consumer

YouTube TV customers are bracing for another frustrating weekend.

For the last week, YouTube TV’s 10 million subscribers have been denied access to ESPN, ABC and other Walt Disney Co. channels in a dispute that has swelled into one of the largest TV blackouts in a decade. Instead of turning on “College GameDay,” “Monday Night Football” or “Dancing With the Stars,” customers have been greeted with a grim message: “Disney channels are unavailable.”

The standoff began Oct. 30 when the two behemoths hit an impasse in their negotiations over a new distribution contract covering Disney’s channels and ABC stations.

Google, which owns YouTube, has rebuffed Disney’s demands for fee increases for ESPN, ABC and other channels. The Burbank entertainment giant has been seeking a revenue boost to support its content production and streaming ambitions, and help pay for ESPN’s gargantuan sports rights deals.

Talks are ongoing, but the two sides remain apart on major issues — prolonging the stalemate.

“Everyone is kind of sick of these big-time companies trying to get the best of one another,” said Nick Newton, 30, who lives near San Francisco and subscribes to YouTube TV. “The people who are suffering are the middle-class and lower-class people that just love sports … because it’s our escape from the real world.”

Both companies declined to comment for this article.

The skirmish is just the latest between YouTube and programming companies. Since August, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corp., Comcast’s NBCUniversal and Spanish-language broadcaster TelevisaUnivision have all complained that YouTube TV was trying to use its market muscle to squeeze them for concessions.

Here’s a look at what’s driving the escalating tensions:

Google’s growing clout in television

The struggle between Disney and YouTube reflects television’s fast-shifting dynamics.

Disney has long entered carriage negotiations with tremendous leverage, in large part because it owns ESPN, which is a must-have channel for legions of sports fans.

Programmers, including Disney, structured their distribution contracts to expire near a pivotal programming event, such as a new season of NFL football. The timing motivated both sides to quickly reach a deal rather than risk alienating customers.

But for Google’s parent, Alphabet, YouTube TV is just a sliver of their business. The tech company generated $350 billion in revenue last year, the vast majority coming from Google search and advertising. That gives YouTube a longer leash to hold out for contract terms it finds acceptable.

“This dispute is not that painful for Google,” said analyst Richard Greenfield of LightShed Partners, noting that YouTube TV could probably withstand “two weekends without college football, and two weeks without ‘Monday Night Football’ — as long as their consumers stay with them.”

Disney, however, depends on TV advertising and pay-TV distribution fees. The week-long blackout has already dampened TV ratings, which means less revenue for the company.

Consumers like YouTube TV

For decades, throngs of consumers loathed their cable company — a sentiment that Disney and other programmers were able to use in their favor in past battles. Customer defections prompted several pay-TV companies to find a compromise to restore the darkened TV channels and stanch the subscriber bleeding.

But YouTube is banking on a more loyal user base, including millions of customers who switched to the service from higher-priced legacy providers.

“I’ll stick this thing out with YouTube TV,” Newton said, adding that he hoped the dispute didn’t drag on for weeks.

“This is one of the problems facing Disney,” Greenfield said. “It’s been a noticeable change in tone from past carriage fee battles. If customer losses stay at a minimum, then Disney is going to be in a tough place.”

It boils down to power and money

YouTube TV is the fastest-growing television service in the U.S. Analysts expect that, within a couple of years, YouTube TV will have more pay-TV customers than industry leaders Spectrum and Comcast.

In the current negotiations, Google has asked Disney to agree to lower its rates when YouTube TV surpasses Comcast’s and Spectrum’s subscriber counts. Disney maintains that YouTube already pays preferred rates, in recognition of its competitive standing, and that Google is trying to drive down the value of Disney’s networks.

“YouTube TV and its owner, Google … want to use their power and extraordinary resources to eliminate competition and devalue the very content that helped them build their service,” top Disney executives wrote last Friday in an email to their staff.

People close to YouTube TV reject the characterization, saying the service has been a valuable partner by providing a strong service that brings Disney billions of dollars a year in distribution revenue.

“The bottom line is that our channels are extremely valuable, and we can only continue to program them with the sports and entertainment viewers love most if we stand our ground,” the Disney executives wrote in last week’s email. “We are asking nothing more of YouTube TV than what we have gotten from every other distributor — fair rates for our channels.”

Higher sports rights fees

A major reason Disney is asking for higher fees is because it’s grappling with a huge escalation in sports costs.

Disney is on the hook to pay $2.6 billion a year to the NBA, another $2.7 billion annually to the NFL, and $325 million a year for the rights to stream World Wrestling Entertainment. Such sports rights contracts have nearly doubled in the last decade, leading to the strain on TV broadcasters.

In addition, deep-pocketed streaming services, including Amazon, Apple and Netflix, have jumped into sports broadcasting, driving up the cost for the legacy broadcasters.

The crowded field also strains the wallets of sports fans, and appears to be adding to the fatigue over the YouTube TV-Disney fight.

Newton wrote in a recent Twitter post that he was spending $400 a month for his various internet, phone and TV services, including Disney+ and NFL Sunday Ticket, which is distributed by YouTube TV.

“I’m already on all the major subscriptions to watch football these days,” Newton, a third-generation San Francisco 49ers fan, said. “You need Netflix. You need Peacock, you need Amazon Prime and the list goes on and on. I’m at the point where I’m not paying for anything else.”

Last week, HBO Max announced it raised its standard subscription by $1.50 to $18.49 a month — up 23% from when the streaming service launched five years ago amid the pandemic.

Such announcements have become almost routine in the television business as inflation hits streaming platforms that are under growing pressure to turn a profit and pay for higher programming costs.

Once seen as a cheaper alternative to cable, the cost of a streaming subscription for the top platforms continues to rise, much like higher prices for groceries, gasoline and housing.

In fact, the average price for subscriptions to the top 10 paid subscription streaming services in the U.S. increased 12% this year, following double-digit percentage increases per year since 2022, according to Victoria, British Columbia-based Convergence Research Group.

The research firm included streamers such as Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, Peacock, Apple TV and others in its data set. It factors subscriptions that are with ads or ad-free and does not take into account bundling. All of the major streaming services in the U.S. raised their prices on plans this year, except for Paramount+ and Amazon Prime Video, which boosted rates last year.

The price hikes reflect the tough economic realities of media companies that need to replace dwindling revenue from legacy pay TV channels that have seen sharp declines in viewership.

“The rest of their businesses have effectively been under attack by streaming and so they need this area to be profitable in order to compensate for the decline in their own businesses,” said Brahm Eiley, president of the Convergence Research Group. “It’s been tremendous pressure on them.”

Streaming services have been running as loss leaders for some time, said Tim Hanlon, chief executive of Vertere Group LLC, a media consulting firm.

“There’s no question that streaming is now under the gun to be its own profit center,” Hanlon said.

If rates go much higher, consumers may balk, experts said.

“The industry is playing a dangerous game by continuing to raise prices,” said Andrew Hare, senior vice president for the media research consultancy Magid. “We’re nearing a boiling point of rising churn and overwhelming choice.”

Magid has also already seen an uptick in the percentage of consumers who intend to cancel at least one streaming service in the next six months. The figure was 24% in the second quarter of 2025, up from 19% a year earlier.

“Hard as it is to imagine, the cable bundle is starting to look like a better value all the time,” Hare said.

Here is a look at which major streamers have raised prices on their ad-free streaming plans this year.

HBO Max

HBO Max raised prices across all of its plans. Its lowest-cost, ad-free streaming plan went up by $1.50 to $18.49 a month, while the annual version of that plan also increased $15 to $184.99.

HBO Max’s parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery, had 125.7 million global streaming subscribers in the second quarter, up 22% from a year earlier.

