Business and Economy

The carmaker first announced the plan for battery production in 2021.

Toyota Motor Corporation has begun production at its $13.9bn North Carolina battery plant as it ramps up hybrid production and confirms plans to invest $10bn over five years in United States manufacturing.

The Tokyo, Japan-based carmaker announced the developments on Wednesday.

It first introduced the plan in December 2021 to produce batteries for its hybrid and electric vehicles (EVs). Batteries from the plant are set to power hybrid versions of the Camry, Corolla Cross, RAV4, and a yet-to-be-announced, all-electric, three-row-battery vehicle. The plant is producing hybrid batteries for factories in Kentucky and a Mazda and Toyota joint venture in Alabama.

“Over the next five years, we are planning an additional investment of $10bn in the US to further grow our manufacturing capabilities, bringing our total investment in this country to over $60bn,” said Ted Ogawa, president of Toyota Motor North America.

Toyota’s 11th US factory, on a 1,850-acre (749-hectare) site, will be able to produce 30 gigawatt-hours of energy annually at full capacity and house 14 battery production lines for plug-in hybrids and full EVs. It will eventually employ 5,000 workers.

Last month in Japan, US President Donald Trump said Toyota planned a $10bn investment in the United States.

“Go out and buy a Toyota,” said Trump, who has been critical of Japanese and other auto imports and has imposed hefty tariffs on imported vehicles.

Toyota has been one of the slowest carmakers to move to full EVs, but has rapidly moved to convert its best-selling vehicles to hybrids.

“We know there is no single path to progress”, Ogawa said on Wednesday.

“That’s why we remain committed to our multi-pathway approach, offering fuel-efficient gas engines, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, battery electronics and fuel cell electronics.”

Other car companies like Volkswagen have said they will add more hybrids as the Trump administration has rescinded EV tax credits and eliminated penalties that incentivised EV sales.

US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said at the event that the administration plans to soon propose to ease fuel economy standards, saying prior rules were too aggressive.

Duffy in January signed an order to direct the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to rescind fuel economy standards issued under former US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, for the 2022-2031 model years that had aimed to drastically reduce fuel use for cars and trucks.

Toyota’s stock is up by about 0.4 percent in midday trading in New York.

The House of Representatives will hold a session to vote on legislation to end the longest shutdown in US history.

US airlines cancel 1,200 flights, marking five days of disruptions caused by the prolonged government shutdown.

Airlines in the United States have cancelled nearly 1,200 flights, marking the fifth consecutive day of mass delays and cancellations sparked by the country’s longest-ever government shutdown.

In addition to cancellations on Tuesday, passengers continued to face long wait times, as more than 1,300 domestic and international flights were delayed in the morning.

New York’s LaGuardia Airport, in particular, is seeing significant hold-ups, with average delays of one hour and 40 minutes, according to FlightAware — a platform that tracks flight disruptions worldwide.

On Monday, there were more than 2,400 cancelled flights to, from and within the US, along with over 9,500 delayed flights, according to the same tracker.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) last week instructed airlines to cut 4 percent of daily flights from Friday at 40 major airports due to air traffic control staffing shortages. Reductions rose to 6 percent on Tuesday, then 8 percent on Thursday, and are expected to reach 10 percent by November 14th.

Airlines and the FAA are in talks over whether these cuts will be eased as a record-setting 42-day government shutdown draws to a close.

An end to the shutdown appears to be in sight. On Monday, the Senate passed a bill to reopen the federal government. It now heads to the House of Representatives and, if approved, will go to President Donald Trump’s desk for signing. Once signed, the bill would reopen the government.

Despite progress on Capitol Hill, the president has urged air traffic controllers across the country to return to work, warning that their pay could be “docked” if they do not comply. He also claimed that those who remained on duty during the shutdown would receive a $10,000 bonus.

On Wall Street, airline stocks are taking a hit amid persistent cancellations. As of 11am in New York (16:00 GMT), Delta Air Lines had fallen 1.26 percent since the market opened on Tuesday. United Airlines was down 1.7 percent, while American Airlines had tumbled more than 1.8 percent.

Budget carriers are also being hit hard. New York-based JetBlue has dropped by more than 2 percent, Dallas-based Southwest by 1.8 percent, and Alaska Airlines is down roughly 2.1 percent.

Over the weekend, United States President Donald Trump promised Americans $2,000 each from the “trillions of dollars” in tariff revenue he said his administration has collected.

During his second term, Trump has imposed tariffs broadly on countries and on specific goods such as drugs, steel and cars.

“People that are against Tariffs are FOOLS!” Trump said in a November 9 Truth Social post. “We are taking in Trillions of Dollars and will soon begin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT, $37 Trillion. Record Investment in the USA, plants and factories going up all over the place. A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”

How seriously should people take his pledge? Experts urged caution.

Tariffs are projected to generate well below “trillions” a year, making it harder to pay each person $2,000. And the administration already said it would use the tariff revenue to either pay for existing tax cuts or to reduce the federal debt.

Trump’s post came days after the US Supreme Court heard arguments about the legality of his tariff policy. The justices are weighing whether Trump has the power to unilaterally impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. If the justices rule against Trump, much of the expected future tariff revenue would not materialise.

What Trump proposed, and who would qualify

The administration has published no plans for the tariff dividends, and in a November 9 ABC News interview, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he had not spoken to Trump about giving Americans a dividend payment.

Details about a potential payment have been limited to Truth Social posts.

Trump said “everyone”, excluding “high income people”, would get the money, but did not explain the criteria for high-income people. He also did not say whether children would receive the payment.

In a November 10 Truth Social post, Trump said his administration would first pay $2,000 to “low and middle income USA Citizens” and then use the remaining tariff revenues to “substantially pay down national debt”.

Trump has not said what form the payments might take. Bessent said the dividend “could come in lots of forms, in lots of ways. You know, it could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president’s agenda. You know, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans. So, you know, those are substantial deductions.”

Analysts said it is a stretch to rebrand an already promised tax cut as a new dividend.

Trump has previously discussed paying Americans with tariff revenue.

