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Tag: Transportation and shipping

  • Valentine flower imports increase at Miami airport, despite tariffs, officials say

    MIAMI — Winged babies shooting heart-shaped arrows might get most of the credit on Valentine’s Day, but the real magic behind millions of romantic bouquets happens in a cargo warehouse at a South Florida airport.

    Agricultural specialists at Miami International Airport will process about 990 million stems of cut flowers in the weeks before Feb. 14, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Around 90% of the fresh cut flowers being sold for Valentine’s Day in the United States come through Miami, while the other 10% pass through Los Angeles.

    Roses, carnations, pompons, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums and gypsophila arrive on hundreds of flights, mostly from Colombia and Ecuador, to Miami on their journey to florists and supermarkets across the U.S. and Canada.

    Miami’s largest flower importer is Avianca Cargo, based in Medellín, Colombia. In preparation for Valentine’s Day, the company is transporting about 19,000 tons of flowers on 320 full cargo flights, CEO Diogo Elias said Friday in Miami. They’re running more than twice as many flights compared to normal.

    “We fly flowers for the whole year, but Valentine’s is special,” Elias said. “Much more concentrated on roses, red roses especially. More than 50-60% are red roses at this time.”

    Customers buying flowers will likely see an increase in price this year. Christine Boldt, executive vice president for the Association of Floral Importers of America, said the cause is largely related to tariffs placed last year on imports from Colombia and Ecuador, along with a new minimum wage enacted this year in Colombia.

    “This adds significant dollars to the bouquets that are coming in,” Boldt said. “Every consumer is gonna have to face additional costs.”

    Despite higher prices, Flowers continue to make up one of MIA’s largest imports, airport director Ralph Cutié said. The airport received almost 3.5 million tons of cargo last year, with flowers accounting for about 400,000 tons. More than a quarter of those flowers are shipped before Valentine’s Day, marking a 6% increase over last year.

    “The mother, the wife, the girlfriend in Omaha, Nebraska, that gets their flowers for either Valentine’s or Mother’s Day, chances are those flowers passed through our airport,” Cutié said. “And that’s something we take a lot of pride in.”

    CBP agriculture specialists check the bundles of flowers for potentially harmful plant, pest and foreign animal diseases from entering the country, CBP senior official Daniel Alonso said. Inspectors on average find about 40-50 plant pests a day, the most common being moths. Pests are turned over to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which determines the potential threat.

    “Our rigorous process is vital to safeguarding the floral and agricultural industries, ensuring that our imported flowers are not introducing any pests or harmful diseases,” Alonso said.

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  • Trump administration presses efforts to ensure supply of critical minerals outside of China

    WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is expected to unveil its grandest plan yet to rebuild supply chains of critical minerals needed for everything from jet engines to smartphones, likely through purchase agreements with partners on top of creating a $12 billion U.S. strategic reserve to help counter China’s dominance.

    Vice President JD Vance is set to deliver a keynote address Wednesday at a meeting that Secretary of State Marco Rubio is hosting with officials from several dozen European, Asian and African nations. The U.S. is expected to sign deals on supply chain logistics, though details have not yet been revealed. Rubio met Tuesday with foreign ministers from South Korea and India to discuss critical minerals mining and processing.

    The meeting and expected agreements will come just two days after President Donald Trump announced “Project Vault,” or a stockpile of critical minerals to be funded with a $10 billion loan from the U.S. Export and Import Bank and nearly $1.67 billion in private capital.

    The Trump administration is making such bold moves after China, which controls 70% of the world’s rare earths mining and 90% of the processing, choked off the flow of the elements in response to Trump’s tariff war. The two superpowers are in a one-year truce after Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in October and agreed to pull back on high tariffs and stepped up rare earth restrictions.

    But China’s limits remain tighter than they were before Trump took office.

    “We don’t want to ever go through what we went through a year ago,” Trump said on Monday when announcing Project Vault.

    Other countries might join with the Trump administration in buying up critical minerals and taking other steps to spur industry development because the trade war revealed how vulnerable Western counties are to China, said Pini Althaus, who founded Oklahoma rare earth miner USA Rare Earth in 2019.

    “They’re looking at setting up sort of a buyers’ club, if you will,” said Althaus, who now is working to develop new mines in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as CEO of Cove Capital. “The key producers and key consumers of critical minerals will sort of get together and work on pricing structures, floor pricing and other things.”

    The government last week also made its fourth direct investment in an American critical minerals producer when it extended $1.6 billion to USA Rare Earth in exchange for stock and a repayment agreement.

    Seeking government funding these days is like meeting with private equity investors because officials are scrutinizing companies to ensure anyone they invest in can deliver, Althaus said. And the government is demanding terms designed to generate a return for taxpayers as loans are repaid and stock prices increase, he said.

    Meanwhile, the U.S. Export-Import Bank’s board this week approved the $10 billion loan — the largest in its history — to help finance the setup of the U.S. Strategic Critical Minerals Reserve. It is tasked with ensuring access to critical minerals and related products for manufacturers, including battery maker Clarios, energy equipment manufacturer GE Vernova, digital storage company Western Digital and aerospace giant Boeing, according to the policy bank.

    Bank President and Chairman John Jovanovic told CNBC that the project creates a public-private partnership formula that “is uniquely suited and puts America’s best foot forward.”

    “What it does is it creates a scenario where there are no free riders. Everybody pitches in to solve this huge problem,” he said.

    Manufacturers, which benefit the most from the reserve, are making a long-term financial commitment, Jovanovic said, while the government loan spurs private investments.

    The stockpile strategy may help spark a “more organic” pricing model that excludes China, which has used its dominance to flood the market with lower-priced products to squeeze out competitors, said Wade Senti, president of the U.S. permanent magnet company AML.

    The Trump administration also has injected public money directly into the sector. The Pentagon has shelled out nearly $5 billion over the past year to help ensure its access to the materials after the trade war laid bare just how beholden the U.S. is to China.

    A bipartisan group of lawmakers last month proposed creating a new agency with $2.5 billion to spur production of rare earths and the other critical minerals. The lawmakers applauded the steps by the Trump administration.

    “It’s a clear sign that there is bipartisan support for securing a robust domestic supply of critical minerals that both reduces our reliance on China and stabilizes the market,” Sens. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Todd Young, R-Ind., said in a joint statement Tuesday.

    Building up a stockpile will help American companies weather future rare earth supply disruptions, but that will likely be a long-term effort because the materials are still scarce right now with China’s restrictions, said David Abraham, a rare earths expert who has followed the industry for decades and wrote the book “The Elements of Power.”

    The Trump administration has focused on reinvigorating critical minerals production, but Abraham said it’s also important to encourage development of manufacturing that will use them. He noted that Trump’s decisions to cut incentives for electric vehicles and wind turbines have undercut demand for these elements in America.

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  • Lawmakers propose $2.5B agency to boost production of rare earths

    WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of lawmakers have proposed creating a new agency with $2.5 billion to spur production of rare earths and the other critical minerals, while the Trump administration has already taken aggressive actions to break China’s grip on the market for these materials that are crucial to high-tech products, including cellphones, electric vehicles, jet fighters and missiles.