Like other streamers, HBO cited the need to help pay for quality content. The platform offers big-budget shows including drama “The Gilded Age” and “House of the Dragon,” which takes place in the “Game of Thrones” universe.

Consumers should brace themselves for more price hikes. Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said at a Goldman Sachs investors conference last month that he believes HBO Max is underpriced.

“We want a good deal for consumers, but I think over time there’s real opportunity, particularly for us in that quality area to raise prices,” Zaslav said.

Peacock

Big-time sports properties have been moving to streaming platforms and guess who is going to help foot the bill? Consumers, of course.

Ahead of becoming a major provider of NBA games this season, Peacock increased prices on its plans, including the premium plus ad-free streaming service, by $3 to $16.99 a month. That was the third price hike since Peacock launched in 2020, where its ad-free plan started at $9.99 a month.

The Comcast-owned streamer, which has 41 million paid subscribers, has weekly games on Mondays and Tuesdays and will have a Peacock exclusive NFL game on Dec. 27. Peacock next year will air the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics and continue to stream major sporting events such as NFL games.

In a July earnings call, Comcast Corp. President Mike Cavanagh touted how Peacock will have the most hours of live sports of any streamer next year.

Netflix

Netflix has also gotten into the sports business, with the addition of two NFL games on Christmas Day.

The streamer, which remains the industry juggernaut, is also expected to add Major League Baseball’s Home Run Derby and an opening night game when MLB finalizes a new media rights deal this year.

The company cited its entry into high-priced sports when it raised its prices on most of its plans, including on its cheapest ad-free monthly plan by $2.50 to $17.99 in the U.S. earlier this year.

“As we continue to invest in programming and deliver more value for our members, we will occasionally ask our members to pay a little more so that we can re-invest to further improve Netflix,” Netflix said in a letter to shareholders in January.

The slice of sports is coming at the expense of fans who need multiple subscriptions — if they want to keep up with every NFL game.

“A certain type of fan is starting to recognize they are being fleeced,” Hanlon said.

Higher prices on ad-free plans can help drive traffic to a streamer’s lowest-priced plans with ads. Netflix launched its subscription plan with ads in 2022 at $6.99 a month and it has only increased by a $1 to $7.99 a month since then in January 2025.

While many major streamers offer cheaper plans with ads, others offer free streaming services with ads such as the Roku Channel or Tubi.

A recent research study by Magid found that three-quarters of consumers are fine with watching commercials, if it saves them money.

Four in 10 said they’re “overwhelmed” by the number of services they use. The average number of streaming subscriptions per household in the third quarter is 4.6, up from 4.1 the previous year.

“Together, these trends point to a more value-driven streaming consumer seeking affordability and simplicity,” the study said.

Apple TV

Apple TV was once one of the lowest-priced subscription service plans, launching at $4.99 a month. Since then, prices for Apple’s video streaming service have increased to $12.99 a month, with its latest price jump of $3 in August.

The Cupertino-based company has been trying to make its streaming business more financially sound, but faces a formidable task as it has been a big spender in attracting name talent to its programs and movies.

When Apple TV first launched, it had just nine programs, but since then has expanded its library to include critically acclaimed shows and films including comedy “Ted Lasso,” drama “Severance” and “The Studio.”

Apple said in a statement that while it did raise its prices on its standard monthly ad-free plan, the cost of its annual subscription remains at $99 and Apple One bundled packages did not change.

Disney+

Last month, Disney+ announced it would increase the cost of its ad-free streaming plan by $3 to $18.99 a month. Hulu did not increase its price on its ad-free monthly streaming plan.

It was the fourth consecutive year the Burbank entertainment giant has boosted its streaming prices since launching Disney+ six years ago, when the service cost just $6.99 a month.

Despite the recent price hikes from Disney and others, Eiley from Convergence Research Group thinks there’s still room for customer growth.

At the end of last year, just 36% of U.S. households had a traditional TV subscription, compared with more than half of U.S. households in mid-2022, according to Convergence Research Group data. By the end of 2028, the research firm forecasts just 21% of households will have traditional TV subscriptions.

“There’s still a massive amount of cord cutting going on,” Eiley said.

Oct. 27 (UPI) — Australia’s consumer authority accused Microsoft of “deliberately” hiding subscription information from its Australian customer base.

On Monday, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission sued the software giant for allegedly misleading more than 2.5 million Australian users over subscriptions to Microsoft 365.

“Following a detailed investigation, the ACCC alleges that Microsoft deliberately hid this third option, to retain the old plan at the old price, in order to increase the uptake of Copilot and the increased revenue from the Copilot integrated plans,” stated ACCC Chair Gina Cass-Gottlieb.

Australia’s CCC launched its Microsoft inquiry after reports that Microsoft allegedly misled its customers about price increases and options over subscriptions following the integration of its “Copilot” AI tool.

It alleged that Microsoft told users a higher price must be paid to keep subscriptions, which was to include Microsoft’s Copilot, or be forced to cancel.

According to Cass-Gottlieb, the ACCC will seek a penalty to demonstrate that non-compliance with Australia’s consumer laws was “not just a cost of doing business.”

Microsoft said it was reviewing the Australian government’s claim, adding that consumer trust and transparency were “top priorities.”

Last year in December, British digital rights advocacy groups launched a billion-dollar lawsuit against Microsoft, alleging it overcharged clients of its Windows Server software used in cloud computing.

The United States, Canada and Australia partnered over the summer in a global probe to identify hackers who attacked a security flaw in Microsoft software to internationally infiltrate agencies and businesses.

In May, U.S.-based Microsoft revealed it was axing roughly 6,000 jobs in its global workforce.

“We remain committed to working constructively with the regulator and ensuring our practices meet all legal and ethical standards,” a Microsoft spokesperson told ABC News in Australia on Monday.

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday announced a plan to offer $11 insulin pens through the state’s pharmaceutical venture.

Beginning Jan. 1, consumers can purchase a five-pack of pens for a suggested price of $55, according to the governor’s office. The packs will be available to California pharmacies for $45.

California is the first state in the nation to sell its own brand of generic prescription drugs as Newsom and other state leaders seek ways to drive down rising healthcare costs.

Insulin users without health insurance today can pay $400 for a small vial.

Newsom, in a statement Thursday, said that Californians shouldn’t “ration insulin or go into debt to stay alive.”

“California didn’t wait for the pharmaceutical industry to do the right thing — we took matters into our own hands,” Newsom said.

Officials hope the drug will lower costs across the board, not just for the consumers ultimately picking up the drug. Major drug companies have also cut prices on insulin, but critics contend those cost savings are passed on to other consumers.

Earlier this week, Newsom signed legislation, Senate Bill 40, capping insulin co-pays at $35 for the first time in California.

“This law ensures no family will be forced to choose between buying insulin and putting food on the table in California again,” the bill’s author, Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), said in a statement.

Newsom, who vowed to be the “healthcare governor” during his campaign, in 2020 unveiled a proposal for California to make its own line of generic drugs.

Three years later, he announced a $50-million contract with the nonprofit generic drugmaker Civica to produce insulin under the state’s own label.

Earlier this year, the state began selling Naloxone, a medication that blocks the effects of opioids, at below market prices.

The Federal Reserve just cut interest rates. The goal was, basically, to protect the U.S. economy from falling into a recession.

Wall Street is expecting additional rate cuts from here, which could lead to positive outcomes for these three consumer goods companies. Each one comes with a different set of risks and potential rewards. Here’s why these stocks could be worth examining today, before more rate cuts are made.

Image source: Getty Images.

