AP National Business

By ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE Associated Press TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Disney sued Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday over the Republican’s takeover of its theme park district, alleging the governor waged a “targeted campaign of government retaliation” after the company opposed a law critics call “Don’t Say Gay.” The lawsuit was filed in Tallahassee minutes after

By HALELUYA HADERO Associated Press Montana’s governor is asking lawmakers to expand the state’s proposed TikTok ban to more social media companies that provide certain data to foreign adversaries. A spokesperson for the governor says the amendment would address the “technical and legal concerns” associated with the TikTok bill passed earlier this month. Experts have

By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Kevin McCarthy pushed ahead Wednesday toward a swift vote on his sweeping debt ceiling package despite a veto threat from the White House, struggling to shore up support even after making post-midnight concessions to Republican holdouts in the slim GOP majority. Passage

By NICOLAE DUMITRACHE Associated Press IZMAIL, Ukraine (AP) — U.S. and European officials have toured Ukraine’s southern port of Izmail, a facility that is important in bringing Ukrainian grain exports to the world. It could become critical if a deal with Russia to allow grain exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports expires without being renewed.

TOANO, Va. — C&F: Q1 Earnings Snapshot

By VASILISA STEPANENKO Associated Press CHERNOBYL, Ukraine (AP) — Workers at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant have marked the 37th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear disaster amid an ongoing war and nuclear threats. They somberly laid flowers at a monument for victims at the site. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated warnings about the potential

By DAVID RISING and JOE MCDONALD Associated Press KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he and Chinese leader Xi Jinping had a “long and meaningful” phone call Wednesday, their first known contact since Russia invaded Ukraine more than a year ago, and Beijing said it wanted to send an envoy to Kyiv

By MIKE CORDER Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The Dutch government has unveiled a new package to slash carbon emissions by promoting clean energy, sustainable homes and industry and the use of electric cars among other a raft of measures to combat climate change. Climate and Energy Minister Rob Jetten said Wednesday the

By JEMIMA RAMAN, Press Trust of India KOCHI, India (AP) — On a tiny sliver of land in southern India, the future of an ancient grain that helps combat climate change is in doubt. Pokkali rice, some 3,000 years old, can grow in paddies with high levels of salinity. Traditionally, pokkali has been cultivated for

By ED WHITE Associated Press DETROIT (AP) — Eleven people have been charged in Michigan in a scheme to evade air-pollution rules by tampering with software and hardware in heavy-duty diesel engines, federal authorities said Wednesday. Nine of the 11 have agreed to plead guilty, along with three companies, according to documents filed in federal

By KELVIN CHAN AP Business Writer LONDON (AP) — British regulators have blocked Microsoft’s $69 billion deal to buy video game maker Activision Blizzard over worries that it would stifle competition in the cloud gaming market. The Competition and Markets Authority said Wednesday that “the only effective remedy” to the substantial loss of competition “is

By DAVID KOENIG AP Airlines Writer Boeing says it lost $425 million in the first quarter as it continues to deal with production problems on its airline jets. The loss is more than Wall Street expected. Boeing said Wednesday that revenue jumped 28% from a year earlier, however, beating analysts’ expectations. The company continues to

BERLIN (AP) — The German government has doubled its growth forecast this year for the Europe’s largest economy after the country made it through the winter without major energy problems. It said Wednesday that it now expects gross domestic product to grow by 0.4% — up from the 0.2% expansion it forecast in late January.

By MICHELLE CHAPMAN AP Business Writer First Republic Bank’s stock continued to slide Wednesday, an ongoing rout that has erased more than 50% of its value just this week on concerns about the bank’s financial health in the wake of two other bank collapses. Shares slumped nearly 20% in afternoon trading, following an even more

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is overhauling its euro single currency rulebook as economies creak under high debt caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the fallout from Russia’s war on Ukraine. The overhaul would see member countries design plans outlining their fiscal targets, any measures they might use to address imbalances and the main

By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — A big rally for Microsoft and other Big Tech stocks is helping to prop up Wall Street Wednesday, a day after stocks tumbled to their worst drop in a month. The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in early trading, though the worries about U.S. banks

By GIADA ZAMPANO Associated Press ROME (AP) — Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni has urged European allies to accelerate negotiations leading to Ukraine’s access to the European Union. She spoke as Rome on Wednesday hosted a bilateral conference on the reconstruction of the war-torn country, attended by hundreds of Italian and Ukrainian businesses. “The future of

By ZEKE MILLER AP White House Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden cast himself as a defender of freedom on Wednesday in his first campaign ad since launching his 2024 reelection bid, aiming to flip the script on Republicans who have traditionally seized that mantle. The television ad, which will air in major markets

By JENNIFER McDERMOTT Associated Press In what could prove a milestone for an industry that hopes to help address climate change, the Silicon Valley company Ohmium announced Wednesday it has raised $250 million to increase production of machines that can make clean hydrogen and displace fossil fuels. Some climate experts say burning hydrogen can substitute

PRAGUE (AP) — The Czech government has approved a defense military treaty with the United States. The Defense Cooperation Agreement that was greenlighted on Wednesday sets a legal framework for possible deployment of U.S. troops on Czech territory and their cooperation with the Czech armed forces. It should make any such moves easier at a