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By ALAN SUDERMAN, AP Business Writer

The headline-grabbing tale of an Italian man who said he was kidnapped and tortured for weeks inside an upscale Manhattan townhouse by captors seeking his bitcoin highlights a dark corner of the cryptocurrency world: the threat of violence by thieves seeking digital assets.

The alleged attempted robbery is known as a “wrench attack.” It’s a name popularized by an online comic that mocked how easily high-tech security can be undone by hitting someone with a wrench until they give up passwords.

Wrench attacks are on the rise thanks in part to cryptocurrency’s move into mainstream finance, Phil Ariss of the crypto tracing firm TRM Labs said in a recent blog post.

“Criminal groups already comfortable with using violence to achieve their goals were always likely to migrate to crypto,” Ariss said.

Some of the crypto’s key characteristics help explain why wealthy individuals who hold a lot of digital assets can be ripe targets for such attacks.

The draw

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin offer traders full control of their funds without the need for a bank or permission from a government to buy, sell or hold it. The trade-off is that if funds are lost or stolen, there can be no way to get them back. read more

The day after losing another Starship during a test launch, SpaceX was back to its normal routine with a Falcon 9 launch from the Space Coast on Wednesday.

Watch Falcon 9 launch 27 @Starlink satellites to orbit from Florida https://t.co/X3BguEIKAd

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) May 28, 2025

The workhorse rocket sent up another 27 Starlink satellites from Kennedy Space Center Launch Pad 39-A at 9:30 a.m.

The first-stage booster made its 19th flight with a recovery landing downrange on the droneship Just Read the Instructions stationed in the Atlantic.

The launch was the 45th from the Space Coast in 2025 with all but two coming from SpaceX.

Including California launches, SpaceX has now flown 64 Falcon 9s so far this year, surpassing the total flown in 2022. It flew 96 operational missions in 2023 and 134 in 2024, which includes Falcon Heavy missions, although no Falcon Heavy mission have flown so far in 2025.

Overall it was the 481st Falcon 9 launch and 420th reflight of a Falcon booster. The recovery landing marked the 453rd booster landing since the first in 2015. read more

By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks drifted lower on Wednesday, cooling down a day after leaping within a few good days’ worth of gains from their all-time high.

The S&P 500 fell 0.6%, but it’s still within 4.2% of its record after charging higher amid hopes that the worst of the turmoil caused by President Donald Trump’s trade war may have passed. It had been roughly 20% below the mark last month.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 244 points, or 0.6%, and the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.5%.

Trading was relatively quiet in the countdown to Wednesday’s main event for financial markets, the latest quarterly earnings release for Nvidia. That came after trading ended for the day. Before that, the AI darling’s stock slipped 0.5%.

Expectations were high for the bellwether of the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology. So are worries that its stock price may have run too high, even after it has largely stalled this year.

Like Nvidia, Macy’s stock also swung up and down through much of the day, even though it reported milder drops in revenue and profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. read more

By DAVID McHUGH and PAUL WISEMAN, AP Business Writers

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — Top officials at the European Union’s executive commission says they’re pushing hard for a trade deal with the Trump administration to avoid a 50% tariff on imported goods. Trump had threatened to impose the tariffs on June 1, but has pushed back the deadline to July 9, repeating an oft-used tactic in his trade war.

European negotiators are contending with Trump’s everchanging and unpredictable tariff threats, but “still, they have to come up with something to hopefully pacify him,” said Bruce Stokes, visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Stokes also sees more at play than just a disagreement over trade deficits. Trump’s threats “are rooted in frustration with the EU that has little to do with trade,’’ Stokes said. “He doesn’t like the EU. He doesn’t like Germany.”

What exactly does Trump want? What can Europe offer? Here are the key areas where the two side are squaring off. read more

By Anna Helhoski, NerdWallet

Shoppers who are concerned about tariffs driving up the costs of their favorite products might think that “Made in USA” goods could offer financial relief. But finding domestically manufactured, budget-friendly items may take effort.

Americans like the idea of buying more American-made products. A November 2024 poll by Morning Consult, conducted for the Alliance for American Manufacturing, found that 60% of Americans said they made an effort to buy U.S.-made goods over the past year. And 82% said they’d buy more if retailers made those products easier to find.

‘Made in USA’ won’t always mean tariff-free

Buying American products doesn’t mean avoiding tariffs or the global supply chain. Even the most well-known U.S. companies depend on imported components to make finished goods.

Take Crayola, for example: It’s headquartered in Pennsylvania and has manufacturing facilities in the U.S., but it also produces some of its products in Mexico. Some other iconic American brands base at least some — if not all — of their manufacturing outside the U.S. where labor and other production costs are lower. That includes Levi’s jeans, L.L. Bean apparel, Converse’s Chuck Taylor All Star sneakers, Ray-Ban sunglasses, Major League baseballs, American Girl dolls, Fender guitars and essentially everything Nike. read more