“We have so much money coming in, we’re thinking about a little rebate, but the big thing we want to do is pay down debt,” he told reporters on July 25. “We’re thinking about a rebate.”

Days later, Senator Josh Hawley introduced legislation that would give $600 tariff rebate cheques to each American adult and child. Hawley’s bill has not advanced.

Tariff revenue collected versus cost of ‘dividend’ payment

Trump made the imposition of tariffs one of his signature campaign promises for the 2024 presidential election. Since taking office in January, he has enacted tariffs on a scale not seen in the US in almost a century; the current overall average tariff rate is 18 percent, the highest since 1934, according to Yale Budget Lab.

Through the end of October, the federal government collected $309.2bn in tariff revenue, compared with $165.4bn through the same point in 2024, an increase of $143.8bn.

The centre-right Tax Foundation projects that tariff revenue will continue to increase to more than $200bn a year if the tariffs remain in place.

Erica York, the Tax Foundation’s vice president of federal tax policy, estimated in a November 9 X post that a $2,000 tariff dividend for each person earning less than $100,000 would equal 150 million adult recipients. That would cost nearly $300bn, York calculated, or more if children qualified. That is more than the tariffs have raised so far, she said.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projected that Trump’s proposal could cost $600bn, depending on how it is structured.

The administration previously detailed other uses for tariff revenue

The Trump administration already promised to use tariff revenue for other purposes, including reducing the country’s deficit and offsetting the cost of the GOP tax and spending bill Trump signed into law in July.

As Trump announced new tariffs on April 2, he said he would “use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt”.

Bessent has made the same promise, falsely saying in July that tariffs were “going to pay off our deficit”.

The treasury secretary said in August that he and Trump were “laser-focused on paying down the debt”.

“I think we’re going to bring down the deficit-to-GDP,” Bessent said in an August 19 CNBC interview. “We’ll start paying down debt and then, at a point, that can be used as an offset to the American people.”

Tariffs’ current cost to Americans 

Tariffs are already costing Americans money, analysts say. Independent estimates range from about $1,600 to $2,600 a year per household. Given the similarity of these amounts to Trump’s proposed dividend, York said it would be more efficient to remove the tariffs.

Joseph Rosenberg, Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Centre senior fellow, said a $2,000 dividend in the form of a cheque would require congressional approval – and lawmakers have already declined to act on that idea once.

When members of Congress approved the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, “They had the ability to include a tariff dividend, but they didn’t”, Rosenberg said.

When e-commerce company Jumia wanted to go public in 2019, Africa’s most celebrated start-up didn’t list in Lagos, Nairobi, Kigali or Johannesburg. It went to New York instead. That tells you everything about Africa’s start-up problem: It’s not a money problem; it’s an exit problem.

African entrepreneurs can build world-class businesses, but investors hesitate because they cannot see how or when they will get their money back. Initial public offerings (IPOs) remain extremely rare, and most exits take the form of trade sales – often unpredictable and slow to clear. Our stock exchanges offer little comfort either with liquidity outside the largest firms still limited.

Start-ups here can remain “start-ups” for decades with no clear path to maturity.

By contrast, Silicon Valley hums along because everyone knows the playbook: build fast, scale up and within five to seven years either list on an exchange or get acquired. Investors know they will not be stuck forever. That certainty, not just the capital, drives the flow of billions.

If Africa wants its tech ecosystems to thrive, we need a parallel play alongside any new funds. Yes, let’s mobilise sovereign wealth, pensions, banks and guarantees. But equally, let’s change the rules of the game. Let’s build an exit clarity framework that gives investors confidence.

That means fast-track “growth IPO lanes” on our exchanges with lighter costs and simpler disclosures. It means standardised merger templates that guarantee regulatory reviews within clear time limits.

It means regulated secondary markets where early investors and employees can sell shares before an IPO.

It means modernising employee stock ownership rules so talent can build wealth too.

And it means creating anchor-exit facilities where big domestic players like South Africa’s Public Investments Corporation or IDC commit to buy into IPOs with risk-sharing from development partners.

The evidence shows why these matter. More than 80 percent of startup funding in Africa comes from abroad. African unicorns are overwhelmingly funded by foreign venture capital, with several having foreign co-founders or being incorporated outside the continent. This means exits and wealth creation largely flow offshore. When global shocks hit, whether interest rate hikes in Washington or political turmoil in Europe, our ventures shake.

On the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, small-cap boards make up only a sliver of daily trading activity, underscoring how limited liquidity is outside the blue chips.

In Kenya, the Growth Enterprise Market Segment, set up to serve fast-growing firms, has struggled to gain traction with only five companies currently listed as of 2024 – more than a decade after its 2013 launch.

To be sure, there are those who will argue that exits already exist: Trade sales are happening, holding periods in Africa are shorter than in many markets and capital is trickling in regardless.

That is true, but partial. Trade sales can be an option, but they are often unpredictable. Regulatory approvals take time, and deal terms are not always transparent enough for investors to build them confidently into their models.

This is not a system that inspires confidence from our own pension funds or sovereign wealth managers.

The response, then, is not to simply wait for more money to arrive but to fix the structures that govern its movement. If we could walk into investor meetings and say, “Here’s the pipeline of companies. Here’s the capital vehicle, and here is a clear five-year exit pathway,” we could shift the conversation entirely.

We could make African innovation not only attractive to foreign investors but also bankable for African ones. South Africa is uniquely positioned to lead this change. It has deep capital markets, capable regulators and institutional pools of capital looking for new growth opportunities.

The ask is not just to invest in start-ups but to invest in a new rulebook that makes exits real. If we succeed, we will have built more than another fund. We will have built a system that recycles African savings into African innovation, creating African wealth.

For too long, the debate has been framed around scarcity of money. But the truth is less about scarcity and more about certainty. Investors do not only chase returns. They chase predictable exits. Without exits, funds hesitate. With exits, funds multiply.

So, yes, let us mobilise capital and launch new funds. But let us also do the harder, braver thing: change the rules, not just the money. That is how we ensure our unicorns aren’t built on foreign capital alone. That is how we give our own savers and pensioners a stake in Africa’s growth.

