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LOS ANGELES (AP) — U.S. homeowners are spending more on home renovation projects, bucking a broader pullback by consumers amid diminished confidence in the economy.

Sales at building materials and garden supply retailers rose 0.8% last month from March, the biggest gain since 2022, and were up 3.2% from April last year. At the same time, U.S. retail sales overall rose 0.1%, a sharp slowdown from March.

The trend comes even as prices for home improvement products have been rising.

The cost of home repairs and remodeling climbed by nearly 4% in the first quarter from a year earlier, according to Verisk’s Remodel Index. The strategic data analytics firm tracks costs for more than 10,000 home repair items, from appliances to windows.

Recent price increases appear to be driven primarily by labor costs and don’t appear to reflect the ongoing trade war that the Trump administration is engaged in with major U.S. trading partners like Mexico, China and Canada.

“We haven’t seen panic buying from contractors or investors concerned about the impact tariffs might have on future costs, or labor rates being driven up by stricter enforcement of immigration policies,” Greg Pyne, vice president of pricing for Verisk Property Estimating Solutions, said in a report earlier this month.

Home Depot said Tuesday that it doesn’t expect to raise prices because of tariffs, saying it has spent years diversifying the sources for the goods on its shelves. However, executive Billy Bastek said some products now on Home Depot shelves may disappear.

He also noted that the chain is seeing fewer customers taking on large home improvement jobs like kitchen and bath remodels, because high interest rates may be dissuading homeowners from borrowing money to finance such projects.

Spending on home renovations has remained resilient as elevated mortgage rates and skyrocketing home prices have frozen out many would-be buyers. That’s kept U.S. home sales in a slump, limiting the market for homeowners who want to sell.

Many homeowners also bought or refinanced their mortgage when the average rate on a 30-year home loan was below 3% or 4% in the first couple of years of the pandemic. That’s made them reluctant to sell now, when the average rate is hovering near 7%.

In response, many homeowners have opted to to invest in sprucing up their home rather than sell and take on a mortgage with a sharply higher interest rate.

A shortfall in new home construction more than a decade in the making has kept people living in older homes longer. Nearly half of the owner-occupied homes in the U.S. were built before 1980 and have a median age of 41 years, according to an analysis of Census data by the National Association of Home Builders. That aging stock of homes has helped fuel the need for repairs and improvements.

Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies’ most recent quarterly outlook of home improvement projects that spending on home renovations will continue to increase this year, despite economic uncertainty.

Spending by homeowners on maintenance and home improvement projects increased 0.5% in the first quarter from a year earlier to $513 billion, according to the JCHS’ leading indicator of remodeling activity, or LIRA.

It also forecasts annual increases from here that will drive spending to $526 billion by the first quarter of next year. That would represent a 2.5% increase from the first quarter of this year.

Rising home prices and signs of a solid economy have supported the outlook for higher spending on home improvement, but that could change if the housing market and economic outlook worsen, said Carlos Martín, director of the JCHS’ Remodeling Futures Program.

“Building materials retail sales are strong, but we are seeing a significant downturn in the sales of existing homes and their median sales price since the last projection — both are known contributors to home improvements,” Martin said. “Broader economic turbulence like a recession, a worsening job market or higher inflation would almost certainly temper our expectations.”

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Almost four dozen Venezuelan workers who had temporary protected status have been put on leave by Disney after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to strip them of legal protections.

The move was made to make sure that the employees were not in violation of the law, Disney said in a statement Friday.

The 45 workers across the company who were put on leave will continue to get benefits.

“We are committed to protecting the health, safety, and well-being of all our employees who may be navigating changing immigration policies and how they could impact them or their families,” the statement said.

About two-thirds of the workers were in union jobs. The union contract for Walt Disney World service workers in Florida allows them to be reinstated without loss of seniority or benefits once they provide proper work authorization within a year of losing their jobs, said Julee Jerkovich, secretary-treasurer of the United Food And Commercial Workers International Union’s Local 1625.

“It’s very distressing,” Jerkovich said Friday. “Disney is being made to be the bad guy, but they didn’t have any choice.”

Disney would have been criticized if the workers weren’t put on leave, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents made raids at Disney World, she said.

The Supreme Court’s order on Monday put on hold a ruling from a federal judge in San Francisco that kept in place Temporary Protected Status for the Venezuelans that would have otherwise expired last month. The justices provided no rationale, which is common in emergency appeals.

