pop up on your app and then they automatically apply in the register,” Torok said. “It’s become much more streamlined.”
This article is part of AP’s Be Well coverage, focusing on wellness, fitness, diet and mental health. Read more Be Well.
One of Torok’s coupon golden rules is: Never pay big for toothpaste — there’s always a combination of coupons and offers available. For anyone who wants to try couponing, Torok recommends that you first start using them at your favorite store and never buy things you don’t need, even if there’s a big discount.
Apps like Flipp, which lets you browse for coupons from all major grocery stores, and Ibotta, an app that gives you cashback for using coupons, can make your journey with couponing easier.
Track current spending
Making a budget is a key to keeping grocery spending under control, and the first step is to track how much you’re already spending. Start by reviewing how much you have spent on the last few times you’ve gone grocery shopping, recommended David Brindley, deputy editor for AARP Bulletin.
If you don’t keep receipts from past grocery runs, try looking at your bank account statement and adding up the grocery charges. Once you know how much you spend on groceries, set a goal, for example, staying within a specific budget or reducing your spending.
Review what you already have
You need a plan, but before you make one, ensure you know what you currently have in your fridge and your pantry. Sarah Schweisthal, personal finance expert and social media manager at budgeting app YNAB, recommends taking everything out and making an inventory so you don’t buy duplicates of things you already have on hand.
Brindley also recommends planning to cook multiple meals with similar ingredients, which saves money and also cuts down on food waste.
Make a plan
Once you’ve tracked your spending and inventoried what you already have, the next step is to make a plan. Write down the items you’re looking to buy and your estimated cost, making sure you stay on budget. Meal planning for the week or month can be a good way to stay on top of your spending, Schweisthal said.
Going up and down the aisles can sometimes make you crave things that you haven’t planned for, like a snack or a new dish. If you foresee that it’ll be hard for you to stick to your list, include some flexibility in your plan, such as allotting a specific amount to buy snacks or a random item you see at the checkout line.
“I think having flexibility in a plan actually helps you stick to it more,” Schweisthal said.
Making a plan can be as simple as writing down a list on paper or in your phone’s notes app. Or, you can use apps that specifically help you with meal planning such as AnyList or Mealime.
Shop online
If you tend to wander off your grocery list because every time you go to the store you buy things you don’t need, shopping online and picking up curbside is a good workaround.
“I 100% recommend sitting down Sunday morning and just looking at the stores and comparing the items you need for the week, especially with things you can get for curbside pickup,” Torok said.
If you buy your groceries from multiple stores because each has better prices on some items, ordering ahead of time can also save time.
Involve your family in saving
If you are in charge of buying groceries for your entire family, it can be beneficial to include them in your grocery budgeting routine. For Torok, this has meant teaching her children how to scan coupons while they shop.
Since buying in bulk can be very cost-effective. Brindley also recommends that you team up with a friend or a family member to buy specific items in bulk and share the discount.
Food sharing apps
Lastly, you can save money by using food-sharing apps such as Olio, which connects people around their community to share extra grocery items, and Too Good to Go, where you can buy surplus food at a discount.
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The Associated Press receives support from Charles Schwab Foundation for educational and explanatory reporting to improve financial literacy. The independent foundation is separate from Charles Schwab and Co. Inc. The AP is solely responsible for its journalism.
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A version of this story was published on July 12, 2024. This version has been updated with the latest inflation report.
DETROIT (AP) — Canada’s two largest railroads are starting to shut down their shipping networks as a labor dispute with the Teamsters union threatens to cause lockouts or strikes that would disrupt cross-border trade with the U.S.
Both the Canadian Pacific Kansas City and Canadian National railroads, which haul millions of tons of freight across the border, have stopped taking certain shipments of hazardous materials and refrigerated products.
Both are threatening to lock out Teamsters Canada workers starting Thursday if deals are not reached.
On Tuesday, CPKC will stop all shipments that start in Canada and all shipments originating in the U.S. that are headed for Canada, the railroad said Saturday.
The Canadian Press reported that on Friday, Canadian National barred container imports from U.S. partner railroads.
Jeff Windau, industrials analyst for Edward Jones & Co., said his firm expects work stoppages to last only a few days, but if they go longer, there could be significant supply chain disruptions.
“If something would carry on more of a longer term in nature, then I think there are some significant potential issues just given the amount of goods that are handled each day,” Windau said. “By and large the rails touch pretty much all of the economy.”
The two railroads handle about 40,000 carloads of freight each day, worth about $1 billion, Windau said. Shipments of fully built automobiles and auto parts, chemicals, forestry products and agricultural goods would be hit hard, he said, especially with harvest season looming.