And that is how we finally write a new playbook under which African innovation, African capital and African ownership all run on the same page because, in the end, the real lesson of Jumia is not that Africa cannot produce billion-dollar start-ups. It is that until we change the rules of exit, we risk exporting the wealth that should be owned and grown at home.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

As United States lawmakers fail to agree on a deal to end the government shutdown, around 750,000 federal employees have been furloughed, millions of Americans go without food assistance, and air travel is disrupted across the country.

The shutdown began on October 1, after opposing sides in the US Senate failed to agree on spending priorities, with Republicans rejecting a push by Democrats to protect healthcare and other social programmes.

Since then, both sides have failed to agree on 14 separate funding measures, delaying payment to hundreds of thousands of federal staff.

After 40 days, senators from both parties are working this weekend to try to end what has become the longest government shutdown in US history. But talks on Saturday showed little sign of breaking the impasse and securing long-term funding for key programmes.

On Friday, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer offered Republicans a narrower version of an earlier Democratic proposal – a temporary extension of healthcare subsidies. Republicans rejected the offer, prolonging the record-breaking shutdown.

So what do we know about the shutdown, and how it has impacted Americans?

Flights disrupted

The shutdown has created major disruptions for the aviation industry, with staffing shortages among unpaid air traffic controllers.

More than 1,530 flights were cancelled across the US on Saturday, while thousands more were delayed as authorities ordered airports to reduce air traffic.

According to the flight tracking website FlightAware, Saturday’s cancellations marked an increase from 1,025 the previous day. The trend looks set to continue, with at least 1,000 cancellations logged for Sunday.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said staffing shortages were affecting 42 control towers and other facilities, leading to delays in at least a dozen major cities – including Atlanta, Newark, San Francisco, New York and Chicago.

The travel chaos could prove politically costly for lawmakers if disruptions persist, especially ahead of the holiday season. Reduced air traffic will also hit deliveries and shipping, since many commercial flights carry cargo alongside passengers.

The CEO of Elevate Aviation Group, Greg Raiff, recently warned that the economic impact would ripple outward. “This shutdown is going to affect everything from business travel to tourism,” he told the Associated Press.

“It’s going to hurt local tax revenues and city budgets – there’s a cascading effect from all this.”

Threat to food assistance

In recent weeks, US President Donald Trump has said he will only restore food aid once the government shutdown ends.

“SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term … will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government,” he wrote earlier this week on Truth Social.

The US Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps, provides low-income Americans with roughly $8bn a month in grocery assistance. The average individual benefit is about $190 per month, while a household receives around $356.

Health insurance standoff

Democrats blame the shutdown on Republicans’ refusal to renew expiring healthcare subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Talks stalled again on Saturday after Trump declared he would not compromise on the issue.

Democrats are pushing for a one-year extension of the ACA subsidies, which mainly help people without employer or government health coverage buy insurance. But with a 53–47 majority in the Senate, Republicans can block the proposal.

Trump intervened on Saturday via Truth Social, calling on Republican senators to redirect federal funds used for health insurance subsidies toward direct payments for individuals.

“I am recommending to Senate Republicans that the Hundreds of Billions of Dollars currently being sent to money sucking Insurance Companies … BE SENT DIRECTLY TO THE PEOPLE SO THAT THEY CAN PURCHASE THEIR OWN, MUCH BETTER, HEALTHCARE, and have money left over,” he said.

Roughly 24 million Americans currently benefit from the ACA subsidies. Analysts warn that premiums could double by 2026 if Congress allows them to expire.

Has this happened before?

This is not the first time Washington has faced such a standoff. The graphic below shows every US funding gap and government shutdown since 1976, including how long each lasted and under which administration it occurred.

The current federal budget process dates back to 1976. Since its creation, the government has experienced 20 funding gaps, leading to 10 shutdowns.

Prior to the 1980s, such funding lapses rarely caused shutdowns. Most federal agencies continued operating, expecting Congress to soon approve new funding.

That changed in 1980, when Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti issued legal opinions clarifying that, under federal law, agencies cannot spend money without congressional authorisation. Only essential functions (like air traffic control) were permitted to continue.

From 1982 onward, this interpretation has meant that funding gaps have more frequently triggered full or partial government shutdowns, lasting until Congress reaches a resolution.

What happens next?

No breakthrough was announced after the US Senate convened for a rare Saturday session. The chamber is now expected to reconvene at 1:30pm local time on Sunday.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters that the chamber will continue meeting until the government reopens. “There’s still only one path out – it’s a clean funding extension,” he said.

Some 1.3 million service members are now at risk of missing a paycheque, and that might put pressure on both sides to agree on a deal. Earlier this month, staff were paid after $8bn from military research and development funds were made available at the intervention of Trump.

But questions remain about whether the administration will resort to a similar procedure if the shutdown is prolonged. Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire told reporters on Friday that Democrats “need another path forward”.

Shaheen and several moderate Democrats are floating a proposal that would temporarily fund certain departments – such as veterans’ services and food aid – while keeping the rest of the government open until December or early next year.

It’s understood that Shaheen’s plan would include a promise of a future vote on healthcare subsidies, but not a guaranteed extension. It remains unclear whether enough Democrats would support that compromise. 

Thune, meanwhile, is reportedly considering a bipartisan version of the proposal. On Friday, he said he thinks the offer is an indication that Democrats are “feeling the heat … I guess you could characterise that as progress”.

Looking ahead, it remains unclear what Republicans might offer regarding healthcare.

For now, Democrats face a stark choice: keep pressing for a firm deal to renew healthcare subsidies and prolong the shutdown – or vote to reopen the government and trust Republicans’ assurances of a future healthcare vote, with no certainty of success.

The race for access to Central Asia’s natural resources is intensifying.

United States President Donald Trump has set his sights on the C5 nations, comprised of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan.

He hosted a summit with their leaders at the White House, as Washington aims to get access to the mineral-rich region and reduce its reliance on China for imports of critical minerals.

