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DETROIT — Ford Motor will expand production of its large Super Duty trucks to a Canadian plant that was previously set to be converted into an all-electric vehicle hub.

The new plans include investing about $3 billion to expand Super Duty production, including $2.3 billion at Ford’s Oakville Assembly Complex in Ontario, Canada, Ford said Thursday. The remaining investment will be used to increase production at supporting facilities in the U.S. and Canada, the company said.

Ford currently produces Super Duty trucks — the larger siblings of the F-150 full-size pickup used largely by commercial and business customers — at plants in Ohio and Kentucky.

Ford said the Canadian plant, which is expected to come online in 2026, will add capacity of roughly 100,000 units annually.

“Super Duty is a vital tool for businesses and people around the world and, even with our Kentucky Truck Plant and Ohio Assembly Plant running flat out, we can’t meet the demand,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said in a release. “This move benefits our customers and supercharges our Ford Pro commercial business.”

Ford had previously announced plans to invest $1.3 billion into the Canadian plant for EV production. Those plans included a new three-row SUV, which the company recently delayed until 2027.

The announcement comes weeks after Farley said full electrification of “big, huge, enormous” vehicles such as Ford’s Super Duty trucks was “never going to make money.”

Ford said it has plans to “electrify” the next generation of its Super Duty trucks, however it declined Thursday to disclose additional details.

The company said the move supports Farley’s Ford+ blueprint for profitable growth, including maximizing Ford’s manufacturing footprint. It’s the latest pullback for the restructuring plan involving EVs, however the automaker said it still plans to produce the three-row EV at an unspecified plant, starting in 2027.

The Ford+ plan initially focused heavily on EVs when it was announced in May 2021 during the company’s first investor day under Farley, who took over the helm of the automaker in October 2020.

At the time, there was significant optimism around all-electric vehicle adoption and potential profitability that have not materialized as quickly as many had expected.

Ford’s initial plan called for almost half of its global sales to be electric by 2030, fueled by more than $30 billion in investments in EVs through 2025. It’s unclear how much capital the company has spent on EVs to date. Its plans have changed several times, and its “Model e” EV unit lost $4.7 billion in 2023.

While Ford’s EV unit loses billions of dollars, its Ford Pro commercial business including its Super Duty trucks earned $7.2 billion before interest and taxes in 2023.

The Ford+ plan also included a target of 8% earnings before interest and tax, or EBIT, profit margin for the EV unit by the end of 2026. Ford withdrew that target earlier this year. It would have been a massive turnaround from a profit margin of roughly negative 40% in 2022.

Ford said the new Super Duty production will initially secure approximately 1,800 Canadian jobs at the Oakville Assembly Complex, 400 more than would initially have been needed to produce the three-row EV.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Business

How on-time rent payments can help ‘credit invisible’ consumers be seen

Housing is the most considerable expense for U.S. consumers — and while high rents and home prices are obstacles to saving for potential homebuyers, access to affordable credit is another significant roadblock.

An estimated 50 million Americans are “credit invisible,” according to a 2022 fact sheet from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency’s Project REACh, or Roundtable for Economic Access and Change. That means they don’t have a credit file and lack a credit score and, as a result, find it challenging to qualify for a mortgage, credit card or other financing.

″‘Credit invisible’ is someone who hasn’t interacted with the credit system. They either have no credit file or a thin credit file,” said Priscilla Almodovar, the CEO of the housing financing agency Fannie Mae. “So that impacts people who want to buy a home, and that could be people new to this country; it could be Black, Latinos and young people, the millennials, driving this housing demand.”

Still, consumers with thin credit files may have a history of paying rent on time — a factor mortgage financing provider Fannie Mae started to count in late 2022. Its Positive Rent Payment Reporting initiative, which has been extended through the end of 2024, allows people renting in eligible properties to have their rent payments counted by credit rating agencies at no cost.

“We’re now able to level the playing field and make access to credit something that’s available to many more consumers,” Almodovar said.

Having little or no credit is a major stumbling block to getting a mortgage. It also prevents consumers from getting attractive rates on all types of loans.

Rent payments can be one way to gain credit visibility.

Fannie Mae’s free program works with providers Esusu Financial Inc., Jetty Credit and Rent Dynamics. There are many other players in the market, too. Experian Boost reports rent payments for free as well as payments for utilities, mobile phones and streaming services. Other rent-reporting firms — including Boom, Rental Kharma, RentReporters and Self — also can provide your rental payments to one or more major credit bureaus for free or a modest fee by allowing access to your bank statements.

