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CHINO, Calif. (AP) — A police department in Southern California recovered about $30,000 worth of Labubu dolls that were stolen from a warehouse, the agency announced this week.
The collectible items have recently surged in popularity. The Labubus were stolen in a series of trips that spanned multiple days, the Chino Police Department said in a social media post. Two suspects, both minors, were later identified as workers at the warehouse, the department said.
Law enforcement found the items at a home in Upland, a city in the state’s Inland Empire.
The announcement comes as authorities in Los Angeles County investigate a separate incident in which thieves stole about $7,000 worth of the toothy little monsters from a store in La Puente.
Chino Police obtained a search warrant to enter the home in Upland, the agency said. One suspect attempted to flee but later surrendered, the department said. The other was apprehended in a nearby city Tuesday, days after detectives searched the home, police said. Both were booked in San Bernardino County juvenile hall for suspected burglary and conspiracy to commit burglary.
Detectives found 14 boxes of stolen items and evidence indicating the suspects were planning to resell and ship the collectibles across the country, the department said.
The Labubu, created by Hong Kong-born artist Kasing Lung, was first introduced in 2015 and is sold by China’s Pop Mart.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer Americans are reporting that they drink alcohol amid a growing belief that even moderate alcohol consumption is a health risk, according to a Gallup poll released Wednesday.
A record high percentage of U.S. adults, 53%, now say moderate drinking is bad for their health, up from 28% in 2015. The uptick in doubt about alcohol’s benefits is largely driven by young adults — the age group that is most likely to believe drinking “one or two drinks a day” can cause health hazards — but older adults are also now increasingly likely to think moderate drinking carries risks.
As concerns about health impacts rise, fewer Americans are reporting that they drink. The survey finds that 54% of U.S. adults say they drink alcoholic beverages such as liquor, wine or beer. That’s lower than at any other point in the past three decades.
The findings of the poll, which was conducted in July, indicate that after years of many believing that moderate drinking was harmless — or even beneficial — worries about alcohol consumption are taking hold. According to Gallup’s data, even those who consume alcohol are drinking less.
The federal government is updating new dietary guidelines, including those around alcohol. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, government data showed U.S. alcohol consumption was trending up. But other government surveys have shown a decline in certain types of drinking, particularly among teenagers and young adults.
This comes alongside a new drumbeat of information about alcohol’s risks. While moderate drinking was once thought to have benefits for heart health, health professionals in recent years have pointed to overwhelming evidence that alcohol consumption leads to negative health outcomes and is a leading cause of cancer.
Growing skepticism about alcohol’s benefitsYounger adults have been quicker than older Americans to accept that drinking is harmful, but older adults are coming around to the same view.
About two-thirds of 18- to 34-year-olds believe moderate drinking is unhealthy, according to the poll, up from about 4 in 10 in 2015. Older adults are less likely to see alcohol as harmful — about half of Americans age 55 or older believe this — but that’s a substantial increase, too. In 2015, only about 2 in 10 adults age 55 or older thought alcohol was bad for their health.
In the past, moderate drinking was thought to have some benefits. That idea came from imperfect studies that largely didn’t include younger people and couldn’t prove cause and effect. Now the scientific consensus has shifted, and several countries recently lowered their alcohol consumption recommendations. Earlier this year, the outgoing U.S. surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, recommended a label on bottles of beer, wine and liquor that would clearly outline the link between alcohol consumption and cancer.
The federal government’s current dietary guidelines recommend Americans not drink or, if they do consume alcohol, men should limit themselves to two drinks a day or fewer while women should stick to one or fewer.
Gallup’s director of U.S. social research, Lydia Saad, said shifting health advice throughout older Americans’ lives may be a reason they have been more gradual than young adults to recognize alcohol as harmful.
“Older folks may be a little more hardened in terms of the whiplash that they get with recommendations,” Saad said. “It may take them a little longer to absorb or accept the information. Whereas, for young folks, this is the environment that they’ve grown up in ... in many cases, it would be the first thing young adults would have heard as they were coming into adulthood.”
The government is expected to release new guidelines later this year, under the directive of health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has promised big changes. Kennedy has not hinted at how the alcohol recommendations may shift.
Drinking rates fall to decade lowSlightly more than half of Americans, 54%, report that they drink alcohol — a low in Gallup’s data that is especially pronounced among women and young adults.
Young Americans’ alcohol consumption has been trending downward for years, accelerating the overall decline in alcohol consumption. In sharp contrast with Gallup’s findings two decades ago, when young adults were likeliest to report drinking, young adults’ drinking rate is now slightly below middle-aged and older adults.
Americans’ reported drinking is among the lowest since the question was first asked in 1939. For most of the last few decades, at least 6 in 10 Americans have reported drinking alcoholic beverages, only dipping below that point a few times in the question’s history.
Americans who drink alcohol are consuming lessEven if concerns about health risks aren’t causing some adults to give up alcohol entirely, these worries could be influencing how often they drink.
