AP-Newswatch

Remember last year’s Memorial Day travel jams? Chances are they will be much worse this year

Highways and airports are likely to be jammed in the coming days as Americans head out on and home from Memorial Day weekend getaways. AAA predicts this will be the busiest start-of-summer weekend in nearly 20 years. The Transportation Security Administration says up to 3 million people may pass through airport checkpoints on Friday alone. And that’s just a sample of what’s to come. U.S. airlines expect to carry a record number of passengers this summer. The national expression of wanderlust is happening at a time when Americans tell pollsters they are worried about the economy and the direction of the country.

Stock market today: Most of Wall Street rises as Nvidia’s profit report keeps AI euphoria rolling

NEW YORK (AP) — Most U.S. stocks are climbing following another blowout earnings report from Nvidia as euphoria builds over the profit potential of artificial intelligence. The S&P 500 was up 0.4% Thursday and on track to beat its record set earlier this week. The Nasdaq composite was 1% higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 129 points. Nvidia soared after saying late Wednesday that its revenue more than tripled in the latest quarter from a year earlier. It helped send stocks of chip makers and other AI-related stocks higher. Treasury yields were holding steady after a strong report on unemployment claims.

Nvidia’s profit soars, underscoring its dominance in chips for artificial intelligence

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Nvidia overshot Wall Street estimates as its quarterly profit skyrocketed, bolstered by the chipmaking dominance that has made the company an icon of the artificial intelligence boom. Its net income rose more than sevenfold compared with a year earlier, jumping to $14.88 billion in the first quarter from $2.04 billion a year earlier. Revenue more than tripled in the quarter, rising to $26.04 billion from $7.19 billion in the previous year. It also announced a 10-for-1 stock split, a move that it noted will make its shares more accessible to employees and investors. The company, based in Santa Clara, California, carved out an early lead in the hardware and software needed to tailor its technology to AI applications.

US applications for jobless benefits fall as labor market continues to thrive

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week as layoffs remained historically low levels. Jobless claims for the week ending May 18 fell by 8,000 to 215,000, down from 223,000 the week before, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Weekly unemployment claims are considered a proxy for the number of U.S. layoffs in a given week. In total, 1.79 million Americans were collecting jobless benefits during the week that ended May 11. That’s from up 8,000 from the previous week and 84,000 more than the same time one year ago.

Federal Reserve minutes: Policymakers saw a longer path to rate cuts

WASHINGTON (AP) — After several unexpectedly high inflation readings, Federal Reserve officials concluded at a meeting earlier this month that it would take longer than they previously thought for inflation to cool enough to justify reducing their key interest rate, now at a 23-year high. Minutes of the meeting showed that officials also debated whether their benchmark rate was exerting enough of a drag on the economy to further slow inflation. Many officials noted that they were uncertain how restrictive the Fed’s rate policies are. That suggests that it wasn’t clear to the policymakers whether they were doing enough to restrain price growth. High interest rates “may be having smaller effects than in the past,” the minutes said.

White House pushes tech industry to shut down market for sexually abusive AI deepfakes

President Joe Biden’s administration is pushing the tech industry and financial institutions to shut down a growing market of abusive sexual images made with artificial intelligence technology. New generative AI tools have made it easy to transform someone’s likeness into a sexually explicit AI deepfake and share those realistic images across chatrooms or social media. The victims — be they celebrities or children — have little recourse to stop it. The White House is putting out a call Thursday looking for voluntary cooperation from companies in the absence of federal legislation.

With Ukraine losing ground, allies debate how to squeeze cash for Kyiv out of frozen Russian assets

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Ukraine’s allies are looking for ways to squeeze money out of frozen Russian assets and use the money to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion. The Russian central bank holdings were kept outside the country, and Western countries quickly froze them after the February 2022 invasion. Many Ukraine supporters want to confiscate the $260 billion to make Russia pay for the widespread damage in Ukraine, and to keep Ukraine going in the fight. Europe, where most of the money is held, has balked at confiscating the funds outright over legal concerns. So the Group of Seven democracies are meeting starting Thursday to look at ways to tap the future interest interest payments to give Ukraine a big chunk of change right now when it’s most needed.

Abrupt shutdown of financial middleman Synapse has frozen thousands of Americans’ deposits

NEW YORK (AP) — The bank accounts of tens of thousands of U.S. businesses and consumers have been frozen in the aftermath of the abrupt shutdown and bankruptcy of financial technology company Synapse, which acts as a middleman between financial technology companies and banks. Synapse filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in April and has shut down its services to some of its fintech or bank partners, including Evolve Bank & Trust. That has caused disruptions for customers of Synapse’s partners, leading to accounts being frozen or showing funds not existing at all.

Trump or Biden? Either way, US seems poised to preserve heavy tariffs on imports

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden and Donald Trump agree on essentially nothing, from taxes and climate change to immigration and regulation. Yet on trade policy, the two presumptive presidential nominees have embraced surprisingly similar approaches. Which means that whether Biden or Trump wins the presidency, the United States seems poised to maintain a protectionist trade policy — a policy that experts say could feed inflation pressures. The protectionist tilt of the two presidential contenders reflects the widespread view that opening the nation to more imports — especially from China — wiped out American manufacturing jobs and shuttered factories. It’s an especially potent political topic in the Midwestern industrial states that will likely decide who wins the White House.

UK inflation lowest in 3 years. Prime Minister Sunak makes it a focus in election call for July 4

LONDON (AP) — Inflation in the U.K. fell sharply to its lowest level in nearly three years in April on the back of big declines in domestic bills. The drop was widely seen as a trigger for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to call a general election for July 4. The Office for National Statistics said Wednesday that inflation, as measured by the consumer prices index, fell to 2.3% in the year through April, down from 3.2% in March. That is the lowest level since July 2021 when the global economy was still being held back by the coronavirus pandemic. Britain’s governing Conservative Party hopes that lower inflation and economic recovery may trigger a feelgood factor ahead of the general election.