Teens say they are turning to AI for friendship

Teens say they are turning to AI for friendship

By JOCELYN GECKER AP Education Writer

No question is too small when Kayla Chege, a high school student in Kansas, is using artificial intelligence.

The 15-year-old asks ChatGPT for guidance on back-to-school shopping, makeup colors, low-calorie choices at Smoothie King, plus ideas for her Sweet 16 and her younger sister’s birthday party.

The sophomore honors student makes a point not to have chatbots do her homework and tries to limit her interactions to mundane questions. But in interviews with The Associated Press and a new study, teenagers say they are increasingly interacting with AI as if it were a companion, capable of providing advice and friendship.

“Everyone uses AI for everything now. It’s really taking over,” said Chege, who wonders how AI tools will affect her generation. “I think kids use AI to get out of thinking.”

For the past couple of years, concerns about cheating at school have dominated the conversation around kids and AI. But artificial intelligence is playing a much larger role in many of their lives. AI, teens say, has become a go-to source for personal advice, emotional support, everyday decision-making and problem-solving.

‘AI is always available. It never gets bored with you’

More than 70% of teens have used AI companions and half use them regularly, according to a new study from Common Sense Media, a group that studies and advocates for using screens and digital media sensibly.

The study defines AI companions as platforms designed to serve as “digital friends,” like Character. AI or Replika, which can be customized with specific traits or personalities and can offer emotional support, companionship and conversations that can feel human-like. But popular sites like ChatGPT and Claude, which mainly answer questions, are being used in the same way, the researchers say.

As the technology rapidly gets more sophisticated, teenagers and experts worry about AI’s potential to redefine human relationships and exacerbate crises of loneliness and youth mental health.

“AI is always available. It never gets bored with you. It’s never judgmental,” says Ganesh Nair, an 18-year-old in Arkansas. “When you’re talking to AI, you are always right. You’re always interesting. You are always emotionally justified.”

All that used to be appealing, but as Nair heads to college this fall, he wants to step back from using AI. Nair got spooked after a high school friend who relied on an “AI companion” for heart-to-heart conversations with his girlfriend later had the chatbot write the breakup text ending his two-year relationship.

“That felt a little bit dystopian, that a computer generated the end to a real relationship,” said Nair. “It’s almost like we are allowing computers to replace our relationships with people.”

How many teens are using AI? New study stuns researchers

In the Common Sense Media survey, 31% of teens said their conversations with AI companions were “as satisfying or more satisfying” than talking with real friends. Even though half of teens said they distrust AI’s advice, 33% had discussed serious or important issues with AI instead of real people.

Those findings are worrisome, says Michael Robb, the study’s lead author and head researcher at Common Sense, and should send a warning to parents, teachers and policymakers. The now-booming and largely unregulated AI industry is becoming as integrated with adolescence as smartphones and social media are.

“It’s eye-opening,” said Robb. “When we set out to do this survey, we had no understanding of how many kids are actually using AI companions.” The study polled more than 1,000 teens nationwide in April and May.

Adolescence is a critical time for developing identity, social skills and independence, Robb said, and AI companions should complement — not replace — real-world interactions.

“If teens are developing social skills on AI platforms where they are constantly being validated, not being challenged, not learning to read social cues or understand somebody else’s perspective, they are not going to be adequately prepared in the real world,” he said.

The nonprofit analyzed several popular AI companions in a “ risk assessment,” finding ineffective age restrictions and that the platforms can produce sexual material, give dangerous advice and offer harmful content. The group recommends that minors not use AI companions.

A concerning trend to teens and adults alike

Researchers and educators worry about the cognitive costs for youth who rely heavily on AI, especially in their creativity, critical thinking and social skills. The potential dangers of children forming relationships with chatbots gained national attention last year when a 14-year-old Florida boy died by suicide after developing an emotional attachment to a Character. AI chatbot.

“Parents really have no idea this is happening,” said Eva Telzer, a psychology and neuroscience professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. “All of us are struck by how quickly this blew up.” Telzer is leading multiple studies on youth and AI, a new research area with limited data.

Telzer’s research has found that children as young as 8 are using generative AI and also found that teens are using AI to explore their sexuality and for companionship. In focus groups, Telzer found that one of the top apps teens frequent is SpicyChat AI, a free role-playing app intended for adults.

Many teens also say they use chatbots to write emails or messages to strike the right tone in sensitive situations.

“One of the concerns that comes up is that they no longer have trust in themselves to make a decision,” said Telzer. “They need feedback from AI before feeling like they can check off the box that an idea is OK or not.”

Arkansas teen Bruce Perry, 17, says he relates to that and relies on AI tools to craft outlines and proofread essays for his English class.

“If you tell me to plan out an essay, I would think of going to ChatGPT before getting out a pencil,” Perry said. He uses AI daily and has asked chatbots for advice in social situations, to help him decide what to wear and to write emails to teachers, saying AI articulates his thoughts faster.

Perry says he feels fortunate that AI companions were not around when he was younger.

“I’m worried that kids could get lost in this,” Perry said. “I could see a kid that grows up with AI not seeing a reason to go to the park or try to make a friend.”

Other teens agree, saying the issues with AI and its effect on children’s mental health are different from those of social media.

“Social media complemented the need people have to be seen, to be known, to meet new people,” Nair said. “I think AI complements another need that runs a lot deeper — our need for attachment and our need to feel emotions. It feeds off of that.”

“It’s the new addiction,” Nair added. “That’s how I see it.”

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

US Olympic and Paralympic officials bar transgender women from competing in Olympic women’s sports

US Olympic and Paralympic officials bar transgender women from competing in Olympic women’s sports

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has effectively barred transgender women from competing in women’s sports, telling the federations overseeing swimming, athletics and other sports it has an “obligation to comply” with an executive order issued by President Donald Trump.

The new policy, announced Monday with a quiet change on the USOPC’s website and confirmed in a letter sent to national sport governing bodies, follows a similar step taken by the NCAA earlier this year.