1. Target isn’t resonating with consumers right now

Target (TGT) is a large big box retailer, offering a range of products under one roof. It competes directly with Walmart (WMT 0.64%). That’s an important comparison point because Target is doing poorly right now and Walmart is doing quite well. To put numbers on that, Target’s same-store sales fell 1.9% in the second quarter of 2025 while Walmart’s same store sales rose 4.6% in its U.S. locations.

The big difference is that Target’s business model is to offer a more premium experience, while Walmart is squarely about its everyday low prices ethos. Consumers worried about the economy and inflation, which The Motley Fool’s research shows can ravage the buying power of the dollar, appear to be voting with their feet. However, if Federal Reserve rate cuts lead to a growth uptick, consumers could trade back up to Target.

Just such a shift has happened before, so expecting it to happen again isn’t a big stretch in a sector driven by consumer sentiment. That said, Target’s shares are down more than 40% from their 52-week high, making them look relatively cheap. And the Dividend King is offering an attractive 5% yield that’s backed by over five decades of annual dividend increases.

2. Lululemon is a luxury basics clothing retailer

The story around Lululemon (LULU -0.75%) is roughly similar to that of Target. Lululemon makes athletic wear basics. However, the cost of these basics is very high, so it is really a luxury retailer. To be fair, there’s a fashion twist here and the company has made past design missteps that can’t be ignored. But overall, it has been on trend more than it has been off trend.

But one thing Lululemon can’t control is the swings in the economy and how customers react to those swings. The company’s second quarter results weren’t bad if you take a top-level view of the income statement, with revenues up 7% and same-store sales up 1%. But that was entirely driven by international growth, with sales up just 1% in the Americas and same store sales off by 4%.

It clearly looks like consumers in the Americas are pulling back on what are really discretionary purchases, despite the basic nature of the items. If rate cuts make consumers more confident in the economy again, that trend could change. With the stock down more than 50% from its 52-week high, there could be some turnaround appeal here for more aggressive investors.

3. Coca-Cola is boring and doing fairly well

Coca-Cola (KO -0.83%), the last stock up on this list, is appropriate for conservative investors. The shares are only down around 10% from their 52-week highs. But that’s enough to have pushed the stock’s price-to-sales and price-to-earnings ratios below their five-year averages. It wouldn’t be fair to suggest that Coca-Cola is trading hands at fire-sale prices, but it does appear fairly priced to a little cheap. The stock doesn’t go on sale very often, so this could be a good opportunity for long-term investors who place a high value on dividends.

On the dividend front, the beverage giant is a Dividend King with over six decades of annual dividend increases behind it. The yield is notably above the market at nearly 3.1%. And it is one of the largest and best-run consumer staples companies on the planet. If you are risk averse, Coca-Cola is a solid option. And economic growth driven by rate cuts could make it that much easier for consumers to justify splurging on what is basically very expensive water.

There’s plenty of benefit to go around from rate cuts

Federal Reserve rate cuts are a bit of a blunt instrument when it comes to impacting the economy. But they can be very effective at freeing up capital for investment. If there are more rate cuts to come, as Wall Street seems to expect, Target, Lululemon, and Coca-Cola could all benefit if the outcome is continued, if not stronger, economic growth. The upside at Target and Lululemon is more material, but Coca-Cola shows that even the most conservative investors can get in on the rate-cut investment opportunity.

Sept. 26 (UPI) — Core inflation stayed about the same in August, the Federal Reserve said, and personal consumption expenditures had a 0.3% gain for the month.

The personal consumption expenditures price index rise made the annual headline inflation rate 2.7%, which is the inflation over last year, the Commerce Department reported.

The core inflation rate is at 2.9%. It rose 0.2% for the month.

Meanwhile, consumer sentiment fell to 55.1, the University of Michigan said in a survey released Friday. The report was the seventh-lowest on record since 1952.

The pessimism stems from fears of higher inflation, which could get worse. On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced new tariffs on trucks, cabinets and pharmaceuticals.

Americans are now also becoming nervous about the labor market.

“Consumers continue to express frustration over the persistence of high prices, with 44% spontaneously mentioning that high prices are eroding their personal finances, the highest reading in a year,” Joanne Hsu, the Michigan survey’s director, said in a release.

“Interviews this month highlight the fact that consumers feel pressure both from the prospect of higher inflation as well as the risk of weaker labor markets,” she said.

Consumer spending is still going strong. Personal consumption expenditures climbed 0.6% in August from the previous month, the Commerce Department said Friday.

After adjusting for inflation, spending rose 0.4% last month. The personal saving rate, which is personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income, was 4.6%.

“Recent data show consumers resumed spending over the summer, especially those with higher incomes. And why wouldn’t they? Unemployment is still low, nominal wages are still increasing and asset valuations are near all-time highs,” CNN reported Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin said Friday at an event in Washington, D.C.

Stock market futures rose after the report, while Treasury yields dipped, CNBC reported.

“Net, net, consumers literally hit it out of the park with very strong gains in spending not just for August, but June and July as well,” Chris Rupkey, chief economist at Fwdbonds, told CNBC.

“Summer was the time for consumer revenge spending after hunkering down in retreat from the shops and malls during the uncertainty and fear produced by the White House tariff rollout in April and May.”

Sept. 8 (UPI) — Whaleco Inc., operating as Temu, has been ordered by a federal court to pay a $2 million civil fine for violating federal law regarding its online marketplace, the U.S. Department of Justice said Monday.

The private U.S.-registered company, which mainly sells products from China, had the most downloaded app in the United States in 2024, according to Business of Apps. The company also sells products to customers in 90 countries.

DOJ and the Federal Trade Commission filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts alleging Temu didn’t sufficiently disclose certain information for high-volume third-party sellers, including addresses, or provide consistent reporting methods as required by law. This included consumers’ ability to electronically and telephonically report suspicious activity to the marketplace.

The agencies said they violated the INFORM Consumers Act.

“The Justice Department is committed to ensuring American consumers have information about third-party sellers online and mechanisms to report suspicious marketplace behavior,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of DOJ’s Civil Division said in a statement. “The Department will continue to ensure that online marketplaces follow the INFORM Consumers Act.”

Temu also was ordered to ensure compliance with the INFORM Consumers Act in the future.

Temu, which means “Team Up, Price Down,” was founded as Whaleco Inc. in Boston in 2022.

It is a subsidiary of PDD Holdings, a Chinese online retailer owned by Colin Huang. PDD Holdings also owns Pinduoduo, an online commerce platform in China.

In July, the European Commission charged Temu with breaking the EU’s Digital Services Act by failing to prevent the sale of usnafe products that violate its standards.

In an analysis, the European Commission found that shopping on Temu carries a high risk of finding unsafe products, such as small toys and small electronics.

In the EU, companies can be fined up to 6% of their annual total worldwide turnover.

Temu, with an estimated annual revenue of $53.9 billion in 2024, competes with Amazon, the No. 1 online retailer in the world with $391.4 billion in revenue last year.

“Temu is committed to bringing affordable products onto its platform to enable consumers and merchandise partners to fulfill their dreams in an inclusive environment,” the company said on its website.

Temu and another online retailer, Shein, have been hit by tariffs imposed on imports into the United States.

“Due to recent changes in global trade rules and tariffs, our operating expenses have gone up. To keep offering the products you love without compromising on quality, we will be making price adjustment starting April 25, 2025,” Temu said in a statement to U.S. shoppers.

That was in late April when there was a 145% duty on Chinese imports. The Trump administration has since lowered them temporarily to 10%. The pause is until Nov. 10.

Underdog conservative channel Newsmax is challenging Rupert Murdoch’s dominant Fox News in court.

Newsmax sued Fox News parent firm Fox Corp. Wednesday, accusing Murdoch’s television company of anti-competitive behavior designed to squeeze rivals to maintain its “unlawful monopolization of the Right-leaning Pay TV News Market.”

