Thought of the Day
There is more to life than increasing its speed.
March 11th 2025
Stocks’ sell-off worsens as Wall Street wonders how much pain Trump will accept for the economy
By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market’s sell-off cut deeper on Monday as Wall Street questioned how much pain President Donald Trump will let the economy endure through tariffs and other policies in order to get what he wants.
The S&P 500 dropped 2.7% to drag it close to 9% below its all-time high, which was set just last month. At one point, the S&P 500 was down 3.6% and on track for its worst day since 2022. That’s when the highest inflation in generations was shredding budgets and raising worries about a possible recession that ultimately never came.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 890 points, or 2.1%, after paring an earlier loss of more than 1,100, while the Nasdaq composite skidded by 4%.
It was the worst day yet in a scary stretch where the S&P 500 has swung more than 1%, up or down, seven times in eight days because of Trump’s on -and- off -again tariffs. The worry is that the whipsaw moves will either hurt the economy directly or create enough uncertainty to drive U.S. companies and consumers into an economy-freezing paralysis.
The economy has already given some signals of weakening, mostly through surveys showing increased pessimism. And a widely followed collection of real-time indicators compiled by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta suggests the U.S. economy may already be shrinking.
Asked over the weekend whether he was expecting a recession in 2025, Trump told Fox News Channel: “I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition because what we’re doing is very big. We’re bringing wealth back to America. That’s a big thing.” He then added, “It takes a little time. It takes a little time.”
Trump says he wants to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States, among other reasons he’s given for tariffs. His Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has also said the economy may go through a “detox” period as it weans off an addiction to spending by the government. The White House is trying to limit federal spending, while also cutting the federal workforce and increasing deportations, which could hinder the job market.
The U.S. job market is still showing stable hiring at the moment, to be sure, and the economy ended last year running at a solid rate. But economists are marking down their forecasts for how the economy will perform this year.
At Goldman Sachs, for example, David Mericle cut his estimate for U.S. economic growth to 1.7% from 2.2% for the end of 2025 over the year before, largely because tariffs look like they’ll be bigger than he was previously forecasting.
He sees a one-in-five chance of a recession over the next year, raising it only slightly because “the White House has the option to pull back policy changes” if the risks to the economy “begin to look more serious.”
“There are always multiple forces at work in the market, but right now, almost all of them are taking a back seat to tariffs,” according to Chris Larkin, managing director, trading and investing, at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley.
In response to the market sell-off, White House spokesman Kush Desai noted that a number of companies have responded to Trump’s “America First” economic agenda with “trillions in investment commitments that will create thousands of jobs.”
Trump met on Monday with tech industry CEOs, but the event was closed to the news media.
The worries hitting Wall Street have so far been hurting some of its biggest stars the most. Big Tech stocks and companies that rode the artificial-intelligence frenzy in recent years have slumped sharply.
Nvidia fell another 5.1% Monday to bring its loss for the year so far to more than 20%. It’s a steep drop-off from its nearly 820% surge over 2023 and 2024.
Elon Musk’s Tesla fell 15.4% to deepen its loss for 2025 to 45%. After getting an initial post-election bump on hopes that Musk’s close relationship with Trump would help the electric-vehicle company, the stock has slumped on worries that its brand has become intertwined with Musk. Protests against the U.S. government’s efforts to cull its workforce and other moves have targeted Tesla dealerships, for example.
Stocks of companies that depend on U.S. households feeling good enough about their finances to spend also fell sharply. Cruise-ship operator Carnival dropped 7.6%, and United Airlines lost 6.3%.
It’s not just stocks struggling. Investors are sending prices lower for all kinds of investments whose momentum had earlier seemed nearly impossible to stop at times, such as bitcoin. The cryptocurrency’s value has dropped below $80,000 from more than $106,000 in December.
Instead, investors have bid up U.S. Treasury bonds as they look for things whose prices can hold up better when the economy is under pressure. That has sent prices for Treasurys sharply higher, which in turn has sent down their yields.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury tumbled again to 4.22% from 4.32% late Friday. It’s been dropping since January, when it was approaching 4.80%, as worries about the economy have grown. That’s a major move for the bond market.