The USOPC change is noted obliquely as a detail under “USOPC Athlete Safety Policy” and references Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” signed in February. That order, among other things, threatens to “rescind all funds” from organizations that allow transgender athlete participation in women’s sports.

U.S. Olympic officials told the national governing bodies they will need to follow suit, adding that “the USOPC has engaged in a series of respectful and constructive conversations with federal officials” since Trump signed the order.

“As a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations,” USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland and President Gene Sykes wrote in a letter. “Our revised policy emphasizes the importance of ensuring fair and safe competition environments for women. All National Governing Bodies are required to update their applicable policies in alignment.”

The National Women’s Law Center put out a statement condemning the move.

“By giving into the political demands, the USOPC is sacrificing the needs and safety of its own athletes,” said that organization’s president and CEO, Fatima Goss Graves.

The USOPC oversees around 50 national governing bodies, most of which play a role in everything from the grassroots to elite levels of their sports. That raises the possibility that rules might need to be changed at local sports clubs to retain their memberships in the NGBs.

Some of those organizations — for instance, USA Track and Field — have long followed guidelines set by their own world federation. World Athletics is considering changes to its policies that would mostly fall in line with Trump’s order.

A USA Swimming spokesman said the federation had been made aware of the USOPC’s change and was consulting with the committee to figure out what changes it needs to make. USA Fencing changed its policy effective Aug. 1 to allow only “athletes who are of the female sex” in women’s competition and opening men’s events to “all athletes not eligible for the women’s category, including transgender women, transgender men, non-binary and intersex athletes and cisgender male athletes.”

The nationwide battle over transgender girls on girls’ and women’s sports teams has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans portray the issue as a fight for athletic fairness. More than two dozen states have enacted laws barring transgender women and girls from participating in certain sports competitions. Some policies have been blocked in court after critics challenged the policies as discriminatory, cruel and unnecessarily target a tiny niche of athletes.

The NCAA changed its participation policy for transgender athletes to limit competition in women’s sports to athletes assigned female at birth. That change came a day after Trump signed the executive order intended to ban transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports.

Female eligibility is a key issue for the International Olympic Committee under its new president, Kirsty Coventry, who has signaled an effort to “protect the female category.” The IOC has allowed individual sports federations to set their own rules at the Olympics — and some have already taken steps on the topic.

Stricter rules on transgender athletes — barring from women’s events anyone who went through male puberty — have been passed by swimming, cycling and track and field. Soccer is reviewing its eligibility rules for women and could set limits on testosterone.

Trump has said he wants the IOC to change everything “having to do with this absolutely ridiculous subject.” Los Angeles will host the Summer Games in 2028.

Ozzy Osbourne, who led Black Sabbath and became the godfather of heavy metal, dies at 76

Ozzy Osbourne, who led Black Sabbath and became the godfather of heavy metal, dies at 76

By MARK KENNEDY AP Entertainment Writer

Ozzy Osbourne, the gloomy, demon-invoking lead singer of the pioneering band Black Sabbath who became the throaty, growling voice — and drug-and-alcohol ravaged id — of heavy metal, died Tuesday, just weeks after his farewell show. He was 76.

“It is with more sadness than mere words can convey that we have to report that our beloved Ozzy Osbourne has passed away this morning. He was with his family and surrounded by love. We ask everyone to respect our family privacy at this time,” a family statement from Birmingham, England, said. In 2020, he revealed he had Parkinson’s disease after suffering a fall.

Ozzy Osbourne, the frontman of the pioneering band Black Sabbath –who became the throaty, growling voice of heavy metal, died Tuesday, just weeks after his farewell show. He was 76. (July 22) (AP Video)

Either clad in black or bare-chested, the singer was often the target of parents’ groups for his imagery and once caused an uproar for biting the head off a bat. Later, he would reveal himself to be a doddering and sweet father on the reality TV show “The Osbournes.”

The Big Bang of heavy metal

Black Sabbath’s 1969 self-titled debut LP has been likened to the Big Bang of heavy metal. It came during the height of the Vietnam War and crashed the hippie party, dripping menace and foreboding. The cover of the record was of a spooky figure against a stark landscape. The music was loud, dense and angry, and marked a shift in rock ’n’ roll.

The band’s second album, “Paranoid,” included such classic metal tunes as “War Pigs,” “Iron Man” and “Fairies Wear Boots.” The song “Paranoid” only reached No. 61 on the Billboard Hot 100 but became in many ways the band’s signature song. Both albums were voted among the top 10 greatest heavy metal albums of all time by readers of Rolling Stone magazine.

“Black Sabbath are the Beatles of heavy metal. Anybody who’s serious about metal will tell you it all comes down to Sabbath,” Dave Navarro of the band Jane’s Addiction wrote in a 2010 tribute in Rolling Stone. “There’s a direct line you can draw back from today’s metal, through Eighties bands like Iron Maiden, back to Sabbath.”

Sabbath fired Osbourne in 1979 for his legendary excesses, like showing up late for rehearsals and missing gigs. “We knew we didn’t really have a choice but to sack him because he was just so out of control. But we were all very down about the situation,” wrote bassist Terry “Geezer” Butler in his memoir, “Into the Void.”

Osbourne reemerged the next year as a solo artist with “Blizzard of Ozz” and the following year’s “Diary of a Madman,” both hard rock classics that went multiplatinum and spawned enduring favorites such as “Crazy Train,” “Goodbye to Romance,” “Flying High Again” and “You Can’t Kill Rock and Roll.” Osbourne was twice inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame — once with Sabbath in 2006 and again in 2024 as a solo artist.

The original Sabbath lineup reunited for the first time in 20 years in July for what Osbourne said would be his final concert. “Let the madness begin!” he told 42,000 fans in Birmingham.

Metallica, Guns N Roses, Slayer, Tool, Pantera, Gojira, Alice in Chains, Lamb of God, Halestorm, Anthrax, Rival Sons and Mastodon all did sets. Tom Morello, Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Billy Corgan, Ronnie Wood, Travis Barker, Sammy Hagar and more made appearances. Actor Jason Momoa was the host for the festivities.