Fox has “engaged in an exclusionary scheme to increase and maintain its dominance in the market … resulting in suppression of competition in that market that harms consumers, competition and Newsmax Broadcasting,” the Boca Raton, Fla., firm said in its federal lawsuit filed in Miami.

Politically conservative news is big business, and Murdoch has mined that lucrative niche since launching Fox News in 1996 with network architect Roger Ailes. Newsmax launched as an alternative nearly two decades later, in 2014. By that time, Fox News was well established as the go-to outlet for Republicans and other political conservatives.

In its 31-page complaint, Newsmax accused Fox of using its market clout to discourage pay-TV distributors from carrying or promoting Newsmax and other rival conservative news outlets. Fox allegedly imposed “financial penalties on distributors if they carry Newsmax” in basic cable packages, and other obstacles, including charging higher fees or requiring carriage of “little-watched channels like Fox Business,” according to the lawsuit.

“But for Fox’s anticompetitive behavior, Newsmax would have achieved greater pay TV distribution, seen its audience and ratings grow sooner, gained earlier ‘critical mass’ for major advertisers and become, overall, a more valuable media property,” Newsmax said in its lawsuit.

Newsmax became a publicly traded company earlier this year. It raised $75 million through its initial public offering, but its stock, which entered the market at about $83 a share, closed Wednesday down nearly 1% to $13.86.

Fox News scoffed at the lawsuit.

“Newsmax cannot sue their way out of their own competitive failures in the marketplace to chase headlines simply because they can’t attract viewers,” the network said in a statement.

Newsmax, in its complaint, argued that Fox throws its weight around when striking deals with digital media platforms, including Hulu + Live TV, DirecTV+, Sling TV and YouTube TV, which now make up about 30% of the pay-TV market. As a result, some pay-TV providers have little incentive to carry or promote Newsmax, the lawsuit alleges.

Fox’s commanding position has allowed the company to extract “supra-competitive carriage fees,” according to Newsmax. Fox charges pay-TV distributors nearly $2.20 per subscriber per month to carry Fox News. That’s double CNN’s fees and about six times MSNBC’s carriage fee, Newsmax said.

“These inflated costs have been or likely will be passed on to consumers,” Newsmax said in a statement.

Fox News consistently beats CNN and MSNBC in the Nielsen ratings. It was the No. 1 traditional TV network overall in July, beating ABC, NBC and CBS, according to Nielsen.

Newsmax also alleged Fox News resorts to intimidation campaigns, including pressuring guests not to appear on Newsmax. “It also hired private investigators targeting Newsmax executives to damage the company’s credibility,” according to a Newsmax statement.

Newsmax, in its lawsuit, contends the market is not the universe of cable news channels, including CNN and MSNBC. Instead, it contends the politically conservative news space is a market unto itself, controlled almost entirely by Fox.

“Right-leaning pay TV news has been a cornerstone of American television, drawing tens of millions of viewers who identify with, or prefer, right-leaning perspectives on politics, current events, and cultural debates,” the Newsmax lawsuit said.

“A large segment of consumers of political news and media seeks news, commentary, and analysis that aligns with or speaks to their political viewpoints,” the lawsuit said. “These right-leaning viewers treat other right-leaning news channels as their next best substitute — and do not consider left-leaning news outlets as adequate substitutes for right-leaning news channels.”

Newsmax is seeking a jury trial and unspecified financial damages. It also wants a judge to declare Fox’s conduct unlawful under the Sherman Act and Florida’s anti-competition laws and prevent Fox from striking exclusionary contracts.

“This lawsuit is about restoring fairness to the market and ensuring that Americans have real choice in the news they watch,” Newsmax Chief Executive Christopher Ruddy said in a statement.

Walmart will soon expand its streaming offerings to its subscription members, with the retail giant announcing a new partnership with NBCUniversal’s Peacock on Monday.

Starting Sept. 15, Walmart+ subscribers can choose to receive ad-supported versions of Peacock Premium or Paramount+ as part of their membership. Every 90 days, Walmart+ members can switch between the two services.

“The additional option of Peacock Premium adds even more value and more choice to our membership, without raising the price,” said Deepak Maini, senior vice president of Walmart+, in a statement. “This is just one of the many ways we’re evolving Walmart+ to meet the needs and wants of today’s consumer.”

The move could appeal to consumers who feel overwhelmed by the different streaming choices and give them a chance to sample what each platform offers without dealing with additional cost.

Walmart+, which charges $98 for an annual plan, includes free shipping, free same-day delivery on groceries and prescriptions, gas discounts and other benefits. Adding more streaming content could help Bentonville, Ark.-based Walmart compete with Amazon Prime, though Walmart does not invest in original content, unlike the Seattle e-commerce behemoth.

Walmart declined to say how many people subscribe to Walmart+.

In 2020, Walmart launched Walmart+, which competes with Amazon’s $139 annual Prime membership. Prime offers perks such as free shipping and streaming series such as “The Summer I Turned Pretty” and “Reacher,” action movie “The Pickup” and NFL football games.

Last week, Amazon announced that Peacock Premium Plus, the streaming service’s ad-free version, would be available on Prime Video for an additional fee, along with 100 other subscription options in the U.S. Amazon also said it had a multiyear deal for the Peacock app to be available on its Fire TV in the U.S.

Walmart has had a spotty track record on its own streaming efforts and currently does not have its own streaming service or produce its own originals. In 2010, Walmart purchased video-on-demand service Vudu and in 2018 partnered with MGM to create original programming for the platform. The retailer later sold Vudu to Fandango in 2020.

Before that, Walmart launched a web store to sell movie and TV show downloads but shut it down in less than a year after its partner, Hewlett-Packard Co., discontinued the technology for the site after it underperformed.

The Motley Fool just updated its report on the 10 largest consumer staple companies. You probably know every name on the list, which includes retail giants like Walmart (NYSE: WMT), product makers like Procter & Gamble (NYSE: PG), and tobacco companies like Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM). Also on that list is a Dividend King food and beverage company that has a historically high yield. Here’s why it could be the best opportunity for investors today.

What does PepsiCo do?

To get right to the crux of the topic, PepsiCo (PEP 1.12%) is the company in question. It sits at No. 7 on the list of the largest consumer staple companies, with a market cap of around $200 billion. It is one of three beverage makers on the list, the other two being Coca-Cola (KO 0.94%) at No. 4 and Anheuser-Busch InBev (NYSE: BUD) at No. 10.

Image source: Getty Images.

Unlike those other two, however, PepsiCo’s business extends well beyond beverages. It also has leading positions in the salty snack (Frito-Lay) and packaged food (Quaker Oats) segments of the sector. It is one of the most diversified companies on the top-10 list. Only Unilever (NYSE: UL), which makes household products and food, has a similar degree of diversification.

PepsiCo, meanwhile, stands toe to toe with every company on the list with regard to name recognition. For more direct peers, those that manage brands and are not retailers, it can compete equally on distribution, marketing, and product development. And, like all the other names on the list, PepsiCo is large enough to act as an industry consolidator, buying smaller companies to round out its brand portfolio and keep up with consumers’ buying habits.

The proof of the business’s strength and resilience is best highlighted by the fact that PepsiCo is a Dividend King. It has increased its dividend annually for 53 consecutive years, which is not something a company can achieve if it doesn’t have a strong business model that gets executed well in both good times and bad. For reference, other Dividend Kings on the list include Walmart, Coca-Cola, and Procter & Gamble.

WMT data by YCharts.