All the uncertainty, though, hasn’t shut down dealmaking on Wall Street. Redfin’s stock jumped 67.9% after Rocket said it would buy the digital real estate brokerage in an all-stock deal valuing it at $1.75 billion. Rocket’s stock sank 15.3%.
ServiceNow fell 7.9% after the AI platform company said it was buying AI-assistant maker Moveworks for $2.85 billion in cash and stock.
All told, the S&P 500 fell 155.64 points to 5,614.56. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 890.01 to 41,911.71, and the Nasdaq composite sank 727.90 to 17,468.32.
In stock markets abroad, European indexes largely fell following a mixed session in Asia.
Indexes fell 1.8% in Hong Kong and 0.2% in Shanghai after China said consumer prices fell in February for the first time in 13 months. It’s the latest signal of weakness for the world’s second-largest economy, as persistent weak demand was compounded by the early timing of the Lunar New Year holiday.
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AP Business Writers Matt Ott, Elaine Kurtenbach and Josh Boak contributed.
A cargo ship hits a tanker and they catch fire off England, with one crew member missing
By JILL LAWLESS Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — A cargo ship hit a tanker carrying jet fuel for the U.S. military off eastern England on Monday, setting both vessels ablaze and sending fuel pouring into the North Sea.
One crew member was missing hours later, and search efforts continued, the cargo ship’s owner, Ernst Russ, said in a statement.
Earlier, local lawmaker Graham Stuart said all 37 from both ships were safe and accounted for, with one hospitalized. The collision triggered a major rescue operation by lifeboats, coast guard aircraft and commercial vessels.
Stuart said he was concerned about the “potential ecological impact” of the spill. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch was investigating its cause.
The U.S.-flagged chemical and oil products tanker MV Stena Immaculate was at anchor near the port of Grimsby on Monday morning after sailing from Greece, according to ship-tracking site VesselFinder. The Portugal-flagged container ship Solong was sailing from Grangemouth in Scotland to Rotterdam in the Netherlands when it struck the tanker’s side.
U.S.-based maritime management firm Crowley, which operates the Stena Immaculate, said the tanker “sustained a ruptured cargo tank containing Jet-A1 fuel,” when the container ship struck it, triggering a fire and “multiple explosions onboard,” with fuel released into the sea.
It said all 23 mariners on the tanker were safe and accounted for.
The Stena Immaculate was operating as part of the U.S. government’s Tanker Security Program, a group of commercial vessels that can be contracted to carry fuel for the military when needed.
Britain’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency said the alarm was raised at 9:48 a.m. (0948 GMT). Humber Coast Guard asked vessels with firefighting equipment and those who could help with search and rescue to head to the scene about 155 miles (250 kilometers) north of London.
Video footage aired by British broadcasters and apparently filmed from a nearby vessel showed thick black smoke pouring from both ships.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office said details of the collision and its cause “are still becoming clear.”
Abdul Khalique, head of the Maritime Center at Liverpool John Moores University, said it appeared the crew of the cargo ship had not been “maintaining a proper lookout by radar” as required by international maritime regulations.
Greenpeace U.K. said it was too early to assess the extent of any environmental damage from the collision, which took place in a busy fishing ground and close to major seabird colonies.
Scientists said the environmental impact might be less severe than with a spill of heavier crude oil.
“Whilst the images look worrying, from the perspective of the impact to the aquatic environment, it’s less of a concern than if this had been crude oil because most of the jet fuel will evaporate very quickly,” said Mark Hartl of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Biotechnology at Scotland’s Heriot-Watt University.
Mark Sephton, professor of organic geochemistry at Imperial College London, said jet fuel disintegrates more quickly than crude oil, and warmer temperatures speed biodegradation.
“In the end, it all depends on the rate of introduction of fuel and the rate of destruction by bacteria,” he said. “Let’s hope the latter wins out.”
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Associated Press journalist Krutika Pathi in London contributed.
EPA froze ‘green bank’ funds worth billions, climate group suit says
By MATTHEW DALY and MICHAEL PHILLIS Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — A nonprofit that was awarded nearly $7 billion by the Biden administration to finance clean energy and climate-friendly projects has sued President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency, accusing it of improperly freezing a legally awarded grant.
Climate United Fund, a coalition of three nonprofit groups, demanded access to a Citibank account it received through the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, a program created in 2022 by the bipartisan Inflation Reduction Act and more commonly known as the green bank. The freeze threatens its ability to issue loans and even pay employees, the group said.
