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By MELINA WALLING Associated Press The latest U.S. agricultural census data, out last month with the latest five-year update of data from 2022, shows an increase in the proportion of farms utilizing contract labor compared to those hiring labor overall. In addition, the number of farms utilizing migrant labor went up. That reflects an ongoing

By MEGAN JANETSKY Associated Press MEXICO CITY (AP) — Souvenirs bearing the image of 70-year-old Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador sell like T-shirts at a Taylor Swift concert. Just outside Mexico’s presidential palace, throngs of mostly Mexicans crowd around a booth selling plush talking dolls, earrings and plastic sandals plastered with the face of

By MAE ANDERSON AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Garden centers enjoyed a pandemic boom, particularly with millennials, as people looked for outdoor activities during lockdowns. Now, as another crucial spring planting season kicks in the question is, will those wannabe green thumbs stick with the habit. Spending on lawn and gardening activities rose

By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting Tuesday as Wall Street waits to hear what the Federal Reserve will say about where it’s taking interest rates. The S&P 500 was 0.1% higher in afternoon trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 210 points, or 0.6%, as of

By MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Food writer and podcaster Dan Pashman made the unusual step a few years ago of creating an entirely new shape of pasta. The obvious next step? Writing a cookbook to highlight it. Pashman’s “Anything’s Pastable” features dishes using 34 different pasta shapes. But it especially

By KANIS LEUNG Associated Press HONG KONG (AP) — Hong Kong’s lawmakers unanimously passed a new national security law that grants the government more power to quash dissent in the southern Chinese city. The legislation, passed Tuesday, is widely seen as the latest step in a sweeping political crackdown that followed pro-democracy protests in 2019

By GERALD IMRAY Associated Press CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africa’s ruling African National Congress is taking the independent electoral body and a rival political party fronted by the country’s former leader to court. It’s underscoring a fractious buildup to what could be the country’s most pivotal election in 30 years. The ANC

By MIKE CORDER Associated Press NOORDWIJKERHOUT, Netherlands (AP) — Theo works weekdays, weekends and nights and never complains about a sore spine despite performing hour upon hour of what, for a regular farm hand, would be backbreaking labor checking Dutch tulip fields for sick flowers. The boxy robot — named after a retired employee at