This is not a good time for PepsiCo 

Among the sub-grouping of large consumer staples companies that are also Dividend Kings, PepsiCo has been the laggard in recent years. To put a number on that, PepsiCo’s 2.1% organic sales growth in the second quarter was less than half the 5% growth of Coca-Cola, its closest peer. No wonder PepsiCo’s stock is down more than 20% from its 2023 highs, the worst result from the Dividend Kings grouping. That also puts PepsiCo into its own personal bear market.

However, the market’s negative view of PepsiCo could be an opportunity for long-term dividend investors. For starters, history suggests that PepsiCo will muddle through this rough patch, as it has done many times before. Second, the company is already making moves to improve performance, including buying a Mexican-American food maker and a probiotic beverage company. Third, falling share price has pushed its dividend yield up to 3.8%, which is toward the high end of the stock’s historical yield range.

That last point suggests that PepsiCo stock is cheap right now. This view is backed up by the fact that the company’s price-to-sales and price-to-book-value ratios are both well below their five-year averages. The company’s price-to-earnings ratio is sitting around the longer-term average. This is an opportunity if you think in decades and not days.

The time to jump is now

The interesting thing here is that PepsiCo is actually the best-performing stock on the top 10 list over the past three months. It seems investors are beginning to recognize the potential. But given how far the stock has fallen, it is still flying under the radar a bit. If you like owning Dividend Kings with reliable businesses, PepsiCo can still be an attractive long-term investment to add to your portfolio… if you act quickly.

People in L.A. and New York better get ready for a sea of ESPN red on their morning and evening commutes.

Walt Disney Co.’s is backing the Thursday launch of its sports media unit’s direct-to-consumer streaming app with a major advertising campaign aimed at captive audiences in their cars and on the railway tracks.

The aggressive four-week push is aimed at telling consumers that ESPN — long one of the pillars of the cable television business — will be available for the first time without a pay TV subscription.

The service, a major initiative since ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro took over the Disney unit in 2018, is a response to the growing number of consumers who are bypassing cable and satellite for streaming video platforms. The trend has decreased the number of pay TV homes receiving ESPN, which is a major source of revenue for the company.

ESPN ad on a Cadillac SUV used for Lyft.

(ESPN)

Consumers can subscribe to the new ESPN streaming app for $29.99 a month. Households already paying to receive ESPN channels through cable or satellite can sign up at no additional cost, enabling up to five people to stream the service on mobile devices and internet-connected TV sets.

“We designed our campaign exactly as we designed our product, which is to serve sports fans anytime, anywhere,” Jo Fox, executive vice president of marketing for ESPN, said in a recent interview. “So we want to make sure we are showing up in as many places as possible.”

The advertising campaign that starts Thursday will feature Lyft-operated Cadillac SUVs wrapped in the company logo and the promotional campaign’s tagline “All of ESPN. All in One Place.”

The vehicles will be concentrated in high-traffic areas near sporting events in Los Angeles and New York, where the U.S. Open tennis tournament will soon begin. The ESPN brand name and logo will also appear on the Lyft app and maps.

Mass transit users won’t be left out, as ESPN will take over the E Line of the New York City subway that travels from the World Trade Center to Queens. The exterior of the train cars will be covered with logos while more specific ad messages will appear on the inside.

The public address announcements at the Spring Street subway station — located near Disney’s downtown Manhattan headquarters — will be delivered by ESPN’s voluble $20-million-a-year man Stephen A. Smith, the co-host of “First Take.”

Signage will also take over electronic screens in New York’s Moynihan Train Hall and Port Authority Bus Terminal and billboards along L.A.’s Sunset Boulevard and adjacent to SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.

ESPN’s campaign will go beyond the major media centers on the coasts. The streaming service will be featured on TV screens in the home entertainment sections in 4,000 Walmart stores across the country.

ESPN also has a deal with Samsung, which will offer free yearlong subscriptions to the streaming service to customers who purchase a QLED 4K TV at Best Buy or Samsung.com. Best Buy stores will feature the ESPN app in stores as well during the promotion.

ESPN has already been touting its streaming service on air and in paid TV media buys with commercials featuring actor and WWE star John Cena. Cena will soon be an ESPN fixture as the streaming service becomes the new home of major WWE events such as WrestleMania and Royal Rumble, starting in 2026.

The ESPN app will include a number of features that will complement the live sports offerings. Fans will be able to create their own personalized “SportsCenter,” which will use artificial intelligence to provide a short personalized highlight program geared to the user’s favorite teams and events.

NBC Sports pioneered the customized highlight show on its Peacock streaming platform during the 2024 Summer Olympics, using the voice of Al Michaels. The voices of ESPN “SportsCenter” hosts will be used on “SportsCenter for You.”

The app will also offer stats, betting, commerce and fantasy sports information alongside the live game coverage shown on ESPN channels.

WASHINGTON — Alana Voechting, a 27-year-old nursing student, had never heard of Klarna when she noticed its bright pink logo while checking out at Sephora.com with $165 in skin care products.

Mounting medical debts from chronic health conditions left Voechting with money problems, so she was thrilled to learn the app would allow her to break the purchase price into four installments over six weeks — with no interest, fees or credit inquiries to ding her already subpar credit score.

“It’s like your brain thinks, ‘Oh, I’m getting this product for cheap,’ because you really only look at that first payment, and after that you kind of forget about it,” she said. “So psychologically, it feels like you’re spending so much less when you’re not.”

Soon Voechting began regularly using not just Klarna but also similar services, including Quadpay and Affirm, to buy makeup, clothing, airline tickets and expensive lounge wear she acknowledged she “would not have purchased otherwise.”

Voechting is one of millions of young Americans with scant or subprime credit histories who are using so-called buy-now-pay-later apps every month.

The smartphone-based services are an updated version of the old layaway plan, except users can do it all on their phones and — most appealingly — get their purchase immediately rather than having to wait until they’ve paid for it.

The companies act as intermediaries between retailers and consumers, making most of their profit by charging merchants 2% to 8% of the purchase price, similar to the retailer fees levied by credit card companies.

The apps are taking off among millennials and Generation Z consumers attracted by the ability to bypass traditional credit cards and still delay payments with no interest.

Retailers such as Macy’s and H&M have jumped to partner with the services, which soared in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Roughly 42% of Americans report using the apps at least once, according to a Credit Karma survey from February.

U.S. regulators are taking a wait-and-see approach, saying they don’t want to stifle a new financial product that could help consumers who might otherwise fall into predatory lending schemes.

But regulators in Europe and Australia, where many of the companies first launched, are increasingly concerned the apps are extending credit irresponsibly.

Using celebrities such as A$AP Rocky and Keke Palmer to portray the services as a hip alternative to the “gotcha” fine print of credit cards, the apps could promote overborrowing in a generation already struggling with high debt and poor credit, consumer advocates warn.

And despite claims that users’ credit ratings won’t be affected and that there are no hidden fees, experts say consumers can still face late charges, overdraft fees and debt collection. Some apps, such as Quadpay, charge a $1 transaction fee on every payment made, regardless of the amount.

“It sounds too good to be true, and it is, in many ways, because there are perils for people who use this,” said Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog.

The apps offer different repayment options, but the most common links to a user’s debit card and makes automatic withdrawals every two weeks. Problems quickly arise when there is not enough money in the account, potentially resulting in charges by both the user’s bank and the app.

Voechting said that for the most part she has been able to control her spending and keep track of when her payments will be withdrawn, a challenge when dealing with multiple purchases and multiple apps.

But this year, she missed a payment with Quadpay on a $120 order from Beautycounter because she failed to change her payment information in the app after receiving a new debit card.

Sixty days later, she was informed the installment would go to collections unless she paid off the full remaining balance of $54, plus a $10 late fee. Voechting promptly gathered the money, fearing more damage to her credit.

Services boast that users’ activity and debt are not regularly reported to major credit bureaus. That’s appealing to consumers under pressure or already cut off from traditional lenders.