“Black Sabbath: we’d all be different people without them, that’s the truth,” said Pantera singer Phil Anselmo. “I know I wouldn’t be up here with a microphone in my hand without Black Sabbath.”

Outlandish exploits and a classic look

Osbourne embodied the excesses of metal. His outlandish exploits included relieving himself on the Alamo, snorting a line of ants off a sidewalk and, most memorably, biting the head off the live bat that a fan threw onstage during a 1981 concert. (He said he thought it was rubber.)

Osbourne was sued in 1987 by parents of a 19-year-old teen who died by suicide while listening to his song “Suicide Solution.” The lawsuit was dismissed. Osbourne said the song was really about the dangers of alcohol, which caused the death of his friend Bon Scott, lead singer of AC/DC.

Then-Cardinal John J. O’Connor of New York claimed in 1990 that Osbourne’s songs led to demonic possession and even suicide. “You are ignorant about the true meaning of my songs,” the singer wrote back. “You have also insulted the intelligence of rock fans all over the world.”

Audiences at Osbourne shows could be mooned or spit on by the singer. They would often be hectored to scream along with the song, but the Satan-invoking Osbourne would usually send the crowds home with their ears ringing and a hearty “God bless!”

He started an annual tour — Ozzfest — in 1996 after he was rejected from the lineup of what was then the top touring music festival, Lollapalooza. Ozzfest has gone on to host such bands as Slipknot, Tool, Megadeth, Rob Zombie, System of a Down, Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park.

Osbourne’s look changed little over his life. He wore his long hair flat, heavy black eye makeup and round glasses, often wearing a cross around his neck. In 2013, he reunited with Black Sabbath for the dour, raw “13,” which reached No. 1 on the U.K. Albums Chart and peaked at No. 86 on the U.S. Billboard 200. In 2019, he had a Top 10 hit when featured on Post Malone’s “Take What You Want,” Osbourne’s first song in the Top 10 since 1989.

In 2020, he released the album “Ordinary Man,” which had as its title song a duet with Elton John. “I’ve been a bad guy, been higher than the blue sky/And the truth is I don’t wanna die an ordinary man,” he sang. In 2022, he landed his first career back-to-back No. 1 rock radio singles from his album “Patient Number 9,” which featured collaborations with Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Mike McCready, Chad Smith, Robert Trujillo and Duff McKagan. It earned four Grammy nominations, winning two. (Osbourne won five Grammys over his lifetime.)

At the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2024, Jack Black called him “greatest frontman in the history of rock ‘n’ roll” and “the Jack Nicholson of rock.” Osbourne thanked his fans, his guitarist Randy Rhoads and his longtime wife, Sharon Osbourne.

The beginnings of Black Sabbath

John Michael Osbourne was raised in the gritty city of Birmingham. Kids in school nicknamed him Ozzy, short for his surname. As a boy, he loved the Four Seasons, Chuck Berry and Little Richard. The Beatles made a huge impression.

“They came from Liverpool, which was approximately 60 miles north of where I come from,” he told Billboard. “So all of a sudden it was in my grasp, but I never thought it would be as successful as it became.”

In the late 1960s, Osbourne had teamed up with Butler, guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward as the Polka Tulk Blues Band. They decided to rename the band Earth, but found to their dismay there was another band with that name. So they changed the name to the American title of the classic Italian horror movie “I Tre Volti Della Paura,” starring Boris Karloff: Black Sabbath.

Once they found their sludgy, ominous groove, the band was productive, putting out their self-titled debut and “Paranoid” in 1970, “Master of Reality” in 1971, “Vol. 4” in 1972 and “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” in 1973.

The music was all about industrial guitar riffs and disorienting changes in time signatures, along with lyrics that spoke of alienation and doom. “People think I’m insane because I am frowning all the time,” Osbourne sang in one song. “All day long I think of things but nothing seems to satisfy/Think I’ll lose my mind if I don’t find something to pacify.”

The Guardian newspaper in 2009 said the band “introduced working-class anger, stoner sludge grooves and witchy horror-rock to flower power. Black Sabbath confronted the empty platitudes of the 1960s and, along with Altamont and Charles Manson, almost certainly helped kill off the hippy counterculture.”

After Sabbath, Osbourne had an uncanny knack for calling some of the most creative young guitarists to his side. When he went solo, he hired the brilliant innovator Rhoads, who played on two of Osbourne’s finest solo albums, “Blizzard of Ozz” and “Diary of a Madman.” Rhoads was killed in a freak plane accident in 1982; Osbourne released the live album “Tribute” in 1987 in his memory.

Osbourne then signed Jake E. Lee, who lent his talents to the platinum albums “Bark at the Moon” and “The Ultimate Sin.” Hotshot Zakk Wylde joined Osbourne’s band for “No Rest for the Wicked” and the multiplatinum “No More Tears.”

“They come along, they sprout wings, they blossom, and they fly off,” Osbourne said of his players in 1995 to The Associated Press. “But I have to move on. To get a new player now and again boosts me on.”

Courting controversy — and wholesomeness

Whomever he was playing with, Osbourne wasn’t likely to back down from controversy. He had the last laugh when the TV evangelist the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart in 1986 lambasted various rock groups and rock magazines as “the new pornography,” prompting some retailers to pull Osbourne’s album.

When Swaggart later was caught with a sex worker in 1988, Osbourne put out the song “Miracle Man” about his foe: “Miracle man got busted/miracle man got busted,” he sang. “Today I saw a Miracle Man, on TV cryin’/Such a hypocritical man, born again, dying.”

Much later, a whole new Osbourne would be revealed when “The Osbournes,” which ran on MTV from 2002-2005, showed this one-time self-proclaimed madman drinking Diet Cokes as he struggled to find the History Channel on his new satellite television or warning his kids not to smoke or drink before they embarked on a night on the town.

Later, he and his son Jack toured America on the travel show “Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour,” where the pair visited such places as Mount Rushmore and the Space Center Houston. Osbourne was honored in 2014 with the naming of a bat frog found in the Amazon that makes high-pitched, batlike calls. It was dubbed Dendropsophus ozzyi.

