Business

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON, May 12 (Reuters) – U.S. consumer prices rose at a brisk clip for a second straight month in April, resulting in the largest annual increase in inflation in nearly three years and further bolstering expectations the Federal Reserve would keep interest rates unchanged for a while. 

The Consumer Price Index increased 0.6% last month after surging 0.9% in March, the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Tuesday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the CPI rising 0.6%. Estimates ranged from a 0.4% gain to a 0.9% increase. 

The moderation after posting the largest increase since June 2022 was mostly mechanical. Oil prices shot above $100 a barrel in March following strikes against Iran by the U.S. and Israel, before pulling back to still-high levels after a ceasefire in early April. 

In the 12 months through April, the CPI advanced 3.8%. That was the biggest year-on-year increase since May 2023 and followed a 3.3% rise in March. 

The back-to-back strong inflation readings will escalate political risk for President Donald Trump and his Republican party ahead of November’s midterm elections. Trump won re-election in 2024 in large part because of his promise to reduce inflation, but Americans have soured on his handling of the economy and many blame him for the pain at the pump.

 The war has driven oil prices higher, which was immediately reflected in more expensive gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. Economists believe the second-round effects would be felt in the months ahead. The report followed news last week of a bigger-than-anticipated increase in nonfarm payrolls in April.

Financial markets expect the U.S. central bank to keep rates unchanged into 2027. The Fed, which tracks the Personal Consumption Expenditures price indexes for its 2% inflation target, last month left its benchmark overnight interest rate in the 3.50%-3.75% range. 

Excluding food and energy, the CPI climbed 0.4% last month, partly lifted by a one-time adjustment to rent measures after last year’s shutdown of the federal government prevented data collection in October. 

The BLS splits its rent survey into six panels. Each panel is sampled every six months on a rotating basis. The BLS used a method called carry-forward imputation for rent and OER to account for the missing data, which had artificially lowered the rent indexes. The so-called core CPI increased 0.2% in March.

Most economists believe the pass-through from Trump’s sweeping tariffs was probably over. The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the duties in February, lowering the effective tariff rate. Core CPI inflation advanced 2.8% year-on-year in April after rising 2.6% in March. 

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci and Chizu Nomiyama)

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MILAN, May 12 (Reuters) – Stellantis Chief Executive Antonio Filosa said on Tuesday partnerships would be a key part of the automaker’s future strategy, as it prepares to present a new multi-year business plan next week.

Filosa said Stellantis had learnt the power of partnerships and that “they will be embedded in our strategy going forward”.

“By working with a set of partners to build a roadmap of technological improvement, supply chain improvement and maybe capacity utilization, those are very good topics to work together and create benefits for both sides,” he said at the Financial Times’ Future of the Car Summit.

Stellantis last week announced plans to start joint car production in Europe with Chinese partner Leapmotor, deepening their tie-up beyond distribution into manufacturing.

Chinese carmakers are increasingly eager to use existing plants or partner with local manufacturers to quickly support sales growth in Europe while also avoiding European Union tariffs on Chinese-made EVs.

Filosa said last month said the Leapmotor partnership could be a model for future cooperation with other Chinese automakers. But on Tuesday he said deals could come beyond Chinese manufacturers as Stellantis’ large output, vast global presence and wide brand portfolio make it attractive for long-term partnerships.

“There are many things that can be done in that space,” Filosa said.

EFFICIENT CAPITAL ALLOCATION ON BRANDS

Stellantis will present its new business plan at a capital markets day in Auburn Hills, Michigan, on May 21, where brand strategy is also expected to be a key point.

Reuters last month reported that Stellantis would focus the majority of its investment on its core Jeep, Ram, Peugeot and Fiat brands, while also planning to keep all the others as they retain local relevance.

Filosa said on Tuesday brands were Stellantis’ “strongest asset” and that being too drastic in quitting one or more of them meant losing customer base to a competitor.

“The real point is to combine efficient capital allocation with brand-specific strategies,” he said.

(Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari in Milan and Gilles Guillaume in Paris. Editing by Alvise Armellini and Mark Potter)

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By Naomi Rovnick

LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) – Private credit funds have marked down more than a tenth of their loans by at least 50%, new data from MSCI showed, as corporate borrowers in this $3.5 trillion market struggle with growing debt burdens. 

MSCI said in a report released on Tuesday that a loan valuation of less than 50% was “a level typically associated with deep distress or risk of restructuring,” citing a sustained period of relatively high interest rates as one reason borrowers were struggling.

In recent days, big players in private debt including Carlyle, Blackstone and BlackRock have cut the value of their credit funds and regulators have warned about systemic risks arising from major banks lending to these asset managers.

Some of the main findings from the MSCI report.

• MSCI’s data showed that private credit funds’ loan writedowns were at the highest level since the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Smaller private debt funds were experiencing the most borrower distress, MSCI found, with 13% of their loans now valued below 50 cents on the dollar.

• MSCI’s writedown data was collected in the third quarter of 2025, the most recent available from private credit funds that often report performance with a long lag.

• Delayed reporting by private debt funds had contributed to the trend of investors cashing out of stock market-traded credit vehicles known as business development corporations (BDCs), MSCI said.

• Private debt funds’ returns slumped to 1.8% in the fourth quarter of 2025 from 3.7% six months earlier according to MSCI’s calculation method that separates investment performance from the money funds receive from investors or pay out.

• In a survey accompanying this report, MSCI found that a third of investors said they lacked access to private market data that they fully trusted.

(Reporting by Naomi Rovnick; Editing by Keith Weir)

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NEW YORK (AP) — More than 20 years after it redefined fast shipping, Amazon is preparing to raise the bar on consumer expectations again by offering to fulfill customers’ most urgent product needs in a half-hour or less for an extra fee.

The company, which revolutionized online shopping in 2005 with two-day deliveries for Prime members, is rapidly opening small order-processing hubs in dozens of U.S. and foreign cities to cater to shoppers who can’t or don’t want to wait for cough medicine to relieve flu symptoms or tomatoes for tonight’s dinner salad.

The ultrafast service, called Amazon Now, first launched in India last June. Amazon says 30-minute deliveries now are also available in urban areas of Brazil, Mexico, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The mini-warehouses devoted to Amazon Now are about the size of a CVS drugstore. They stock about 3,500 products for expedited delivery, including beer, diapers, pet food, meat, nonprescription medications, playing cards and cellphone charging cables.

“We know that customers love speed and always have,” Beryl Tomay, Amazon’s head of transportation, told The Associated Press on Monday. “What we see customers doing, when we offer faster speeds, are they purchase more from Amazon. And Amazon becomes more top of mind for that or other types of items as well.”

In the U.S., the company first tested Amazon Now in Seattle, the home of its headquarters, and in Philadelphia. Most residents of Atlanta and the Dallas-Fort Worth area now have access as well. The service also is live or expected to land by year-end in Houston, Denver, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Florida, and dozens of other cities, Amazon said.

The service charges for Amazon Now start at $3.99 for Prime members, who pay an annual fee of $139, and $13.99 for non-members. A $1.99 small basket fee applies to orders under $15, Amazon said.

The company’s bet on a need for speed also comes as some consumers are rebelling against rushed deliveries as they weigh the potential impact on the environment and the workers tasked with preparing orders at a rapid rate.

A relentless focus on speed helped Amazon build a logistics and e-commerce empire. After it made two days the new delivery time normal, Amazon moved into one-day and same-day deliveries for its Prime members. This spring, the company began making 90,000 products available in one hour or three hours at an extra cost.

The scaled down and sped up microhubs that are designed to handle 30-minute orders represent another step in Amazon’s pursuit.

Only a handful of people prepare orders from aisles of shelves in the 5,000- to 10,000-square-foot facilities, unlike the sprawling fulfillment centers storing millions of items where Amazon employs a mix of human workers and robotics to pick and pack orders.

Amazon tailors the product inventory to each location and uses artificial intelligence and other technology to analyze what customers buy, as well as when and how often. The most popular U.S. purchases so far include soap, toothpaste, mouthwash, toilet plungers, bananas, limes and wireless earbuds, Amazon said.

