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  • US stocks sink again as more companies detail trade war damage

    U.S. stocks are sinking Tuesday as AI mania on Wall Street loses more steam and as more companies scrub their forecasts for upcoming profits because of uncertainty created by President Donald Trump’s tariffs.

    The S&P 500 was down 0.6% in afternoon trading and on track for a second drop after breaking a nine-day winning streak, its longest such run in more than 20 years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 321 points, or 0.8%, as of 2:27 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% lower.

    Palantir Technologies was one of the heaviest weights on the market after falling 11.9%. The company, which offers an AI platform for customers, dropped even though it reported a profit for the latest quarter that met analysts’ expectations and raised its forecast for revenue over the full year.

    AI-related companies have been finding it more difficult recently to convince investors to support their stocks after they’ve already shot so high. Palantir’s stock’s price remains near $110, when it was sitting at only $20 less than a year ago.

    The return to Earth for AI stocks is happening as Trump’s tariffs change the economic landscape for other companies.

    Clorox CEO Linda Rendle said her company saw changes in shopping behavior during the first three months of the year, for example, that led to lower revenue. The company reported both weaker revenue and profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Clorox expects the slowdowns to continue in the current quarter, and its stock fell 2.6%.

    Toymaker Mattel, meanwhile, was swinging between losses and gains after it said it’s “pausing” its financial forecasts for 2025, in part because the “evolving U.S. tariff landscape” is making it difficult to predict how much U.S. shoppers will spend over the holiday season and the rest of this year.

    Mattel was up 2.9%. It also reported better results for the latest quarter than analysts feared.

    Ford Motor said it’s expecting to take a $1.5 billion hit this year because of tariffs. Ford said it’s also cancelling financial forecasts for the full year because of “tariff-related uncertainty.”

    They’re the latest companies to join a lengthening list that have yanked their forecasts for the year given uncertainty about what Trump’s on-again, off-again rollout of tariffs will do to the economy. The hope is that Trump will relent on some of his tariffs after reaching trade deals with other countries. Without them, many investors expect the economy to fall into a recession.

    Regardless, all the will-he-won’t-he uncertainty around tariffs has already made U.S. households more pessimistic about the economy and could affect their long-term plans for purchases. That uncertainty has helped fuel a surge in imports ahead of potentially more severe tariffs ahead.

    The U.S. trade deficit soared to a record $140.5 billion in March as consumers and businesses alike tried to get ahead of tariffs that went into effect in April and others that have been postponed until July. That follows another update from last week showing that the U.S. economy shrank at a 0.3% annual pace during the first quarter of the year because of a surge in imports.

    Some companies say they’re already seeing impacts to their business from the uncertainty created by tariffs.

    Food processing giant Archer Daniels Midland said that operating profit for agricultural services slumped 31% during its most recent quarter because of trade policy uncertainty. The stock was up 2.4%.

    DoorDash fell 7.4% after reporting weaker revenue than analysts expected for the latest quarter, though it may have also offered a more encouraging snapshot of how U.S. households are doing. The company said order growth in its U.S. marketplace remained healthy and consistent with average growth over the last year.

    Treasury yields were edging lower in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.32% from 4.36% late Monday.

    The Federal Reserve is beginning a two-day meeting, and it will announce its next move on interest rates Wednesday. Virtually no one expects it to do anything to its main rate, even though Trump has been advocating for cuts.

    “While the possibility still exists for potential rate cuts later this year, the economic picture is complicated, and it’s too early to know if or when those cuts might happen,” said Michele Raneri, vice president and head of U.S. research and consulting at TransUnion.

    Lower interest rates could help goose the economy, but they could also give inflation more fuel. And worries are already simmering that Trump’s tariffs could push inflation higher.

    Markets were mixed across Europe and Asia. Indexes rose 1.1% in Shanghai and 0.7% in Hong Kong.

    ___

    AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

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  • Cartoonist who quit Washington Post in protest wins Pulitzer

    NEW YORK (AP) — A longtime editorial cartoonist for The Washington Post who quit in protest early this year after editors killed her sketch criticizing the Post owner and other media chief executives working to curry favor with Trump has won the Pulitzer Prize for illustrated reporting and commentary.

    Ann Telnaes won for “delivering piercing commentary on powerful people and institutions with deftness, creativity – and a fearlessness that led to her departure from the news organization after 17 years,” according to the Pulitzer announcement on Monday.

    Her cartoon showed a group of media executives bowing before then President-elect Donald Trump while offering him bags of money, including Post owner and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

    Several executives, Bezos among them, had been spotted around that time at Trump’s Florida club Mar-a-Lago. Telnaes accused them of having lucrative government contracts and working to eliminate regulations. Amazon also donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.

    When she quit the newspaper earlier this year, Telnaes that she’d never before had a sketch killed because of the point of view inherent in the cartoon’s commentary. She called that a game-changer and dangerous for a free press.