But the leaders of the C5 face a delicate balancing act to make deals with the US without annoying Moscow or Beijing.

The meeting in Washington came just a month after Russia’s Vladimir Putin attended a summit with the C5.

And earlier in the year, the Chinese president also met C5 leaders, hoping to maintain China’s role in the region.

So, can Washington succeed in a region long dominated by Russia, and where China is making inroads?

Presenter: Nick Clark

Guests:

Zhumabek Sarabekov – Acting Director at the Institute of World Economics and Politics in Kazakhstan

William Courtney – Senior Fellow at the RAND Corporation

Dakota Irvin – a Senior Analyst at PRISM Strategic Intelligence

United States Senate Majority Leader John Thune has promptly swatted down a Democratic offer to reopen the US government and extend expiring healthcare subsidies for a year, calling it a “nonstarter” as the partisan impasse over the shutdown continued into its 38th day.

Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer made the offer to reopen the government on Friday as Republicans have refused to negotiate on their demands to extend healthcare subsidies. It was a much narrower version of a broad proposal Democrats laid out a month ago to make the health tax credits permanent and reverse Medicaid cuts that Republicans enacted earlier this year.

Schumer offered Republicans simultaneous votes to end the government shutdown and extend the expiring healthcare subsidies, along with a bipartisan committee to address Republican demands for changes to the Affordable Care Act.

“All Republicans have to do is say yes,” Schumer said.

But Republicans quickly said no, and Thune reiterated that they would not trade offers on healthcare until the government is reopened. “That’s what we’re going to negotiate once the government opens up,” Thune said after Schumer made his proposal on the floor.

Thune said he thinks the offer is an indication that Democrats are “feeling the heat”.

“I guess you could characterise that as progress,” he said. “But I just don’t think it gets anywhere close to what we need to do here.”

It was unclear what might happen next. Thune has suggested a weekend Senate session was possible. US President Donald Trump called on the Senate to stay in town “until they have a Deal to end the Democrat Shutdown”.

Despite the impasse, lawmakers in both parties were feeling increased urgency to alleviate the growing crisis at airports, pay government workers and restore delayed food aid to millions of people. Thune pleaded with Democrats as he opened the Senate on Friday to “end these weeks of misery”.

Moderates continue to negotiate

As leaders of the two parties disagreed, a small group of Democrats led by New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen continued to negotiate among themselves and with rank-and-file Republicans on a deal that would end the shutdown.

The group has been discussing for weeks a vote for a group of bills that would pay for parts of government – food aid, veterans programmes and the legislative branch, among other things – and extend funding for everything else until December or January. The three annual spending bills that would likely be included are the product of bipartisan negotiations that have continued through the shutdown.

But the contours of that agreement would only come with the promise of a future healthcare vote, rather than a guarantee that Affordable Care Act subsidies are extended by the end of the year. Many Democrats have said that this is unacceptable.

Still, Republican leaders only need five additional votes to fund the government, and the group involved in the talks has ranged from 10 to 12 Democratic senators.

Republicans eye new package of bills

Trump urged Republicans at a White House breakfast on Wednesday to end the shutdown quickly and scrap the legislative filibuster, which requires 60 Senate votes for most legislation, so that they bypass Democrats altogether and fund the government.

“I am totally in favour of terminating the filibuster, and we would be back to work within 10 minutes after that vote took place,” Trump said on Friday.

Republicans have emphatically rejected Trump’s call, and Thune has instead been eyeing a bipartisan package that mirrors the proposal the moderate Democrats have been sketching out. But it is unclear what Thune, who has refused to negotiate, would promise on healthcare.

The package would replace the House-passed legislation that the Democrats have now rejected 14 times. That bill would only extend government funding until November 21, a date that is rapidly approaching after six weeks of inaction.

A choice for Democrats

A test vote on new legislation could come in the next few days if Thune decides to move forward.

Then Democrats would have a crucial choice to make: Do they keep fighting for a meaningful deal on extending the subsidies that expire in January, while prolonging the pain of the shutdown? Or do they vote to reopen the government and hope for the best as Republicans promise an eventual healthcare vote, but not a guaranteed outcome?

After a caucus meeting on Thursday, most Democrats suggested they would continue to hold out for Trump and Republican leaders to agree to negotiations.

“That’s what leaders do,” said Senator Ben Ray Lujan, Democrat from New Mexico. “You have the gavel, you have the majority, you have to bring people together.”

Hawaii Democrat Senator Brian Schatz said Democrats are “obviously not unanimous”, but “without something on healthcare, the vote is very unlikely to succeed”.

Johnson delivers setback to bipartisan talks

Democrats are facing pressure from unions eager for the shutdown to end and from allied groups that want them to hold firm. Many Democrats have argued that the wins for Democrats on Election Day show voters want them to continue the fight until Republicans yield and agree to extend the health tax credits.

A vote on the healthcare subsidies “has got to mean something”, said Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats. “That means a commitment by the speaker of the House, that he will support the legislation, that the president will sign.”

But Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, made clear he will not make any commitments. “I’m not promising anybody anything,” Johnson said on Thursday when asked if he could promise a vote on a healthcare bill.

Shareholders approved the pay package with as much as 75 percent support on Thursday.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has scored a resounding victory as shareholders have approved a pay package of as much as $878bn over the next decade, endorsing his vision of morphing the electric vehicle (EV) maker into an AI and robotics juggernaut.

Shares of Tesla rose more than 3 percent in after-hours trading after the shareholders voted on Thursday. The proposal was approved with more than 75 percent support.

Musk took to the stage in Austin, Texas, along with dancing robots. “What we are about to embark upon is not merely a new chapter of the future of Tesla, but a whole new book,” he said. “This really is going to be quite the story.”

He added: “Other shareholder meetings are like snooze fests, but ours are bangers. I mean, look at this. This is sick.”

Shareholders also re-elected three directors on Tesla’s board and voted in favour of a replacement pay plan for Musk’s services because a legal challenge has held up a previous package.

The vote, analysts have said, is a positive for Tesla’s stock, whose valuation hangs on Musk’s vision of making vehicles drive themselves, expanding robotaxis across the United States and selling humanoid robots, even though his far-right political rhetoric has hurt the Tesla brand this year.

