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By STAN CHOE AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are hanging near their all-time high on Wednesday as financial markets catch a breath following two big days bolstered by hopes that the Israel-Iran war will not disrupt the global flow of crude oil.

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The S&P 500 was 0.2% higher in midday trading and sitting just 0.7% below its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 52 points, or 0.1%, as of 11 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% higher.

In the oil market, which has been the center of much of this week’s action, crude prices stabilized after plunging by roughly $10 per barrel in the last two days. Benchmark U.S. crude rose 1.4% to $65.26 per barrel, though it still remains below where it was before the fighting between Israel and Iran broke out nearly two weeks ago. read more

By BERNARD CONDON

Federal traffic safety regulators are looking into suspected problems with Elon Musk’s test run of self-driving “robotaxis” in Texas after videos surfaced showing them braking suddenly or going straight through an intersection from a turning lane and driving down the wrong side of the road.

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The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said Tuesday that it has asked Tesla for information about the apparent errors. Though many other videos show robotaxis driving perfectly, if regulators find any major issues, that would likely raise questions about Musk’s repeated statements that the robotaxis are safe and his claim that Tesla will dominate a future in which nearly all cars on road will have no one behind the wheel — or even need a steering wheel at all. read more

By MATT O’BRIEN

In a test case for the artificial intelligence industry, a federal judge has ruled that AI company Anthropic didn’t break the law by training its chatbot Claude on millions of copyrighted books.

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But the company is still on the hook and must now go to trial over how it acquired those books by downloading them from online “shadow libraries” of pirated copies.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco said in a ruling filed late Monday that the AI system’s distilling from thousands of written works to be able to produce its own passages of text qualified as “fair use” under U.S. copyright law because it was “quintessentially transformative.” read more

By DEE-ANN DURBIN, Associated Press

There will soon be a doughnut-sized hole in McDonald’s U.S. menu.

McDonald’s and Krispy Kreme said Tuesday that they’re ending their partnership on July 2, a little more than a year after it was announced. Krispy Kreme said demand for its doughnuts at McDonald’s wasn’t strong enough to recoup its costs.

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Chicago-based McDonald’s announced in March 2024 that it would begin selling three types of Krispy Kreme doughnuts at participating locations after a successful pilot in Kentucky. The doughnuts were sold individually or in boxes of six. read more

The U.S. is rare among Western nations because it allows pharmaceutical advertising. But a new effort aims to stop it.

A bill was introduced in Congress recently that would ban pharmaceutical manufacturers from using direct-to-consumer advertising, from TV to social media, to promote their products.

Prescription drug advertising employs a lot of people, directly and indirectly. Billions are spent on advertising each year, employing advertising workers, and 24.4% of ad minutes were for prescription drugs across evening news programs on ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC this year through May, according to data from iSpot analyzed by The Wall Street Journal.

Proponents of the bill say advertising drives up the cost of prescription goods. Pharmaceutical trade groups have said advertisements serve public health by increasing disease awareness and educating consumers about treatment options.

Question: Should the U.S. ban drug advertising to consumers?

Economists

Alan Gin, University of San Diego

YES: Advertising is supposed to give consumers more information about products, but are consumers really in a position to make an informed decision about pharmaceuticals? Those decisions are best left to physicians, who probably have more knowledge about the effectiveness of medications. Consumers can be swayed by slick and repetitive ads into wanting products that might not be the best for them. The money spent on the ads will add to the already high price of the drugs. read more