NEW YORK (AP) — Haven’t ordered any of your holiday gifts yet? Well, you might find solace in discovering some of America’s biggest retailers are working to increase their shipping speeds to please shoppers expecting faster and faster deliveries. Walmart, Target and Amazon are all-in on the shipping wars, a move retail experts say will help them maintain a competitive edge against low-cost Chinese retailers Shein and Temu.

Google has agreed to pay $700 million and make several other concessions to settle allegations that it had been stifling competition against its Android app store — the same issue that went to …

LONDON (AP) — The European Union is looking into whether Elon Musk’s online platform X breached tough new social media regulations in the first such investigation since the rules designed to make online content less toxic took effect. “Today we open formal infringement proceedings against @X” under the Digital Services Act, European Commissioner Thierry Breton said Monday in a post on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

NEW YORK (AP) — The promise of self-checkout was alluring: Customers could avoid long lines by scanning and bagging their own items, workers could be freed of doing those monotonous tasks themselves and retailers could save on labor costs. All that has happened since the rollout of self-checkout but so has this: Customers griping about clunky technology that spits out mysterious error codes, workers having to stand around and monitor both humans and machines, and retailers contending with theft.

Quaker Oats on Friday recalled several of its granola products, including granola bars and cereals, saying the foods could be contaminated with salmonella.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of older Americans could pay less for some of their outpatient drug treatments beginning early next year, the Biden administration announced Thursday. The White House unveiled a list of 48 drugs — from chemotherapy treatments to growth hormones used to treat endocrine disorders — whose prices increased faster than the rate of inflation this year. Under a new law, drugmakers will have to pay rebates to the federal government because of those price increases.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve kept its key interest rate unchanged Wednesday for a third straight time, and its officials signaled that they expect to make three quarter-point cuts to their benchmark rate next year. Speaking at a news conference, Chair Jerome Powell said that Fed officials are likely done raising interest rates because of how steadily inflation has cooled.

DETROIT (AP) — Tesla is recalling nearly all vehicles sold in the U.S., more than 2 million, to update software and fix a defective system that’s supposed to ensure drivers are paying attention when using Autopilot. Documents posted Wednesday by U.S. safety regulators say the update will increase warnings and alerts to drivers and even limit the areas where basic versions of Autopilot can operate.

Choice Hotels is launching a hostile takeover offer for Wyndham Hotels & Resorts after repeated attempts to reach a deal with the rival hotel chain were rebuffed. Choice Hotels said Tuesday that its exchange offer to shareholders of Wyndham, which runs Days Inn, La Quinta, Ramada and a host of other brands, is the same as its last bid to company management, which was $49.50 in cash and 0.324 shares of Choice common stock per Wyndham share.

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. inflation ticked down again last month, with cheaper gas helping further lighten the weight of consumer price increases in the United States. At the same time, the latest data on consumer inflation showed that prices in some areas — services such as restaurants, used cars and auto insurance — continued to rise uncomfortably fast.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s employers added a solid 199,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate fell. Friday’s report from the Labor Department showed that the unemployment rate dropped from 3.9% to 3.7%, not far above a five-decade low of 3.4% in April.

NEW YORK (AP) — The heads of Wall Street's biggest banks used an appearance on Capitol Hill to plead with senators to stop the Biden administration's proposed changes to how banks are regulated, warning that the proposals could negatively impact the economy at a time of geopolitical turmoil and inflation.

LONDON (AP) — Hailed as a world first, European Union artificial intelligence rules are facing a make-or-break moment as negotiators try to hammer out the final details this week — talks complicated by the sudden rise of generative AI that produces human-like work.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday is hearing arguments over a nationwide settlement with OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma that would shield members of the Sackler family who own the company from civil lawsuits over the toll of opioids. The agreement hammered out with state and local governments and victims would provide billions of dollars to combat the opioid epidemic.

SEATTLE (AP) — Alaska Air Group said Sunday it agreed to buy Hawaiian Airlines in a $1.9 billion deal including debt. The combined company would keep both airlines' brands, rooted in the nation's 49th and 50th states. Alaska will pay $18 in cash for each share of Hawaiian, whose stock closed Friday at $4.86. The deal also includes $900 million in Hawaiian debt, which the airlines said brings the acquisition's total value to $1.9 billion.

LONDON (AP) — Saudi Arabia will extend a cut in the amount of oil it sends to the world after a series of previous reductions by members of the OPEC+ alliance of major producing countries failed to prop up prices. That’s been a good thing for U.S. drivers, who have been able to fill their gas tanks for less money in recent months.

DETROIT (AP) — Less than two weeks after ratifying new contracts with Detroit automakers, the United Auto Workers union announced plans Wednesday to try to simultaneously organize workers at more than a dozen nonunion auto factories. The UAW says the drive will cover nearly 150,000 workers at factories largely in the South, where the union has had little success in recruiting new members.

DETROIT (AP) — Electric vehicles have proved far less reliable, on average, than gasoline-powered cars, trucks and SUVs, according to the latest survey by Consumer Reports, which found that EVs from the 2021 through 2023 model years encountered nearly 80% more problems than did vehicles propelled by internal combustion engines.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Shrugging off higher interest rates, America's consumers spent enough to help drive the economy to a brisk 5.2% annual pace from July through September, the government reported Wednesday in an upgrade from its previous estimate. The government had previously estimated that the economy grew at a 4.9% annual rate last quarter.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia drivers are likely to begin paying higher prices for gasoline and diesel as state motor fuel taxes return on Thursday. Gov. Brian Kemp's rollback of the state taxes of 31.2 cents per gallon of gasoline and 35 cents per gallon of diesel ends at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.

Consumers are scouring the internet for online deals as they begin to cap off the five-day post-Thanksgiving shopping bonanza with Cyber Monday. Even though e-commerce is now part and parcel of our everyday lives and much of the holiday shopping season, Cyber Monday –- a term coined back in 2005 by the National Retail Federation –- continues to be the biggest online shopping day of the year, thanks to the deals and the hype the industry has created to fuel it.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook parent Meta Platforms deliberately engineered its social platforms to hook kids and knew — but never disclosed — it had received millions of complaints about underage users on Instagram but only disabled a fraction of those accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint described in reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times.

Supporting nonprofits on GivingTuesday this year could have a bigger impact than usual. Why? Because nonprofits and industry groups say donations so far are down compared with previous years. Many organizations will look to make up the difference on GivingTuesday, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, which started as a hashtag in 2012 and has grown into one of the biggest fundraising dates on the calendar.

NEW YORK (AP) — Shoppers hunting for big deals packed malls on Black Friday as retailers stepped up discounts and offered other perks to entice hesitant customers who are sticking to stricter budgets this year.

NEW YORK (AP) — Consumers are expected to use “buy now, pay later” payment plans heavily this Christmas season, a forecast that bodes well for retailers but that has credit experts again sounding alarm bells.