    It’s too early to tell how the bill, if passed, could align with the White House’s policy, but whatever the approach, the U.S. is in a crunch to drastically reduce its reliance on China, after Beijing used its dominance of the critical minerals market to gain leverage in the trade war with Washington. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to a one-year truce in October, by which Beijing would continue to export critical minerals while the U.S. would ease its export controls of U.S. technology on China.

    The Pentagon has shelled out nearly $5 billion over the past year to help ensure its access to the materials after the trade war laid bare just how beholden the U.S. is to China, which processes more than 90% of the world’s critical minerals. To break Beijing’s chokehold, the U.S. government is taking equity stakes in a handful of critical mineral companies and in some cases guaranteeing the price of some commodities using an approach that seems more likely to come out of China’s playbook instead of a Republican administration.

    The bill that Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., introduced Thursday would favor a more market-based approach by setting up the independent body charged with building a stockpile of critical minerals and related products, stabilizing prices, and encouraging domestic and allied production to help ensure stable supply not only for the military but also the broader economy and manufacturers.

    Shaheen called the legislation “a historic investment” to make the U.S. economy more resilient against China’s dominance that she said has left the U.S. vulnerable to economic coercion. Young said creating the new reserve is “a much-needed, aggressive step to protect our national and economic security.”

    When Trump imposed widespread tariffs last spring, Beijing fought back not only with tit-for-tat tariffs but severe restrictions on the export of critical minerals, forcing Washington to back down and eventually agree to the truce when the leaders met in South Korea.

    On Monday, in his speech at SpaceX, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed that the Pentagon has in the past five months alone “deployed over $4.5 billion in capital commitments” to close six critical minerals deals that will “help free the United States from market manipulation.”

    One of the deals involves a $150 million of preferred equity by the Pentagon in Atlantic Alumina Co. to save the country’s last alumina refinery and build its first large-scale gallium production facility in Louisiana.

    Last year, the Pentagon announced it would buy $400 million of preferred stock in MP Materials, which owns the country’s only operational rare earths mine at Mountain Pass, California, and entered into a $1.4-billion joint partnership with ReElement Technologies Corp. to build up a domestic supply chain for rare earth magnets.

    The drastic move by the U.S. government to take equity stakes has prompted some analysts to observe that Washington is pivoting to some form of state capitalism to compete with Beijing.

    “Despite the dangers of political interference, the strategic logic is compelling,” wrote Elly Rostoum, a senior fellow at the Washington-based research institute Center for European Policy Analysis. She suggested that the new model could be “a prudent way for the U.S. to ensure strategic autonomy and industrial sovereignty.”

    But companies across the industry are welcoming the intervention from Trump’s administration.

    “He is playing three-dimensional chess on critical minerals like no previous president has done. It’s about time too, given the military and strategic vulnerability we face by having to import so many of these fundamental building blocks of technology and national defense,” NioCorp’s Chief Communications Officer Jim Sims said. That company is trying to finish raising the money it needs to build a mine in southeast Nebraska.

    In addition to trying to boost domestic production, the Trump administration has sought to secure some of these crucial elements through allies. In October, Trump signed an $8.5 billion agreement with Australia to invest in mining there, and the president is now aggressively trying to take over Greenland in the hope of being able to one day extract rare earths from there.

    On Monday, finance ministers from the G7 nations huddled in Washington over their vulnerability in the critical mineral supply chains.

    U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who has led several rounds of trade negotiations with Beijing, urged attendees to increase their supply chain resiliency and thanked them for their willingness to work together “toward decisive action and lasting solutions,” according to a Treasury statement.

    The bill introduced on Thursday by Shaheen and Young would encourage production with both domestic and allied producers.

    Congress in the past several years has pushed for legislation to protect the U.S. military and civilian industry from Beijing’s chokehold. The issue became a pressing concern every time China turned to its proven tactics of either restricting the supply or turned to dumping extra critical minerals on the market to depress prices and drive any potential competitors out of business.

    The Biden administration sought to increase demand for critical minerals domestically by pushing for more electric vehicle and windmill production. But the Trump administration largely eliminated the incentives for those products and instead chose to focus on increasing critical minerals production directly.

    Most of those past efforts were on a much more limited scale than what the government has done in the past year, and they were largely abandoned after China relented and eased access to critical minerals.

    ___

    Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. AP writer Konstantin Toropin contributed to the report.

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  • Trump Mobile’s golden phone remains nowhere to be found

    A golden phone that President Donald Trump’s family business promised to release last year remains mysteriously under wraps as the technology industry serves up a glut of new gadgets at CES in Las Vegas this week.

    When the Trump Organization launched a mobile phone service last June, it was supposed to be a stage setter for a new smartphone bathed in gold with a $500 price tag — a bargain compared to Apple’s latest iPhone models that sell for anywhere from $800 to $1,200. The newly formed Trump Mobile targeted its T1 phone for an August or September release.

    What’s more, Trump Mobile initially hailed T1 as a device that would be “proudly designed and built in the United States for customers who expect the best.”

    But both the T1’s shipping date and U.S. manufacturing ambitions gradually began to shift, even as Trump Mobile continues to accept $100 deposits for the device.

    Not long after announcing the device, Trump Mobile pivoted from describing it as phone that would be made in the U.S. to framing it as a device that would be “proudly American.” Trump Mobile’s website now touts the T1 as having an “American-proud” design, with no further explanation.

    Analysts believed that the shift stemmed from a recognition that the U.S. lacked the supply chain and other logistics required to make a smartphone for less than $1,000 — the same hurdles that made it implausible for Apple to acquiesce to President Trump’s demands that the company move its iPhone manufacturing from China and India.

    Later in the summer, Trump Mobile also became more vague about when the T1 would become available, but still indicated it would be delivered to customers who paid the $100 deposit by the end of 2025. Trump Mobile’s website continues to list the T1’s targeted release date as “later this year.”

    The Trump Organization didn’t respond to inquiries from The Associated Press about the delays or when the device is now expected to be shipped. The Financial Times recently reported that it was told by a customer service representative for Trump Mobile that the phone will be shipped in late January and attributed its delayed release to the 43-day shutdown of the federal government last year.

    Whatever the reason, the T1’s ongoing absence from the smartphone market didn’t come as a surprise to International Data Corp. analyst Francisco Jeronimo.

    “We have always been quite skeptical about this phone,” Jeronimo said. “They are probably finding that it is harder to build a phone than they thought it would be. Let’s see if this thing comes to life or not.”

    While the T1 has remained in a holding pattern, Trump Mobile has been selling its wireless service for $47.45 per month — a price tied to Donald Trump’s titles as the 47th and 45th President. For customers looking for a smartphone that they can use sooner rather than later, Trump Mobile is also selling refurbished versions of older iPhones and Samsung’s Galaxy models at prices ranging from $370 to $630.

    “Maybe they changed their strategy and figured out they are better off just selling refurbished phones,” Jeronimo said.

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  • Why your holiday gift returns might go to a landfill and what you can do about it

    The holiday season will soon come to a close, but the busiest time of the year for product returns is just beginning.

    The National Retail Federation estimates 17% of holiday purchases will be sent back this year. More retailers are reporting extended return windows and increased holiday staff to handle the rush this year.

    A major driver for returns is uncertainty. When we buy for other people, finding what they want is a bit of a guessing game. Online purchases have higher return rates because finding the right size and color is tough when you’re just staring at images on screens.