    “As an editorial cartoonist, my job is to hold powerful people and institutions accountable,” Telnaes wrote on the online platform Substack in early January. “For the first time, my editor prevented me from doing that critical job. So I have decided to leave the Post. I doubt my decision will cause much of a stir and that it will be dismissed because I’m just a cartoonist. But I will not stop holding truth to power through my cartooning, because as they say ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’”

    David Shipley, the newspaper’s editorial page editor at the time, said in a statement after Telnaes quit that he decided to nix the cartoon because the paper had just published a column on the same topic. Shipley then resigned in late February after Bezos, in a major shift, directed that the Post narrow the topics covered by its opinion section to personal liberties and the free market.

    The fallout continued in March when a longtime columnist, Ruth Marcus, quit after she said the newspaper’s management decided not to run her commentary critical of Bezos’ policy.

    The Post, which made money during the first Trump administration, has been losing money in recent years, Its internal strife largely began last June when Sally Buzbee resigned as executive editor rather than accept a newsroom reorganization. Several prominent Post journalists have since left for other jobs.

    Bezos’ decision last fall that the Post would not endorse a presidential candidate — after the editorial staff had prepared to support Democrat Kamala Harris — led to an exodus of subscribers.

    0 min
  • Skype shut down for good, but users still have these alternatives

    LONDON (AP) — Skype is dead. What now?

    Microsoft’s shutdown of Skype on May 5 sent millions of users scrambling to find an alternative to the pioneering internet phone service.

    Skype, which Microsoft bought in 2011, was beloved by a dwindling group of users who appreciated how it let them make cheap long-distance calls as well as communicate with other users through chat messages, voice or video calls.

    Some liked its simplicity and ease of use — an advantage, for example, when setting up a communications app for an elderly parent living far away.

    Or they just used it out of habit.

    Skype was founded in 2003 and was among the first in a wave of communication services that used voice over internet protocol technology (VoIP), which converts audio into a digital signal.

    Skype’s disappearance also inconveniences Americans and other expatriates living overseas who signed up because they needed an U.S.-based number to receive text authentication codes from, say, a bank back home. It was also handy for calling 800 numbers for free even if you weren’t living in North America.

    Here is a guide for life after Skype:

    What’s happening

    Microsoft announced in late February that it was shutting down Skype on May 5 and shifting some of its services to Microsoft Teams, its flagship office videoconferencing and group collaboration platform.

    Skype users can use their existing accounts to log into Teams and have the option to automatically migrate their contacts and chats.

    If you had a Skype number or a calling subscription, it stopped automatically renewing on April 3.

    If your account still has credit, you can access Skype’s dial pad from the web portal or Teams to make calls.

    Skype numbers won’t immediately expire on May 5 so you’ll still be able to receive calls until your subscription expires. But you’ll have to use Teams or keep the Skype dial pad open on the web portal to receive them.

    Porting your number(s)

    If your Skype number hasn’t expired and you don’t want to lose it, you should transfer it to another provider.

    Skype numbers can be ported to a phone carrier or any number of other VoIP services. But you’ll have to start the process through the new provider, not Skype.

    Google Voice

    Google users can access the online search giant’s internet phone service to make calls from a smartphone or a desktop web browser. You can get your own Google Voice phone number and use features like call forwarding and voicemail. Or you can port your number from another service like Skype, but it will cost $20.

    Calls to U.S., Canadian or Puerto Rican numbers are free. Rates for other countries vary.

    The free version of Google Voice is only available to U.S. residents physically located in the 48 contiguous states, so that means expatriate Americans can only use it if they registered before they moved overseas.

    “You cannot sign up for a Google Voice number while outside the USA,” according to a help page. “Do not try to circumvent this by using a VPN.”

    Viber

    Owned by Japan’s Rakuten, Viber was long considered one of the closest competitors to Skype. One key difference is that Skype users don’t need a phone number and are identified by their usernames, while Viber users need a number to register for service.

    Similar to Skype, Viber users can buy credit or packages to call phone numbers around the world but it’s no longer possible to get a Viber number to receive calls.

    Zoom

    The videoconferencing service that’s become a byword for online company meetings offers a calling service, Zoom Phone, and features like number porting and the ability to send and receive SMS text messages.

    Take note that Zoom Phone isn’t free. There are various calling plans that involve a monthly subscription cost and extra fees for international calls.

    Teams

    Microsoft users have the option of making calls on Teams, dubbed Teams Phone. Like Zoom Phone, you’ll need to buy a subscription and pay extra for international calls.

    But it’s not an option for regular people because Microsoft says Teams Phone isn’t for consumer use and is only available to small and medium-sized businesses.

    Wireless Carriers

    If you absolutely need a U.S. number but live overseas, sign up for service with a low-cost virtual wireless carrier that offers cheap cellphone plans or pay-as-you-go rates.

    One provider, Tello, offers monthly plans for as little as $5 and says users can activate its service even if they’re living outside the U.S.

