AFP USA

A jump in US retail sales boosted world markets Thursday even as investors mulled the US rates outlook, US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the future of Federal Reserve boss Jerome Powell.Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq finished at fresh records as investors focused on solid US economic data and earnings and shrugged off lingering worries about tariffs and Powell. “Right now, as long as the markets don’t have a reason to sell off, they’re going to go up,” said Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers. “The news on the economy this week has been good enough.”Investors were wary heading into second-quarter earnings season, but “the data so far and the earnings are coming in better than expected,” said Jack Ablin of Cresset Capital Management. Earlier, European markets also finished strongly in the green.Frankfurt and Paris closed almost 1.5 percent ahead although London could only manage a 0.5 percent rise amid a higher official UK jobless count and slowing wages growth.  Overall, US retail sales were up 0.6 percent in June to $720.1 billion, reversing a May 0.9 percent decline. The figures topped analyst expectations.Besides retail sales, another week of modest weekly US jobless claims provided reassurance on the economy, said Art Hogan of B. Riley Wealth Management.”We’ve been worried about earnings and trade wars, but the economic data (…) remains resilient,” Hogan said.Thursday’s strong session on Wall Street followed a volatile round the day before. Stocks had briefly nose-dived on Wednesday following reports that Trump was planning to fire Powell, lambasting him for not cutting interest rates. But the US president swiftly denied the story, sending markets higher again.Powell’s apparent security in the role also helped lift the dollar again Thursday, its latest rise in July after an historic retreat in the first six months of 2025.Trump’s unrelenting criticism of Powell has prompted foreign exchange traders to anticipate that “we are moving to a world where the US wants to have a more accommodative monetary policy,” said Kit Juckes, chief FX strategist at Societe Generale.But the dollar’s resilience in the wake of the latest Powell-Trump dustup suggests markets still believe “monetary policy in the US is still credible,” Juckes said.Among individual companies, United Airlines climbed 3.1 percent as it offered an upbeat outlook on travel demand in the second half of 2025 despite reporting a drop in second-quarter profits.Tokyo-listed shares in the Japanese owner of convenience store giant 7-Eleven plunged after a Canadian rival, Alimentation Couche-Tard, pulled out of a $47 billion takeover bid.- Key figures at around 2050 GMT -New York – Dow: UP 0.5 percent at 44,484.49 (close)New York – S&P 500: UP 0.5 percent at 6,297.36 (close)New York – Nasdaq Composite: UP 0.7 percent at 20,885.65 (close)London – FTSE 100: UP 0.5 percent at 8,972.64 points (close)Paris – CAC 40: UP 1.3 percent at 7,822.00 (close)Frankfurt – DAX: UP 1.5 percent at 24,370.93 (close)Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 0.6 percent at 39,901.19 (close)Hong Kong – Hang Seng Index: DOWN 0.1 percent at 24,498.95 (close)Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.4 percent at 3,516.83 (close)Euro/dollar: DOWN at $1.1600 from $1.1641 on WednesdayPound/dollar: DOWN at $1.3415 from $1.3422Dollar/yen: UP at 148.60 yen from 147.88 yenEuro/pound: DOWN at 86.43 pence from 86.71 penceBrent North Sea Crude: UP 1.5 percent at $69.52 per barrelWest Texas Intermediate: UP 1.8 percent at $67.54 per barrel