He also met Queen Elizabeth II during her Golden Jubilee weekend. He was standing next to singer-actor Cliff Richard. “She took one look at the two of us, said ‘Oh, so this is what they call variety, is it?’ then cracked up laughing. I honestly thought that Sharon had slipped some acid into my cornflakes that morning,” he wrote in “I Am Ozzy.”

Thelma Riley and Osbourne married in 1971; Osbourne adopted her son Elliot Kingsley, and they had two more children, Jessica and Louis. Osbourne later met his wife, then Sharon Levy, who became her own celebrity persona, when she was running her father’s Los Angeles office. Her father was Don Arden, a top concert promoter and artist manager. She went to Osbourne’s hotel in Los Angeles to collect money, which Osbourne had spent on drugs.

“She says she’ll come back in three days and I’d better have it. I’d always fancied her and I thought, ‘Ah, she’s coming back! Maybe I have a chance.’ I had pizza hanging from my hair, cigarette ashes on my shirt,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2000. They married in 1982, had three children — Kelly, Aimee and Jack — and endured periodic separations and reconciliations.

He is survived by Sharon Osbourne and his children.

The ACC has moved past lawsuits and uncertainty. Commissioner Jim Phillips sees stable years ahead

The ACC has moved past lawsuits and uncertainty. Commissioner Jim Phillips sees stable years ahead

By AARON BEARD AP Sports Writer

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Jim Phillips stood in the same spot Tuesday morning that he did exactly one year earlier as he officially opened the Atlantic Coast Conference’s preseason football media days.

Only now, the message and tone is far different.

The league has successfully quelled a rebellion in the form of the lawsuits by member schools Clemson and Florida State, which represented a threat fueling doomsayers’ chatter about the league’s long-term stability. Instead, the settlement that ended the legal fight spawned a new revenue-distribution model set to benefit the league’s biggest brands. There was also ESPN’s extension on its long-running partnership with the league.

And that sends the ACC into the 2025-26 sports season with the closest thing to peace as a college landscape churning with constant change can muster.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Phillips described recent months as “the restabilization of a great league that went through a very bumpy period.” He also talked about working to “make this a league that teams want to be in, not have to be in” at the start of the revenue-sharing era.

“We’re as healthy of a league as we’ve ever been based on having to go through some really tough moments,” Phillips told the AP.

“I give our presidents/board credit for it, and I give our ADs a ton of credit for it as well. … So we’ve moved away from some of the legal issues that we’ve had and now we’ve been able to work on things that I think have been put on the backburner.”

A summer earlier, FSU, Clemson and the league were entangled in a crossfire of lawsuits over the ACC’s ability to charge hundreds of millions of dollars in exit fees for schools that leave for another league.

That came amid the backdrop of the ACC’s financial conundrum. The league annually posts record revenue hauls ($711.4 million for 2023-24, with football-playing members receiving nearly $45 million). It also keeps lagging behind the Big Ten ($928.1 million revenue, $63.1 million payout) and Southeastern Conference ($839 million, $52.6 million), though it ranks firmly third among the Power Four leagues ahead of the Big 12 ($493.8 million, $39.5 million).

Had the Clemson or FSU lawsuits proceeded, there was potential a ruling might defang the league’s exit fees. Or its grant-of-rights deal, signed by all ACC schools to give the conference control of their media rights — and the TV money that comes with them — as a deterrent to moving elsewhere.

Either could have triggered more teams to exit and chase revenue elsewhere, with the 2024 disintegration of the Pac-12 offering a worst-case harbinger.

The stakes were clear last summer when Phillips took an assertive stance that was downright pugilistic by his own measured-tone standards in promising the league would fight “as long as it takes.” He now touts a successful “reconciliation” and what he calls “a really good story about the ACC.”

“People had various opinions about how unstable it was — I never felt ever that it was going to lose its way or anything like that,” Phillips said. “It was never going to have the demise that I had heard that may happen. I never believed that for a second.

“But you have a staff that you’re dealing with. You have other schools that you’re dealing with. So to me, part of my responsibility was to be incredibly level and strong and unwavering about (how) we would get to the place that we’re experiencing now, where we have stability.”

ESPN’s decision in January to pick up its base-rights option through 2035-36 provided a key perception boost, aligning that deal’s timeline with a second covering the partnership for the ACC Network. The legal settlement followed in March, featuring a revised revenue-distribution model incorporating TV viewership as a way for top programs to make more money.

Throw in the last season’s implementation of a “success initiative” allowing teams to keep money generated by their own postseason success, and big-brand names like Clemson and FSU in football, or Duke, North Carolina and Louisville in basketball, have avenues to offset the gap with Big Ten or SEC peers.

That said, it didn’t sound like the legal fight produced constant stress at the team level.

Miami coach Mario Cristobal said he never focused on uncertainty surrounding the conference’s future, while linebacker Wesley Bissainthe and offensive lineman Francis Mauigoa said they essentially knew nothing about the lawsuits.

“I live in a cave,” Mauigoa said with a grin.

Still, reaching resolution was a welcome sign all the same.

“For me,” Virginia coach Tony Elliott said, “really to see the commissioner stand up there and have confidence and say the things he’s said just gives me confidence.”

Longer-term questions await, though. The settlement included a rollback of the ACC’s grant-of-rights provision that ensured schools would bring no TV value to a new league. It also created a schedule of declining exit fees from its current nine-figure status to $75 million for the 2030-31 season, then leveling off there through the duration of the ESPN deals.

That 2031 date would largely align with expiration of media deals for the Big Ten (2029-30 season) and the Big 12 (2030-31), while the SEC’s deal runs through 2033-34. That confluence could set up a potential countdown for massive realignment impacting all Power Four leagues, maybe even through the formation of super league.

Asked about that looming potential, Phillips could only chuckle.

“We’re trying to get through this next year,” he said, “and all the rest of it.”

Wall Street ticks up to another record as GM and others show how tariffs are impacting them

Wall Street ticks up to another record as GM and others show how tariffs are impacting them

By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street inched to another record on Tuesday following some mixed profit reports, as General Motors and other big U.S. companies gave updates on how much President Donald Trump’s tariffs are hurting or helping them.