A win for Musk was widely expected as the billionaire was allowed to exercise the full voting rights of his roughly 15 percent stake after the carmaker moved to Texas from Delaware, where a legal challenge has held up a previous pay rise.

The approval comes even after opposition from some major investors, including Norway’s sovereign wealth fund.

Tesla’s board had said Musk could quit if the pay package was not approved.

The vote will also allay investor concerns that Musk’s focus has been diluted with his work in politics as well as in running his other companies, including rocket maker SpaceX and artificial intelligence startup xAI.

The board and many investors who lent their endorsement have said the nearly $1 trillion package benefits shareholders in the longer run, as Musk must ensure Tesla achieves a series of milestones to get paid.

Goals for Musk over the next decade include the company delivering 20 million vehicles, having one million robotaxis in operation, selling one million robots and earning as much as $400bn in core profit. But in order for him to get paid, Tesla’s stock value has to rise in tandem, first to $2 trillion from the current $1.5 trillion, and all the way to $8.5 trillion.

Under the new plan, Musk could earn as much as $878bn in Tesla stock over 10 years. Musk would be given as much as $1 trillion in stock but would have to make some payments back to Tesla.

The DOJ argued that the federal judge did not have the authority to make the decision.

A United States judge in Texas has approved the Department of Justice’s request to dismiss a criminal case against Boeing despite his objections to the decision.

On Thursday, Judge Reed O’Connor of the US District Court in Fort Worth dismissed the case, which will allow the plane maker to avoid prosecution over charges related to two deadly 737 MAX crashes: the 2018 Lion Air crash in Indonesia and the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash.

O’Connor said he disagreed with the Justice Department’s argument that ending the case served the public interest, noting that he lacked the authority to overrule it.

The government argued Boeing has improved, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is providing enhanced oversight. Boeing and the government argued O’Connor had no choice but to dismiss the case.

He said the deal with the aerospace giant “fails to secure the necessary accountability to ensure the safety of the flying public”.

In September, O’Connor held a three-hour hearing to consider objections to the deal, questioning the government’s decision to drop a requirement that Boeing face oversight from an independent monitor for three years and instead hire a compliance consultant.

O’Connor said the government’s position is “Boeing committed crimes sufficient to justify prosecution, failed to remedy its fraudulent behaviour on its own during the [deferred prosecution agreement], which justified a guilty plea and the imposition of an independent monitor, but now Boeing will remedy that dangerous culture by retaining a consultant of its own choosing”.

The DOJ first criminally charged Boeing for the crashes in January 2021, but also agreed to deferred prosecution in the case.

The plane maker was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the US. Courts found that Boeing deceived the FAA about what is called the manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system, which affects flight control systems on the aircraft.

“Boeing’s employees chose the path of profit over candor by concealing material information from the FAA concerning the operation of its 737 Max airplane and engaging in an effort to cover up their deception,” acting Assistant Attorney General David P Burns of the DOJ’s criminal division said in a statement at the time.

O’Connor said in 2023 that “Boeing’s crime may properly be considered the deadliest corporate crime in US history”.

Under the non-prosecution deal, Boeing agreed to pay an additional $444.5m into a crash victims’ fund to be divided evenly per victim of the two fatal 737 MAX crashes, on top of a new $243.6m fine and more than $455m to strengthen the company’s compliance, safety, and quality programmes.

On Wall Street, Boeing’s stock was up by 0.2 percent as of 11am in New York (16:00 GMT).

The US Supreme Court has questioned US President Donald Trump’s authority to use emergency powers to impose sweeping tariffs on trading partners around the world.

In a closely watched hearing on Wednesday in Washington, DC, conservative and liberal Supreme Court judges appeared sceptical about Trump’s tariff policy, which has already had ramifications for US carmakers, airlines and consumer goods importers.

The US president had earlier claimed that his trade tariffs – which have been central to his foreign policy since he returned to power earlier this year – will not affect US businesses, workers and consumers.

But a legal challenge by a number of small American businesses, including toy firms and wine importers, filed earlier this year, has led to lower courts in the country ruling that Trump’s tariffs are illegal.

In May, the Court of International Trade, based in New York, said Trump did not have the authority to impose tariffs and “the US Constitution grants Congress exclusive authority to regulate commerce”. That decision was upheld by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, DC, in August.

Now, the Supreme Court, the country’s top court, is hearing the issue. Last week, the small business leaders, who are being represented by Indian-American lawyer Neal Katyal, told the Court that Trump’s import levies were severely harming their businesses and that many have been forced to lay off workers and cut prices as a result.

In a post on his Truth Social Platform on Sunday, Trump described the Supreme Court case as “one of the most important in the History of the Country”.

“If a President is not allowed to use Tariffs, we will be at a major disadvantage against all other Countries throughout the World,” he added.

What happened in Wednesday’s Supreme Court hearing, and what could happen if the court rules against Trump’s tariffs?

Here’s what we know:

What was discussed at the Supreme Court on Wednesday?

During a hearing which lasted for nearly three hours, the Trump administration’s lawyer, Solicitor General D John Sauer, argued that the president’s tariff policy is legal under a 1977 national law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

According to US government documents, IEEPA gives a US president an array of economic powers, including to regulate trade, in order “to deal with any unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States, if the President declares a national emergency with respect to such threat”.

Trump invoked IEEPA in February to levy a new 25 percent tax on imports from Canada and Mexico, as well as a 10 percent levy on Chinese goods, on the basis that these countries were facilitating the flow of illegal drugs such as fentanyl into the US, and that this constituted a national emergency. He later paused the tariffs on Canada and Mexico, but increased China’s to 20 percent. This was restored to 10 percent after Trump met Chinese President Xi Jinping last month.

In April, when he imposed reciprocal tariffs on imports from a wide array of countries around the world, he said those levies were also in line with IEEPA since the US was running a trade deficit that posed an “extraordinary and unusual threat” to the nation.