The order potentially exposes as many as 350,000 Venezuelans to deportation. The status allows people already in the United States to live and work legally because their native countries are deemed unsafe for return due to natural disaster or civil strife.

The case was the latest in a string of emergency appeals President Donald Trump’s administration has made to the Supreme Court, many of them related to immigration and involving Venezuela. Earlier this month, the government asked the court to allow it to end humanitarian parole for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, setting them up for potential deportation as well.

“These workers — our colleagues, friends, and neighbors — have contributed immensely to the success of the Walt Disney Company and to the vibrant culture of central Florida,” a coalition of unions at Disney World said in a statement. “No worker should have to live in fear of losing everything after building a life here.”

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Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky at @mikeysid.bsky.social.

The Republican-controlled Federal Trade Commission is abandoning a Biden-era effort to block Microsoft’s purchase of “Call of Duty” video game maker Activision Blizzard.

In an order issued Thursday, the FTC said it had determined that “the public interest is best served by dismissing the administrative litigation in this case.”

It was the second time in one day that the FTC pulled out of litigation begun during the Biden administration. Earlier Thursday, the FTC said it was dismissing a lawsuit against PepsiCo that was filed by the Democratic-controlled FTC in January.

Microsoft announced a $69 billion acquisition of Activision in January 2022. It’s one of the most expensive tech acquisitions in history and was designed to boost sales of Microsoft’s Xbox gaming console, which has lagged in sales behind Sony’s PlayStation and Nintendo.

In December 2022, the Federal Trade Commission – then led by Democratic Chairwoman Lina Khan -- sued to temporarily block the acquisition, saying it would let Microsoft suppress competitors who want access to Xbox and its subscription content.

In July 2023, the U.S. District Court in Northern California denied the FTC’s request to pause the acquisition, but the FTC appealed. Earlier this month, a federal appeals court also denied the FTC’s request.

In the meantime, Microsoft completed its purchase of Activision in October 2023 after it won approval from Britain’s competition watchdog, which had also considered blocking the merger.

Brad Smith, Microsoft’s vice chairman and president, said Thursday in a statement on X that the decision is a victory for video game players and for “common sense in Washington D.C.”

“We are grateful to the FTC for today’s announcement,” Smith said.

Khan stepped down from the FTC when President Donald Trump took office in January, and Trump fired Democratic Commissioners Rebecca Slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya in March. Bedoya and Slaughter have sued the Trump administration, saying their removal was illegal.

Right now, the FTC is made up of three Republican commissioners, and it’s unclear when the two Democrats on the commission will be replaced. The FTC said Friday that it had no comment.

In the PepsiCo case, FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said the Biden-era FTC rushed to authorize a case just three days before Trump’s inauguration. He said Thursday that the case, which alleged that PepsiCo was violating the law by giving unfair price advantages to Walmart, was a “dubious political stunt.”

But the FTC hasn’t stood in the way of some Biden-era policies. Earlier this month, a rule the FTC announced in December requiring ticket sellers, hotels, vacation rental platforms and others to disclose their fees up front went into effect.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are falling on Friday after President Donald Trump threatened 50% tariffs on the European Union that could begin in a little more than a week.

The S&P 500 was down 0.4% in afternoon trading and on track for its worst week in the last seven. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 132 points, or 0.3%, as of 1:58 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% lower.

Trump threatened the tariffs before the U.S. stock market opened, saying on his Truth Social platform that trade talks with the European Union “were going nowhere” and that “straight 50%” tariffs could go into effect on June 1. The European Union is one of the United States’ largest trading partners.

Stocks fell immediately afterward in Europe, with France’s CAC 40 index losing 1.7%, and the threat shook the futures market for U.S. stock indexes, which earlier had been suggesting only modest moves at the open of trading. U.S. stock indexes fell less than their European counterparts, but the damage was still widespread, and about 60% of stocks within the S&P 500 sank.

Apple dropped 2.6% and was one of the heaviest weights on the index after Trump went after the company specifically. He said he’s been pushing Apple CEO Tim Cook to move production of iPhones sold in this country to the United States, and he warned a tariff “of at least 25% must be paid by Apple to the U.S.” if it doesn’t.

Trump has been criticizing companies individually when he’s frustrated with how they’re acting because of his tariffs and because of the uncertainty his trade war has created. He earlier told Walmart it should “eat the tariffs,” along with China, after the retailer said it would likely have to raise prices to cover the increased cost of imports.