The S&P 500 added 0.1% to the all-time high it had set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 179 points, or 0.4%, though the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.4% from its own record.

General Motors dropped 8.1% despite reporting a stronger profit for the spring than analysts expected. The automaker said it’s still expecting a $4 billion to $5 billion hit to its results over 2025 because of tariffs and that it hopes to mitigate 30% of that. GM also said it will feel more pain because of tariffs in the current quarter than it did during the spring.

That helped to offset big gains for some homebuilders after they reported stronger profits for the spring than Wall Street had forecast. D.R. Horton rallied 17%, and PulteGroup jumped 11.5%. That was even as both companies said homebuyers are continuing to deal with challenging conditions, including higher mortgage rates and an uncertain economy.

So far, the U.S. economy seems to be powering through the uncertainty created by Trump’s on-and-off tariffs. Many of Trump’s proposed taxes on imports are currently on pause, and the next big deadline is Aug. 1. Talks are underway on possible trade deals with other countries that could lower the stiff proposals before they kick in.

Trump said he reached a trade agreement with the Philippines following a meeting Tuesday at the White House, that will see the U.S. slightly drop its tariff rate for the Philippines without paying import taxes for what it sells there.

Companies are already feeling effects. Genuine Parts, the Atlanta-based company that sells auto and industrial replacement parts around the world, trimmed its profit forecast for the full year in order to incorporate “all U.S. tariffs currently in effect,” along with its updated expectations for business conditions in the second half of the year.

Its stock rose 7.6% after it reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

RTX fell 1.6% after cutting its forecast for profit in 2025 but also raising its forecast for revenue. It made the changes to incorporate what CEO Chris Calio called “our current assessment of the impact of tariffs,” along with other changes anticipated from Washington’s recent approval of big tax changes.

Coca-Cola slipped 0.6% even though it delivered a stronger profit than forecast. Its revenue for the quarter only edged past analysts’ expectations, and it said that higher prices that it charged helped offset sales of fewer cases during the spring.

Opendoor Technologies, a company that caught interest among investors looking for the next “meme stock” that could rise regardless of how its profits are doing, lost momentum and dropped 10.3% to $2.88. It had climbed as high as $3.99 in the morning, more than quintuple its price of 78 cents from just two Fridays ago.

All told, the S&P 500 rose 4.02 points to 6,309.62. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 179.37 to 44,502.44, and the Nasdaq composite fell 81.49 to 20,892.68.

In the bond market, Treasury yields sank as traders continue to expect the Federal Reserve to wait until September at the earliest to resume cutting interest rates.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has been insisting he wants to see more data about how Trump’s tariffs are affecting inflation and the economy before the Fed makes its next move. That’s despite often angry criticism from Trump, who has been lobbying for more cuts to rates to happen sooner.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.34% from 4.38% late Monday.

In overseas markets, Japan’s benchmark jumped and then fell back as it reopened from a holiday Monday following the ruling coalition’s loss of its upper house majority in Sunday’s election. The Nikkei 225 shed 0.1%.

Analysts said the market initially climbed on relief that Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba vowed to stay in office despite a loss for his ruling coalition in an upper-house election Sunday. But the results have only added to political uncertainty and left his government without the heft needed to push through legislation.

A breakthrough in trade talks with the U.S. might win Ishiba a reprieve, but so far there’s been scant sign of progress in negotiating away the threat of higher tariffs on Japan’s exports to the U.S. beginning Aug. 1.

Indexes were mixed elsewhere in Asia and Europe.

Commanders GM says non-football topics such as President Trump’s comments don’t reach him

Commanders GM says non-football topics such as President Trump’s comments don’t reach him

By BEN STANDIG Associated Press

ASHBURN, Va. (AP) — Washington’s NFL franchise used to be in the news all the time for reasons other than football. That seemed to have changed under new team ownership, but President Donald Trump’s remarks about the team name and possibly holding up a stadium deal are making waves just as training camp opens.

Still, Commanders general manager Adam Peters made clear Tuesday — at a news conference with coach Dan Quinn a day before the team’s first training camp practice — that he doesn’t expect any of that sort of outside conversation to interfere with their real jobs.

“Whether it’s the stadium or anything else (non-football-related), those things don’t really make it to us,” Peters said. “We’re just trying to focus on what’s going on here and getting ready for the season.”

Trump said Sunday on social media that he “may put a restriction” on the Commanders’ anticipated deal with the District of Columbia government to build a new stadium in the nation’s capital “if they don’t change the name back to the original ‘Washington Redskins,’ and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, ‘Washington Commanders.'”

In 2020, under previous owner Dan Snyder, the franchise changed its long-standing name, which was considered offensive to Native Americans. After last season’s surprising run to the team’s first NFC championship game since 1991, managing partner Josh Harris said that the current name will stay.

“I think it’s now embraced by our team, by our culture, by our coaching staff. So we’re going with that,” Harris said in February.

Harris and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser agreed on a plan to build a new stadium on the same federal land where the club played for 35 years before bolting to its current home in the Maryland suburbs. The deal, which still must pass through the D.C. City Council, came about after Congress agreed to a 99-year lease with the city government.

For Peters, the matters at hand involve contract extension talks with receiver Terry McLaurin, the recent signing of Von Miller and building a roster capable of repeating last season’s success.

Veterans were expected to report and take their physicals on Tuesday.

“We’re really focused on everything in the building and getting ready for the season and getting our guys in here,” Peters said.

Commanders GM says non-football topics such as President Trump’s comments don’t reach him

Commanders GM says non-football topics such as President Trump’s comments don’t reach him

By BEN STANDIG Associated Press

ASHBURN, Va. (AP) — Washington’s NFL franchise used to be in the news all the time for reasons other than football. That seemed to have changed under new team ownership, but President Donald Trump’s remarks about the team name and possibly holding up a stadium deal are making waves just as training camp opens.

Still, Commanders general manager Adam Peters made clear Tuesday — at a news conference with coach Dan Quinn a day before the team’s first training camp practice — that he doesn’t expect any of that sort of outside conversation to interfere with their real jobs.