Both railroads have extensive networks in the U.S., and CPKC also serves Mexico. Those operations will keep running even if there is a work stoppage.
CPKC said it remains committed to avoiding a work stoppage that would damage Canada’s economy and international reputation. “However we must take responsible and prudent steps to prepare for a potential rail service interruption next week,” spokesman Patrick Waldron said in a statement.
Shutting down the network will allow the railroad to get dangerous goods off of its network before any stoppage, CPKC said.
Union spokesman Christopher Monette said in an email Saturday that negotiations continue, but the situation has shifted from a possible strike to “near certain lockout” by the railroads.
CPKC said bargaining is scheduled to continue on Sunday with the union, which represents nearly 10,000 workers at both railroads. The company said it continues to bargain in good faith.
Canadian National said in a statement Friday that there had been no meaningful progress in negotiations and it hoped the union “will engage meaningfully” during a meeting scheduled for Saturday.
“CN wants a resolution that allows the company to get back to what it does best as a team, moving customers’ goods and the economy,” the railroad said.
Negotiations have been going on since last November, and contracts expired at the end of 2023. They were extended as talks continued.
The union said company demands on crew scheduling, rail safety and worker fatigue are the main sticking points.
Concerns about the quality of life for rail workers dealing with demanding schedules and no paid sick time nearly led to a U.S. rail strike two years ago before Congress intervened and blocked a walkout. The major U.S. railroads have made progress since then in offering paid sick time to most rail workers and trying to improve schedules.
Windau said the trucking industry currently has a lot of excess capacity and might be able to make up some of the railroads’ shipping volumes, but, “You’re not going to be able to replace all of that with trucking.”
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms has shut down CrowdTangle, a tool widely used by researchers, watchdog organizations and journalists to monitor social media posts, notably to track how misinformation spreads on the company’s platforms.
Wednesday’s shutdown, which Meta announced earlier this year, has been protested by researchers and nonprofits. In May, dozens of groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, Human Rights Watch and NYU’s Center for Social Media & Politics, sent a letter to the company asking that it keep the tool running through at least January so it would be available through the U.S. presidential elections.
“This decision jeopardizes essential pre- and post-election oversight mechanisms and undermines Meta’s transparency efforts during this critical period, and at a time when social trust and digital democracy are alarmingly fragile,” the letter said.
CrowdTangle, “has been an essential tool in helping researchers parse through the vast amount of information on the platform and identify harmful content and threats,” it added.
In March, the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation sent Meta a similar letter asking it to keep the tool, which was available for free, functioning until January. That letter was also signed by several dozen groups and individual academic researchers.
“For years, CrowdTangle has represented an industry best practice for real-time platform transparency. It has become a lifeline for understanding how disinformation, hate speech, and voter suppression spread on Facebook, undermining civic discourse and democracy,” the Mozilla letter said.
Meta has released an alternative to CrowdTangle, called the Meta Content Library. But access to it is limited to academic researchers and nonprofits, which excludes most news organizations. Critics have also complained that it’s not as useful as CrowdTangle — at least not yet.
Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said in a blog post last week that the company has been gathering feedback about Meta Content Library from “hundreds of researchers in order to make it more user-friendly and help them find the data they need for their work.”
Meta said Wednesday that CrowdTangle doesn’t provide a complete picture of what is happening on its platforms and said its new tools are more comprehensive.
Cisco Systems is planning to lay off 7% of its employees, its second round of job cuts this year, as the company shifts its focus to more rapidly growing areas in technology, such as artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.
The company based in San Jose, California, did not specify the number of jobs it is cutting. It had 84,900 employees as of July 2023. Based on that figure, the number of jobs cut would be about 5,900. In February, Cisco announced it would cut about 4,000 jobs.
The networking equipment maker said in June that it would invest $1 billion in tech startups like Cohere, Mistral and Scale to develop reliable AI products. It recently also announced a partnership with Nvidia to develop infrastructure for AI systems.
Cisco’s layoffs come just two weeks after chipmaker Intel Corp. announced it would cut about 15,000 jobs as it tries to turn its business around to compete with more successful rivals like Nvidia and AMD. Intel’s quarterly earnings report disappointed investors and its stock took a nosedive following the announcement. In contrast, Cisco’s shares were up about 6% after-hours on Wednesday.
In a foray into cybersecurity, Cisco launched a cybersecurity readiness index back in March to help businesses measure their resiliency against attacks.