    “Clothing and footwear, as you can imagine, because fit is such an important criteria, they have higher rates of returns,” said Saskia van Gendt, chief sustainability officer at Blue Yonder, which sells software designed to improve companies’ supply chain management.

    Returns come with an environmental cost, but there’s a lot consumers and companies are doing to minimize it.

    If a company sells a thing, it’s probably packaged in plastic. Plastic is made from oil, and oil production releases emissions that warm the planet. If that thing is bought online, it’s put on a plane or a train or a truck that usually uses oil-based fuel.

    If you buy a thing and return it, it goes through most or all of that all over again.

    And once those products are back with the retailer, they may be sent along to a refurbisher, liquidator, recycler or landfill. All these steps require more travel, packaging and energy, ultimately translating to more emissions. Joseph Sarkis, who teaches supply chain management at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, estimates that returning an item increases its impact on the planet by 25% to 30%.

    Roughly a third of the time, those returns don’t make their way to another consumer. Because frequently, it’s not worth reselling.

    If, for example, you get a phone, but you send it back because you don’t like the color, the seller has to pay for the fuel and equipment to get the phone back, and then has to pay for the labor to assess whether it has been damaged since leaving the facility.

    “It can be quite expensive,” said Sarkis. “And if you send it out to a new customer and the phone is bad, imagine the reputational hit you’ll get. You’ll get another return and you’ll lose a customer who’s unhappy with the product or material. So the companies are hesitant to take that chance.”

    Something as expensive as a phone might get sold to a secondary or refurbishment market. But that $6 silicone spatula you got off Amazon? Probably not worth it. Plus, some stuff — think a bathing suit or a bra — is less attractive to customers if there’s a chance it’s been resold. The companies know that.

    And that’s where the costs of returns are more than just environmental — and consumers wind up paying. Even free returns aren’t really free.

    “Refurbishment, inspection, repackaging, all of these things get factored into the retail price,” said Christopher Faires, assistant professor of logistics and supply chain management at Georgia Southern University.

    If you want to reduce the impact of your returns, the first move is to increase their chances of resale. Be careful not to damage it, and reuse the packaging to send it back, said Cardiff University logistics and operations management lecturer Danni Zhang.

    If you have to return something, do it quickly. That ugly Christmas sweater you got at the white elephant office party has a much better chance of selling on Dec. 20 than it does on Jan. 5. Zhang said it’s not worth the cost to the company to store that sweater once it’s gone out of season.

    Another tip: in-person shopping is better than online because purchases get returned less often, and in-person returns are better, too — because those items get resold more often. Zhang said it reduces landfill waste. Sarkis said it reduces emissions because companies with brick-and-mortar locations spread out across the country and closer to consumers thus move restocked goods shorter distances.

    “If I can return in-store, then I definitely will,” Zhang said. “The managers can put that stuff back to the market as soon as possible.”

    Obviously the best thing consumers can do is minimize returns. Many shoppers engage in “bracketing behavior,” or buying multiple sizes of the same item, keeping what fits, and returning the rest.

    “This behavior of bringing the dressing room to our homes is not sustainable,” said Faires.

    If you’re buying for someone else, you can also consider taking the guesswork out of the equation and going for a gift card.

    “I know we do really want to pick up something really nice to express our love for our friends or our family. But if we are more sustainable, probably the gift card will be much better than just purchasing the product,” Zhang said.

    Sarkis wants to see companies provide more information in product descriptions about the environmental impact of returning an item, or how much of the purchase price factors in return costs.

    “But I don’t know if they want to send a negative message,” he said. “If you’re telling someone to stop something because of negative results, that’s not going to sell.”

    Sarkis and Zhang both say charging for returns would help. Already Amazon is requiring customers pay in certain situations.

    On the tech side, Blue Yonder’s recent acquisition of Optoro, a company that provides a return management system for retailers and brands, uses a software to quickly assess the condition of returned products and route them to stores that are most likely to resell them.

    “Having that process be more digitized, you can quickly assess the condition and put it back into inventory,” said van Gendt. “So that’s a big way to just avoid landfill and also all of the carbon emissions that are associated with that.”

    Clothing is returned most often. Many sizes do not reflect specific measurements, like women’s dresses, so they vary a lot between brands. Zhang said better sizing could help reduce the need for returns. On top of that, Sarkis said more 3D imaging and virtual reality programs could help customers be more accurate with their purchases, saving some returns.

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Fast shipping is increasing emissions. Here’s why delivery has become more polluting

    It feels simple: You shop, find something you want and click to buy. It shows up today, overnight or tomorrow. We’ve gotten used to that speed. But that convenience comes with a climate cost.

    Multiple factors shape the environmental toll of a delivery. These include the distance from a fulfillment center, whether the shipment rides in a half-empty truck, how many trips a driver makes in the same area and the type of transportation used to move the package.

    When customers choose faster shipping and earlier delivery dates, the system shifts from optimized routing to whatever gets the package out fastest, and that means higher emissions, said Sreedevi Rajagopalan, a research scientist at MIT’s Center for Transportation and Logistics. For example, trucks may leave warehouses before they’re full and drivers might loop the same neighborhood multiple times a day, she said.

    “For the same demand, fast shipping definitely increases emissions 10 to 12%,” she said.

    To meet tight delivery windows, retailers may rely on air freight, which produces far more emissions than other options such as trains, making it the most carbon-intensive.

    “Given that companies want to be competitive in terms of speed, it comes at the cost of your efficiency,” Sreedevi said. “Vans are half full, and you make multiple rounds, multiple trips to the same location … your fuel consumption goes up, and you’re not able to consolidate.”

    One way companies like Amazon try to minimize that is by placing their supply chain closer to customers to reduce mileage and improve speed for the customer. Their goal is to make the journey fast and effective, but reduce its emissions at the same time.

    “By really leveraging our supply chain efficiencies that we have at scale, we’re able to both offer better speed and sustainability outcomes at the same time,” said Chris Atkins, director of Worldwide Operations Sustainability at Amazon.

    Getting items to customers’ doors from a fulfillment center — referred to as the “last mile” or “last kilometer” of shipping — is one of the hardest stages to make less polluting, Sreedevi said.

    Emissions rise even more when customers place multiple small orders throughout the week.

    “If I place an order this morning and then I place an order this evening and choose fast shipping, the company might have already processed my morning order and wouldn’t wait for my evening order to consolidate,” she said.

    And sending more half-full trucks out on the road means more trips overall.

    “Imagine you’re not only sending a half-full truck, you’re also bringing back that truck empty. … Emissions are going to go up,” Sreedevi said.

    Consumers can lower emissions if they’re willing to wait even a tiny bit, and they’ll save money at the same time, said Christopher Faires, assistant professor of logistics and supply chain management at Georgia Southern University.

    Delaying delivery by one to two days can result in a 36% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions, and three to four days pushes that reduction to 56%, so opting for standard or delayed shipping instead of next-day or two-day shipping helps, according to Sreedevi.

    Amazon’s Atkins said changes to their network are cutting emissions linked to fast delivery. The company has expanded the use of electric delivery vans and shifted more packages to rail and to delivering by foot or bicycle in dense cities.

    “Aviation is very carbon-intensive relative to ground shipping,” said Atkins. “One of the other things that Amazon and other logistics companies are looking at doing is: How do we mode-shift to less carbon intensive forms of transportation?”