“Whether it’s the stadium or anything else (non-football-related), those things don’t really make it to us,” Peters said. “We’re just trying to focus on what’s going on here and getting ready for the season.”

Trump said Sunday on social media that he “may put a restriction” on the Commanders’ anticipated deal with the District of Columbia government to build a new stadium in the nation’s capital “if they don’t change the name back to the original ‘Washington Redskins,’ and get rid of the ridiculous moniker, ‘Washington Commanders.'”

In 2020, under previous owner Dan Snyder, the franchise changed its long-standing name, which was considered offensive to Native Americans. After last season’s surprising run to the team’s first NFC championship game since 1991, managing partner Josh Harris said that the current name will stay.

“I think it’s now embraced by our team, by our culture, by our coaching staff. So we’re going with that,” Harris said in February.

Harris and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser agreed on a plan to build a new stadium on the same federal land where the club played for 35 years before bolting to its current home in the Maryland suburbs. The deal, which still must pass through the D.C. City Council, came about after Congress agreed to a 99-year lease with the city government.

For Peters, the matters at hand involve contract extension talks with receiver Terry McLaurin, the recent signing of Von Miller and building a roster capable of repeating last season’s success.

Veterans were expected to report and take their physicals on Tuesday.

“We’re really focused on everything in the building and getting ready for the season and getting our guys in here,” Peters said.

The government was once a steady partner for nonprofits. That’s changing

The government was once a steady partner for nonprofits. That’s changing

By THALIA BEATY Associated Press

Dawn Price signs rent checks worth about $160,000 every month for 79 people that her nonprofit helps house in Laguna Beach, California.

Usually, she logs into an online portal to withdraw enough from an account funded by a grant from the federal housing agency. But in February, she couldn’t. Access had been temporarily cut off for many housing organizations as part of the Trump administration’s cuts and funding freezes.

“That was just a sea change for us for those dollars to be so immediately at risk,” said Price, the executive director of Friendship Shelter, which started in 1987 as a community organization. Access was eventually restored but the episode took a toll.

“Government moves slowly usually, and I think what was so disorienting early on was government was moving really fast,” she said.

In the early days of his second term, President Donald Trump froze, cut or threatened to cut a huge range of social services programs from public safety to early childhood education to food assistance and services for refugee resettlement. Staffing cuts to federal agencies have also contributed to delays and uncertainty around future grant funds. Altogether, his policies are poised to upend decades of partnerships the federal government has built with nonprofits to help people in their communities.

This vast and interconnected set of programs funded by taxpayers has been significantly dismantled in just months, nonprofit leaders, researchers and funders say. And even deeper, permanent cuts are still possible. That uncertainty is also taking a toll on their staff and communities, the leaders said.

In response to questions about the cuts to grant funding, White House spokesperson Kush Desai said, “Instead of government largesse that’s often riddled with corruption, waste, fraud, and abuse, the Trump administration is focused on unleashing America’s economic resurgence to fuel Americans’ individual generosity.”

He pointed to a new deduction for charitable giving included in the recently passed tax and spending law that he said encourages Americans’ “innate altruism.”

But experts say private donations will not be enough to meet the needs.

In 2021, $267 billion was granted to nonprofits from all levels of government, according to an analysis by the Urban Institute published in February. While the data includes tax-exempt organizations like local food pantries as well as universities and nonprofit hospitals, it underestimates the total funding that nonprofits receive from the government. It includes grants, but not contracts for services nor reimbursements from programs like Medicare. It also excludes the smallest nonprofits, which file a different, abbreviated tax form.

However, the figure does give a sense of the scale of the historic — and, until now, solid — relationship between the public sector and nonprofits over the last 50 years. Now, this system is at risk and leaders like Price say the cost of undoing it will be “catastrophic.”

Government funding to nonprofits reaches far and wide

The Urban Institute’s analysis shows more than half of nonprofits in every state received government grants in 2021.

In the vast majority of the country, the typical nonprofit would run a deficit without government funding. Only in two Congressional districts — one including parts of Orange County, California, and another in the suburbs west of Atlanta — would a typical nonprofit not be in the red if they lost all of their public grant funding, the analysis found.

But in Orange County, famous for its stunning beaches, mansions and extraordinary wealth, funders, nonprofits and researchers said that finding surprised them. In part, that’s because of major economic inequalities in the county and its high cost of living.

Taryn Palumbo, executive director of Orange County Grantmakers, said nonprofits are not as optimistic about their resiliency.

“They are seeing their budgets getting slashed by 50% or 40%,” she said. “Or they’re having to look to restructure programs that they are running or how they’re serving or the number of people that they’re serving.”

Last year, the local Samueli Foundation commissioned a study of nonprofit needs in part because they were significantly increasing their grantmaking from $18.8 million in 2022 to an estimated $125 million in 2025. They found local nonprofits reported problems maintaining staff, a deep lack of investment in their operations and a dearth of flexible reserve funds.

The foundation responded by opening applications for both unrestricted grants and to support investments in buildings or land. Against this $10 million in potential awards, they received 1,242 applications for more than $250 million, said Lindsey Spindle, the foundation’s president.

“It tells a really stark picture of how unbelievably deep and broad the need is,” Spindle said. “There is not a single part of the nonprofit sector that has not responded to these funds. Every topic you can think of: poverty, animal welfare, arts and culture, civil rights, domestic abuse… They’re telling us loud and clear that they are struggling to stay alive.”

Charitable organizations have held a special role in the U.S.

One of the founding stories of the United States is the importance of the voluntary sector, of neighbors helping neighbors and of individuals solving social problems. While other liberal democracies built strong welfare states, the U.S. has preferred to look to the charitable sector to provide a substantial part of social services.

Since the 1960s, the federal government has largely funded those social services by giving money to nonprofits, universities, hospitals and companies. Several new policies converged at that time to create this system, including the expansion of the federal income tax during World War II and the codification of tax-exempt charitable organizations in 1954. Then, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations started to fund nonprofits directly with federal money as part of urban renewal and Great Society programs.