When rent payments are included in credit reports, consumers see an average increase of nearly 60 points to their credit score, according to a 2021 TransUnion report.

Fannie Mae’s pilot program has helped more than 35,000 people establish credit scores, the agency reports. Participants who already had a credit score and saw an improvement had an average score increase of up to 40 points, according to Fannie Mae.

Florida resident Joe Grande, 56, who works as an inventory control clerk, saw a credit boost of 80 points in his first three months, to 660, after signing up for free reporting from his landlord through rent reporting company Esusu, a vendor that works with Fannie Mae. He says the program has helped keep him on track toward his goal of buying a home.

“It makes me feel like I’m in control, but it also makes me want to make sure everything else is paid on time,” Grande said.

Experts say the impact on your credit can be significant. “What it accomplishes for you, adding 24 on-time payments, it’s like jumpstarting your car with a truck battery,” said Martin Lynch, president of the Financial Counseling Association of America and education director at the non-profit Cambridge Credit Counseling in Agawam, Massachusetts.

While these programs can help build credit more quickly, experts caution that it takes time to establish a track record.

It typically takes six months to create a credit profile and longer to establish a solid track record of repayment, experts say. Credit scores generally range from 300 to 850 — and lenders generally view a credit score lower than 670 as a higher risk.

“For somebody with a 680, they’re going to be able to obtain financing, but it’s typically not going to give them access to the lowest interest rates and the best deals,” said Bruce McClary, a senior vice president at the National Foundation for Credit Counseling.

It’s also important to carefully review the costs and terms of the rent-reporting company you want to use. While the Fannie Mae pilot provides only positive payment history to all three credit bureaus at no cost, consumers using rent reporting outside of that should clarify if there information is being reported to all three of the biggest players: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion.

“If your good payment history is being reporting to one of the three, that can be less impactful than if reported to all three credit bureaus,” said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Business

Ex-CEO of firm that merged with Trump Media accused of fraud

The Securities and Exchange Commission sued the former CEO of the blank-check company that merged with Trump Media, accusing him of lying about his firm’s plans to combine with Donald Trump’s social media startup.

Patrick Orlando allegedly lied in public filings when he said his company, Digital World Acquisition Corp., had not contacted any possible merger targets and had no specific merger plans, the commission said in the lawsuit filed Wednesday night in Washington, D.C., federal court.

“Orlando knew these statements were false,” the SEC’s civil complaint alleged.

“He had personally engaged in numerous lengthy discussions” with Trump Media’s representatives, and he had targeted the company “for months,” the SEC alleged.

The SEC asked the court to force Orlando to give up “all ill-gotten gains” as a result of his alleged violations, along with civil penalties and a permanent injunction barring his from engaging in that conduct.

Orlando and Trump Media did not immediately respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.

Trump Media and Digital World completed their lengthy public merger in March, allowing the company behind the Truth Social platform to trade on the Nasdaq under the stock ticker DJT.

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Business

Citadel’s Ken Griffin buys a stegosaurus for $45 million in a record auction sale

Billionaire investor Ken Griffin, founder and CEO of hedge fund Citadel, purchased a late-Jurassic stegosaurus skeleton for $44.6 million at Sotheby’s Wednesday, marking the most valuable fossil ever sold at auction.

The 150 million-year-old stegosaurus named “Apex” measures 11 feet tall and nearly 27 feet long from nose to tail and it is a nearly complete skeleton with 254 fossil bone elements. Apex was only expected to sell for about $6 million.

Griffin won the live auction in New York Wednesday after competing with six other bidders for 15 minutes. He intends to explore loaning the specimen to a U.S. institution, according to people familiar with his plans.

“Apex was born in America and is going to stay in America!” Griffin said after the sale.

Apex shows no signs of combat-related injuries or evidence of post-mortem scavenging, Sotheby’s said. The stegosaurus was excavated on private land in Moffat County, Colorado.

In 2018, Griffin gifted $16.5 million to Chicago’s Field Museum to help fund the display of a touchable cast of the biggest dinosaur ever discovered — a giant, long-necked herbivore from Argentina.

In 2021, he paid $43.2 million for a first-edition copy of the U.S. Constitution, outbidding a group of cryptocurrency investors. He later loaned it to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Arkansas.

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World News

Japan’s top general lauds closer South Korea military ties as mutual concerns grow over China, North Korea

America’s two most powerful allies in the Pacific are taking their defense ties to new heights amid increasing concerns over China’s assertiveness in the region and North Korean threats, Japan’s top general said Thursday.