Netflix reported stronger than expected second-quarter results Thursday, with profit jumping 45 percent year-over-year as the streaming giant benefited from subscription price increases and a growing advertising business.Revenue climbed 16 percent to $11.1 billion in the quarter ended June 30, beating analyst estimates and the company’s own guidance, while net profit surged to $3.1 billion.Netflix highlighted strong performance from its content offers in the quarter, with major hits including the third season of “Squid Game,” which drew 122 million views.It “has already become our sixth biggest season of any series in our history, with just a few weeks of viewing so far,” the company said in a statement.Other standout titles included the third season of “Ginny & Georgia” with 53 million views and “Sirens” with 56 million views.There was also the animated film “KPop Demon Hunters” with 80 million views, which became “one of our biggest animated films ever” and generated a soundtrack that topped music charts globally.”Korean content continues to be popular with our audience,” the company said, pointing to the continued success of international programming that has become a hallmark of Netflix’s global strategy.Netflix expressed optimism about the second half of 2025, highlighting an upcoming slate that includes the highly anticipated second season of “Wednesday,” the final season of “Stranger Things” and new films from major directors including Kathryn Bigelow and Guillermo del Toro.The company has also announced plans to expand live programming with marquee boxing matches and NFL games, as it continues to diversify its content offerings beyond traditional on-demand entertainment.Netflix shares have surged approximately 40 percent year-to-date as investors have responded positively to the company’s shift toward profitability.The company counted over 300 million subscribers last December, at the end of a particularly successful holiday season, when it had just gained almost 19 million new subscriptions. But the company no longer discloses these figures, in order to focus on audience “engagement” metrics (time spent watching content).In the quarter, Netflix continued to build out its advertising capabilities, saying that it expects to roughly double ads revenue in 2025, though it did not provide specific figures.The service is forecasting $9 billion in revenues from its ad-based subscriptions by 2030.

The US Justice Department has asked for a one-day prison sentence for a former policeman convicted of violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman whose 2020 killing sparked protests for police reform and racial justice.Brett Hankison, who was convicted by a federal jury in Kentucky in November of one count of abusing Taylor’s civil rights, is to be sentenced on Monday and faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.But the head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division, in an unusual intervention, asked the judge on Wednesday to sentence Hankison to time served — the day he spent in jail at the time of his arrest — and three years of supervised release.”The government respects the jury’s verdict, which will almost certainly ensure that defendant Hankison never serves as a law enforcement officer again,” said Harmeet Dhillon, who was appointed to the position by President Donald Trump.”But adding on top of those consequences a sentence within the lengthy guidelines range… would, in the government’s view, simply be unjust,” Dhillon said.”Hankison did not shoot Ms. Taylor and is not otherwise responsible for her death,” she said. “Hankison did not wound her or anyone else at the scene that day, although he did discharge his duty weapon ten times blindly into Ms. Taylor’s home.”Lawyers for the Taylor family condemned the government’s sentencing recommendation as “an insult to the life of Breonna Taylor.””Recommending just one day in prison sends the unmistakable message that white officers can violate the civil rights of Black Americans with near-total impunity,” they said in a statement.Taylor and her boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, were sleeping in her Louisville apartment around midnight on March 13, 2020, when they heard a noise at the door.Walker, believing it was a break-in, fired his gun, wounding a police officer.Police, who had obtained a controversial no-knock search warrant to make a drug arrest, fired more than 30 shots back, mortally wounding Taylor.The deaths of Taylor, 26, and George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man who was murdered by a white police officer in Minneapolis in May 2020, became the focus of a wave of mass protests in the United States and beyond against racial injustice and police brutality.In May, the Justice Department announced it was dropping lawsuits filed by the administration of former president Joe Biden against police forces in Louisville and Minneapolis that accused them of using excessive force and racial discrimination.

Juul Labs said Thursday that the US Food and Drug Administration had officially authorized the e-cigarette maker to market its vaping system and refill capsules in the United States.Juul won the new marketing granting orders (MGO) after submitting more than 110 scientific studies to the agency, the company said in a statement.The decision means Juul can continue to sell products that have been on the US market but in regulatory limbo following earlier actions by the FDA.”Following rigorous evaluation of the data, FDA decided that an MGO for the Juul System was ‘appropriate for the protection of public health’ –- the standard required by statute for authorization,” Juul said.Juul has argued that its vaping products provide a public health benefit by shifting smokers away from combustible tobacco products closely linked to deadly illnesses. But the company has been criticized for its marketing practices, agreeing to pay $438.5 million in a 2022 settlement with 34 US states to resolve accusations of marketing to underage smokers.The FDA’s move allows Juul to sell five products in all: the Juul device and capsules for the “Virginia Tobacco” and menthol flavor, each in versions with three or five percent nicotine concentration, said a spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services.The products needed to meet the standard set under a 2009 smoking prevention law showing that the benefits of switching to a potentially less harmful product is “sufficient to outweigh the risks of the product,” including to anyone not using tobacco products, the spokesperson said.The applicant submitted data “demonstrating high rates of adults completely switching from cigarettes to either the tobacco- or menthol-flavored Juul products.”But the agency’s determination “does not mean these tobacco products are safe, nor are they ‘FDA approved,'” said the spokesperson, who added that the agency will continue to monitor Juul’s compliance with youth marketing restrictions.Juul survived a difficult stretch after the FDA ordered it to halt sales in June 2022 because of health questions, although the decision was adminsistratively suspended by the same agency shortly thereafter.In June 2024, the FDA formally rescinded its June 2022 order, shifting the matter back into “pending” status while a substantive review continued.The FDA’s action on Thursday “confirms that these products are now authorized to remain on the market,” said a Juul spokesman.

Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders on Thursday slammed US President Donald Trump for his “authoritarian” attacks on the media since returning to office, accusing him of inspiring press crackdowns worldwide.Trump “has grown into a key figure in a global anti-journalism political movement,” the New York-based RSF said in a statement.In the six months since his return to the White House, RSF said Trump had used “lawfare” and economic pressure on newsrooms, dismantled public media, banned outlets and undesirable wording, as well as smearing journalists and their employers.”Trump has matched years of verbally attacking journalists with new, concrete actions to limit press freedom. Many of these tactics are nothing new — it’s the same playbook we’ve seen press freedom predators employ around the world,” said RSF USA executive director Clayton Weimers. “But it’s clear that Trump has amplified this phenomenon, emboldening and inspiring other leaders to crack down on their own domestic media. The result is a disaster for press freedom globally.”RSF also reported that it had tracked “at least 60 acts of violence against journalists during recent protests in Los Angeles against Trump’s immigration policies.” “This aggression towards journalists has been a staple of Trumpist politics,” RSF said.In February, the White House restricted the access of US news agency Associated Press (AP) because it refused to use “Gulf of Mexico” instead of “Gulf of America,” as the body of water was renamed by Trump. The Trump administration is also seeking to dismantle public broadcasting and has announced the closure of international radios Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and Radio Free Asia. His bid is facing legal challenges.RSF said the measures would deprive hundreds of millions globally of “credible information,” promoting “propaganda” media by “authoritarian regimes” like Russia and China.

US President Donald Trump has been diagnosed with a chronic but benign vein condition after seeking medical examination for swollen legs, the White House said Thursday.The presidential physician found Trump, 79, has “chronic venous insufficiency” — a condition where damaged leg veins fail to keep blood flowing properly — Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, calling it a “benign and common condition.”Responding to speculation over recent photos showing bruising on Trump’s hand, Leavitt said “this was consistent with minor soft tissue irritation from frequent handshaking and the use of aspirin, which is taken as part of a standard cardiovascular prevention regimen.”Trump became the oldest person in history to assume the presidency when he began his second term this January, replacing Democrat Joe Biden, who stepped down at 81.The Republican frequently boasts of his energy levels and the administration recently even posted an image depicting him as Superman.In April, Trump said after undergoing a routine medical check-up that he was in “very good shape.”Leavitt’s revelations follow viral online discussions about the president’s visibly swollen ankles and discolored right hand.She said he had undergone “a comprehensive examination, including diagnostic vascular studies. Bilateral lower extremity venous doppler ultrasounds were performed and revealed chronic venous insufficiency, a benign and common condition, particularly in individuals over the age of 70.””Importantly, there was no evidence of deep vein thrombosis or arterial disease,” she said.All Trump’s test results “were within normal limits,” she said and he had a “normal cardiac structure and function, no signs of heart failure, renal impairment or systemic illness.”The hand issue, she said, was linked to the aspirin he takes in a “standard” cardiovascular health program.