Sauer argued that Trump had imposed the tariffs using IEEPA since “our exploding trade deficits have brought us to the brink of an economic and national security catastrophe”.

He also told the court that the levies are “regulatory tariffs. They are not revenue-raising tariffs”.

But Neal Katyal, the lawyer for the small businesses that have brought the case, countered this. “Tariffs are taxes,” Katyal said. “They take dollars from Americans’ pockets and deposit them in the US Treasury. Our founders gave that taxing power to Congress alone.”

What did the judges say about tariffs?

The judges raised another sticking point: Also, under the US Constitution, only Congress has the power to regulate tariffs. Justice John Roberts noted that “the [IEEPA] statute doesn’t use the word tariff.”

Liberal Justice Elena Kagan also told Sauer, “It has a lot of actions that can be taken under this statute. It just doesn’t have the one you want.”

Conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who was appointed by Trump during his first term as president, asked Sauer, “Is it your contention that every country needed to be tariffed because of threats to the defence and industrial base?

“I mean, Spain, France? I could see it with some countries, but explain to me why as many countries needed to be subject to the reciprocal tariff policy,” Coney Barrett said.

Sauer replied that “there’s this sort of lack of reciprocity, this asymmetric treatment of our trade, with respect to foreign countries that does run across the board,” and reiterated the Trump administration’s power to use IEEPA.

Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor took issue with the notion that the tariffs are not taxes, as asserted by Trump’s team. She said, “You want to say that tariffs are not taxes, but that’s exactly what they are.”

According to recent data released by the US Customs and Border Protection agency, as of the end of August, IEEPA tariffs had generated $89bn in revenues to the US Treasury.

During the court’s arguments on Wednesday, Justice Roberts also suggested that the court may have to invoke the “major questions” doctrine in this case after telling Sauer that the president’s tariffs are “the imposition of taxes on Americans, and that has always been the core power of Congress”.

The “major questions” doctrine checks a US executive agency’s power to impose a policy without Congress’s clear directive. The Supreme Court previously used this to block former President Joe Biden’s policies, including his student loan forgiveness plan.

Sauer argued that the “major questions” doctrine should not apply in this context since it would also affect the president’s power in foreign affairs.

Why is this case the ultimate test of Trump’s tariff policy?

The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority and generally takes several months to make a decision. While it remains unclear when the court will make a decision on this case, according to analysts, the fact that this case was launched against Trump at all is significant.

In a recent report published by Max Yoeli, senior research fellow on the US and Americas Programme at UK-based think tank Chatham House, said, “The Supreme Court’s outcome will shape Trump’s presidency – and those that follow – across executive authority, global trade, and domestic fiscal and economic concerns.”

“It is likewise a salient moment for the Supreme Court, which has empowered Trump and showed little appetite to constrain him,” he added.

Penny Nass, acting senior vice president at the German Marshall Fund’s Washington DC office, told Al Jazeera that the verdict will be viewed by many as a test of Trump’s powers.

“A first impact will be the most direct judicial restraint at the highest level on Presidential power. After a year testing the limits of his power, President Trump will start to see some of constraints on his power,” she said.

According to international trade lawyer Shantanu Singh, who is based in India, the global implications of this case could also be huge.

“One objective of these tariffs was to use them as leverage to get trade partners to do deals with the US. Some countries have concluded trade deals, including to address the IEEPA tariffs,” he told Al Jazeera.

After the imposition of US reciprocal tariffs in April and again in August, several countries and economic blocs, including the EU, UK, Japan, Cambodia and Indonesia, have struck trade deals with the US to reduce tariffs.

But those countries were forced to make concessions to get those deals done. EU countries, for example, had to agree to buy $750bn of US energy and reduce steel tariffs through quotas.

Singh pointed out that an “adverse Supreme Court ruling could bring into doubt the perceived benefit for concluding deals with the US”.

“Further, trade partners who are currently negotiating with the US will have to also adjust their negotiating objectives in light of the ruling and how the administration reacts to it,” he added.

Other countries including India and China are currently actively engaged in trade talks with the US. Trade talks with Canada were terminated by Trump in late October over what Trump described as a “fraudulent” advertisement featuring former President Ronald Reagan speaking negatively about trade tariffs, which was being aired in Canada.

What happens if the judges rule against Trump?

Following Wednesday’s Supreme Court Hearing, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who was at the court with Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick, told Fox News that he was “very optimistic” that the outcome of the case would be in the government’s favour.

“The solicitor general made a very powerful case for the need for the president to have the power,” he said and refused to discuss the Trump administration’s plan if the court ruled against the tariff policy.

However, Singh said if the Supreme Court does find these tariffs illegal, one immediate concern will be how tariffs collected so far will be refunded to businesses, if at all.

“Given the importance that the current US administration places on tariffs as a policy tool, we can expect that it would quickly identify other legal authorities and work to reinstate the tariffs,” he said.

Nass added: “The President has many other tariff powers, and will likely quickly recalibrate to maintain his deal-making efforts with partners,” she said, adding that there would still be very complicated work for importers on what to do with the tariffs already collected in 2025 under IEEPA.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Justice Coney Barrett asked Katyal, the lawyer for the small businesses contesting Trump’s tariffs, whether this process of paying money back would be “a complete mess”.

Katyal said the businesses he’s representing should be given a refund, but added that it is “very complicated”.

“So, a mess,” Coney Barrett stated.

“It’s difficult, absolutely, we don’t deny that,” Katyal said in response.

In an interview with US broadcaster CNN in September, trade lawyers said the court could decide who gets the refunds. Ted Murphy, an international trade lawyer at Sidley Austin, told CNN that the US government “could also try to get the court to approve an administrative refund process, where importers have to affirmatively request a refund”.

What tariffs has Trump imposed so far, and what has their effect been?

Trump has imposed tariffs of varying rates on imports from almost every country in the world, arguing that these levies will enrich the US and protect the domestic US market. The tariff rates range from as high as 50 percent on India and Syria to as low as 10 percent on the UK.

The US president has also imposed a 50 percent tariff on all copper imports, 50 percent on steel and aluminium imports from every country except the UK, 100 percent on patented drugs, 25 percent levies on cars and car parts manufactured abroad, and 25 percent on heavy-duty trucks.