Amazon’s attempt to up the instant gratification ante provides direct competition to on-demand food delivery platforms like Instacart, Uber Eats, DoorDash and Grubhub, which don’t have the scale of the e-commerce titan, according to independent retail analyst Bruce Winder.

“What Amazon brings is their prowess in supply chain,” Winder said.

These smaller companies said they don’t see Amazon as a threat, though, citing the hundreds of thousands of items they are able to deliver to users’ doorsteps by partnering with various merchants and restaurants.

“DoorDash has a mission to empower grocers and retailers and augment their existing footprint, not to replace them,” DoorDash spokesperson Ali Musa said in an emailed statement. “We win only when they win, which is how we can offer over half a million grocery and retail items in under an hour across the country.”

Amazon also is in a race with Walmart to become the retailer that reliably gets orders to online shoppers in under an hour.

For an additional $10 on top of standard delivery charges, shoppers can place Walmart Express Delivery orders from among more than 100,000 products that are guaranteed to arrive in an hour. Many customers, however, are receiving the items under 30 minutes, Walmart CEO John Furner told analysts in February.

Companies have promised deliveries in 30 minutes or less before, but the landscape also is littered with failed attempts to break the speed barrier.

The COVID-19 pandemic produced a flurry of companies that promised 10- to 15-minute grocery deliveries from microwarehouses in dense neighborhoods, according to Sucharita Kodali, an analyst at market research firm Forrester Research.

But soaring operating costs, low customer loyalty and the drying up of investor money ultimately caused most to fail before the pandemic was over, analysts said.

Domino’s in 1984 pushed a guarantee that customers would receive their pizzas for free if they weren’t delivered in under a half-hour. The company amended the “30 minutes or it’s free” policy after two years, providing only a $3 discount for late deliveries.

The promotion helped Domino’s win market share, but it ended up tarnishing the company’s reputation. It dropped the guarantee in December 1993 after a string of crashes and lawsuits involving drivers racing to meet the deadline.

Brad Jashinsky, a retail analyst at information technology research and consulting firm Gartner, said he thinks Amazon should take the pizza chain’s experience as a cautionary tale.

“You get in trouble when you start overpromising something like that,” he said.

Amazon won’t be making any time guarantees and instead plans to keep customers who chose the 30-minute delivery option updated on the progress of their orders, Tomay said.

“There’s no rushing either in our building workers or the gig workers,” she said.

Kodali thinks Amazon will need a lot of people placing orders around the same time from the same or adjacent apartment buildings for the 30-minute service to be cost-effective.

Consumers may appreciate rapid receipt of products like toilet paper and batteries, but retailers and logistics experts said they also see some online shoppers, especially members of Generation Z, choosing no-rush shipping for products they don’t need in a hurry.

Amazon for several years has invited customers to skip one- or two-day delivery and to receive their orders on the same day in as few parcels as possible. Consolidating orders into fewer packages by electing to have them delivered at the same time cuts down on boxes, shipping envelopes and fuel use, analysts said.

“The millennials who came to age in an era that was on fast delivery came to expect it de facto, whereas … Gen Z is more accepting of a slower speed than previous generations before them,” said Darby Meegan, a general manager at Flexport, a supply chain and logistics company that fulfills orders for thousands of online merchants.

Still, Amazon executives have cited positive early results for Amazon Now in India, where they said Prime members tripled their requests for 30-minute deliveries once they started using the service.

Amazon Now also is attracting more repeat American customers, Tomay said.

“It’s in early days and time will tell,” she said. “I think that it will be interesting to see how it evolves.”

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May 11 (Reuters) – BuzzFeed said on Monday media entrepreneur Byron Allen will take over as the digital media company’s next CEO after he entered into a deal to buy a stake of about 52% in the digital media company for $120 million.

Shares of BuzzFeed soared about 156% in extended trading.

The company has been grappling with a cash crunch as advertisers increasingly shift spending to social media platforms such as TikTok and Meta Platforms’ Instagram. 

• Under the deal, Allen Family Digital will acquire 40 million BuzzFeed shares at $3 apiece, a 265.9% premium to Friday’s closing price.

