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By Will Wade, Bloomberg News

Swelling U.S. demand for electricity has the potential to boost coal consumption as much as 57%, according to mining giant Peabody Energy Corp., in what would be a major shift for an industry that’s been waning for years.

With the U.S. seeking to meet skyrocketing demand and the Trump administration pushing to prop up the coal industry, Peabody expects utilities to ramp up output from coal plants that are running well below full speed, the company said in an investor presentation on Wednesday. Boosting usage to “historic capacity factors” could lead to more than 250 million tons of additional annual demand in the coming years, it said.

Still, analysts see this forecast as a mathematical maximum that’s unlikely to be achieved in the real world.

U.S. coal usage has been steadily declining as utilities shift away from the dirtiest fossil fuel. But President Donald Trump’s pro-coal and anti-renewable approach has included blocking plans to shut down this from a Michigan power plant that burns fuel from Peabody. Total consumption is expected to be 439 million tons this year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. That’s up 6.7% from last year, but well down from its 2007 peak of 1.13 billion tons. read more

By KELVIN CHAN, AP Business Writer

LONDON (AP) — European Union regulators on Friday hit Google with a 2.95 billion euro ($3.5 billion) fine for breaching the bloc’s competition rules by favoring its own digital advertising services, marking the fourth such antitrust penalty for the company.

The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s executive branch and top antitrust enforcer, also ordered the U.S. tech giant to end its “self-preferencing practices” and take steps to stop “conflicts of interest” along the advertising technology supply chain.

It’s the fourth time that the Commission has hit Google with a multibillion-euro fine in an antitrust case. It’s a move that is likely to anger U.S. President Donald Trump, whose administration has lashed out at the European Union over digital regulations it has imposed on Big Tech companies.

The Commission said its investigation found that Google “abused its power” by favoring its own online display advertising technology services to the detriment of competitors, online advertisers and publishers. read more

By CATHY BUSSEWITZ

NEW YORK (AP) — When Kate Smith worked a 9-to-5 office job, she was burned-out, suffering from daily migraines and thinking, “I can’t do this for the rest of my life.”

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She didn’t have to. For her next role, Smith landed a remote, full-time marketing job that enabled her to travel the world.

Her laptop lifestyle took her to Bali, where she lived and worked for a year-and-a-half. “Every day, I was riding my scooter through the rice fields and thinking, ‘I love my life, this is amazing,’” she said. “And that feeling never fades. … I feel so grateful for the freedom and flexibility.” read more

By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are slipping Friday as Wall Street questions whether the U.S. job market has slowed by just enough to get the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates to help the economy, or by so much that a downturn may be on the way.

After jumping to an early gain, the S&P 500 erased it and fell 0.5% below the all-time high it set the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 239 points, or 0.5%, as of 12:57 p.m. Eastern time, after swinging between a gain of 148 points and a loss of 409. The Nasdaq composite slipped 0.2%.

The action was more decisive in the bond market, where Treasury yields tumbled after a report from the U.S. Labor Department said employers across the country hired fewer workers in August than economists expected. The U.S. government also said that earlier estimates for June and July overstated hiring by 21,000 jobs.

The disappointing numbers follow last month’s weaker-than-expected update, along with other lackluster reports in the intervening weeks, and traders now are betting on a 100% probability that the Fed will cut its main interest rate at its next meeting on Sept. 17, according to data from CME Group. Such cuts can give a kickstart to the economy and job market, but the Fed has held off on them this year because they can also give inflation more fuel. read more

By PAUL WISEMAN, AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The American job market, a pillar of U.S. economic strength since the pandemic, is crumbling under the weight of President Donald Trump’s erratic economic policies.

Uncertain about where things are headed, companies have grown increasingly reluctant to hire, leaving agonized jobseekers unable to find work and weighing on consumers who account for 70% of all U.S. economic activity. Their spending has been the engine behind the world’s biggest economy since the COVID-19 disruptions of 2020.

The Labor Department reported Friday that U.S. employers — companies, government agencies and nonprofits — added just 22,000 jobs last month, down from 79,000 in July and well below the 80,000 that economists had expected.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3% last month, also worse than expected and the highest since 2021.

“U.S. labor market deterioration intensified in August,” Scott Anderson, chief U.S. economist at BMO Capital Market, wrote in a commentary, noting that hiring was “slumping dangerously close to stall speed. This raises the risk of a harder landing for consumer spending and the economy in the months ahead.” read more