Before a trilateral meeting with US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. CQ Brown and South Korean Adm. Kim Myung-soo, Japanese Gen. Yoshihide Yoshida said China was trying to “change the status quo by force” in the East China and South China seas, while North Korea was carrying out “repeated ballistic missile launches and continuous arms transfers” to Russia.

Yoshida called on Japan, South Korea and the United States to “demonstrate our strong unity domestically and globally to ensure regional peace and stability.”

But bilateral cooperation between Japan and South Korea is the most noteworthy result of this week’s meeting in Tokyo.

On Wednesday, Yoshida met South Korea’s Kim for the first such meeting between the East Asian defense chiefs in six years – a moment a US defense official stressed was significant.

Kim said he and Yoshida “share a lot of the same thoughts,” an acknowledgment of the mutual perspective on the regional threat posed by China and North Korea.

“We developed strong trust between us,” said Yoshida, adding the meeting sets the stage for the Japan-South Korea bilateral “defense cooperation to achieve a new height.”

Regional analyst James Brown said the Japan-South Korea meeting showed just how far the bilateral relationship has come under South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol, who succeeded Moon Jae-in in 2022.

“The political mood has improved significantly, and now we’re having the defense side of things aligning with that,” said Brown, an associate professor of political science at Temple University in Tokyo.

“The Japanese government’s feeling about this is that this is the relationship they’ve always wanted.”

Japan felt the previous administration in Seoul was “fixated on historical issues” as it “demonized Japan” and tried to improve relations with North Korea, Brown said.

Last month, Japan and South Korea joined the US in the inaugural Freedom Edge in the Pacific, a military exercise that focused on ballistic missile and air defense, anti-submarine warfare and more. The goal of the exercise, which is set to expand in future years, was to allow the militaries to better work together against a common adversary.

For years, historical acrimony between the two East Asian countries prevented high-level meetings and cooperation, with decades of deep mistrust dating back to Japan’s colonial occupation of the Korean Peninsula a century ago. But as the countries faced an increasingly assertive China and threats from North Korea, efforts to cooperate quickly supplanted past animosity, driven in large part by the efforts of US President Joe Biden’s administration.

In March 2023, the two countries promised to resume ties at a fence-mending summit in Tokyo. Four months later, Biden hosted the leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David, where they pledged to “inaugurate a new era of trilateral partnership.”

Then last month, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin met his Japanese and South Korean counterparts on the sidelines of a security conference in Singapore, where they announced joint military exercises – nearly unthinkable just a few years ago.

The trilateral meeting of the chiefs of defense at the Japanese Defense Ministry on Thursday, held for the first time in Tokyo, underscored the rapidly developing cooperation.

“I expect that the three of us sitting here in Tokyo today will send a message to the regional threats but also more globally on the strength of our relationship, our alliances, and the work that we need to continue to do,” said Gen. Brown, sitting alongside his counterparts at the beginning of the meeting.

The meeting comes on the heels of the NATO summit held last week in Washington, on the 75th anniversary of the alliance. The NATO communique specifically mentioned the importance of the Indo-Pacific, “given that developments in that region directly affect Euro-Atlantic security.”

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said there was some sense of urgency behind the rapidly developing cooperation. The East Asian nations, he said, want to triangulate a coordinated response to common adversaries before potential changes in Seoul or Washington could put the relationship in jeopardy.

“Domestic politics remain complicated in Seoul and Tokyo, but policymakers and military professionals want to lock in coordinated responses to North Korea, Russia, and China before any major political changes occur in Washington,” Easley said.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

World News

Hong Kong journalist says she was fired by WSJ after taking top post at union under attack by Beijing

A Wall Street Journal reporter in Hong Kong said she was fired after being elected to lead a press union that has come under attack by Beijing amid a national security crackdown.

Selina Cheng, who was elected chair of the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) on June 22, said in a statement posted Wednesday on X that she had been terminated from her job covering China’s car sector earlier in the day.

Her London-based supervisor at The Journal had asked her last month to withdraw from the election, she added.

“The editor said employees of the Journal should not be seen as advocating for press freedom in a place like Hong Kong, even though they can in Western countries, where it is already established,” Cheng said in the statement.

She quoted her supervisor as saying having Journal employees advocate for media freedoms would create conflicts of interest because the newspaper reports on related topics, including the ongoing trials of Hong Kong journalists and media organizations.

“I am disappointed if these editors abroad have come to think press freedom is a controversial issue, as those who wish to intimidate reporters might like us to believe,” she said. “It is not.”