“The combined actions of Citibank and EPA effectively nullify a congressionally mandated and funded program,” Maryland-based Climate United wrote in a Monday court filing.
In a related action, the Coalition for Green Capital, a separate group that received $5 billion from the Biden-era program, sued Citibank Monday, alleging breach of contract over the refusal to disburse the grant funds awarded by the EPA.
“Citi’s actions have blocked CGC from deploying funds appropriated by Congress for energy projects to lower electricity costs and provide clean air and water for all Americans,” the Washington-based group said in a statement.
The two nonprofits are among eight groups tapped by then-EPA Administrator Michael Regan to receive $20 billion to finance tens of thousands of projects to fight climate change and promote environmental justice. The money was formally awarded in August.
While favored by congressional Democrats, the green bank drew immediate criticism from Republicans, who routinely denounced it as an unaccountable “slush fund.” Regan sharply disputed that claim.
The bank was quickly targeted by EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, who was confirmed to the role in late January. In a video posted on X, Zeldin said the EPA would revoke contracts for the still-emerging program. Zeldin cited a conservative journalist’s undercover video made late last year that showed a former EPA employee saying the agency was throwing “gold bars off the Titanic” — presumably a reference to spending before the start of Trump’s second term.
Zeldin has repeatedly used the term “gold bars” to accuse the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund’s recipients of misconduct, waste and possible fraud.
According to the lawsuit filed in federal court, Citibank cut off access to Climate United’s bank account on February 18 — an action the bank did not explain for weeks.
The cutoff took place as Zeldin made multiple public appearances accusing Climate United and other groups of misconduct, eventually announcing that the funds were frozen, according to the lawsuit. Climate United said the EPA has refused to meet with the group.
Several Democratic lawmakers slammed Zeldin’s attacks on the green bank as a “sham investigation and unsubstantiated funding freeze.”
The Trump administration’s “baseless attacks on these investments will only cost jobs, increase prices and harm our communities,” Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen, Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and Michigan Rep. Debbie Dingell said in a statement Monday. The three Democrats pushed for creation of the green bank.
Citibank said it was reviewing the Climate United lawsuit.
“As we’ve said previously, Citi has been working with the federal government in its efforts to address government officials’ concerns regarding this federal grant program,” the bank said in a statement Monday. “Our role as financial agent does not involve any discretion over which organizations receive grant funds. Citi will of course comply with any judicial decision.”
The EPA declined to comment, citing pending litigation. A hearing on the case is scheduled for Wednesday in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
In its court filing, Climate United pointed to the resignation of Denise Cheung, a high-ranking prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Washington office, who said she was forced to step dow n after refusing demands from top Trump administration officials to freeze the climate groups’ assets.
Zeldin raised questions in a letter to the agency’s watchdog about the EPA’s use of Citibank to hold the money, a structure that allowed the eight entities to be used as “pass throughs” for eventual grant recipients. The process undermined transparency, Zeldin alleged.
He also questioned the qualifications of some of the entities overseeing the grants and said some were affiliated with the Biden administration or Democratic politics, including Stacey Abrams, a former Democratic nominee for Georgia governor. Trump singled out Abrams over her ties to the green bank in his address to Congress last week.
In a letter to EPA officials on March 4, Climate United disputed Zeldin’s allegations. The group’s lengthy application material is publicly available and the EPA used a rigorous selection process, Climate United said, adding that its spending is transparent.
In addition to Climate United, the new fund has awarded money to other nonprofits, including the Coalition for Green Capital, Power Forward Communities, Opportunity Finance Network, Inclusiv and the Justice Climate Fund. Those organizations have partnered with a range of groups, including Rewiring America, Habitat for Humanity and the Community Preservation Corporation.
The green bank represents ideas Congress enacted that the Trump administration doesn’t like: fighting climate change and helping communities that are often low-income or majority-Black and Hispanic, said Ilmi Granoff, a climate finance expert at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.
“The resources have already been spent, which means they’re trying to come up with pretexts to do something the government is not supposed to do, which is claw back resources” that Congress provided, Granoff said, comparing the Trump administration’s investigations to a “fishing expedition.”