Cisco Systems Inc. said Wednesday it earned $2.16 billion, or 54 cents per share, in its fiscal fourth quarter that ended on July 27, down 45% from $3.96 billion, or 97 cents per share, in the same period a year ago. Excluding special items, its adjusted earnings were 87 cents per share in the latest quarter.
Revenue fell 10% to $13.64 billion from $15.2 billion.
Analysts, on average, were expecting adjusted earnings of 85 cents per share on revenue of $13.54 billion, according to a poll by FactSet.
For the current quarter, Cisco is forecasting adjusted earnings of 86 cents to 88 cents per share on revenue of $13.65 billion to $13.85 billion. Analysts are expecting earnings of 85 cents per share on revenue of $13.74 billion.
Edward Jones analyst David Heger said Cisco is starting to see demand recover after it slowed over the past few quarters, noting that product orders were up 6% even when excluding those from its recent acquisition of cybersecurity firm Splunk.
He added that “the restructuring will help offset the earnings impact from interest expenses associated with financing the Splunk acquisition and will rationalize combined workforces.”
The first sorority established for Black women, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., has filed paperwork to form a political action committee (PAC). The new PAC, titled the 1908 PAC, will allow the organization to create the runway in order to raise money in support of federal candidates.
This announcement compliments AKA’s voter registration, education and mobilization campaigns. Harris recently spoke to crowds at the annual convention, Boulé, in Dallas in July. She was rocking the group’s signature salmon pink and apple green while championing the sorority’s impact on her career’s trajectory.
“You are such an incredible part of my journey and I love you guys,” she said, as members shouted “skee-wee,” the sorority’s signature call.
Four years ago at the Democratic National Convention, Harris extolled the virtues of AKA.
“Family is my beloved Alpha Kappa Alpha, our Divine Nine, and my HBCU brothers and sisters,” Harris, a member of AKA, said at the time.
The Vice President of the United States, Kamala D. Harris, waves to the crowd after arriving at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Saturday, December 16, 2023 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo: Itoro N. Umontuen/The Atlanta Voice)
After President Biden announced he would not run for reelection on July 21st, support quickly coalesced around Harris. Later in the day, a group of 44,000 women, largely made up of AKA members, raised $1.5 million for her campaign.
The sorority network includes prominent Democratic donors like Wanda Sykes, Ava DuVernay, who have expressed support for Harris.
The powerful organization raised hundreds of thousands of dollars and “Strolled to the Polls” for Harris in 2020. Currently, AKA is poised to mobilize and organize millions of Black voters in key swing states across the country.
Vice President Kamala Harris pledged at the sorority’s Alpha Chapter at Howard University in 1986. Harris is part of a membership class, ‘The 38 Jewels of Iridescent Splendor,’ a line that consisted of thirty-eight women. Thirty-eight years later, the organization is preparing to participate in what they refer to as, “a serious matter.”
In 2023, Alpha Kappa Alpha created their own credit union, “For Members Only.” FMO is the first Black-owned, women-led, sorority-based digital banking financial institution in the United States. The reason being was to create economic health and financial stability for Black women and women of color.
As far as the polls are concerned, they are reflective of the rising enthusiasm with the Harris campaign. Harris leads Michigan by two points, Pennsylvania by 1.1 points and Wisconsin by 1.8 points, according to the average of swing state polls by FiveThirtyEight. Former President Donald Trump leads in Arizona by less than half a point. He also leads in Georgia by half a point.
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Imagine planning a vacation and not being able to check Airbnb or another online booking site for an apartment in which to spend a few days walking, shopping and eating among the locals. Would a hotel do?
That’s the future confronting visitors to central Barcelona in four years. To safeguard and expand the housing supply for full-time residents, local authorities want to rid the Spanish city known for its architecture, beaches and Catalan culture of the 10,000 apartments licensed as short-term rentals.
Barcelona City Hall announced last month that it would not renew any tourist apartment licenses after they expire in 2028. Deputy Mayor Laia Bonet said the city wants tourism, which accounts for 15% of the local economy, but must help residents cope with skyrocketing rents and real estate prices.
“Our housing emergency obligates us, forces us, to change the way we do things and to put the priority on housing above our policies for accommodating tourists,” Bonet told The Associated Press.
Property owners plan to fight the decision, arguing that eliminating short-term rentals would threaten their livelihoods and leave the city without enough temporary lodging: Some 2.5 million tourists stayed in an apartment last year, according to the Association of Tourist Apartments of Barcelona, also known as Apartur.
Residents of the city, which has a population of about 1.6 million, have campaigned against “overtourism” for several years, but the anti-tourism sentiment has grown more heated: During a protest in Barcelona’s Las Ramblas district this month, some participants shouted “Go home!” and squirted water pistols at people seated at outdoor tables.