The HKJA, a trade union established in 1968, has come under increasing pressure from authorities in recent years. Both Hong Kong officials and Beijing state media have accused it of siding with protesters during the anti-government demonstrations in 2019, a charge the association has denied.

For decades before the protests, the group was seen as a thriving symbol of Hong Kong’s cherished personal freedoms, which marked a sharp contrast with the highly regulated media landscape in mainland China.

But critics have increasingly bemoaned the territory’s shrinking press freedoms since Beijing imposed a national security on Hong Kong after the 2019 protests. They cite the closure of multiple news outlets and cases of editors being put on trial. Amid a wider crackdown on civil liberties, many opposition figures were rounded up to face trial, with civil groups forced to disband.

Cheng said Gordon Fairclough, The Journal’s world coverage chief, flew in from the UK to deliver her dismissal in person, explaining that her job had been eliminated due to restructuring.

“The Wall Street Journal has been and continues to be a fierce and vocal advocate for press freedom in Hong Kong and around the world,” he said.

For months, the newspaper has been running a worldwide campaign calling for the release of Evan Gershkovich, a Journal reporter who has been detained in Russia for more than a year accused of spying for the CIA.

“This is why I am deeply shocked that senior editors at the paper would actively violate their employees’ human rights, by preventing them from advocating for freedoms the Journal’s reporters rely on to work, in a place where journalists and their rights are under threat,” Cheng wrote.

She plans to continue to lead the HKJA.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Science

Snake ‘mega den’ webcam could leave viewers rattled

A “mega den” of as many as 2,000 rattlesnakes can now be viewed online thanks to a round-the-clock webcam.

Not everybody will be glued to the footage – but it is expected to be a must-watch for scientists and other snake enthusiasts who are helping to broaden understanding of these unusual reptiles.

The remote site on private land in northern Colorado is on a hillside full of rock crevices where the snakes can keep warm and hide from predators.

“This is a big, big den for rattlesnakes. This is one of the biggest ones we know of,” said Emily Taylor, of California Polytechnic State University and head of Project RattleCam.

The exact location is being kept secret to discourage snake lovers – or haters – from messing with the animals.

This time of year, only pregnant female snakes are at the den while males and other females move into the lower country nearby.

In August, the babies will be born.

They are called pups and, unlike nearly all other reptiles, they do not hatch from eggs but are born alive.

Also, unlike other snakes, rattlesnake mothers care for their young, protecting them against predators and shielding them with their bodies.

Sometimes rattlesnakes even care for the young of others.

“Rattlesnakes are actually really good mothers. People don’t know that,” Taylor said.

She also said rattlesnakes get a “bum rap as creepy and threatening”, but the webcam shows they are social animals that don’t go out of their way to be aggressive.

“I try to speak up for the underdog and to show people that rattlesnakes have this other side that’s really worthy of our admiration,” she added.

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Science

‘Game-changer’ home kit can reveal risk of cervical cancer

A quick and easy cervical screening test women can do at home could be rolled out on the NHS in a move described as a “game-changer”.

The self-testing kit detects human papillomavirus (HPV), a group of viruses that cause no symptoms but can lead to cervical cancer.

About 13 high-risk types of HPV are known to cause 99.7% of all cervical cancers.

The kit could lead to about 400,000 more checks each year and NHS leaders said they are looking at making it available in England.

The biggest trial to date, known as the King’s College London YouScreen trial, shows the DIY kit can boost the number of women undergoing screening.

Figures show cervical screening uptake is declining, with nearly a third of women in England – particularly younger women – not taking their most recent test.

Experts warned women may refuse testing due to a lack of convenient appointments, embarrassment or worries about the test causing pain.

In the trial, women used a vaginal swab to take their sample either at home or in their GP practice, with those who took it at home posting it for free to a laboratory.

The trial results, published in the journal eClinicalMedicine, suggest over a million more women could undergo screening every three years in England if the kits were implemented.

‘A game-changer for cervical cancer screening’

“Self-sampling has been hailed as a game-changer for cervical screening and we now have evidence in a UK population to show that it really is,” said lead investigator Dr Anita Lim, from King’s College London.

“Women who don’t come for regular screening are at the highest risk of developing cervical cancer.

“Cervical screening participation has been falling in England for over two decades. Currently a third of eligible women aren’t getting screened regularly and in some parts of London this is as high as 50%.

“It is crucial that we make cervical screening easier by introducing innovations like self-sampling, alongside the current cervical screening programme, to help protect more people from this highly preventable cancer. Self-sampling can do this by offering people choice and convenience.”