    Amazon says providing shipping options that encourage customers to consolidate orders have also helped. Data for the first nine months of 2025 shows that when customers chose a single delivery day for all items, it reduced more than 300 million delivery stops and avoided 100,000 tons (90,718 metric tons) of carbon emissions, according to Atkins.

    People are more likely to delay or consolidate orders once they understand the environmental impact of fast shipping, according to Sreedevi, who co-authored a 2024 study of delivery customers in Mexico.

    “A significant number of consumers decided to wait for longer delivery or delayed their shipping when we showed them the environmental impact information in the form of trees,” said Sreedevi. “So it’s important that they are educated.”

    While fast shipping isn’t likely to go away, experts say its climate impacts can be meaningfully reduced through small behavior shifts, both from shoppers and companies. Bundling orders, skipping the overnight option and choosing a single weekly delivery can all make a difference.

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Postal service plans to open last-mile delivery network to more shippers in money-raising move

    The U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday it intends to open its “last-mile” delivery network, the most expensive part of the shipping process, to large and small shippers, expanding beyond current arrangements with giants such as Amazon and UPS.

    The goal is to diversify and boost revenue through the postal carriers’ final leg of delivery to millions of individual homes and businesses.

    The postal service expects to accept bids in late January or early February from other shippers, which will propose their own mix of volume, price and delivery timing. The agency will award contracts later in 2026, based on where it can provide same- and next-day delivery service at a profit.

    “As part of our universal service obligation, we deliver to more than 170 million addresses at least six days a week, so we are the natural leader in last-mile delivery,” said David Steiner, the postmaster general and CEO. “We want to make this valuable service available to a wide range of customers that see the worth of last mile access -other logistics companies and retailers large and small.”

    Steiner has said the 250-year-old postal service should expand its revenue base by capitalizing on its long-standing legal obligation to deliver to every address, as well as recent modernization investments in package processing and delivery capacity.

    The agency reported net losses of $9 billion this budget year, a slight improvement from the previous year’s $9.5 billion. The postal service is an independent and mostly self-supporting federal agency.

    Under the new plan, shippers would have access to more than 18,000 postal service “delivery distribution units,” entry points throughout the network where mail and packages are sorted for delivery to a local area.

    Steiner called the concept a “compelling value proposition for many shippers who we know are wrestling with the need to deliver to their customer as quickly and reliably as possible,” predicting it will ultimately help lower their costs.

    The postal service said it still plans to gauge interest in the concept and fine-tune the details.

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  • Dozens of firefighters battle blaze on container ship docked at LA port

    LOS ANGELES — Dozens of firefighters were battling a blaze on a container ship docked at a Los Angeles port on Friday night, according to officials.

    All of the 23 crew members were accounted for and there were no injuries from the electrical fire, which appears to have started below deck, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department. The ship’s cargo includes hazardous materials.

    By about 7 p.m., the fire had spread to several levels of the ship, according to the fire department, and later an explosion took place mid-deck. It was not immediately clear how the fire started.

    More than 100 firefighters were fighting the fire at the Port of Los Angeles, according to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. The port is known as the busiest in North America.

    “LAFD Hazardous Materials companies are monitoring air quality as fire suppression continues,” she said.

    The 1,102-foot-long (336-meter-long) vessel, the One Henry Hudson, is operated by One Ocean Express, a shipping company headquartered in Singapore. Before Los Angeles, the ship had most recently been in Japan, stopping in Kobe, Nagoya and Tokyo. One Ocean Express did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press requesting comment.

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  • A crisis at chipmaker Nexperia sent automakers scrambling. Here’s what to know

    A battle for control of a little-known chipmaker has threatened global auto production by choking off the semiconductor supply chain, though there are signs the crisis is inching toward a resolution.

    The power struggle over Nexperia, a Chinese-owned Dutch semiconductor maker, highlights how technology supply chain vulnerabilities are squeezing auto makers, most notably forcing Honda to halt production at a Mexican factory making its popular HR-V crossover for North American markets. It also exposes how Europe is caught in the middle of the wider geopolitical showdown between Washington and Beijing.

    Here’s a look at the dispute:

    The turmoil erupted into public view in mid-October, when the Dutch government announced it had invoked a rarely used World War II-era law to take effective control of Nexperia weeks earlier.

    The Dutch ministry of economic affairs said it took action because of national security concerns. Officials said they intervened because of “serious governance shortcomings” at Nexperia, asserting control to prevent the loss of crucial tech know-how that could threaten Europe’s economic security.

    Nexperia’s Chinese owner Wingtech Technology, a partially state-owned company, is at the heart of the dispute. Amid the boardroom battle, a Dutch court granted the ministry’s request to oust Nexperia’s Chinese CEO Zhang Xuezheng. American officials told the Dutch government he would have to be replaced to avoid trade restrictions, according to a court filing.

    Nexperia makes simple semiconductors such as switches and logic chips. The auto industry — one of Nexperia’s biggest markets — uses its chips for numerous functions, such as adaptive LED headlight controllers, electric vehicle battery management systems and anti-lock brakes.

    Headquartered in the Dutch city of Nijmegen, Nexperia was spun off from Philips Semiconductors two decades ago. It was eventually purchased by China’s Wingtech Technology in 2018 for $3.6 billion.

    Nexperia has wafer fabrication plants in Britain and Germany. It operates an assembly and testing center in China’s southern manufacturing heartland of Guangdong — which accounts for around 70% of its end-product capacity — and similar centers in the Philippines and Malaysia.

    The dispute is part of the broader struggle between the U.S. and China over tech supremacy, which has left Europe caught in the middle.

    It stems from Washington’s decision late last year to place Wingtech on its “entity list,” which subjects companies to export controls because of national security risks. In late September, the U.S. expanded that list to Wingtech’s subsidiaries, including Nexperia, pressuring allies to follow suit.

    After the Dutch government asserted control of Nexperia, Beijing responded soon after, blocking the export of Nexperia chips from its assembly plant in the Chinese city of Dongguan. It blamed the Netherlands for “turmoil and chaos” in the chip supply chain.

    There were signs of hope following last month’s high-profile meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, when the White House said Beijing would ease the export ban as part of a U.S.-China trade truce.

    Despite Beijing also confirming exports would be allowed to resume, Nexperia’s Chinese unit said headquarters suspended shipments of wafers used to make chips to its Chinese factory, potentially crimping its ability to deliver finished products.

    Nexperia’s head office hit back in a statement Wednesday, saying the Chinese unit refused to pay for the wafers and accused it of “ignoring the lawful instructions” from its global management team. The company said it can’t guarantee the quality of any chips delivered from its China plant since Oct. 13.

    Modern automobiles rely on so-called discrete chips made by companies like Nexperia, which, unlike more advanced microprocessors, perform a single function. Leaders at big carmakers spelled out their worries in the latest round of earnings calls, saying that finding a replacement for Nexperia at scale in the short term will be difficult.

    “While Nexperia makes up only about 5% of the automotive silicon discrete market in term of revenue, its share is much higher in terms of discrete chip volume,” S&P Global Mobility analysts wrote in a recent note.

    Nexperia’s parts are widely used across vehicle systems — often dozens to hundreds per vehicle — and carmakers in North America, Japan and South Korea are at risk, they added.