• BuzzFeed’s market capitalization stands at roughly $31 million, according to data compiled by LSEG.

• Upon closing of the deal, BuzzFeed founder & CEO Jonah Peretti will handover charge to Allen and move into a newly created role as president of BuzzFeed AI.

• The deal, expected to close by the end of the month, will be funded with $20 million in cash and a $100 million promissory note due five years after closing, carrying an annual interest rate of 5%, the company said.

• BuzzFeed also reported a 12.4% decline in first-quarter revenue to $31.6 million, while its net loss widened to $15.1 million from $12.5 million a year earlier.

• The company, which withheld its annual forecast, said it expects to provide an update on its financial outlook in the coming months.

• BuzzFeed went public in 2021 through a blank-check merger that valued the company at about $1.5 billion. Its shares have fallen more than 98% since then.

(Reporting by Neil J Kanatt in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)

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By Jamie McGeever

ORLANDO, Florida, May 11 (Reuters) – U.S. and world stocks touched new highs on Monday, as artificial intelligence fever continued to outweigh the prolonged U.S.-Iran impasse. The ceasefire is fragile and hopes of a lasting deal appear to be fading, but for now, tech-led earnings optimism is proving to be a powerful force.

In my column today, I look at stock market concentration, which is near record levels in the U.S. and across emerging markets. Should investors be worried? Not necessarily, although it could get messy once the drawdown finally gets underway.

If you have more time to read, here are a few articles I recommend to help you make sense of what happened in markets today.

1. Trump says Iran ceasefire is ‘on life support’ as hopes for a deal fade

2. Volatility, not high prices, will define Big Oil’s next chapter: Bousso

3. Trump and China’s Xi set for talks spanning Iran, nuclear, trade and AI

4. Slashing immigration could lead to higher taxes: Joachim Klement

5. Alphabet, Amazon tap overseas debt markets to fund AI infrastructure push

Today’s Key Market Moves

• STOCKS: Record highs for the S&P 500, Nasdaq, Nikkei, KOSPI, and MSCI All Country and Asia ex-Japan indices. China at 11-year high.

• SECTORS/SHARES: Six sectors on the S&P 500 rise, five fall. Tech +1%, Energy +2.6%; Comms services -2.3%. Philadelphia semiconductor index +2.6% to new high. Caterpillar +3%, Nvidia +2%; Nike -4%.

• FX: Dollar inches higher, yen the biggest G10 decliner. India’s rupee slumps, Korea’s won down sharply too.

• BONDS: U.S. Treasury yields up 6 bps at short end, bear steepening the curve. 3-year auction draws weak demand.

• COMMODITIES/METALS: Oil +3%, silver +7%.

Today’s Talking Points

* High, high, high

U.S. and global stocks are powering to fresh highs, even though oil prices and bond yields are climbing too. There’s an assumption that global supply chain disruption and rising energy and borrowing costs should cool the equity frenzy, but that’s not necessarily the case.

The artificial intelligence boom is offsetting the drag on growth from the global supply shock, and energy markets are still relatively sanguine that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen soon. BlackRock analysts remain bullish: “We see no disconnect between record U.S. equities prices and elevated oil, commodities and yields. Markets are pricing both AI-driven growth and the impact of the Middle East supply shock. We stay pro-risk as a result.”

* China whirl

Attention turns to Beijing, and the U.S.-China summit later this week between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. Traveling with Trump is an entourage of executives from Tesla, Apple, BlackRock and several other U.S. corporate titans. Is this show of economic strength intended to intimidate Xi? Perhaps.

China’s latest ‘data dump’, meanwhile, showed surging export growth, a widening trade surplus and rising price pressures in April, suggesting the economy is moving out of disinflation. But unemployment ticked up and retail sales were disappointing.

* Funding AI

Big tech’s borrowing spree to fund the AI buildout is deepening and spreading, with Alphabet disclosing plans for its first bond sale denominated in Japanese yen and Amazon preparing its debut Swiss franc offering.