Professor Peter Sasieni, head of the research group at King’s College London and now at Queen Mary University of London, said the UK is “well on the way to turning cervical cancer into a rare disease”.

He said while the introduction of an HPV jab in schools was offering huge benefit, women born before 1990 still need regular screening as they have not been vaccinated against cervical cancer.

Currently, the NHS invites women for screening every three to five years depending on their age, or if HPV is detected.

If HPV is found, women may then be invited back for another test in a year or have a different test to look at their cervix.

Countries such as the Netherlands, Australia, Denmark and Sweden have already introduced self-testing kits.

This post appeared first on sky.com

Science

Experimental drug extends the lifespan of ‘middle-aged’ mice by 25% – and could work on humans too, scientists say

An experimental drug that extends the lifespan of mice by 25% could also work in humans, according to the scientist who ran the trials.

The treatment – an injection of an antibody called anti-IL-11 that was given to the mice when they were ‘middle-aged’ – reduced deaths from cancer.

It also lowered the incidence of diseases caused by fibrosis, chronic inflammation and poor metabolism, which are the hallmarks of ageing.

Professor Stuart Cook, a senior scientist on the study, said: “These findings are very exciting.

“While these findings are only in mice, it raises the tantalising possibility that the drugs could have a similar effect in elderly humans.

“The treated mice had fewer cancers, and were free from the usual signs of ageing and frailty, but we also saw reduced muscle wasting and improvement in muscle strength.

“In other words, the old mice receiving anti-IL-11 were healthier.”

Videos released by the scientists show untreated mice had greying patches on their fur, with hair loss and weight gain.

But those receiving the injection had glossy coats and were more active.

The researchers, from the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Medical Science (MRC LMS), Imperial College London and Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, gave the mice the antibody injection when they were 75 weeks old – equivalent to a human age of 55 years.

The mice went on to live to an average of 155 weeks, 35 weeks longer than mice who were not treated, according to results published in the journal Nature.

The drug appeared to have very few side effects.

“Previously proposed life-extending drugs and treatments have either had poor side-effect profiles, or don’t work in both sexes, or could extend life, but not healthy life – however this does not appear to be the case for IL-11,” Professor Cook said.

The antibody blocked the action of the IL-11 protein, which is thought to play a role in the ageing of cells and body tissues – in humans as well as mice.

Professor Cook said: “The IL-11 gene activity increases in all tissues in the mouse with age.

“When it gets turned on it causes multimorbidity, which is diseases of ageing and loss of function across the whole body, ranging from eyesight to hearing, from muscle to hair, and from the pump function of the heart to the kidneys.”

Scientists have been trying to find a way of slowing the ageing process in the body so people can remain healthier for longer.

Older people tend to have multiple diseases related to their age, with significant impacts on their quality of life as well as costs to the NHS.

A diabetes drug called metformin has also shown promising results in early studies.

There have also been experiments with severe calorie restriction in people.

However, other scientists are sceptical of ‘treating’ ageing.

Ilaria Bellantuono, professor of musculoskeletal ageing at the University of Sheffield, said: “The problem with all these interventions is that we do not have evidence in patients.

“Although trials are under way in the USA, there are scientific hurdles to overcome to use these interventions in patients, such as understanding who is at risk of frailty and would benefit from the intervention.

“It is unthinkable to treat every 50-year-old for the rest of their life. Every drug has side effects and there is a cost associated with it.”

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Science

Elon Musk says California gender ID law ‘final straw’ as he moves HQs to Texas

Elon Musk has said California’s new gender identification law was the “final straw” and that he is moving the SpaceX and X headquarters to Texas.

The billionaire posted on X on Tuesday that he plans to move SpaceX from Hawthorne, California, to Starbase, Texas, and X to Austin from San Francisco.

The new law, signed on Monday by California governor Gavin Newsom, bars school districts from requiring staff to notify parents of their child’s gender identification change.

“This is the final straw,” Mr Musk wrote

“I did make it clear to Governor Newsom about a year ago that laws of this nature would force families and companies to leave California to protect their children.”

Tesla, where Mr Musk is chief executive, moved its corporate headquarters to Austin from Palo Alto, California, in 2021.

Mr Musk has also said he has moved his residence from California to Texas, where there is no state personal income tax.

On Monday, it was reported by Bloomberg he was donating to a political group working to elect presidential candidate Donald Trump.

According to the Wall Street Journal, this figure was going to be around $45m (£35m) a month.

This post appeared first on sky.com