The survey found that adults who think moderate drinking is bad for one’s health are just as likely as people who don’t share those concerns to report that they drink, but fewer of the people with health worries had consumed alcohol recently.
About half of those who worry moderate drinking is unhealthy said they had a drink in the previous week, compared with about 7 in 10 who did not think drinking was bad for their health.
Overall, only about one-quarter of Americans who drink said they had consumed alcohol in the prior 24 hours, a record low in the survey. Roughly 4 in 10 said that it had been more than a week since they had poured a drink.
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Associated Press writer Amanda Seitz contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon is now rolling out a service where its Prime members can order their blueberries and milk at the same time as their batteries and other basic items.
The online juggernaut said Wednesday that customers in more than 1,000 cities and towns now have access to fresh groceries with its free Same-Day Delivery on orders over $25 for Prime members, with plans to reach over 2,300 by the end of the year.
The company said that if an order doesn’t meet the minimum, members can still choose same-day delivery for a $2.99 fee. For customers without a Prime membership, the service is available with a $12.99 fee, regardless of order size.
In the past, Prime subscribers’ grocery orders were fulfilled through Amazon Fresh or Whole Foods.
The expansion is expected to put more pressure on grocery delivery services offered by such rivals as Walmart, Instacart and Target.
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is flirting with its records on Tuesday after data suggested inflation across the country was a touch better last month than economists expected.
The S&P 500 rose 0.6% and was on track to top its all-time high set two weeks ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 434 points, or 1%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% higher and also heading toward a record.
Stocks got a lift from hopes that the better-than-expected inflation report will give the Federal Reserve leeway to cut interest rates at its next meeting in September.
Lower rates would give a boost to investment prices and to the economy by making it cheaper for U.S. households and businesses to borrow to buy houses, cars or equipment. President Donald Trump has angrily been calling for cuts to help the economy, often insulting the Fed’s chair personally while doing so.
But the Fed has been hesitant because of the possibility that Trump’s tariffs could make inflation much worse. Lowering rates would give inflation more fuel, potentially adding oxygen to a growing fire. That’s why Fed officials have said they wanted to see more data come in about inflation before moving.
Tuesday’s report said U.S. consumers paid prices for groceries, gasoline and other costs of living that were 2.7% higher in July than a year earlier. That’s the same inflation rate as June’s, and it was below the 2.8% that economists expected.
The report pushed traders on Wall Street to increase bets that the Fed will cut interest rates for the first time this year in September. They’re betting on a 94% chance of that, up from nearly 86% a day earlier, according to data from CME Group.
The Fed will receive one more report on inflation, as well as one more on the U.S. job market, before its next meeting, which ends Sept. 17. The most recent jobs report was a stunner, coming in much weaker than economists expected.
Some economists warn that more twists and turns in upcoming data could make the Fed’s upcoming decisions not so easy. Its twin goals are to get inflation to 2% while keeping the job market healthy, and helping one with interest rates often means hurting the other.
Even Tuesday’s better-than-expected inflation report had some discouraging undertones. An underlying measure of inflation, which economists say does a better job of predicting where inflation may be heading, hit its highest point since early this year, noted Gary Schlossberg, market strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute. That helped cause some up-and-down swings for Treasury yields in the bond market.
“Eventually, tariffs can show up in varying degrees in consumer prices, but these one-off price increases don’t happen all at once,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management. “That will confound the Fed and economic commentators for months to come.”
Other central banks around the world have been lowering interest rates, and Australia’s on Tuesday cut for the third time this year.
On Wall Street, Intel’s stock rose 2.3% after Trump said its CEO has an “amazing story,” less than a week after he had demanded Lip-Bu Tan’s resignation.
Circle Internet Group, the company behind the popular USDC cryptocurrency that tracks the U.S. dollar, climbed 5.1% despite reporting a larger loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It said its total revenue and reserve income grew 53% in its first quarter as a publicly traded company, and it topped forecasts.
On the losing side of Wall Street was Celanese, which sank 13.6% even though the chemical company delivered a better profit than expected. It said that customers in most of its markets continue to be challenged, and CEO Scott Richardson said that “the demand environment does not seem to be improving.”
Cardinal Health dropped 8.7% despite likewise reporting a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Its revenue fell short of forecasts, and analysts said the market’s expectations were particularly high for the company after its stock had already soared 33.3% for the year coming into the day.
Critics say the broad U.S. stock market is looking expensive after its surge from a bottom in April. That’s putting pressure on companies to deliver continued growth in profit.
In stock markets abroad, indexes edged up in China after Trump signed an executive order late Monday that delayed hefty tariffs on the world’s second-largest economy by 90 days. The move was widely expected, and the hope is that it will clear the way for a possible deal to avert a dangerous trade war between the United States and China.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 jumped 2.1%, and South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.5% for two of the world’s bigger moves.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.31% from 4.27% late Monday.
The yield on the two-year Treasury, which more closely tracks expectations for the Fed, edged down to 3.75% from 3.76%.
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AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.
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