    “It’s an industrywide issue. A quick breakthrough is really necessary to avoid fourth quarter production losses for the entire industry,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said.

    General Motors CEO Mary Barra warned that production could be hit. The company has “teams working around the clock with our supply chain partners to minimize possible disruptions,” she said.

    Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa told CNBC that the company is setting aside a 25 billion yen ($163 million) provision for supply risks, in part to “absorb” the impact from the Nexperia crisis on production.

    Mercedes-Benz is “scurrying around the world to look for alternatives,” CEO Ola Kallenius said. The European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association said members including BMW, Renault, Volkswagen and Volvo have been forced to use their reserve stockpiles of chips and warned of assembly line stoppages if they run out.

    The European Union’s trade commissioner, Maros Sefcovic, on Saturday noted “encouraging progress,” writing on X that China’s Commerce Ministry had confirmed “further simplification” of export procedures for Nexperia chips to the EU and global customers.

    In Beijing, the Commerce Ministry also said Saturday that it agreed to a Dutch request to send representatives to China for “consultations.”

    But it noted that the Netherlands had not taken any concrete actions yet to restore the global semiconductor supply chain since the Dutch government said days earlier it would take “appropriate steps on our part where necessary.”

    Economics Affairs Minister Vincent Karremans had said in that statement that “the Netherlands trusts that the supply of chips from China to Europe and the rest of the world will reach Nexperia’s customers over the coming days.”

    Honda has received word that Nexperia’s shipments from China have resumed, Executive Vice President Noriya Kaihara told reporters Friday. He said the Japanese automaker expects to resume production during the week of Nov. 21 at its plant in Celaya, Mexico, which can make up to 200,000 vehicles a year.

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    AP Business Writer Yuri Kageyama in Tokyo contributed to this report.

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  • Dramatic videos show the burning UPS cargo plane crash in a massive fireball

    LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Videos from phones, cars and security cameras captured the tragic final moments of a UPS cargo plane as it caught fire and crashed in a massive explosion just outside Louisville’s airport, killing at least 12 people and carving a path of destruction on the ground.

    A large UPS cargo plane with three people aboard crashed Tuesday while taking off from an airport in Louisville, Kentucky, igniting an explosion and massive fire.

    Plumes of smoke rise from the area of a UPS cargo plane crash at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport, on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

    A fireball erupts near airport property after reports of a plane crash at Louisville International Airport, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

    A fireball erupts near airport property after reports of a plane crash at Louisville International Airport, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025, in Louisville, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

    The videos provide investigators and the public with many different angles of the plane going down Tuesday in an area dotted with scrap yards and UPS facilities. No one expects to find survivors.

    The plane had been cleared for takeoff from UPS Worldport, the company’s global aviation hub, when a large fire developed in the left wing and an engine fell off, said Todd Inman, a member of the National Transportation Safety Board, which is leading the investigation.

    One video of the crash taken by a vehicle’s dashcam shows flames and smoke trailing from the wing as the jet barely clears a road, clips a building and vanishes behind an eruption of black smoke.

    The grim task of finding and identifying victims from the firestorm that followed a UPS cargo plane crash in Louisville, Kentucky, entered a third day Thursday as investigators gathered information to determine why the aircraft caught fire and lost an engine on takeoff.

    Another video from a business security camera captures the deafening sound of the plane’s impact and a wall of fire and black smoke. As the flames grow, a smaller blast ripples through the wreckage as sirens begin to echo in the distance.

    Surveillance video from a truck parts business near the Louisville airport shows large flames and plumes of smoke as the UPS plane crashes. The disaster killed at least 12 people on the plane and on the ground.

    The blaze stretched nearly a city block and destroyed much of the plane’s fuselage, fire officials have said.

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    In yet another recording, the UPS plane can be seen lifting off the runway already on fire, then disappearing seconds later in an orange fireball.

    From a nearby street, a driver filmed the explosion and thick black smoke above nearby buildings. The smoke fills the sky as the vehicle backs away. Other videos from the street show a pillar of black smoke towering over buildings and traffic in the area as sirens echo and lights from emergency vehicles flash.

    A UPS plane crashed on takeoff from the airport in Louisville, Kentucky, igniting a huge fire on ground, officials said Tuesday.

    The recordings of the crash have deepened the shock and grief among other UPS pilots, said Independent Pilots Association President Robert Travis. The union represents 3,500 pilots who fly for UPS.

    “We’re just all heartbroken,” he said. “This is a tragedy that is even highlighted further by the video that’s out there circulating around the world due to the catastrophic, violent nature of the accident itself.”

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  • What to know about the deadly UPS plane crash in Kentucky

    LOUISVILLE, Ky. — At least seven people are dead and 11 others injured after a UPS cargo plane caught fire and crashed Tuesday while taking off from the company’s distribution hub in Louisville, leaving a trail of flames near the runway.

    The McDonnell Douglas MD-11, built in 1991, went down around 5:15 p.m. after its left wing caught fire. It was fully loaded with fuel for the long flight to Honolulu from UPS Worldport. The facility at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport has some 300 daily flights.

    Four of the people killed were on the ground, Louisville Fire Chief Brian O’Neill said. The victims have not been identified. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the 11 people who were hurt suffered “very significant” injuries.

    Here’s what is known about the crash.

    Video showed flames on the plane’s left wing and a trail of smoke as it lifted briefly off the ground before crashing in a massive fireball. Residents who heard loud booms captured footage of multiple explosions and heavy smoke rising over the airport.

    The fire chief said the blaze stretched nearly a city block. There was no hazardous cargo on board, officials said.

    Fire and debris quickly spread over an industrial area adjacent to the end of the runway, and parts of a nearby building’s roof appeared shredded. Satellite photos of the neighborhood show a wide a parking lot and large water tanks in the vicinity.

    Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg told WLKY-TV that crews were preparing to resume the search for victims Wednesday. A shelter-in-place order that initially covered a one-mile radius was reduced to a quarter mile as air quality improved.

    There was no hazardous cargo on board, officials said.

    UPS has said the National Transportation Safety Board will handle the crash investigation.

    Louisville is home to UPS’s largest package handling facility, which employs thousands of workers and sorts more than 400,000 packages an hour. The company said it was halting package sorting operations Tuesday night at the facility and did not indicate when operations would resume.

    The Louisville airport shut down after the crash but began to resume operations Wednesday morning. Flights canceled Tuesday were prioritized for departure, although some Wednesday flights remained grounded.

    In May 2017, a propeller plane carrying UPS cargo that took off from Louisville crashed at West Virginia International Yeager Airport in Charleston, killing the pilot and co-pilot.

    Aviation attorney Pablo Rojas said video of the crash suggests the plane struggled to gain altitude as fire blazed along its left side near an engine.

    “There’s very little to contain the flames, and really the plane itself is almost acting like a bomb because of the amount of fuel,” he said.

    He said it’s hard to know if the pilot saw the flames, and that even if the crew realized there was a problem, aborting the takeoff might’ve been even more dangerous.

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  • Japan successfully launches new cargo spacecraft to deliver supplies to ISS

    TOKYO — Japan’s space agency successfully launched Sunday its most powerful flagship H3 rocket, carrying a newly developed unmanned cargo spacecraft for its first mission to deliver supplies to the International Space Station.