The currencies are noteworthy. They are traditionally the lowest-yielding G10 currencies, making it a relatively cheap option for the borrowers. Swiss policy rates right now are zero. It also diversifies the megacaps’ investor base. But at the end of the day, cash reserves are dwindling and debt is rising. Pressure on the mega AI capex to pay off is growing.

What could move markets tomorrow?

• Developments in the Middle East

• Energy market moves

• Australia consumer sentiment (May)

• Japan earnings including Panasonic, Mazda and Sharp

• Japan household spending (March)

• India inflation (April)

• Germany inflation (April, final)

• Germany ZEW investor sentiment (May)

• Bank of England’s Sam Woods speaks

• Brazil inflation (April)

• U.S. Treasury sells $42 billion of 10-year notes at auction

• U.S. CPI inflation (April)

• U.S. Federal Reserve officials scheduled to speak include New York President John Williams and Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee

Want to receive Trading Day in your inbox every weekday morning? Sign up for my newsletter here.

Opinions expressed are those of the author. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

(Reporting by Jamie McGeever; Editing by Bill Bekrot)

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BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — The Interior Department is canceling a rule that put conservation on equal footing with development, as President Donald Trump’s administration eases restrictions on industries and seeks to boost drilling, logging, mining and grazing on taxpayer-owned land.

The 2024 rule adopted under former President Joe Biden was meant to refocus the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, which oversees about 10% of land in the U.S. It allowed public property to be leased for restoration in the same way that oil companies lease land for drilling.

But Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said the rule could have blocked access to hundreds of thousands of acres (hectares) of land — preventing energy and timber production and hurting ranchers who graze on public lands.

Supporters argued that conservation had long been a secondary consideration at the land bureau, neglecting its mission under the 1976 Federal Lands Policy Management Act. While the bureau previously issued leases for conservation purposes in limited cases, it never had a dedicated program prior to the Biden administration.

Industry groups and their Republican allies in Congress strongly opposed the rule and had lobbied to repeal it. They said the change under Biden violated the “multiple use” mandate for Interior Department lands, by catapulting the “non-use” of federal lands — meaning restoration leases — to a position of prominence.

The federal government’s vast land holdings are concentrated in Western states including Alaska, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Since taking office, Trump has pursued a flurry of actions aimed at boosting fossil fuel production from those taxpayer-owned sites. The Republican administration also has sought to sideline some renewable energy projects, claiming they were unfairly subsidized under Biden.

The official repeal of the rule was scheduled to be published Tuesday in the Federal Register. Documents detailing the action were released in advance.

It comes after Republicans in Congress in recent months canceled land management plans adopted in the closing days of Biden’s administration that restricted development in large areas of Alaska, Montana and North Dakota.

In addition to its surface land holdings, the Bureau of Land Management regulates publicly owned underground mineral reserves — such as coal for power plants and lithium for renewable energy — across more than 1 million square miles (2.5 million square kilometers). The bureau has a history of industry-friendly policies and for more than a century has sold grazing permits and oil and gas leases.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Costs are piling up for businesses during the U.S. and Israel’s war against Iran — and many economists see a bleak outlook, with some bracing for a downturn in hiring and investment in the coming months.

Nearly half of American business economists who responded to a survey by the National Association for Business Economics say that the conflict has negatively impacted their operations, according to a report released Monday, and most (54%) say they’ve been affected by rising energy prices. More than two-thirds reported steeper material expenses over the last three months, the highest level NABE has seen since July 2022.

The Iran war, which began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Feb. 28, has plunged the world into an energy crisis. Crude oil costs continue to rise amid Washington and Tehran’s ongoing standoff in the Strait of Hormuz — worsening price spikes for companies and households around the globe. As fuel gets more expensive, transportation costs are eating further into businesses’ everyday operations. Supply disruptions for a range of other necessities, including fertilizer, are also causing growing strain.

Consumers are footing more and more of that bill as businesses pass higher costs to their shoppers, beyond the immediate sticker shock at the gas pump.

Nearly half (48%) of NABE’s survey respondents — who are economists from businesses, trade associations and academia — indicated that their firms were passing on at least some cost increases to customers, which is actually down from 60% in January. But NABE found that a growing number (16%) also expect to raise prices over the next six months, while none plan to lower prices.

