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By BERNARD CONDON

NEW YORK (AP) — The fallout from Elon Musk’s plunge into politics a year ago is still hammering his Tesla business as both sales and profits dropped sharply again in the latest quarter.

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The car company that has faced boycotts for months said Wednesday that revenue dropped 12% and profits slumped 16% in the three months through June as buyers continued to stay away.

“The perception of Elon Musk, its chief executive, has rubbed the sheen right out of what once was a darling and soaring automotive brand,” wrote Forrester analyst Dipanjan Chatterjee in an email. Tesla is “a toxic brand that is inseparable from its leader.” read more

By BARBARA ORTUTAY, Associated Press

Instagram parent company Meta has introduced new safety features aimed at protecting teens who use its platforms, including information about accounts that message them and an option to block and report accounts with one tap.

The company also announced Wednesday that it has removed thousands of accounts that were leaving sexualized comments or requesting sexual images from adult-run accounts of kids under 13. Of these, 135,000 were commenting and another 500,000 were linked to accounts that “interacted inappropriately,” Meta said in a blog post.

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By JOSH BOAK and ALEXA ST. JOHN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. automakers are concerned about President Donald Trump’s agreement to tariff Japanese vehicles at 15%, saying they will face steeper import taxes on steel, aluminum and parts than their competitors.

“We need to review all the details of the agreement, but this is a deal that will charge lower tariffs on Japanese autos with no U.S. content,” said Matt Blunt, president of the American Automotive Policy Council, which represents the Big 3 American automakers, General Motors, Ford and Jeep-maker Stellantis.

Blunt said in an interview the U.S. companies and workers “definitely are at a disadvantage” because they face a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum and a 25% tariff on parts and finished vehicles, with some exceptions for products covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that went into effect in 2020.

The domestic automaker reaction reveals the challenge of enforcing policies across the world economy, showing that for all of Trump’s promises there can be genuine tradeoffs from policy choices that risk serious blowback in politically important states such as Michigan and Wisconsin, where automaking is both a source of income and of identity. read more

By Kristina Peterson, Bloomberg News

Hershey Co. is raising prices on its candy due to historically high cocoa costs.

The Pennsylvania-based maker of Hershey’s chocolates and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups told its retailers last week that it would be implementing a roughly double-digit price increase, company officials said Tuesday. That increase reflects a higher list price as well as adjustments to the weight and number of candies in a bag, a practice known as shrinkflation.

“This change is not related to tariffs or trade policies,” Andrew Archambault, president of US confection at Hershey, said in a statement. “It reflects the reality of rising ingredient costs including the unprecedented cost of cocoa.”

The company previously announced a price increase a year ago.

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By KELVIN CHAN

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s antitrust watchdog has proposed labeling Google’s and Apple’s mobile ecosystems with “strategic market status,” which would mandate changes at the Big Tech companies to improve competition.

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The Competition and Markets Authority’s announcement Wednesday follows separate investigations it opened at the start of the year into Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, using newly acquired digital market regulations designed to protect consumers and businesses from unfair practices by Big Tech companies. read more