    The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said the HTV-X1 spacecraft successfully lifted off atop the No. 7 H3 rocket from Japan’s Tanegashima Space Center in the country’s south and confirmed it entered targeted orbit 14 minutes after liftoff.

    The spacecraft was separated and placed into a planned orbit, JAXA said. If everything goes smoothly, it is expected to arrive at the ISS in a few days to deliver supplies. Japanese astronaut Kimiya Yui, currently at the ISS, is set to catch the craft with a robot arm in the early hours of Thursday.

    The HTV-X is the successor to JAXA’s unmanned H-II Transfer Vehicle, known as Kounotori, or stork in Japanese, which flew nine missions to the ISS between 2009 and 2020.

    The new freighter can carry a bigger payload and supply power during flight, enabling the transport of lab samples that require storage at low temperatures.

    The HTV-X is designed to be connected to the ISS for up to six months to deliver supplies and retrieve waste from the ISS, then conduct technical missions while making an orbital flight after leaving the station, this time for three months.

    Sunday’s launch also marks a successful debut for H3 rocket’s most powerful version, with four rocket boosters and a bigger fairing, a top compartment for payloads, officials said.

    JAXA President Hiroshi Yamakawa called Sunday’s launch “a major step forward” that demonstrated Japan’s capability of delivering supplies to space, which serves as “the basis of autonomous space activity.”

    Iwao Igarashi, head of the Space Business Department at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, responsible for developing H3 with JAXA and operating rocket launches, said Japan’s track record of on-time launch and accuracy in delivering payloads and the newly modified rocket prove they can accommodate a range of customer needs. He said his company plans to expand its launch facility.

    H3 rocket replaces Japan’s long-beloved mainstay H-2A rocket, which made its final flight in June, as a new flagship model designed to be more cost-competitive in the global space market. The H3 has so far made six consecutive successful flights after a failed debut attempt in 2023, when the rocket had to be destroyed with its payload.

    Japan sees a stable, commercially competitive space transport capability as key to its space program and national security.

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  • Japan’s exports and imports grow in September despite Trump’s tariffs

    Japan’s exports grew 4.2% in September, according to government data, on robust shipments to Asia that offset the decline to those destined for the U.S., which were impacted by President Donald Trump’s tariffs

    TOKYO — TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s exports grew 4.2% in September, according to government data Wednesday, on robust shipments to Asia that offset a decline in exports to the U.S., which were impacted by President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

    Japan’s exports to Asia jumped 9.2% last month compared to the same period a year earlier, according to Japanese Ministry of Finance data.

    Exports to the U.S. dropped 13.3%, marking the sixth straight month of on-year declines, while those to China surged 5.8% compared to last year.

    Auto shipments to the U.S. dropped 24.2% in September. Automakers like Toyota Motor Corp. are pillars of Japan’s economy.

    Japan’s imports edged up 3.3% in September overall, growing 6% in Asia, including a 9.8% rise in imports from China.

    The findings come a day after Sanae Takaichi was chosen in a parliamentary vote as the nation’s prime minister, becoming the first woman to lead Japan.

    She is known for nationalist-leaning conservative views but is also seen as a proponent of bigger public spending, which has sent share prices generally rising in Tokyo in recent sessions.

    Takaichi has also promised higher wages, as well as looser monetary policy, which would favor a weak Japanese yen. That would be a boon for the nation’s giant exporters by raising the value of overseas earnings when converted into yen.

    Takaichi faces an uphill battle in realizing her policies because the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, even with coalition partners, does not have a majority in either house of parliament. Her own party remains divided.

    Trump, who is expected to visit Japan later this month to meet with Takaichi, announced a trade framework with Japan in July that placed a 15% tax on Japanese goods.

    At that time, Japan promised to invest $550 billion into the U.S. and open its economy more to American automobiles and rice. The 15% tax on imported Japanese goods was a significant drop from the 25% rate that Trump had said earlier.

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  • China sanctions 5 US units of South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean over probe by Washington

    HONG KONG — HONG KONG (AP) — China’s Commerce Ministry said Tuesday it was banning dealings by Chinese companies with five subsidiaries of South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean in the latest swipe by Beijing at U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to rebuild the industry in America.

    The ministry also announced that it was also investigating a probe by Washington into China’s growing dominance in world shipbuilding and threatened more retaliatory measures. It said the U.S. probe endangers China’s national security and its shipping industry and cited Hanwha’s involvement in the investigation.

    The U.S. Trade Representative launched the Section 301 trade investigation in April 2024. It determined that China’s strength in the industry was a burden to U.S. businesses.

    “China just weaponized shipbuilding,” said Kun Cao, deputy chief executive at consulting firm Reddal. “Beijing is signaling it will hit third-country firms that help Washington counter China’s maritime dominance.”

    International shipping and shipbuilding have yet another areas of friction between Washington and Beijing. Each side has imposed new port fees on each others’ vessels that took effect on Tuesday.

    Hanwha Ocean’s shares traded in South Korea fell as much as over 8% on Tuesday.

    The company said via email that “Hanwha Ocean is aware of the announcement made by the Chinese government and is closely reviewing its potential business impact on the company.”

    The sanctioned entities are Hanwha Shipping LLC, Hanwha Philly Shipyard Inc., Hanwha Ocean USA International LLC, Hanwha Shipping Holdings LLC and HS USA Holdings Corp.

    A truce in the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies appears to have unraveled after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened a new 100% tariff on imports from China, expressing frustration over new Chinese export controls on rare earths.

    The escalation of antagonisms raised doubts over whether Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will go ahead with a meeting planned for late this month. But Beijing said on Tuesday that China and the U.S. held working-level talks on Monday and have maintained communication.

    South Korea and the U.S. have been building closer ties in shipbuilding in response to China’s dominance as the world’s largest shipbuilder.

    In late 2024, Hanwha acquired the Philly Shipyard in Pennsylvania for $100 million. It announced in August that it plans to invest $5 billion in new docks and quays as part of its support for U.S. efforts to restore globally competitive shipbuilding capacity.

    Last year, Hanwha Ocean also secured contracts with the U.S. Navy to perform maintenance, repair and overhaul work for U.S. naval vessels.

    China said its new port fees would apply to ships owned by U.S. companies or other entities or individuals, those operated by U.S. entities including those having a U.S. stake of 25% or more, vessels flying a U.S. flag and vessels built in the United States, mirroring in many aspects the U.S.’s port fees on Chinese ships.

    U.S. businesses represents just 2.9% of world fleet ownership by capacity and 0.1% of global shipbuilding tonnage. Trump has vowed to help rebuild the industry as part of his broader push to expand U.S.-based manufacturing.

    Hanwha Ocean said in May that it was withdrawing from a joint venture in China.

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  • China sanctions 5 US units of shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean over probe by Washington

    HONG KONG — HONG KONG (AP) — China’s Commerce Ministry said Tuesday it was banning dealings by Chinese companies with five subsidiaries of South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean in the latest swipe by Beijing at U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to rebuild the industry in America.

    The ministry also announced that it was also investigating a probe by Washington into China’s growing dominance in world shipbuilding and threatened more retaliatory measures. It said the U.S. probe endangers China’s national security and its shipping industry and cited Hanwha’s involvement in the investigation.