Deckers Outdoor, the company behind the Hoka and Uggs brands, became one of the latest companies to say all the uncertainty around the economy means it won’t offer financial forecasts for the full upcoming year. Instead, it gave forecasts only for the upcoming quarter, and they fell short of analysts’ expectations for revenue and profit.

That sent its stock down 19.6%, even though the company reported a stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than expected.

Ross Stores fell 11.1% after it pulled its financial forecasts for the full year, citing how more than half the goods it sells originate in China. “As such, we expect pressure on our profitability if tariffs remain at elevated levels,” CEO Jim Conroy said.

The off-price retailer gave a forecast for profit in the current quarter that included a hit taken from tariffs, and it fell short of analysts’ expectations. That dragged its stock down even though the company also reported a better profit for the latest quarter than expected.

“The volatility of trade policies and the corresponding impact on the economy, the consumer, and our profitability is highly unpredictable,” Conroy said.

On the winning side of Wall Street was Intuit, which rose 8.4% after the company behind TurboTax and Credit Karma reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected thanks in part to a strong tax season. Perhaps more importantly, Intuit also raised its forecasts for revenue and profit over its full fiscal year.

Trump’s latest tariff threats are stirring up Wall Street after it had recovered nearly all of the losses it had earlier taken because of the trade war. The S&P 500 dropped roughly 20% below its record at one point last month, when worries were at their height about whether Trump’s stiff tariffs would cause a global recession. The index then climbed back within 3% of its all-time high after Trump paused his tariffs on many countries, most notably China.

In the bond market, Treasury yields fell after swinging back and forth a few times. The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.51% from 4.54% late Thursday.

It had been running higher earlier in the week, in part on worries about how Washington’s efforts to cut taxes could add trillions of dollars to the U.S. government’s debt. Higher Treasury yields can drive up mortgages and rates for other kinds of loans, which can in turn slow the economy. They also can discourage investors from paying high prices for stocks and other investments.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Asia, where markets closed before Trump issued his latest tariff threats. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.5%, while stocks fell 0.9% in Shanghai.

The price of gold, meanwhile, climbed 2.1% as investors looked for safer places to park their cash.

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AP Writers Matt Ott and Jiang Junzhe contributed.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department has reached a deal with Boeing that will allow the airplane giant to avoid criminal prosecution for allegedly misleading U.S. regulators about the 737 Max jetliner before two of the planes crashed and killed 346 people, according to court papers filed Friday.

Under the “agreement in principle” that still needs to be finalized, Boeing would pay and invest more than $1.1 billion, including an additional $445 million for the crash victims’ families, the Justice Department said. In return, the department would dismiss the fraud charge in the criminal case against the aircraft manufacturer.

“Ultimately, in applying the facts, the law, and Department policy, we are confident that this resolution is the most just outcome with practical benefits,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement.

“Nothing will diminish the victims’ losses, but this resolution holds Boeing financially accountable, provides finality and compensation for the families and makes an impact for the safety of future air travelers.”

Many relatives of the passengers who died in the crashes, which took place off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia less than five months apart in 2018 and 2019, have spent years pushing for a public trial, the prosecution of former company officials, and more severe financial punishment for Boeing.

“Although the DOJ proposed a fine and financial restitution to the victims’ families, the families that I represent contend that it is more important for Boeing to be held accountable to the flying public,” Paul Cassell, an attorney for many of the families in the long-running case, said in a statement earlier this week.

Boeing was accused of misleading the Federal Aviation Administration about aspects of the Max before the agency certified the plane for flight. Boeing did not tell airlines and pilots about a new software system, called MCAS, that could turn the plane’s nose down without input from pilots if a sensor detected that the plane might go into an aerodynamic stall.

The Max planes crashed after a faulty reading from the sensor pushed the nose down and pilots were unable to regain control. After the second crash, Max jets were grounded worldwide until the company redesigned MCAS to make it less powerful and to use signals from two sensors, not just one.

Boeing avoided prosecution in 2021 by reaching a $2.5 billion settlement with the Justice Department that included a previous $243.6 million fine.

A year ago, prosecutors said Boeing violated the terms of the 2021 agreement by failing to make promised changes to detect and prevent violations of federal anti-fraud laws. Boeing agreed last July to plead guilty to the felony fraud charge instead of enduring a potentially lengthy public trial.

But in December, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth rejected the plea deal. The judge said the diversity, inclusion and equity, or DEI, policies in the government and at Boeing could result in race being a factor in picking a monitor to oversee Boeing’s compliance with the agreement.

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