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By DEE-ANN DURBIN and TED SHAFFREY, Associated Press

VALHALLA, New York (AP) — Pepsi has a new challenge: keeping products like Gatorade and Cheetos vivid and colorful without the artificial dyes that U.S. consumers are increasingly rejecting.

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PepsiCo, which also makes Doritos, Cap’n Crunch cereal, Funyuns and Mountain Dew, announced in April that it would accelerate a planned shift to using natural colors in its foods and beverages. Around 40% of its U.S. products now contain synthetic dyes, according to the company. read more

By Lane Gillespie, Bankrate.com

Katey Davern, a 46-year-old in St. Paul, Minnesota, has learned firsthand just how much paperwork is involved when planning someone’s last years.

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Davern, along with her three siblings, started planning for their elderly parents’ end-of-life needs about three years ago. As the parent of five children herself — three of whom are under 18 and still live at home — Davern is increasingly navigating two different financial worlds. In one, she’s helping her parents with end-of-life financial planning. In the other, she and her husband are managing their own immediate family’s spending, saving for their children’s college, contributing to their retirement accounts and adding to their health savings accounts (HSA). read more

By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks edged up to more records on Thursday as technology stocks kept rising and as Wall Street kept ignoring the shutdown of the U.S. government.

The S&P 500 added 0.1% to its all-time high set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 79 points, or 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.4%. Both also hit records.

Thursdays on Wall Street typically have investors reacting to the latest weekly tally of U.S. workers applying for unemployment benefits. But D.C.’s shutdown meant this week’s report on jobless claims has been delayed. An even more consequential report, Friday’s monthly tally of jobs created and destroyed across the economy, will likely also not arrive on schedule.

That increases uncertainty when much on Wall Street is riding on investors’ expectation that the job market is slowing by enough to convince the Federal Reserve to keep cutting interest rates, but not by so much that it leads to a recession. read more

By BERNARD CONDON, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Six months after Elon Musk left the Trump administration to the great relief of Tesla investors worried about boycotts, the world’s richest man has announced some good news: Sales of Tesla cars are back.

Well, maybe.

The electrical vehicle maker run by Musk reported Thursday that car sales jumped 7% in the three months through September after plunging for most of the year as people turned off by his embrace of President Donald Trump and far right politicians in Europe balked at buying his cars.

But the jump comes with significant caveat: Tesla benefited from consumers taking advantage of a $7,500 tax credit before it expired on Sept. 30, a surge in buying that helped all EV makers.

In fact, many Tesla rivals saw sales jump more. Fellow EV maker Rivian Automotive reported a 32% increase.

Tesla stock rose sharply on the sales news, but then fell into losses as financial analysts expressed skepticism whether the new number signals a true turnaround given all the anti-Musk backlash. read more

By WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS

NEW YORK (AP) — As uncertainty deepens amid the U.S. government’s first shutdown in almost seven years, the gold frenzy continues to climb to new heights.

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The going price for New York spot gold hit a record $3,858.45 per troy ounce — the standard for measuring precious metals — as of market close Tuesday, ahead of the shutdown beginning overnight. And futures continued to climb on Wednesday, dancing with the $3,900 mark throughout the day.

Gold sales can rise sharply when anxious investors seek “safe havens” for parking their money. Before Wednesday, the asset — and other metals, like silver — have seen wider gains over the last year, particularly with President Donald Trump ‘s barrage of tariffs plunging much of the world into economic uncertainty. read more