According to the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model, which analyses the US Treasury’s data, tariffs have brought in $223.9bn as of October 31. This is $142.2bn more than the same time last year.

In early July, Treasury Secretary Bessent said revenues from these tariffs could grow to $300bn by the end of 2025.

But in an August 7 report, the Budget Lab at Yale University estimated that “all 2025 US tariffs plus foreign retaliation lower real US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth by -0.5pp [percentage points] each over calendar years 2025 and 2026”.

Meanwhile, according to a Reuters news agency tracker, which follows how US companies are responding to Trump’s tariff threats, the first-quarter earnings season saw carmakers, airlines and consumer goods importers take the worst hit from tariff threats. Levies on aluminium and electronics, such as semiconductors, also led to increased costs.

Reuters reported that as tariffs hit factory orders, big manufacturing companies around the world are also struggling.

In its latest World Economic Outlook report released last month, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said the effect of Trump’s tariffs on the global economy had been less extreme.

“To date, more protectionist trade measures have had a limited impact on economic activity and prices,” it said.

However, the IMF warned that the current resilience of the global economy may not last.

“Looking past apparent resilience resulting from trade-related distortions in some of the incoming data and whipsawing growth forecasts from wild swings in trade policies, the outlook for the global economy continues to point to dim prospects, both in the short and the long term,” it said.

The agency made the announcement as it confronts staffing shortages caused by air traffic controllers who are working unpaid.

The United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will reduce air traffic by 10 percent across 40 “high-volume” markets beginning Friday morning to maintain safety during the ongoing government shutdown, it has said.

The agency made the announcement on Wednesday as it confronts staffing shortages caused by air traffic controllers, who are working unpaid, with some calling out of work during the shutdown, resulting in delays across the country.

FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said the agency is not going to wait for a problem to act, saying the shutdown is causing staffing pressures and “we can’t ignore it”.

Bedford and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said they will meet later Wednesday with airline leaders to figure out how to safely implement the reduction.

Widespread delays

The shutdown, now in its 36th day, has forced 13,000 air traffic controllers and 50,000 Transportation Security Administration officers to work without pay. This has worsened staff shortages, caused widespread flight delays and extended lines at airport security screening.

The move is aimed at taking pressure off air traffic controllers. The FAA also warned that it could add more flight restrictions after Friday if further air traffic issues emerge.

Duffy had warned on Tuesday that if the federal government shutdown continued another week, it could lead to “mass chaos” and force him to close some of the national airspace to air traffic, a drastic move that could upend American aviation.

Airlines have repeatedly urged an end to the shutdown, citing aviation safety risks.

Shares of major airlines, including United Airlines and American Airlines, were down about 1 percent in extended trading.

An airline industry group estimated that more than 3.2 million passengers have been affected by flight delays or cancellations due to rising air traffic controller absences since the shutdown began on October 1. Airlines have been raising concerns with lawmakers about the impact on operations.

Airlines said the shutdown has not significantly affected their business, but have warned bookings could drop if it drags on. More than 2,100 flights were delayed on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, FAA’s Bedford said that 20 percent to 40 percent of controllers at the agency’s 30 largest airports were failing to show up for work.

The federal government has mostly closed as Republicans and Democrats are locked in a standoff in Congress over a funding bill. Democrats have insisted they would not approve a plan that does not extend health insurance subsidies, while Republicans have rejected that.

There have already been numerous flight delays as the FAA slows down or stops traffic when it is short of controllers.

United States Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has said that there could be chaos in the skies next week if the government shutdown drags on and air traffic controllers miss a second paycheck.

Duffy made his comments on Tuesday as the US government shutdown dragged into its 35th day, matching the shutdown in US President Donald Trump’s first term as president and which was the longest at the time.

There have already been numerous delays at airports across the country — sometimes hours long — because the Federal Aviation Administration slows down or stops traffic temporarily anytime it is short on controllers. Last weekend saw some of the worst staff shortages, and on Sunday, flights at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey were delayed for several hours.

Duffy and the head of the air traffic controllers union have both warned that the situation will only get worse the longer the shutdown continues and the financial pressure continues to grow on people who are forced to work without pay. FAA employees already missed one paycheck on October 28. Their next payday is scheduled for next Tuesday.

“Many of the controllers said, ‘A lot of us can navigate missing one paycheck. Not everybody, but a lot of us can. None of us can manage missing two paychecks,’” Duffy said. “So if you bring us to a week from today, Democrats, you will see mass chaos. You will see mass flight delays. You’ll see mass cancellations, and you may see us close certain parts of the airspace, because we just cannot manage it, because we don’t have air traffic controllers.”

Most of the flight disruptions so far during the shutdown have been isolated and temporary. But if delays become more widespread and start to ripple throughout the system, the pressure will mount on US Congress to reach an agreement to end the shutdown.

Normally, airlines strive to have at least 80 percent of their flights depart and arrive within 15 minutes of when they are scheduled. Aviation analytics firm Cirium said that since the shutdown began on October 1, the total number of delays overall has not fallen significantly below that goal because most of the disruptions so far have been no worse than what happens when a major thunderstorm moves across an airport.

But on Sunday, only about 56 percent of Newark’s departures were on time, and the Orlando airport reported that only about 70 percent of its flights were on time, according to Cirium.

As of midday Tuesday, there have been 1,932 flight delays reported across the US, according to www.FlightAware.com. That is lower than what is typical, although the FAA did say that flights in Phoenix were being delayed on Tuesday morning because of staffing shortages. Strong winds are also causing delays at the Newark and LaGuardia airports on Tuesday.

Starbucks has announced it will sell the majority stake in its Chinese business for $4bn to a Hong Kong-based private equity firm after years of losing market share to local competitors in China.

Starbucks announced the sale on Monday, which will see the firm Boyu Capital take a 60 percent stake in its Chinese retail operations through a joint venture.

Boyu Capital has offices in Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore, and its cofounders include Alvin Jiang, the grandson of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin, according to the Reuters news agency.