The Trump administration said Friday that it’s pulling $400 million from Columbia University, canceling grants and contracts because of what the government describes as the Ivy League school’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus.
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Phillis reported from St. Louis.
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The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Elon Musk claims X being targeted in ‘massive cyberattack’ as service goes down
By MICHELLE CHAPMAN AP Business Writer
Hours after a series of outages Monday that left X unavailable to thousands of users, Elon Musk claimed that the social media platform was being targeted in a “massive cyberattack.”
“We get attacked every day, but this was done with a lot of resources,” Musk claimed in a post. “Either a large, coordinated group and/or a country is involved. Tracing …”
Complaints about outages spiked Monday at 6 a.m. Eastern and again at 10 a.m, with more than 40,000 users reporting no access to the platform, according to the tracking website Downdetector.com.
A sustained outage that lasted at least an hour began at noon, with the heaviest disruptions occurring along the U.S. coasts.
Downdetector.com said that 56% of problems were reported for the X app, while 33% were reported for the website.
In March 2023 the social media platform then known as Twitter experienced a bevy of glitches for over an hour as links stopped working, some users were unable to log in and images were not loading for others.
Banned Toys in America
Top Toys You Won’t See On Shelves
Easy Bake Oven
Every kid growing up in the 70’s, 80’s, and early 90’s wanted the amazing Easy Bake Oven, first produced by Kenner then by Hasbro. It was just like the title implied, an easy toy that baked fun and delicious treats. Sadly its history has been very rocky with it being recalled not once but twice due to its mechanism catching fingers and even some burns.
Lawn Darts
This game involves either two people or two teams where they throw 12 inch darts, with very sharp points, across the yard to the corresponding rings. It can be very fun if played correctly. Unfortunately, it was banned in December of 1988 when several deaths were linked to the lawn game.
Mini Hammocks
Hammocks are the delight of spring and summer, especially if you are visiting the beach or even the mountains. You can recline back and listen to nature around you or take a quick snooze. This is all thanks to the spreader bars either ends of the hammock, it keeps the sides from rolling up. All of this is because in 1996, mini hammocks had to be recalled due to a record of 12 children’s deaths.
Rollerblade Barbie
Barbie is the icon among little girls since March of 1959. She has the largest wardrobe among the toys, but one of those “outfits” had to be recalled in 1992. Rollerblade Barbie was in hot water when the sparks in the rollerblades, which was suppose to make Barbie look like she was going fast, caused fires and injuries.
Snack Time Cabbage Patch Doll
This timeless toy was a hit for the kids, the toys began in 1982 and can still be seen on shelves today. That is except for the Snack Time Doll. This toy had a motorized mouth this could move up and down, chowing down on little plastic food pieces. Disaster struck when it was found that the mouth could not distinguish between toy and human fingers and sometimes even hair. There was no off switch so it kept eating, pulling the object in.
Toy Crossbows
These medieval looking toys were all the rage in the 1970’s. Though they look very fun they are very dangerous. The projectiles were toothpicks, and usually toothpicks are helpful. Yet this case they can cause blindness and other injury.
Did You Know Snakes…
Fun Facts about Snakes
Ophidiophobia is the fear of snakes, and many people have this fear. A lot of people are afraid of snakes because they don’t know much about them. Here are a few interesting things about snakes and maybe it will help you get to know them a little better. For more information about these slithering creatures, check out The Nature Conservancy.
- Snakes can be found just about everywhere. They are in the mountains, deserts, forests and the water. They are very versatile and can adapt.
- Snakes are not slimy. Many people are frightened of them because they see the snakes slither so naturally, they must be slimy. This is not the case, they are scaley and dry.
- There are over 4,000 snake species but only about 600 are venomous. Just because you see a snake, does not make it venomous. Though it might just get away if you find one, it is best to leave it alone, you don’t know if it is venomous or not.
Antipasto Skewers
Antipasto Skewers
Antipasto Skewer Recipe from The Pioneer Woman
Prep time: 45 minutes
Cooking time: N/A
Serving size: 12 servings
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 2 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
- 1/2 tsp. Italian seasoning
- Pinch of kosher salt
- 12 ciliegine mozzarella balls, drained
- 1 roasted red pepper (from a jar)
- 12 pitted kalamata olives
- 24 slices salami (about 5 oz.)