But not reporting on-time payments also means that users don’t see their credit scores increase as they demonstrate a track record of responsible borrowing, a crucial hurdle for younger consumers.

And the apps may report missed or late payments for some payment plans, which can hurt users’ credit scores, according to a clause buried deep in terms and conditions agreements for Quadpay, Affirm and Klarna.

The Credit Karma survey found about 38% of buy-now-pay-later customers had missed at least one payment, and 72% of those users reported seeing their credit score drop afterward, though many factors can cause fluctuations.

Buy-now-pay-later users also don’t benefit from many protections applied to credit cards.

For instance, if a credit card company refuses to offer credit to a potential customer, it must disclose why the application was declined. No such rules apply to the apps, which authorize every purchase on a case-by-case basis. That means users have no assurance a transaction will be approved.

“They don’t know what the issue is,” said Angela Hunt, 31, of Hampton, Va., part of a Facebook group devoted to Klarna, in which members frequently complain they are denied approval for purchases in a seemingly random manner.

App users also don’t enjoy the same billing-dispute protections they would with other payment methods, so returning merchandise, resolving fraudulent charges and requesting refunds can be difficult.

In January, Brittany Conn, 30, was moving into a new apartment in Melbourne, Fla., and used Klarna on Wayfair to buy a bed frame, headboard and bookcase for $450.

The bookcase never arrived, so she reached out to Klarna to get a partial refund. Multiple agents promised a supervisor would contact her, but the call never came. When she tried to publicly request help on Klarna’s Facebook page, she said, her comments were deleted.

If Conn had made her purchase with a credit card, the lender would have been forced to respond immediately, launch an investigation and explain its final determination within two billing cycles. During the process, she would be entitled to withhold payment on the disputed amount.

It took Conn, who works in customer service, nearly two months and many emails and online chats to get her money back. She filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

“It was just an uphill battle, just email after email and chat after chat, and it got to a point where my chats weren’t being answered anymore,” she said.

According to the Better Business Bureau, Klarna — the largest buy-now-pay-later app in the U.S. with 15 million customers in 2020 — received 676 complaints in the last 12 months.

Quadpay received 979. Affirm had 227, and Afterpay and Sezzle saw more than 100 complaints each.

By comparison, Discover, a well-established credit card brand with more than 55 million customers, saw 532 complaints with the Better Business Bureau in the same period.

The rise in users — and complaints — has brought more scrutiny to the apps.

Credit card giant Capital One barred its customers worldwide last year from linking its cards to fund buy-now-pay-later purchases, citing the lack of consumer protections.

Class-action lawsuits in California, Connecticut and New York allege plaintiffs suffered from large bank overdraft fees due to automatic withdrawals, undisclosed late fees and deceptive marketing.

Consumer complaints prompted regulators in other countries to crack down. Sweden enacted a law last year that bans online checkout portals from making the apps the default payment option.

Australian financial experts wrote a report in November that found 20% of app users surveyed “cut back on or went without essentials” to make their payments on time. The United Kingdom released a nearly 70-page report in February concluding that “urgent and timely” regulatory changes were needed.

U.S. regulators say they are aware of the services but are exercising caution.

“We’re really interested in use cases of buy-now-pay-later where perhaps a consumer that would otherwise go to a payday lender and pay a very high cost for a loan might be able to use it,” said John McNamara, principal assistant director of markets at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

In July, the CFPB released a blog post titled “Should you buy now and pay later?” warning consumers that the apps can charge late fees, report to credit bureaus and do not offer the same protections as other credit products.

Laura Udis, who manages installment loan programs at the CFPB, said the apps are subject to the Dodd-Frank act, passed in 2010 after the subprime mortgage crisis to prevent unfair, deceptive and abusive practices by lenders. She said the law “should be flexible enough to apply to any particular credit situation, including new innovations like buy-now-pay-later.”

But the services have found loopholes in regulation.

For instance, the Truth in Lending Act, which requires lenders disclose the terms and costs of services, states that payment plans of fewer than five installments are not subject to ad disclosure requirements as long as they avoid certain terms.

Consumer advocates say that explains why many apps are structured as four installments. And the companies help merchants avoid terminology that would trigger greater disclosures.

Affirm offers its merchant partners a guide. Quadpay has a variety of promotions for merchants to download that won’t trigger disclosures.

An advertisement for Afterpay and United Kingdom-based retailer Boohoo at a company-sponsored party.

(Caroline McCredie / Getty Images )

An Affirm spokesperson said the company provides information to users at checkout, including disclosures that would be required by the Truth in Lending Act, to ensure customers are informed. A Quadpay spokesperson said the company makes “every effort to help consumers by providing fair, flexible and transparent payment terms.”

Ira Rheingold, executive director of the National Assn. of Consumer Advocates, said it may take time for regulators to sort out how lending laws apply to the services, and whether new ones are needed.

“I think there are different ways that regulators can deal with them,” he said. “And I think that there’s some places where they’ll be far behind and some places where they won’t be.”

Lawmakers show no signs of getting involved. Spokespeople for multiple congressional committees said they were not considering regulating the apps.

California’s regulators are among the few U.S. watchdogs that have taken substantive actions against the services. In 2019, the state’s Department of Business Oversight, now the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, sued Sezzle, Afterpay, Quadpay and Klarna for making illegal loans.

Each of the companies ultimately settled and had to get licensed, refund fees collected from Californians and pay fines.

“Today, the buy-now-pay-later companies we license in California are required to take into consideration a borrower’s ability to repay the loan and are subject to strict rate and fee caps,” department spokesperson Maria Luisa Cesar said.

As regulators and lawmakers determine how best to keep up with the growth of the apps, their popularity endures. Voechting, Hunt and Conn all said they will continue to use them.

“It’s kind of nice to be able to say, ‘Oh, you know, I can’t afford to buy this right upfront, but I can split it up into four payments and afford it that way,’” Conn said.

Before the apps, Conn would spend weeks saving money for special purchases. The apps allow her to get products immediately.

Said Conn: “Why not just buy it?”

Walt Disney Co. is expected to announce that the NFL is taking an equity stake in the Burbank-based entertainment giant’s sports media property ESPN, according to people familiar with the plan who were not authorized to comment publicly.

Disney may reveal the deal during its earnings call Wednesday. Representatives at the NFL and ESPN declined comment Friday.

In return for the equity stake, ESPN is expected, at minimum, to take over the NFL’s cable properties including the NFL Network and Red Zone, the popular channel that continuously updates fans on the slate of Sunday contests. The NFL Network also has the rights to several regular season games late in the season.

In addition, the NFL owns the league’s production unit, NFL Films, and NFL+, the streaming service that enables subscribers to watch games and other related content on mobile devices.

ESPN has the broadcast rights to “Monday Night Football” and two Super Bowl games in the current NFL contract that runs through 2033 but is expected to be reopened in 2029. The impending deal with Disney means the NFL’s other partners — Fox, NBC, CBS, YouTube and Amazon — will be bidding against an entity that the league has a financial interest in next time the media rights come up.

Discussions between the NFL and Disney have been ongoing for more than 18 months as concerns heightened about the viability of ESPN when consumers continue to bypass or cancel pay TV subscriptions.

The NFL accounts for the vast majority of most-watched programming on U.S. television screens every year, according to Nielsen. But as the TV business has been fragmented and disrupted by streaming, there are even more competitors wanting their own package of pro football games.

In 2022, the NFL awarded the rights to its Sunday Ticket package to Google’s YouTube TV. The seven-year deal for the package, which gives viewers access to out-of-market network TV broadcasts of the league’s Sunday afternoon games, underscored the migration of younger viewers to streaming platforms for video viewing.

