DETROIT (AP) — Less than two weeks after ratifying new contracts with Detroit automakers, the United Auto Workers union announced plans Wednesday to try to simultaneously organize workers at more than a dozen nonunion auto factories. The UAW says the drive will cover nearly 150,000 workers at factories largely in the South, where the union has had little success in recruiting new members.

DETROIT (AP) — Electric vehicles have proved far less reliable, on average, than gasoline-powered cars, trucks and SUVs, according to the latest survey by Consumer Reports, which found that EVs from the 2021 through 2023 model years encountered nearly 80% more problems than did vehicles propelled by internal combustion engines.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shrugging off higher interest rates, America's consumers spent enough to help drive the economy to a brisk 5.2% annual pace from July through September, the government reported Wednesday in an upgrade from its previous estimate. The government had previously estimated that the economy grew at a 4.9% annual rate last quarter.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia drivers are likely to begin paying higher prices for gasoline and diesel as state motor fuel taxes return on Thursday. Gov. Brian Kemp's rollback of the state taxes of 31.2 cents per gallon of gasoline and 35 cents per gallon of diesel ends at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.

Consumers are scouring the internet for online deals as they begin to cap off the five-day post-Thanksgiving shopping bonanza with Cyber Monday. Even though e-commerce is now part and parcel of our everyday lives and much of the holiday shopping season, Cyber Monday –- a term coined back in 2005 by the National Retail Federation –- continues to be the biggest online shopping day of the year, thanks to the deals and the hype the industry has created to fuel it.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook parent Meta Platforms deliberately engineered its social platforms to hook kids and knew — but never disclosed — it had received millions of complaints about underage users on Instagram but only disabled a fraction of those accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint described in reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

Supporting nonprofits on GivingTuesday this year could have a bigger impact than usual. Why? Because nonprofits and industry groups say donations so far are down compared with previous years. Many organizations will look to make up the difference on GivingTuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, which started as a hashtag in 2012 and has grown into one of the biggest fundraising dates on the calendar.

NEW YORK (AP) — Shoppers hunting for big deals packed malls on Black Friday as retailers stepped up discounts and offered other perks to entice hesitant customers who are sticking to stricter budgets this year.

NEW YORK (AP) — Consumers are expected to use “buy now, pay later” payment plans heavily this Christmas season, a forecast that bodes well for retailers but that has credit experts again sounding alarm bells.

The ousted leader of ChatGPT-maker OpenAI is returning to the company that fired him late last week, the latest in a saga that has shocked the artificial intelligence industry. San Francisco-based …