    The U.S. Trade Representative launched the Section 301 trade investigation in April 2024. It determined that China’s strength in the industry was a burden to U.S. businesses.

    “China just weaponized shipbuilding,” said Kun Cao, deputy chief executive at consulting firm Reddal. “Beijing is signaling it will hit third-country firms that help Washington counter China’s maritime dominance.”

    International shipping and shipbuilding have yet another areas of friction between Washington and Beijing. Each side has imposed new port fees on each others’ vessels that took effect on Tuesday.

    Hanwha Ocean’s shares traded in South Korea fell as much as over 8% on Tuesday.

    The company said via email that “Hanwha Ocean is aware of the announcement made by the Chinese government and is closely reviewing its potential business impact on the company.”

    The sanctioned entities are Hanwha Shipping LLC, Hanwha Philly Shipyard Inc., Hanwha Ocean USA International LLC, Hanwha Shipping Holdings LLC and HS USA Holdings Corp.

    A truce in the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies appears to have unraveled after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened a new 100% tariff on imports from China, expressing frustration over new Chinese export controls on rare earths.

    The escalation of antagonisms raised doubts over whether Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will go ahead with a meeting planned for late this month. But Beijing said on Tuesday that China and the U.S. held working-level talks on Monday and have maintained communication.

    South Korea and the U.S. have been building closer ties in shipbuilding in response to China’s dominance as the world’s largest shipbuilder.

    In late 2024, Hanwha acquired the Philly Shipyard in Pennsylvania for $100 million. It announced in August that it plans to invest $5 billion in new docks and quays as part of its support for U.S. efforts to restore globally competitive shipbuilding capacity.

    Last year, Hanwha Ocean also secured contracts with the U.S. Navy to perform maintenance, repair and overhaul work for U.S. naval vessels.

    China said its new port fees would apply to ships owned by U.S. companies or other entities or individuals, those operated by U.S. entities including those having a U.S. stake of 25% or more, vessels flying a U.S. flag and vessels built in the United States, mirroring in many aspects the U.S.’s port fees on Chinese ships.

    U.S. businesses represents just 2.9% of world fleet ownership by capacity and 0.1% of global shipbuilding tonnage. Trump has vowed to help rebuild the industry as part of his broader push to expand U.S.-based manufacturing.

    Hanwha Ocean said in May that it was withdrawing from a joint venture in China.

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  • China hits US ships with retaliatory port fees before trade talks

    HONG KONG — HONG KONG (AP) — China has hit U.S.-owned vessels docking in the country with tit-for-tat port fees, in response to the American government’s planned port fees on Chinese ships, expanding a string of retaliatory measures before trade talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

    Vessels owned or operated by American companies or individuals, and ships built in the U.S. or flying the American flag, would be subjected to a 400 yuan ($56) per net ton fee per voyage if they dock in China, China’s Ministry of Transport said on Friday.

    The fees would be applied on the same ship for a maximum of five voyages each year, and would rise every year until 2028, when it would hike to 1,120 yuan ($157) per net ton, the ministry said. They would take effect on Oct. 14, the same day when the United States is due to start imposing port fees on Chinese vessels.

    China’s Ministry of Transport said on Friday in a statement that its special fees on American vessels are “countermeasures” in response to “wrongful” U.S. practices, referring to the planned U.S. port fees on Chinese vessels.

    The ministry also slammed the United States’ port fees as “discriminatory” that would “severely damage the legitimate interests of China’s shipping industry” and “seriously undermine” international economic and trade order.

    China has announced a string of trade measures and restrictions before an expected meeting between Trump and Xi on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in South Korea that begins at the end of October. On Thursday, Beijing unveiled new curbs on exports of rare earths and related technologies, as well as new restrictions on the export of some lithium battery and related production equipment.

    The port fees announced by Beijing on Friday mirrors many aspects of the U.S. port fees on Chinese ships docking in American ports. Under Washington’s plans, Chinese-owned or -operated ships will be charged $50 per net ton for each voyage to the U.S., which would then rise by $30 per net ton each year until 2028. Each vessel would be charged no more than five times per year.

    China’s new port fee is “not just a symbolic move,” said Kun Cao, deputy chief executive at consulting firm Reddal. “It explicitly targets any ship with meaningful U.S. links — ownership, operation, flag, or build — and scales steeply with ship size.”

    The “real bite is on U.S.-owned and operated vessels,” he said, adding that North America accounts for roughly 5% of the world fleet by beneficial ownership, which is still a meaningful figure although not as huge as compared to Greek, Chinese and Japanese ship owners.

    However, the United States has only about 0.1% of global commercial shipbuilding market share in recent years and built fewer than 10 commercial ships last year, Reddal added.

    While shipping analysts have said that the U.S. port fees on Chinese vessels would likely have limited impact on trade and freight rates as some shipping companies have been redeploying their fleets to avoid the extra charge, shipping data provider Alphaliner warned last month in a report that the U.S. port fees could still cost up to $3.2 billion next year for the world’s top 10 carriers.

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    This story has been corrected to show that the Alphaliner report was from last month, not this month.

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  • Missing Virginia store cat found after hitching a ride to another state

    Francine the calico cat is back home at a Lowe’s store in Virginia after going missing for a few weeks, hitching a ride on a truck that turned up at a sister facility in another state.

    Two employees from a Lowe’s in Richmond made the 90-minute drive early Monday to pick up Francine, who disappeared in September and recently was discovered at the company’s distribution center in Garysburg, North Carolina.

    She was back on the job Tuesday, playing with customers, posing for photos and soaking in affection.

    “Francine is one of us,” store supervisor Wayne Schneider said in a telephone interview. “She’s just amazing. What she means here to the store and the employees, you really can’t imagine the outpouring that the employees and also the customers give her daily.”

    Francine spends much of her time either at the customer service desk or in the store’s seasonal area. But things went awry in September as the store brought in items for the upcoming Christmas season. Store general manager Mike Sida said that disruption may have prompted Francine to seek comfort elsewhere.

    After store employees hadn’t seen Francine for a few days, they reviewed past surveillance video. There were glimpses of her in the appliance section and then the receiving department, where she darted into a truck. An overnight manager is then seen shutting the truck’s door and off it went to Garysburg, about 85 miles (137 kilometers) to the south.

    “And then, of course, when she got down to the distribution center, she shot off the truck,” Sida said. “That’s when we found out where she was and she was missing.”

    An animal control office set up humane traps at the distribution center, where photos of Francine were posted throughout. The center had dozens of monitoring cameras, and Lowe’s brought in thermal drones to survey the area. An Instagram account unaffiliated with Lowe’s dedicated to finding Francine grew to more than 34,000 followers.

    On Saturday, Francine was spotted on camera near the distribution center. After more humane traps were installed, a volunteer checked each trap throughout the night. Finally, one of the traps triggered and Francine’s meows could be heard.

    Schneider and Sida got in a car early Monday and drove to get Francine.

    “That ride going down, knowing that we were going to get her, was just heartwarming. Knowing she’s safe and that she’s coming back to the store to get off her two-week vacation,” Schneider said.

    Francine was a stray when she started living at the Lowe’s store more than eight years ago. Cats are common sightings around feed stores and garden centers, which contain large amounts of grain and seed that can be attractive to mice and rats. In New York City, cats are beloved fixtures of the city’s bodegas and delis.