US health authorities on Thursday began a reassessment of the risks surrounding Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), a treatment used by menopausal women around the world but long clouded by fear over its side effects.HRT is taken to replace estrogen the body stops producing after menopause — when periods end permanently — and helps relieve symptoms such as hot flashes, vaginal discomfort, and pain during sex.But its use has plummeted in recent years amid concerns including a potential link to invasive breast cancer.Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chief Marty Makary, who convened Thursday’s meeting of outside experts, has long advocated for HRT, saying its risks have been overstated.”For decades, hormone replacement therapy for women — that is estrogen or estrogen plus progesterone — has helped women alleviate the symptoms of menopause, including hot flashes, dryness, mood swings, weight gain and poor sleep quality, to name a few,” he said in a video ahead of the meeting.He added that when initiated within a decade of the onset of the transitional period before menopause, HRT may even reduce cognitive decline, the risk of Alzheimer’s, and prevent osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease.Makary blamed the drop in HRT use on a landmark clinical trial, the Women’s Health Initiative, which was halted in the early 2000s after it flagged increased risks of breast cancer and stroke. But he said subsequent studies had not replicated the findings on breast cancer.”The many benefits of hormone therapy were ignored as it was seen as a carcinogen. Prescriptions for hormone replacement therapy plummeted in the United States, women flushed their pills down the toilet,” he said Thursday.”Fifty million plus women have not been offered the incredible potential health benefits of hormone replacement therapy because of medical dogma,” he added, including his own mother, who suffered multiple bone fractures in her older life.Critics of the trial argue it was flawed because the participants were too far from menopause, when risks are elevated and benefits limited, and that the formulations used are now outdated.- Label changes -Still, the issue remains divisive within the medical community.The FDA’s own warning label for HRT — which can be administered through various means including orally, through skin patches, or vaginally — cites risks including endometrial cancer, breast cancer, and life-threatening blood clots.This week, the American Family Physician journal published an editorial that found limited benefits and significant harms associated with HRT.”Menopause is a positive life experience for many women and should not be medicalized,” the authors concluded.The nature of the FDA expert meeting is also unusual. Unlike standard practice before the Trump administration, no agenda was publicly posted.Several of the named panelists have ties to companies offering menopause treatments or who belong to the advocacy group “Let’s Talk Menopause,” which receives funding from pharmaceutical companies and campaigns to revise the FDA warning label.

Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg and other company board members settled a shareholder lawsuit on Thursday concerning decisions made in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal.A trial over the long-running case had just begun on Wednesday, with defendants accused of overpaying the US government in 2019 when they engineered a $5 billion settlement for alleged privacy violations in the scandal.Sources familiar with the matter confirmed the settlement to AFP, without providing details.A spokesman for Meta, the parent company of Facebook, declined to comment. Lawyers for the defendants and shareholders didn’t immediately return requests for comment.The settlement comes the same day that Marc Andreessen, one of Silicon Valley’s most influential venture capitalists and a Meta board member, was scheduled to take the stand.Zuckerberg himself was expected in the Wilmington, Delaware courtroom on Monday.Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel and former Meta top executive Sheryl Sandberg — both former board members — were also expected to face questioning in the court.Cambridge Analytica was a political consulting firm that was found to have improperly accessed personal data from millions of Facebook users for targeted political advertising, particularly during the 2016 US election and Brexit referendum.The scandal thrust Facebook and Zuckerberg in particular into a political firestorm, leading to major regulatory changes and public scrutiny of tech companies’ data practices.The shareholders in the lawsuit alleged that the board members conspired to pay more to the US government in exchange for ensuring that Zuckerberg would not be named personally for wrongdoing in the settlement.- High-profile case -Longtime observers of the company were hoping that the trial would expose inside details of how Zuckerberg and the Facebook executives handled the scandal.”This settlement may bring relief to the parties involved, but it’s a missed opportunity for public accountability,” said Jason Kint, the head of Digital Content Next, a trade group for content providers.He worried that Meta “has successfully remade the ‘Cambridge Analytica’ scandal about a few bad actors rather than an unraveling of its entire business model of surveillance capitalism and the reciprocal, unbridled sharing of personal data.”Zuckerberg was under huge pressure at the time from US and European lawmakers amid widespread allegations that Russia and other bad actors were weaponizing Facebook to sow chaos around major elections in the West.The multi-faceted case also alleged insider trading at the time of the events, with board members to be questioned about the timing of their share sales before the scandal erupted.The high-profile case was expected to bring further attention to Delaware, the state that many US companies choose for incorporation due to its highly specialized courts.The trial was presided over and to be decided by Kathaleen McCormick, the same judge who last year rejected Elon Musk’s multi-billion pay package at Tesla.Tesla has since chosen to reincorporate in Texas and reports said that Meta was also considering a different state to register its business empire