Most of the respondents say their firms are seeing strong sales now and have stable profit outlooks. That falls in line with what traders are more widely feeling on Wall Street, where eye-catching earnings from companies ranging from tech to big oil have helped propel markets to near-record highs recently.

Still, only 13% of the NABE survey’s respondents said they expect their profits to rise in the near future. NABE says that’s the lowest share it’s seen since 2023.

Employment and spending could see more impacts soon. Nearly a quarter of NABE survey respondents said they plan to scale back investment and hiring in the next six months.

“Sales over the past three months were steady, but materials costs increased and profit margins declined,” Martha Moore, chair of the NABE’s survey, said in a prepared statement — noting that expectations had “softened” across several indicators, while the outlook for prices continues to accelerate.

Moore, who is also chief economist and managing director at the American Chemistry Council, pointed to rising recession concerns. Half of the survey’s respondents see a more than one-in-four chance the U.S. falls into a recession within the next year, up from 44% of respondents who projected such a likelihood in January, NABE found.

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By Svea Herbst-Bayliss

NEW YORK, May 11 (Reuters) – Victoria’s Secret said on Monday why it blocked Australian billionaire Brett Blundy from becoming a director and that one board member will not stand for re-election because of Blundy’s pressure campaign, according to a new regulatory filing.

The lingerie retailer wrote to Blundy in November that it evaluated his desire to join the board but concluded that “potential for significant reputational and legal risk” coupled with “conflict of interest and competition concerns” weighed against him.

Blundy and his investment firm, BBRC International, are urging Victoria’s Secret investors to shake up the board by withholding votes from two directors, Donna James and Mariam Naficy, at next month’s annual meeting.

Naficy will not stand for re-election in June because of her professional commitments and the time and attention required to engage with BBRC’s proxy contest, the filing said.

Blundy could not be immediately reached for comment.

The filing also includes a letter sent to Blundy in November that details why it opted not to invite him onto its board.

Blundy’s “pattern of hiring executives with a history of serious allegations of sexual harassment” plus reported and alleged “instances of harassment and highly inappropriate employee policies” that occurred at companies Blundy controlled raised concerns for the board, the letter said.

The letter also noted that Leays, a company controlled by Blundy, describes itself as a global lingerie, sleepwear and beauty brand, making it a competitor to Victoria’s Secret.

The letter said a BBRC employee visited Victoria’s Secret stores and, “according to store personnel with whom he interacted, falsely presented himself as being affiliated with Victoria’s Secret to gain access to and misappropriate confidential sales information from the stores.”

BBRC owns 13% of Victoria’s Secret and has been pushing for changes behind the scenes since 2024. He also pushed for a board seat for himself.

An anti-takeover defense measure known as a shareholder-rights plan that was adopted after BBRC built its stake is scheduled to expire later this month.

Blundy has said his background in retail should qualify him for a seat on the Victoria’s Secret board.

(Reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by David Gregorio)

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By Jonathan Stempel

May 11 (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Monday dismissed the government’s criminal case accusing British American Tobacco of conspiring to violate American sanctions by selling cigarettes to North Korea, after the company complied with a three-year deferred prosecution agreement.

In a filing in the federal court in Washington, D.C., the Department of Justice said BAT “fully complied” with the April 2023 agreement, including by enhancing its compliance procedures, and paid about $630 million including a fine and forfeiture.

The case represented the Justice Department’s largest penalty for violating U.S. sanctions against Pyongyang, the department said at the time.  A BAT subsidiary, BAT Marketing Singapore, pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge.

BAT did not immediately respond to requests for comment after market hours in London. Its brands include Dunhill, Lucky Strike and Pall Mall.

The Justice Department said the illegal tobacco sales occurred between 2007 and 2017, after BAT spun off its North Korean business to a third-party company in Singapore, and publicly said it had abandoned North Korean tobacco sales.

BAT nonetheless continued to sell tobacco products to North Korea through the third-party company, the Justice Department said.

U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell granted the Justice Department’s dismissal request.

North Korea faces an array of U.S. sanctions, in part to choke off funding for nuclear and weapons programs.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)

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