- 24 large fresh basil leaves (about 1/4 c.)
- 12 bite-size pieces marinated artichoke hearts (from a jar)
- 12 cherry tomatoes
- 12 pepperoncini
- Balsamic glaze, for drizzling
Directions
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the oil, vinegar, Italian seasoning, and salt. Add the mozzarella balls to the dressing and toss to coat. Refrigerate for at least 15 minutes or up to 12 hours. Slice the roasted red pepper into 12 (1-by-1-inch) squares.
- Thread the ingredients onto 12 (6-inch) wooden skewers in the following order: roasted red pepper (folded in half), olive, salami slice (folded into quarters), basil leaf, marinated mozzarella ball, artichoke heart, tomato, basil leaf, salami slice (folded into quarters), and pepperoncini. Place the skewers on a platter and drizzle with the balsamic glaze just before serving.
March 10th 2025
Thought of the Day
Use a kind word to inspire confidence and encourage kids to develop good values.
NC State fires coach Kevin Keatts a year after improbable ACC title and Final Four run
By AARON BEARD AP Basketball Writer
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — N.C. State fired men’s basketball coach Kevin Keatts on Sunday, an abrupt end to an eight-year tenure coming less than a year after the Wolfpack’s improbable run to the Atlantic Coast Conference championship and the Final Four.
The school announced the move a day after the Wolfpack closed a 12-19 season.
“I want to thank Coach Keatts for his contributions to N.C. State and for always representing the university with class,” athletic director Boo Corrigan said in a statement. “He will always have a treasured place in Wolfpack history for the accomplishments of his 2023-24 squad and I appreciate the passion he brought to this role. We wish him and his family the best in the future.”
Keatts posted his own statement on social media, calling the past eight years “a dream come true.”
“As we enter this new era of college sports, I wholeheartedly believe that I am leaving the program in better position to succeed than when I started — and that the basketball program will continue to thrive when supported to the level necessary to compete,” Keatts said.
He signed off with a nod to players being able to transfer freely in a rapidly evolving college sports landscape.
“I am officially entering the portal,” Keatts said.
Keatts went 151-113 at N.C. State, including 69-84 in ACC play. His teams earned three NCAA Tournament bids, the last coming when the Wolfpack followed a five-games-in-five-days ride to their first ACC Tournament title since 1987 with a just-as-unexpected run to the program’s first Final Four since the late Jim Valvano led the “Cardiac Pack” to the 1983 NCAA title.
It was difficult to predict that Keatts would be out of a job a year later.
But he couldn’t sustain that momentum as this season turned into a crashout, with the Wolfpack’s retooling through the transfer portal — which had worked well enough to get N.C. State to back-to-back NCAA bids — proving to be a major miss. N.C. State went just 5-15 in league play, suffering the ignominy as the reigning champion to miss the 15-team ACC Tournament in an expanded 18-team league.
That included going 0-11 on the road, an ugly mark considering Keatts had made it a tradition for the team to get ice cream after road wins. The finale came with the Wolfpack giving up the last 10 points in Saturday’s loss to a Miami team that had won just six games all year.
The firing comes after Keatts faced multiple challenges in his tenure, starting with stabilizing a wobbly program on the court and then working for years amid the shadow of a federal corruption investigation into the sport that was tied to predecessor Mark Gottfried’s tenure. That case hovered for years before the program was placed on a year of probation in December 2021.
Ultimately, Keatts had five 20-win seasons but never delivered a consistent winner that Wolfpack fans have desperately craved, with the wild swing from the past 12 months illustrating that problem.
He arrived in 2017 from UNC Wilmington promising that “Kevin Keatts is a winner” in his introductory news conference. In many ways, he matched that, particularly after the program had bottomed out in Gottfried’s final two seasons after four straight NCAA bids. Keatts started with a 21-win season that included taking down highly ranked Duke, UNC and Arizona teams before reaching the NCAAs.
That was the first of the 20-win seasons, though one ended with the Wolfpack falling on the wrong side of the bubble on Selection Sunday (2019) and had another likely bid vanish when the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the 2020 tournament. Then came two years of struggles, notably with a program-record 21 losses in 2022 before the final two-year upturn that culminated with last year’s remarkable run.