“It was a key approach of midcentury liberalism of addressing issues of poverty, sort of making a reference to civil rights and racial inequality, but not growing the size of government,” said Claire Dunning, an assistant professor of public policy at the University of Maryland, College Park. Conservatives also tended to support working through local, private, nonprofit organizations, though for different reasons than liberals, she said.

With various expansions and cuts during different presidencies, the federal government has continued to fund nonprofits at significant levels, essentially hiding the government in plain sight, Dunning said. The size and importance of the nonprofit apparatus became suddenly visible in January when the Trump administration sought to freeze federal grants and loans.

Dunning said the speed, hostility and scale of the proposed cuts broke with the long legacy of bipartisan support for nonprofits.

“People had no idea that the public health information or services they are receiving, their Meals on Wheels program, their afterschool tutoring program, the local park cleanup were actually enabled by public government dollars,” she said.

A coalition of nonprofits challenged the freeze in court in a case that is ongoing, but in the six months since, the administration has cut, paused or discontinued a vast array of programs and grants. The impacts of some of those policy changes have been felt immediately, but many will not hit the ground until current grant funding runs out, which could be in months or years depending on the programs.

Private donations can’t replace scale of government support

Friendship Shelter in Laguna Beach has an annual budget of about $15 million, $11.5 million of which comes from government sources. Price said the government funding is “braided” in complex ways to house and support 330 people. They’ve already lost a rental reimbursement grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. But the Samueli Foundation stepped in to backfill those lost funds for three years.

That kind of support is extremely unusual, she said.

“We don’t know of any large-scale private philanthropy response to keeping people housed because it’s a forever commitment,” Price said. “That person is in housing and is going to need the subsidy for the rest of their lives. These are seriously disabled people with multiple issues that they’re facing that they need help with.”

She also believes that even in a wealthy place like Orange County, private donors are not prepared to give five, six or eight times as much as they do currently. Donors already subsidize their government grants, which she said pay for 69% of the actual program costs.

“We are providing this service to our government at a loss, at a business loss, and then making up that loss with these Medicaid dollars and also the private fundraising,” she said.

She said her organization has discussed having to put people out of housing back on to the streets if the government funding is cut further.

“That would be, I think, a signal to me that something is deeply, deeply wrong with how we’re looking at these issues,” said Price, adding, “If I was placing a bet, I would bet that we have enough good still in government to prevent that.”

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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit

House ending session early as Republicans clash over Epstein vote

House ending session early as Republicans clash over Epstein vote

By STEPHEN GROVES and LISA MASCARO Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Mike Johnson is rebuffing pressure to act on the investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, instead sending members home early for a month-long break from Washington after the week’s legislative agenda was upended by Republican members who are clamoring for a vote.

Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said Tuesday morning that he wants to give the White House “space” to release the Epstein information on its own, despite the bipartisan push for legislation that aims to force the release of more documents.

“There’s no purpose for the Congress to push an administration to do something they’re already doing,” Johnson said at his weekly press conference, his last before lawmakers depart Washington on Wednesday for their traditional August recess.

The speaker’s stance did little to alleviate the intra-party turmoil unfolding on Capitol Hill as many of President Donald Trump’s supporters demand that the administration meet its promises to publicly release a full accounting of the sex trafficking investigation into Epstein, who killed himself in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial. Under pressure from right-wing online influencers, as well as voters back home, rank-and-file Republicans are demanding that the House intervene in the matter.

“The public’s not going to let this die, and rightfully so,” said Rep. Ralph Norman, a South Carolina Republican.

Johnson’s control of the House is under threat

The dynamic left Johnson with slipping control of his Republican conference and several crucial committees. Even before Johnson spoke Tuesday morning, a Republican-controlled subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight was advancing a resolution to subpoena Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, for a deposition.

Johnson decided to end the House’s legislative business early this week after he essentially lost control of the powerful House Rules Committee, which sends bills to the floor for debates and votes. Late Monday evening, business on that panel ground to a halt when the Republicans on the committee abruptly recessed proceedings rather than risk more proposals from Democrats pushing them to release Epstein files.

Republicans had teed up votes on legislation to increase penalties for migrants who enter the country illegally, to ease permitting for water infrastructure and to rollback several Biden-era regulations. But all of those bills were put on hold at least until after the August recess.

Frustration in the House has been running high since last week, when Republican leaders signaled possible support for a vote on the Epstein files as they raced to pass a $9 billion package of spending cuts. GOP leader unveiled a resolution that has no legal weight but would urge the Justice Department to produce more documentation. Trump, meanwhile, has asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek the release of testimony from secret grand jury proceedings in the case, though that effort is unlikely to produce new revelations.

Echoing Trump’s position, Johnson insisted he, too, wants the files released, but only those that are “credible.” Johnson, who has relied heavily on Trump to hold onto leadership in the House, cast the president’s reticence to release information as out of concern for the victims of Epstein.

“We have a moral responsibility to expose the evil of Epstein and everybody who was involved in that — absolutely — and we’re resolved to do it,” Johnson said. “But we also have an equal moral responsibility to protect the innocent, and that is a fine needle to thread.”

A political wedge

Even with the month-long break, the pressure on Johnson is unlikely to end. Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican whose contrarian stances are often a thorn in the side to leadership, is gathering support for a legislative maneuver to force the bipartisan bill to a House vote, even without leadership’s consent.

“Now, there are a lot of people here in the swamp who think that, ‘Oh, well, if we spend five weeks on vacation, the pressure for this will dissipate. I don’t think it’s going to dissipate.’” Massie told reporters Monday evening.

Democrats have watched it all unfold with glee and worked to inflame the conflict among Republicans by making their own calls for transparency on the Epstein investigation. They have repeatedly tried to force votes on the matter, casting it as an issue of trust in the government.

“It’s about transparency in government. It’s about whose side are you on? Are you on the side of the rich and powerful, protecting men? Or are you on the side of young girls and America’s children?” said Rep. Ro Khanna, the California Democrat who put forward the legislation alongside Massie.