Emil Bove, US President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer, moved a step closer Thursday to becoming a federal appellate judge, after a fiery Senate committee meeting that featured a walkout by Democrats.The Republican-majority Senate Judiciary Committee voted along partisan lines to advance the nomination of the controversial Bove for consideration by the full Senate.Bove, 44, has been nominated by Trump to a lifetime appointment on the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, which covers the states of Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.A former federal prosecutor and currently the third-ranking official in the Justice Department, Bove has faced fierce criticism for his role in the Trump administration’s divisive six months in power.”Mr. Bove has led the effort to weaponize the Department of Justice against the president’s enemies,” Senator Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said at Bove’s confirmation hearing.”Having earned his stripes as a loyalist to this president, he’s been rewarded with this lifetime nomination,” Durbin said.More than 900 former Justice Department attorneys sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee this week expressing concern over Bove’s nomination.”It is intolerable to us that anyone who disgraces the Justice Department would be promoted to one of the highest courts in the land,” they said.A group of more than 75 retired state and federal judges also wrote the committee, saying it is “deeply inappropriate for a president to nominate their own criminal defense attorney for a federal judgeship.””Especially,” they said, “when that president has said he is nominating judges based on whether they will be more loyal to him than to the country.”- Whistleblower complaint -Bove represented Trump in the New York case that ended in his conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star.He also defended Trump in two federal criminal cases which never reached trial and were shut down after Trump won the 2024 presidential election.Earlier this year, Bove ordered federal prosecutors in New York to drop bribery and fraud charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams.The move triggered a wave of resignations in the Manhattan US attorney’s office and at the Justice Department in Washington.Bove has denied allegations that the decision was a “quid pro quo” in exchange for the Democratic mayor’s support for Trump’s immigration crackdown.A Justice Department whistleblower also recently claimed that Bove had told subordinates that he would be willing to ignore court orders to enforce Trump’s plans to deport undocumented migrants.Bove denies the allegation.Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee sought on Thursday to delay the confirmation vote on Bove to allow for the whistleblower to testify, but the Republican committee chairman refused the request.Democrats then walked out of the meeting in protest while Republicans proceeded to vote unanimously to send Bove’s nomination to the full Senate.Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the chamber.

US health authorities are set Thursday to reassess Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT), a treatment used by menopausal women around the world but long clouded by debate over its risks.HRT is taken to replace estrogen the body stops producing after menopause — when periods end permanently — and helps relieve symptoms such as hot flashes and vaginal discomfort.But its use has plummeted in recent years amid concerns over rare side effects, including a potential link to invasive breast cancer.Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chief Marty Makary, who convened Thursday’s meeting of outside experts, has long advocated for HRT, saying its risks have been overstated.”For decades, hormone replacement therapy for women — that is estrogen or estrogen plus progesterone — has helped women alleviate the symptoms of menopause, including hot flashes, dryness, mood swings, weight gain and poor sleep quality, to name a few,” he said in a video.He added that when initiated within a decade of the onset of the transitional period before menopause, HRT may even reduce cognitive decline, the risk of Alzheimer’s, and prevent osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease.Makary blamed the drop in HRT use on a landmark clinical trial, the Women’s Health Initiative, which was halted in the early 2000s after it flagged increased risks of breast cancer and stroke. But he said subsequent studies had not replicated the findings on breast cancer.Critics of the trial argue it was flawed because the participants were too far from menopause, and that the formulations used are now outdated.Still, the issue remains divisive within the medical community.The FDA’s own warning label for HRT — which can be administered through various means including orally, through skin patches, or vaginally — cites risks including endometrial cancer, breast cancer, and life-threatening blood clots.This week, the American Journal of Physicians published an editorial that found limited benefits and significant harms associated with HRT.”Menopause is a positive life experience for many women and should not be medicalized,” the authors concluded.The nature of the FDA expert meeting is also unusual. Unlike standard practice before the Trump administration, no agenda was publicly posted.Several of the named panelists have ties to companies offering menopause treatments or who belong to the advocacy group “Let’s Talk Menopause,” which receives funding from pharmaceutical companies and campaigns to revise the FDA warning label.