Oil prices rise as the Iran war drags on, but US stocks inch to more records
NEW YORK (AP) — Oil prices rose as the war with Iran threatens to drag on, but U.S. stocks nevertheless inched to more records. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil climbed 2.9% to top $104 Monday after President Donald Trump said the U.S.-Iran ceasefire was on life support after he rejected Iran’s latest proposal to end their war. That keeps the two sides in limbo, one that has already driven the price of Brent up from roughly $70 before the war. But the S&P 500 added 0.2% to its record set Friday. The Dow rose 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite gained 0.1% to its own record.
Trump and Xi dialed down the trade war, but challenges lurk at their China summit
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump claims America is profiting from trade with China despite tensions over rare earth minerals, tariffs and emerging technologies like AI. Trump departs Tuesday for a summit in Beijing with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. It will aim to keep the economic relationship stable, with only modest policy announcements expected. The trade truce reached last October will likely be extended, and China may announce plans to buy American soybeans, beef and Boeing airplanes. The U.S. also wants a new Board of Trade to guide trade with China. Despite Trump’s claims about making money, China bought nearly $50 billion less in American products last year than in 2022.
Trump says he'll move to suspend federal gasoline tax. He can't do it on his own
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is moving to suspend the federal tax on gasoline to help Americans shoulder surging fuel prices caused by the Iran war. The president can't suspend the federal tax on his own. Congress would have to approve the move. Lawmakers from both parties have pushed for a gas-tax suspension, saying it would provide much-needed relief for families and businesses that rely on their cars and trucks to get to work and school and run everyday errands. The federal tax is currently set at 18.4 cents per gallon on gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon on diesel fuel. That does not include state taxes, which often are higher. As of Monday, the average national gas price was $4.52 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club, 50% higher than before the war.
Businesses are facing rising costs during the Iran war, and economists expect more strains ahead
NEW YORK (AP) — Costs are piling up for businesses during the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran — and many economists see a bleak outlook, with some bracing for a downturn in hiring and investment in the coming months. Nearly half of business economists who responded to a survey by the National Association for Business Economics say that the conflict has negatively impacted their operations, according to a report released Monday, and most (54%) say they’ve been affected by rising energy prices. More than two-thirds reported steeper material expenses over the last three months. The war, which began Feb. 28, has plunged the world into an energy and supply chain crisis.
Treasury Department tells US banks to flag suspected Iranian money-laundering networks
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Treasury Department wants U.S. banks to monitor suspected Iranian money laundering networks. These networks allegedly use funds to smuggle sanctioned oil through shell companies and crypto networks. The move aims to disrupt Iran’s sanctions-evasion infrastructure. The U.S. and Iran reached an impasse Monday over ending their war, with the ceasefire growing shaky. President Donald Trump said the ceasefire is on “life support” after rejecting Tehran’s latest proposal. The Trump administration is calling on banks to flag customers who may launder funds for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, including those with unusually large transactions or connections to Iranian crypto firms.
A South Korean startup captures workers' techniques to develop AI brains for robots
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Workers at a five-star hotel fold napkins and wipe silverware with body cameras recording their every move. Their motions are then fed into a database that will one day teach a robot to do the same. Just as chatbots trained on vast troves of internet text, AI robots require extensive data on human movement to handle advanced physical tasks. A South Korean artificial-intelligence company is working to build an extensive library of human expertise to develop AI brains for robots possibly coming to industrial sites and homes. While it is unclear whether these machines will fully meet expectations, they are central to South Korea’s ambitions to leverage its semiconductor and manufacturing strengths to become an AI powerhouse.
Trump administration cancels rule that made conservation a 'use' of public lands
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Interior Department is canceling a rule that put public lands conservation on equal footing with development. It's part of President Donald Trump's attempt to boost drilling, logging, mining and grazing on taxpayer-owned land. The land rule was a key part of efforts under former President Joe Biden to refocus the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management. The agency oversees about 10% of all land in the U.S. and has long concentrated on development. The canceled rule allowed public property to be leased for restoration in the same way that oil companies lease land for drilling.
Older Americans say it’s a good time to find a job. Younger people aren’t buying it, new poll finds
A new poll finds that younger Americans are more pessimistic than older ones about the state of the job market. This is a sudden reversal from just three years ago, when older Americans were more pessimistic. In the United States until 2023 and in many countries globally, young people tend to be more optimistic about the job market than older people. Gallup found that, typically, around the world, younger people are more likely by 10 percentage points than older ones to report their local job market is good. In the United States, younger people are 21 percentage points less likely to do so than older ones.
Google disrupts hackers using AI to exploit an unknown weakness in a company's digital defense
Google said Monday that it had disrupted a criminal group’s attempt to use artificial intelligence to exploit another company’s previously unknown digital vulnerability, adding to heightened worries across government and private industry about AI’s risks for cybersecurity. Google shared limited information about the attackers or the target, but John Hultquist, chief analyst at the tech giant’s threat intelligence arm, said it represents a moment cybersecurity experts have warned about for years: malicious hackers arming themselves with AI to supercharge their ability to break into the world’s computers.
Asia braces for a second wave of energy shocks from the Iran war
BANGKOK (AP) — Asia’s initial buffers against the Iran war’s energy shock are fraying as a second wave of impacts hits. Governments that had hoped the war would end soon leaned on stopgap fixes, like burning through their energy reserves, bidding on the spot market for oil and gas and ordering policies to save power. But as ceasefire talks remain stalled, those short-term solutions are fast eroding. What began as a fuel crisis is now spreading across economies — driving up fertilizer costs, shipping rates and risking national growth. Millions of lower-income people are being squeezed ever harder by rising costs and shrinking profit margins.
