CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — The average U.S. price of regular-grade gasoline plunged 19 cents over the past two weeks to $4.86 per gallon. The average price at the pump is down 24 cents over the past month, but it's $1.66 higher than it was one year ago.
Elon Musk announced Friday that he will abandon his tumultuous $44 billion offer to buy Twitter after the company failed to provide enough information about the number of fake accounts. Twitter immediately fired back, saying it would sue the Tesla CEO to uphold the deal.
The proposed merger between Spirit Airlines and Frontier just can't get off the runway. Spirit announced late Thursday it would again postpone a vote on the deal, a sign that it lacks shareholder support for the merger in the face of a rival bid by JetBlue Airways. Spirit delayed the vote by a week, until July 15.
WASHINGTON (AP) — America’s employers shrugged off high inflation and weakening growth to add 372,000 jobs in June, a surprisingly strong gain that will likely spur the Federal Reserve to keep sharply raising interest rates to cool the economy and slow price increases.
Stocks rallied again on Wall Street Thursday, and the S&P 500 is closing out a fourth straight gain. The 1.5% rise marks the longest winning streak for the index since March. Most of the market climbed, and energy-producing companies led the way after oil prices recovered a chunk of their sharp losses from earlier in the week. The bond market is still showing signs of worry about a possible recession, though.
NEW YORK (AP) — After going on a frenzied hiring spree for a year and a half to meet surging shopper demand, America’s retailers are starting to temper their recruiting. The changing mindset comes as companies confront a pullback in consumer spending, the prospect of an economic downturn and surging labor costs. Some analysts suggest that merchants have also learned to do more with fewer workers.
WASHINGTON (AP) — More Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, and while layoffs remain low, it’s the fifth straight week claims have topped the 230,000 mark. Applications for jobless aid for the week ending July 2 rose to 235,000, up 4,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. First-time applications generally track with the number of layoffs.
Major stock indexes shook off an early slump and ended with meager gains on Wall Street Tuesday as worries about the economy continue to weigh on markets. Oil prices slumped, bringing the price of U.S. crude back below $100 a barrel for the first time since early May. Tech stocks staged a turnaround and ended higher.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new poll shows that many Americans don’t expect to rely on the digital services that became commonplace during the pandemic after COVID-19 subsides, even though many think it’s a good thing if those options remain available in the future. The poll comes from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
LONDON (AP) — Inflation in countries using the euro set another eye-watering record, pushed higher by a huge increase in energy costs fueled partly by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Annual inflation in the eurozone’s 19 countries hit 8.6% in June, surging past the 8.1% recorded in May.
Stocks fell again on Wall Street Thursday, closing out the worst quarter for the market since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020. The S&P 500 index lost 0.9%. It's now down 21% since hitting a record high at the beginning of the year, having entered a bear market earlier in June. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.8% and the Nasdaq fell 1.3%.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Delta Air Lines has agreed to pay $10.5 million to settle charges it falsified information about deliveries of international mail, including mail sent to U.S. soldiers overseas. The Justice Department said Thursday that Delta was under contract to the Postal Service when it falsified records about deliveries from 2010 to 2016.
NEW YORK (AP) — The OPEC oil cartel and allied producing nations have decided to boost production of crude by an amount that will likely do little to relieve high gasoline prices at the pump and energy-fueled inflation plaguing the global economy. The group agreed Thursday to an increase of 648,000 barrels per day in August, which leaves the world thirsty for oil as it rebounds from the COVID-19 pandemic.
A big opioid settlement and a COVID-19 vaccine slowdown helped drop Walgreens’ fiscal third-quarter earnings, but the drugstore chain still topped expectations. The company said Thursday that earnings slid to $289 million in the quarter that ended May 31. That’s down from about $1.2 billion the previous year.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A measure of inflation that is closely tracked by the Federal Reserve jumped 6.3% in May from a year earlier, unchanged from its level in April. Thursday’s report from the Commerce Department provided the latest evidence that painfully high inflation is pressuring American households and inflicting particular harm on low-income families.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Slightly fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, reflecting a still robust job market despite increasing layoffs in some sectors of the economy that have cooled in recent months. Applications for jobless aid for the week ending June 25 ticked down to 231,000, a decline of 2,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
Stocks ended mostly lower on Wall Street Wednesday, keeping the market on track for its fourth monthly loss this year. The S&P 500 fell 0.1%. The benchmark index has been volatile all week, and is down 20% for the year as investors worry about inflation and rising interest rates. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% and the Nasdaq fell less than 0.1%.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said there’s “no guarantee″ the central bank can tame runaway inflation without hurting the job market. Speaking Wednesday at a European Central Bank forum, Powell repeated his hope that the Fed can achieve a so-called soft landing — raising interest rates just enough to slow the economy and rein in surging consumer prices without sending the U.S. economy into a recession.
BEIJING (AP) — Baidu Inc. is China's highest-profile competitor in a multibillion-dollar race with Alphabet Inc.'s Waymo and General Motors Co.'s Cruise to create self-driving cars. Baidu is test-driving more than 500 self-driving vehicles on the streets of Beijing and other Chinese cities. The company and a rival, Pony.ai, received China's first licenses in April to operate taxis with no one in the driver's seat but a safety supervisor on board.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. economy shrank at a 1.6% annual pace in the first three months of the year even though consumers and businesses kept spending at a healthy pace, the government reported Wednesday in a slight downgrade from its previous estimate for January-March quarter. It was the first drop in gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic output — since the second quarter of 2020, in the depths of the COVID-19 recession, and followed a strong 6.9% expansion in the final three months of 2021.
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street has pivoted from losses to gains about an hour before markets open, following declines in Europe and Asia ahead of the latest update on U.S. economic growth. Futures for the Dow industrials rose 0.4% while futures for the S&P 500 gained 0.3%.
Stocks slid on Wall Street Tuesday as the market remains gripped by uncertainty over pervasive inflation, rising interest rates and the potential for a recession. The S&P 500 fell 2%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.6%, and the Nasdaq fell 3%.
Stocks ended mixed after a day of wavering between gains and losses Monday as the market cools off following a rare winning week. The S&P 500 edged 0.3% lower, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.2% and the Nasdaq fell 0.8%.
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. markets are pointing higher before the opening bell as leaders of the Group of Seven economic powers pledged financial, humanitarian and other support for Ukraine. Conferring by video link with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, they were finalizing a deal to seek a price cap on Russian oil, raise tariffs on Russian goods and impose other new sanctions.
Stocks rallied on Wall Street Friday, sending the S&P 500 up 3.1% for its best gain in two years. The benchmark index also ended the week 6.4% higher, erasing the brutal loss it took a week earlier. It was just the second winning week for the benchmark index in the last 12.