    Because mobile virtual network operators like Tello are essentially wireless phone companies that piggyback off a bigger carrier’s physical network, you can’t use it to make calls on a computer or an app.

    VoIP it

    There are a slew of Skype pretenders offering phone calls over the internet, such as Zoiper, VoIP.ms, CallCentric, Mytello, and Virtual Landline. Many are aimed at business users.

    Some are capitalizing on Skype’s disappearance. Hushed, which started as an anonymous calling app, bills itself as a Skype alternative. Users can buy a phone number from the U.S., Canada, the United Kingdom or Puerto Rico or port their own number.

    It warns that some of its numbers aren’t guaranteed to work with third-party verification text messages.

    “We do not intentionally block anyone from receiving these codes, but it’s common that some services will prevent verification texts from being sent to certain phone numbers due to their own security policies,” Hushed says on its website.

    Park your number

    Maybe you can’t decide which calling service you want to switch to. If you want to save your current number, there are services to just park your number like NumberBarn.com and Parkmyphone.com.

    They let you store a phone number for a monthly fee while relaying any text messages sent to that number. You can port the number to another service whenever you want.

    Beware, you can only port in U.S. or Canadian phone numbers.

    eSIMs

    What about an international eSIM? They’re the virtual version of the mobile phone SIM card that you can buy and add to your phone when you’re on a trip to save on roaming fees.

    They offer cheap data access rates so you can use the internet without worrying about racking up a huge bill when you get home.

    Unfortunately, you can’t port a Skype number to an international eSIM because of “the fundamental differences” between VoIP services and traditional mobile networks, said Pedro Maiquez, co-founder of eSIM provider Holafly. “Skype numbers are not tied to a mobile carrier’s physical infrastructure, making them incompatible with mobile eSIM solutions.”

    ___

    Is there a tech topic that you think needs explaining? Write to us at [email protected] with your suggestions for future editions of One Tech Tip.

    0 min
  • US expands attempt to blow up Google

    The U.S. Justice Department is doubling down on its attempt to break up Google by asking a federal judge to force the company to part with some of the technology powering the company’s digital ad network. The proposed dismantling coincides with an ongoing federal effort to separate Google’s Chrome browser from its dominant search engine.

    The government’s latest proposal was filed late Monday in a Virginia federal court two-and-half weeks after a federal judge ruled that its lucrative digital ad network has been improperly abusing its market power to stifle competition to the detriment of online publishers.

    In a 17-page filing, Justice Department lawyers argued that U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema should punish Google by ordering the company to offload its AdX business and DFP ad platform, tools that bring together advertisers, who want to market their products, and publishers, who want to sell commercial space on their sites, to bring in revenue.

    The government also is seeking other restrictions, including a 10-year ban on Google from operating a digital ad exchange, to undercut the power of a “recidivist monopolist.”

    Not surprisingly, it’s an idea that Google vehemently plans to oppose when the penalty phase of the antitrust case —known as remedy hearings — begins in late September. Google already has vowed to appeal Brinkema’s ruling that the technology powering the ad network has been breaking the law, but can’t do that until the judge rules on its punishment in a decision expected late this year or early next year.

    The Justice Department’s proposal “would cause economic chaos and technological dysfunction resulting in harm to millions of advertisers and publishers, and in so doing, degrade the experience of internet users,” Google said in a court filing late Monday.

    In its counterproposal, Google outlined a plan that it believes will bring more transparency to its ad network and eventually foster more competition. Google proposed the appointment of a trustee to oversee its behavior for three years.

    The attempt to tear down Google’s ad network comes on top of the Justice Department’s ongoing effort to have the company part with its popular Chrome browser and impose other restrictions to curtail the power of its ubiquitous search engine, which another federal judge branded an illegal monopoly in a ruling last August.

    The remedy hearings in the search case are scheduled to conclude later this month, with a ruling from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta expected by Labor Day.

    If the Justice Department is able to persuade the two different judges to order its proposed dismantling of Google, it would be the biggest breakup of a U.S. company since AT&T was forced to spin off its phone service into seven separate regional companies more than 40 years ago.

    Google’s Play Store for apps running on its Android software that powers most of the world’s smartphones also was declared an illegal monopoly by a federal jury in 2023 and is battling a judge’s order that would require it to overhaul a commission system that generates billions of dollars in annual revenue.

    But hobbling its search engine and digital ad network would be far bigger blows because they are the key cogs in a business that generated $265 billion in revenue last year.

    Google is confronting the breakup threats at the same time the advent of artificial intelligence is changing the way consumers are using technology and seeking information online — a shift that could also siphon traffic and money away from a powerhouse that began in a Silicon Valley garage in 1998.

    Despite the adversity, Google is still delivering robust financial growth to its corporate parent Alphabet Inc., which is currently valued at $2 trillion.

    Alphabet’s shares dipped slightly during Tuesday’s late morning trading.

    0 min

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