    At the Lowe’s store, Francine “just showed up,” Sida said. “We had a bit of a mice problem. So, of course, I’m like, wow. I like this cat a lot because it’s helping me.”

    Lowe’s doesn’t have an official policy about cats in stores. Asked why Francine wasn’t taken to someone’s residence after showing up, Sida said she is loved by employees and the community.

    “Francine picked us. We didn’t pick her,” Sida said. “Later, we would embrace her being our store cat. But at the end of the day, she came to us. Where she’s at is where she wants to be. She does whatever she wants.”

    Unlike Lowe’s employees, Francine does not wear a vest. She had been previously outfitted with several collars but escaped them all. Now they plan on fitting her with a harness that includes identifying information.

    A local brewery will host a “Francine Fest” community event on Wednesday to celebrate the homecoming, while the store is planning its own team party.

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  • Cyberattack hits major Japanese beverage producer, affecting its operations

    TOKYO — TOKYO (AP) — A major Japanese beverage producer says it has been hit by a cyberattack that left its operations disrupted for the fifth day on Friday, and Japanese media are reporting that stocks of the company’s popular beer and other beverages are running low in some stores.

    Asahi Group Holdings said its computer systems were hit by a cyberattack on Monday, creating glitches that have affected orders, shipments and a customer call center in Japan. Overseas systems were not affected.

    A company spokeswoman told The Associated Press on Friday that the problem had still not been fixed, though some emergency shipments were made on Wednesday, with employees entering information into computer systems manually.

    The cause and motive of the attacks were still under investigation, the spokeswoman said. She requested anonymity, which is customary for Japanese companies.

    Japanese media said some convenience stores weren’t getting their deliveries and that stocks were low and the products were even being sold out in some places.

    A 7-Eleven convenience store in Tokyo visited by an AP reporter on Friday evening still stocked plenty of Asahi beer, though the saleswoman said she expected the stocks to start running low soon.

    It’s unclear when the system will be back up and running, Asahi said. The company has canceled events and is delaying the launch of products. Some Japanese media reports said the attacks may be ransomware, but Asahi declined to comment.

    Tokyo-based Asahi, founded in 1949, makes beer, including its popular Super Dry rice lager and other beverages, including cider and juices, as well as baby food, candy and some other food products.

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  • How to shop secondhand clothing sustainably and look cool doing it

    More online platforms are giving secondhand shopping a digital upgrade, rolling out features like livestream shopping and AI-powered search to make thrifting faster and more exciting.

    Although choosing secondhand over new is often the more sustainable option, experts say it’s not a license to overconsume. They warn that resale has its limits, since buying more than you need still fuels waste, and shopping online can add emissions from servers and shipping, thrifted or not.

    Here’s how industry experts and fashion-forward shoppers shop secondhand sustainably — and how to find quality pieces that last while looking cool, too.

    At eBay’s secondhand runway shows in New York and London, models wore pre-loved designer pieces that guests could shop live. Secondhand items like those make up 40% of the company’s sales, said Alexis Hoopes, eBay’s vice president of fashion.

    “One of our big priorities is making secondhand just as good as shopping in the primary market,” she said.

    ThredUp and The RealReal have reported record sales this year, signaling that the online resale market is growing quickly. Live-auction apps like Whatnot are giving shoppers more platforms to bid on used clothing.

    Shoppers navigating growing online options with an eye toward sustainability can still end up buying more than they need.

    “People who buy secondhand clothing were found to buy more clothing than people who don’t,” said Meital Peleg Mizrachi, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University who researches textile waste. “Not only that, they tend to get rid of those clothes faster than other consumers. So they’re ending up creating more textile waste because they’re buying more and using that clothing for a shorter period of time.”

    Less than 20% of clothing donations to charities are resold in their stores, according to the Council for Textile Recycling. The rest is downcycled, exported — often to countries in the Global South — or ultimately discarded in landfills.

    Online resale also generates emissions from shipping and packaging, and running massive e-commerce platforms consumes energy, all factors that need to be considered, said Alana James, a fashion professor at Northumbria University. But all of that pales in comparison to the environmental impact of producing a new garment, she said.

    Experts say truly sustainable fashion requires breaking away from the fast-fashion mindset — the constant pressure to “buy now” and the manufactured sense of scarcity that fuels overconsumption.

    “Haul” culture — the social media trend of showing off massive shopping sprees — shows overconsumption in a new way, said Katrina Caspelich, communications director for Remake, an advocacy group for human rights and climate justice in fashion.

    “Responsible secondhand shopping means choosing pieces you’ll truly wear, investing in quality and resisting the pull of endless trend cycles,” she said.

    It can be difficult to determine quality when shopping online, but asking the seller about the garment’s composition can help, said Wisdom Kaye, a menswear content creator.

    Natural fabrics are a good place to start, said Caspelich.

    “Look for silk, cotton, bamboo — things that breathe and last — versus synthetics like polyester or nylon,” she said.

    Shoppers should look for items that are lined and make note of the quality of the stitching, said Julian Carter, a menswear content creator.

    Other secondhand buyers want to buy heftier clothing made before the mid-1990s, when more U.S. products were made without outsourced labor or a lot of cost-cutting, said Wesley Breed, a fashion history content creator.

    From the year to the color, shoppers sifting through hundreds of thousands of search results online should be very specific about what they want, said Aimee Kelly, a fashion content creator.

    “It helps you find the cooler pieces,” she said. “And have patience — look around, you’re gonna find it.”

    Finding the right item is only the first step — caring for it ensures it stays in circulation.

    Stuff bags to maintain their shape, keep clothing in garment bags, and use muslin bags and lavender sprays to keep out moths that eat natural fabrics like silk, wool and fur, said Liana Satenstein, host of eBay’s Endless Runway secondhand fashion show.

    People can also wear clothes more between washes, spot-clean and air-dry clothes, and learn to sew.

    “You’d be shocked how many people just toss a cardigan because a button fell off,” Caspelich said.

    Secondhand sustainability isn’t just about keeping clothes out of landfills.

    People who try to sell or give away their clothes should be mindful of where they’re going, said Mizrachi, the Yale researcher.

    “Try to give them to smaller community stores or shelters — places that you know are happy to get those clothes,” Mizrachi said.

    Zara, H&M and other brands have launched recycling programs.

    eBay recently partnered with British retailer Marks & Spencer for a take-back program that lets shoppers return items in-store to be resold on eBay.

    But the most sustainable choice is simply buying less, Mizrachi said. The only way to make fashion companies change how they do business is to make overconsumption unprofitable — which means buyers need to change their habits, she said.

    “We can’t purchase our way out of the climate crisis,” Mizrachi said.

    ___

    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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  • Qantas flight from Sydney lands safely in New Zealand after mayday call

    MELBOURNE, Australia — A Qantas flight from Sydney landed safely in New Zealand on Friday after the pilots made a mayday call to report a potential fire in the cargo hold.

    Emergency services vehicles were sent to the Auckland Airport tarmac, but the Boeing 737 landed at its planned destination without incident. There were no reports of smoke in the cabin or injuries.

    The apparently false alarm was raised when Flight 141 was an hour away from Auckland, the Sydney-based airline said in a statement. But a preliminary investigation found no fire.

    The aircraft would be inspected to determine the cause.

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