Residential real estate prices in Barcelona have increased by an average of 38% over the past decade, a period in which the average rent soared by 68%, according to the municipal government. Like in other popular urban areas, many young people who grew up there struggle to afford a place of their own. Authorities say a lack of supply is partly to blame.
A global dilemma
Other cities around the world also are struggling to reconcile the housing needs of year-round residents, the rights of landlords and the allure of the economic benefits that being a top tourist destination can bring.
Measures to limit the free-for-all of investors converting apartments into holiday rentals have included partial bans, caps on the number of days units can be let out and registration requirements for frequent hosts.
New York cracked down on short-term apartment rentals in September with rules requiring owners to remain in their residence when they host overnight visitors and capping the number of guests at two. Maui’s mayor said last month that he wants to end condo rentals to tourists to help deal with a housing shortage made worse by last year’s devastating fire on the Hawaiian island.
In Italy, a 2022 amendment to national legislation allowed the lagoon city of Venice to limit short-term rentals, but the city administration has not acted on it.
Before moving to eradicate tourist apartments altogether, Barcelona officials tried more limited approaches. Its previous mayor, a former housing activist, made several moves to regulate the market, including a ban on the rental of individual rooms in apartments for stays under 31 days in 2020. The city also has moved aggressively to get unlicensed tourist apartments removed from online platforms.
“We have accumulated lots of know-how in Barcelona that we are ready to share with other cities that want to have this debate,” Bonet said.
What’s at stake for owners
The decision in Barcelona was made possible after the government of Catalonia, the northeast region of which Barcelona is the capital, passed a law year year stating that current licenses for tourist apartments would expire by 2028 in areas determined to have shortages of affordable housing.
Local governments that want to renew the licenses must demonstrate that doing so is compatible with locals being able to find affordable housing. Barcelona City Hall said it wasn’t.
Spain’s conservative opposition party is challenging the regional law in the country’s Constitutional Court, alleging that the law infringes on property rights and economic liberty. Apartur, which represents 400 owners of short-term rental units in Barcelona, argues the industry has become a scapegoat in a city that has not granted any new tourist apartment licenses since 2014.
Bonaventura Durall runs a company that owns and rents out 52 apartments near Barcelona’s beachfront. Forty of the apartments are located in a building that his business and others built in 2010 to tap into the growing short-term rental industry. He says the municipal government’s plan to phase out vacation rentals is unfair and puts his business and its 16 employees at risk.
“There is an investment behind this that has created jobs and tax revenues and a way of life, which will now have its wings clipped,” Durall said. “This is like you go to a bar and take away its liquor license or you take away a taxi driver’s permit to drive a taxi.”
Critics also say the move amounts to Barcelona exercising eminent domain and will inevitably create a black market of unregulated vacation rentals. Bonet, the deputy mayor, denies that City Hall is expropriating anyone’s property.
“We are not saying that these apartments will disappear and therefore the owners of these apartments can’t generate revenue from them,” Bonet said. “They will have the same assets, but they will have to put them to the use they were originally built for, which is to house families.”
The limits of the sharing economy
Ignasi Martí, director of the Observatory for Dignified Housing at Spain’s Esade business and law school, said that in addition to likely facing legal hurdles, the initiative would at most only dent rental costs.
Most studies indicate that Barcelona needs about 60,000 new housing units to meet current demand, he said.
But Martí thinks that removing tourists from residential buildings could improve the daily lives of people who call the city home.
“Take the case of a mother who needs to leave her child with a neighbor. If she lives in a building with tourist apartments, she knows that she can’t count on them,” he said. “Tourist apartments undoubtedly have repercussions in the possibility of creating ties, solidarity or making friends, beyond the issue of noise and people coming and going at any hour.”
Esther Roset, a 68-year-old retired bank worker, thinks so, too. She has spent years complaining about the tourist apartment above her home. Some guests have done things like vomit off the balcony, brought in prostitutes and opened a fire extinguisher in the stairwell.
Apartur argues that such behavior is rare, in party because of Barcelona’s strict regulations.
Roset has other tourist-related pet peeves, such as the expensive food joints catering to foreigners that have swept away the traditional bars where she could get a simple sandwich. She pointed to three nearby restaurants that specialize in brunch. Roset, like most Spaniards, doesn’t do brunch.
“I shouldn’t have to leave. This is my apartment. If the tourists who came behaved, OK, but one out of every 10 doesn’t,” she said. “At the end, I will have to follow the advice of a lawyer and hang a sheet from my balcony with the message ‘Tourist go home.’”
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Colleen Barry contributed to this report from Milan.