The US coffee giant will retain a 40 percent interest in its China operations while maintaining its ownership of the company’s brand and intellectual property, the company said.

The deal marks a “new chapter” in Starbucks’s 26-year-long history in China, the company said in a statement.

It will also give Starbucks a much-needed injection of funding and logistical support as it tries to expand its business deeper into China, according to Jason Yu, the Shanghai-based managing director of CTR Market Research.

Starbucks has 8,000 locations across China, but it aspires to open as many as 20,000 through its joint venture, the company said in a statement.

“Starbucks used to be a pioneer in coffee in China, where it was probably the first coffee chain in many cities, but this is no longer the case as the local competition already outpaced Starbucks in their expansion,” Yu told Al Jazeera.

Top competitors include homegrown Luckin Coffee, which has more than 26,000 locations worldwide, mostly in China.

Starbucks has historically been concentrated in first- and second-tier cities like Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen while Luckin has expanded into much smaller cities.

Luckin has also built a reputation around offering customers much cheaper drinks than Starbucks through its loyalty programme and in-app discounts.

A small Americano coffee at Starbucks costs 30 yuan ($4.21), but at Luckin, the same drink retails on average for about 10 yuan ($1.40), according to Yu.

Olivia Plotnick, founder of the Shanghai-based social marketing company Wai Social, told Al Jazeera that Starbucks has been unable to keep up with competitive pricing and consumer preferences.

“Between domestic players such as Luckin and later Cotti Coffee undercutting Starbucks on price, footprint and flavour fuelled by tech, wider beverage competition from the rise of milk tea brands and delivery platform wars, Starbucks have lost their once very competitive edge,” Plotnick said. By “delivery platform wars”, Plotnick referred to the cutthroat competition between apps for delivery services that drives down prices of goods like coffee.

Starbucks’s joint venture with Boyu Capital will offer the company more capital for investment but also help with logistics, infrastructure and managing commercial property as it opens more storefronts in regional cities, Yu said.

The company is following a familiar playbook used by other international brands in China, he said.

In 2016, after a major food safety scandal, KFC and Pizza Hut owner Yum Brands sold a stake in their China business to the China-based Primavera Capital and an affiliate of the e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, according to Reuters. The China business was later spun off into an independent entity.

In 2017, McDonald’s sold off a majority stake in its China, Hong Kong and Macau businesses to the Chinese state-backed conglomerate CITIC and the private equity group Carlyle Capital although it later bought back some of its business, according to CNBC.

After the deal with CITIC, McDonald’s doubled its outlets in China to 5,500 as of late 2023, CNBC said, and aims to open 10,000 restaurants by 2028.

The announcement comes less than week after Amazon laid off 14,000 people.

OpenAI has signed a new deal valued at $38bn with Amazon that will allow the artificial intelligence giant to run AI workloads across Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure.

The seven-year deal announced on Monday is the first big AI push for the e-commerce giant after a restructuring last week.

The new deal will give the ChatGPT maker access to thousands of Nvidia graphics processors to train and run its artificial intelligence models.

Experts say this does not mean that it will allow OpenAI to train its model on websites hosted by AWS – which includes the websites of The New York Times, Reddit and United Airlines.

“Running OpenAI training inside AWS doesn’t change their ability to scrape content from AWS-hosted websites [which they could already do for anything publicly readable]. This is strictly speaking about the economics of rent vs buy for GPU [graphics processing unit] capacity,” Joshua McKenty, CEO of the AI detection company PolyguardAI, told Al Jazeera.

The deal is also a major vote of confidence for the e-commerce giant’s cloud unit, AWS, which some investors feared had fallen behind rivals Microsoft and Google in the artificial intelligence (AI) race. Those fears were somewhat eased by the strong growth the business reported in the September quarter.

OpenAI will begin using AWS immediately, with all planned capacity set to come online by the end of 2026 and room to expand further in 2027 and beyond.

Amazon plans to roll out hundreds of thousands of chips, including Nvidia’s GB200 and GB300 AI accelerators, in data clusters built to power ChatGPT’s responses and train OpenAI’s next wave of models, the companies said.

Amazon already offers OpenAI models on Amazon Bedrock, which offers multiple AI models for businesses using AWS.

OpenAI’s sweeping restructuring last week moved it further away from its non-profit roots and also removed Microsoft’s first right to refusal to supply services in the new arrangement.

Image hurdles

Amazon’s announcement about an investment in AI comes only days after the company laid off 14,000 people despite CEO Andy Jassy’s comment in an earnings call on Thursday saying the layoffs were not driven by AI.

“The announcement that we made a few days ago was not really financially driven, and it’s not even really AI-driven, not right now at least,” Jassy said.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said the startup is committed to spending $1.4 trillion to develop 30 gigawatts of computing resources – enough to roughly power 25 million United States homes.

“Scaling frontier AI requires massive, reliable compute,” said Altman. “Our partnership with AWS strengthens the broad compute ecosystem that will power this next era and bring advanced AI to everyone.”

This comes amid growing concerns about the sheer amount of energy demand that AI data centres need to operate. The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that AI data centres will use up to 12 percent of US electricity by 2028.

An AP/NORC poll from October found that 41 percent of Americans are extremely concerned about AI’s impact on the environment, while another 30 percent say they are somewhat concerned as the industry increases its data centre footprint around the US.

Signs of a bubble

Surging valuations of AI companies and their massive spending commitments, which total more than $1 trillion for OpenAI, have raised fears that the AI boom may be turning into a bubble.

OpenAI has already tapped Alphabet’s Google to supply it with cloud services, as Reuters reported in June. It also reportedly struck a deal to buy $300bn in computing power for about five years.

While OpenAI’s relationship with Microsoft, which the two forged in 2019, has helped push Microsoft to the top spot among its Big Tech peers in the AI race, both companies have been making moves recently to reduce reliance on each other.

Neither OpenAI nor Amazon were immediately available for comment.

On Wall Street, Amazon’s stock is surging on the news of the new deal. As of 11:15am in New York (16:15 GMT), it is up by 4.7 percent.