Epstein sexually abused children hundreds of times over more than a decade, exploiting vulnerable girls as young as 14, authorities say. He couldn’t have done so without the help of Maxwell, his longtime companion, prosecutors contend.

Massie said the case is palpable enough to carry significant political consequences.

“This will be an issue that does follow Republicans through the midterms, and it will follow each individual Republican through the midterms. It will follow people into their primaries. Did you support transparency and justice, or did you come up here, get elected and fall into the swamp?” he told reporters.

He added, “I think it is a watershed moment for the speaker of the House and the president.”

Hunter Biden lashes out at George Clooney, other Democrats, over Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign

Hunter Biden lashes out at George Clooney, other Democrats, over Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign

By MEG KINNARD and DARLENE SUPERVILLE Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Joe Biden’s son Hunter, seen by some as the problem child of the Democratic Party for legal and drug-related woes that brought negative attention to his father, is lashing out against Democratic “elites” and others over the way he says his father was treated during last year’s presidential campaign.

Hunter Biden spoke publicly in recent interviews about last year’s election, when Joe Biden ultimately dropped his bid and Donald Trump won the White House. In a three-hour, expletive-filled online interview with Andrew Gallagher of Channel 5, he directed ire toward actor and Democratic Party donor George Clooney for his decision to call on the elder Biden to abandon his 2024 reelection bid.

He also ranted against longtime Democratic advisers he accused of making money off the party and trading off previous electoral successes, but not helping candidates’ current efforts.

The lengthy screed made plain the younger Biden’s feelings that his father was mistreated by those around him in the waning days of his candidacy and administration. He also laid bare critiques of the party’s operation and operatives that, he says, aren’t well-serving its opposition to Trump and the Republican Party.

Here’s a look at some of the moments in Hunter Biden’s interview:

He blasted George Clooney

Hunter Biden spared no feelings in his assessment of the actor, questioning why anyone should listen to the “Ocean’s Eleven” star.

Clooney supported Joe Biden’s bid for a second term, even headlining a record-setting fundraiser for the then-president, but changed his stance after Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Trump in June 2024.

Clooney made his feelings known in an opinion piece in The New York Times, adding his voice to mounting calls for the then-81-year-old president to drop his presidential bid. Biden ended up leaving the race a few weeks later and endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, who went on to lose to Trump.

“What right do you have to step on a man who’s given 52 years of his f——— life to the services of this country and decide that you, George Clooney, are going to take out basically a full page ad in the f——— New York Times to undermine the president,” Hunter Biden said before he trailed off to talk about how Republicans are more unified than Democrats.

Los Angeles-based representatives for Clooney did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Screed against longtime Democratic advisers

There were also weighty critiques of a number of longtime Democratic advisers.

Anita Dunn, a longtime Biden senior adviser, has made “$40 to $50 million” off of work for the Democratic Party, Hunter Biden said. James Carville, adviser to former President Bill Clinton, “hasn’t run a race in 40 f——— years.”

Former Obama strategist David Axelrod, Hunter Biden said, “had one success in his political life, and that was Barack Obama — and that was because of Barack Obama.” Other former Obama aides who now host “Pod Save America,” are “four white millionaires that are dining out on their association with Barack Obama from 16 years ago,” he said.

One of the four, Tommy Vietor, Monday on social media applauded Hunter Biden’s decision “to process the election, look inward, and hold himself accountable for how his family’s insular, dare I say arrogant at times, approach to politics led to this catastrophic outcome we’re all now living with.”

Axelrod did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Biden’s debate performance and Ambien effects

As for the disastrous debate performance, the fallout from which ultimately led to the calls for his father to step down from the 2024 presidential campaign, Hunter Biden said his father may have been recovering from Ambien, a medication that he had been given to help him sleep following trips to Europe, as well as the Los Angeles fundraiser at which Clooney said his interactions with Biden made him feel the president wasn’t mentally capable.

“He’s 81 years old, he’s tired as shit,” Hunter Biden said. “They give him Ambien to be able to sleep, and he gets up on the stage and he looks like he’s a deer in the headlights.”

A spokesperson for Joe Biden declined to comment on the interview.

Another podcast with Jaime Harrison

Hunter Biden also appeared Monday in an episode of “At Our Table,” a new podcast hosted by former Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison.

“Yeah, Joe Biden did get old. He got old before our eyes. … But you know what? A few changes does not mean that you do not have the mental capacity to be able to do your job.”

In that interview, Hunter Biden also talked about the disastrous presidential debate, the reaction to which ultimately led to his father’s departure from the campaign.

“And then they saw him at that debate. It was awful, and it was truly horrible,” he said, saying he was opposed to holding it, given Trump’s recent convictions on 34 felony charges in a New York hush money case.

To Harrison, Hunter Biden also addressed Clooney, saying, “I love George Clooney’s movies, but I don’t really give a s—- about what he thinks about who should be the nominee for the Democratic Party.”

Asked by Harrison about his father’s decision to quit the 2024 race, Hunter Biden said “I think that he could have won” but still made the right choice for Democrats broadly.”

“I know that it wasn’t a mistake in that moment,” Hunter Biden said, adding that his father “chose to save the party” over saving himself.

Why are these podcasts coming out now?

The podcast drops come just days ahead of the expected beginning of court proceedings in a Los Angeles federal court.

Hunter Biden is suing Patrick Byrne, alleging that the former CEO of Overstock.com falsely claimed that Hunter Biden was reaching out to the Iranian government in the fall of 2021 and offering to have his father Joe Biden “unfreeze” $8 billion in Iranian funds “in return for $800 million being funneled into a numbered account for us.”

In the waning days of his administration, Joe Biden pardoned his son, sparing the younger Biden a possible prison sentence for federal felony gun and tax convictions and reversing his past promises not to use the extraordinary powers of the presidency for the benefit of his family.

The Democratic president had previously said he would not pardon his son or commute his sentence after convictions in the two cases in Delaware and California. The move came weeks before Hunter Biden was set to receive his punishment after his trial conviction in the gun case and guilty plea on tax charges, and less than two months before Trump returned to the White House.

___

Kinnard reported from Chapin, S.C., and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.

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