Netflix, the world’s largest subscriber-based online video service, has the rights to Christmas Day games, which last year drew tens of million of viewers to the streamer, which has been building up its live programming business.

ESPN has long been the most expensive part of the pay TV bundle, currently getting close to $9 per subscriber. It is now in around 73 million homes, down from 98.5 million in 2013.

Traditional television is losing ground to streaming. Earlier this year, Nielsen reported that TV consumption through streaming services had exceeded broadcast and cable viewing combined for the first time.

ESPN is adapting to the streaming landscape, launching its first stand-alone direct-to-consumer product that will give consumers access to all of its channels without a pay TV subscription. The service will cost $29.99 a month.

TV ratings for ESPN have improved and ad sales have remained strong as advertisers value audiences who watch live programming.

Disney’s stock price fell about 2% to $116.59 on Friday as the broader markets absorbed the pain of President Trump’s new tariffs and weak jobs data.

ESPN is run by Jimmy Pitaro, who has been considered a potential internal candidate to replace Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger when he retires at the end of next year. Disney’s share price has risen 5% so far this year.

July 23 (UPI) — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed the Trump administration to remove three members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission as the case proceeds through the courts in another emergency appeal on firings backed by the conservative-dominated court.

The court, in a 6-3 opinion along ideological lines, ruled in a lawsuit brought by Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Richard Trumka Jr., who were nominated by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

In a dissent by Justice Elena Kagan, joined by fellow liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, she said the court majority decided on the emergency appeal to “destroy the independence of an independent agency, as established by Congress.”

The majority opinion was unsigned and based upon an earlier 6-3 order that allowed the dismissal of two independent labor boards in Trump vs. Wilcox: the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board.

“Although our interim orders are not conclusive as to the merits, they inform how a court should exercise its equitable discretion in like cases,” the court ruled. “The stay we issued in Wilcox reflected ‘our judgment that the government faces greater risk of harm from an order allowing a removed officer to continue exercising the executive power than a wrongfully removed officer faces from being unable to perform her statutory duty.’

“The same is true on the facts presented here, where the Consumer Product Safety Commission exercises executive power in a similar manner as the National Labor Relations Board, and the case does not otherwise differ from Wilcox in any pertinent respect.”

The order is stayed pending disposition by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va. On July 1, the three-judge panel rejected Trump’s request for an administrative stay pending appeal.

“Congress lawfully constrained the President’s removal authority, and no court has found that constraint unconstitutional,” the appeals court said. “The district court correctly declined to permit a President — any President — to disregard those limits.”

District Judge Matthew Maddox found on June 13 that Trump’s removal was unlawful and blocked it. Maddox, who serves in Maryland, was appointed by President Joe Biden.

“Depriving this five-member commission of three of its sitting members threatens severe impairment of its ability to fulfill its statutory mandates and advance the public’s interest in safe consumer products,” Maddox wrote in his decision. “This hardship and threat to public safety significantly outweighs any hardship defendants might suffer from plaintiffs’ participation on the CPSC.”

The terms of the five members are staggered to overlap during presidencies.

Boyle’s term was to end in October after filling a vacancy in 2022, with Hoehn-Saric in October 2027 and Trumka in October 2028. The board consists of five members, and they are operating as a two-member quorum, which is allowed for six months.

The remaining members are Acting Chairman Peter Feldman, who was appointed by Trump during his first term, and Republican Douglas Dziak, who was appointed by Biden in 2024.

Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in a court ruling that Maddox’s decision has “sown chaos and dysfunction” at the agency.

In May, the three commissioners were notified their positions were terminated immediately. A president can legally only remove a commissioner for neglect of duty of malfeasance.

The court has allowed the termination of employees as the cases proceed through the courts.

Lower court judges have relied on a decision in 1935, called Humphrey’s Executor vs. United States, about the mass firings. The Supreme Court has said it will act on this matter.

On July 14, the justices allowed the Trump administration to mass fire half of the Education Department. Trump wants the agency abolished, and the court has not ruled on that decision, which requires a vote by the U.S. Senate.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which was created in 1972, protects consumers from dangerous products, including issuing safety standards and recalls.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat representing Minnesota, criticized the decision, saying: “For over 50 years, the Consumer Product Safety Commission has been free from politics so it can remain focused on its core mission of keeping Americans safe – from banning lead paint, to ensuring electronics aren’t fire hazards, to making swimming pools safe for kids. Last year alone, the Commission recalled 153 million unsafe items.”

“By firing the three Democratic commissioners, the President has undermined the independent structure of the Commission and its critical work — and the Supreme Court is letting it happen,” added the member of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.

The nation’s highest court has frequently ruled in favour of Trump’s expansive interpretation of presidential powers.

The United States Supreme Court has ruled that President Donald Trump can remove three Democratic members of a consumer safety watchdog, handing him a win in his efforts to concentrate more power in the hands of the executive.

The court’s decision allows Trump to boot three members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission appointed by his Democratic predecessor, former President Joe Biden.

That ruling reverses a lower court decision barring Trump from doing so, on the basis that he had overstepped his authority by seeking their removals.

Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Richard Trumka Jr had sued the Trump administration in May after being terminated from the Consumer Product Safety Commission, an independent body created by Congress.

Their seven-year terms were set to expire in 2025, 2027 and 2028, respectively.

In their lawsuit, they argued that Trump had exceeded his powers as president by firing them without cause. A 90-year-old Supreme Court precedent known as Humphrey’s Executor holds that the president cannot fire members of an independent board without providing a legitimate justification.

The commission members also said that their firing would deprive the public of vital expertise and oversight.

The Department of Justice, however, has maintained that preventing the president from firing members of the executive branch undercuts his constitutional authority.

Even independent agencies like the Consumer Product Safety Commission fall under the executive branch, the Justice Department pointed out.

The Trump administration’s argument was dealt a defeat on July 2, when US District Judge Matthew Maddox issued an order blocking the dismissal of the three Democratic appointees while their case proceeded.

But Trump’s Justice Department made an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, whose conservative majority sided with the president in a brief, unsigned order.

The majority wrote that the government risked greater harm by allowing fired employees to remain in the executive branch than by removing them, even wrongfully, while their court cases proceeded.

The court’s three left-leaning justices, however, issued a dissent that denounced the ruling as an erosion of the separation of powers. Justice Elena Kagan pointed out that the Consumer Product Safety Commission was created by an act of Congress and answers both to the legislature and the president.

“By allowing the President to remove Commissioners for no reason other than their party affiliation, the majority has negated Congress’s choice of agency bipartisanship and independence,” Kagan wrote.

She added that the court’s decision on Wednesday was part of a series of rulings that amounted to “an increase of executive power at the expense of legislative authority”.

The Trump administration has sought to exercise greater control over federal agencies created and funded by Congress, often using a maximalist interpretation of presidential powers to do so. The Supreme Court, which has six conservative members, has mostly ruled in favour of such efforts.

In a similar case in May, the court allowed Trump to remove Democratic members of the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board as their cases moved forward.

The Supreme Court also ruled earlier this month that the Trump administration’s efforts to hollow out the Department of Education through a campaign of mass firings could move forward.

The Supreme Court signaled again Wednesday that it believes the president has the power to fire the leaders of agencies and commissions that Congress said were independent.

Granting another emergency appeal, the justices set aside a Baltimore judge’s order and upheld President Trump’s decision to fire the three Democratic appointees on the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

In a brief order, the conservative majority said it had said agency officials may be fired by the president.

The three liberals dissented.

“Once again, this Court uses its emergency docket to destroy the independence of an independent agency, as established by Congress,” Justice Elena Kagan said. “By allowing the President to remove commissioners for no reason other than their party affiliation, the majority has negated Congress’s choice of agency bipartisanship and independence.”

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed.

The court’s conservative majority has repeatedly sided with Trump and against district judges on matters related to federal agencies, including their spending, staffing and leadership.

They believe the Constitution gives the president the executive authority to control the government, including by firing and replacing the heads of agencies, boards and commissions.

They have ruled for Trump even when his removal orders conflicted with the law as established by Congress.

At issue is whether Congress holds the power to structure the government or instead whether the president has the executive authority to reshape it .

Since 1887, when the Interstate Commerce Commission was established to set railroad rates, Congress has created independent agencies with the aim of giving non-partisan experts the authority to regulate in the public interest.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission was established in 1972 to be led by five members who were appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. They would have seven-year terms and could be fired only for “neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”

The commission investigates complaints about hazardous products, and it can require warning labels, order their recall or remove them from the market.

In May, the Trump White House told the commission’s three Democratic appointees — Mary Boyle, Alexander Hoehn-Saric and Richard Trumka Jr. — they were “terminated” but without accusing them of wrongdoing or malfeasance.

They sued in a federal court in Maryland where the CPSC has its headquarters. U.S. District Judge Michael Maddox, a Biden appointee, ruled the firings were illegal and reinstated the three to their positions.

The judge pointed to the Supreme Court’s 1935 decision that protected the constitutionality of “traditional multi-member independent agencies.”

The court’s opinion in the case of Humphrey’s Executor vs. United States drew a distinction between “purely executive officers” who were under the president’s control and those who served on a board “with quasi-judicial or quasi-legislative functions.”

But the court’s conservatives have hinted they may overturn that precedent.

Five years ago, Chief Justice John G. Roberts spoke for the court and ruled the director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau can be fired by the president, even though Congress had said otherwise.

But since that case did not involve a multi-member board or commission, it did not overrule the 1935 precedent.

In late May, however, the court cleared the way for Trump to fire a Democratic appointee on the National Labor Relations Board and a second on the Merit Systems Protection Board.

“Because the Constitution vests the executive power in the President, he may remove without cause executive officers who exercise that power on his behalf,” the court said then in an unsigned order.

Trump’s solicitor general, D. John Sauer, said that decision should have cleared the way for the firing of the three members of the CPSC.

But the 4th Circuit Court stood behind Maddox’s order.

The Constitution “entrusts Congress with the power to design independent agencies that serve the public interest free from political pressure,” said Judge James Wynn of the 4th Circuit. “Here, Congress lawfully constrained the President’s removal authority. … The district court correctly declined to permit a President — any President — to disregard those limits.”

Shorter enrollment periods. More paperwork. Higher premiums.

The sweeping tax and spending bill pushed by President Trump includes provisions that will not only reshape people’s experience with the Affordable Care Act, but also sharply undermine the gains in health insurance coverage associated with it, according to some policy analysts.

The moves affect consumers and have particular resonance for the 19 states (plus Washington, D.C.) that run their own ACA exchanges.

Many of those states fear that the additional red tape — especially requirements that would end automatic reenrollment — would have an outsize impact on their policyholders. That’s because a greater percentage of people in those states use those rollovers versus shopping around each year, something more commonly done by people in states that use the federal healthcare.gov marketplace.

“The federal marketplace always had a message of, ‘Come back in and shop,’ while the state-based markets, on average, have a message of, ‘Hey, here’s what you’re going to have next year, here’s what it will cost; if you like it, you don’t have to do anything,’” said Ellen Montz, who oversaw the federal ACA marketplace under the Biden administration as deputy administrator and director at the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. She is now a managing director with the Manatt Health consulting group.

Millions — perhaps up to half of enrollees in some states — may lose or drop coverage as a result of that and other changes in the legislation combined with a new rule from the Trump administration and the likely expiration at year’s end of enhanced premium subsidies put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Without an extension of those subsidies, which have been an important driver of Obamacare enrollment in recent years, premiums are expected to rise 75% on average next year. That’s starting to happen already, based on some early state rate requests for next year, which are hitting double digits.

“We estimate a minimum 30% enrollment loss, and, in the worst-case scenario, a 50% loss,” said Devon Trolley, executive director of Pennie, the ACA marketplace in Pennsylvania, which had 496,661 enrollees this year, a record.

Drops of that magnitude nationally, coupled with the loss of Medicaid coverage for millions more people under the legislation Trump calls the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” could undo inroads made in the nation’s uninsured rate, which dropped by about half from the time most of the ACA’s provisions went into effect in 2014, when it hovered around 14% to 15% of the population, to just over 8%, according to the most recent data.

Premiums would rise along with the uninsured rate because older or sicker policyholders are more likely to try to jump enrollment hurdles, while those who rarely use coverage — and are thus less expensive — would not.

After a dramatic all-night session, House Republicans passed the bill Thursday, meeting the president’s Friday deadline. Trump is expected to sign the measure on Independence Day. It will increase the federal deficit by trillions of dollars and cut spending on a variety of programs, including Medicaid and nutrition assistance, to partly offset the cost of extending tax cuts put in place during the first Trump administration.

The administration and its supporters say the GOP-backed changes to the ACA are needed to combat fraud. Democrats and ACA supporters see this effort as the latest in a long history of Republican efforts to weaken or repeal Obamacare. Among other things, the legislation would end several changes put in place by the Biden administration that were credited with making it easier to sign up, such as lengthening the annual open enrollment period and launching a special program for very low-income people that essentially allows them to sign up year-round.

In addition, automatic reenrollment, used by more than 10 million people for 2025 ACA coverage, would end in the 2028 sign-up season. Instead, consumers would have to update their information, starting in August each year, before the close of open enrollment, which would end Dec. 15, a month earlier than currently.

That’s a key change to combat rising enrollment fraud, said Brian Blase, president of the conservative Paragon Health Institute, because it gets at what he calls the Biden era’s “lax verification requirements.”

He blames automatic reenrollment, coupled with the availability of zero-premium plans for people with lower incomes that qualify them for large subsidies, for a sharp uptick in complaints from insurers, consumers and brokers about fraudulent enrollments in 2023 and 2024. Those complaints centered on consumers being enrolled in an ACA plan, or switched from one to another, without authorization, often by commission-seeking brokers.

In testimony to Congress on June 25, Blase wrote that “this simple step will close a massive loophole and significantly reduce improper enrollment and spending.”

States that run their own marketplaces, however, saw few, if any, such problems, which were confined mainly to the 31 states using the federal healthcare.gov.

The state-run marketplaces credit their additional security measures and tighter control over broker access than healthcare.gov for the relative lack of problems.

“If you look at California and the other states that have expanded their Medicaid programs, you don’t see that kind of fraud problem,” said Jessica Altman, executive director of Covered California, the state’s Obamacare marketplace. “I don’t have a single case of a consumer calling Covered California saying, ‘I was enrolled without consent.’”

Such rollovers are common with other forms of health insurance, such as job-based coverage.

“By requiring everyone to come back in and provide additional information, and the fact that they can’t get a tax credit until they take this step, it is essentially making marketplace coverage the most difficult coverage to enroll in,” said Trolley at Pennie, 65% of whose policyholders were automatically reenrolled this year, according to KFF data.

Federal data show about 22% of federal sign-ups in 2024 were automatic reenrollments, versus 58% in state-based plans. Besides Pennsylvania, the states that saw such sign-ups for more than 60% of enrollees include California, New York, Georgia, New Jersey and Virginia, according to KFF.

States do check income and other eligibility information for all enrollees — including those being automatically renewed, those signing up for the first time, and those enrolling outside the normal open enrollment period because they’ve experienced a loss of coverage or other life event or meet the rules for the low-income enrollment period.

“We have access to many data sources on the back end that we ping, to make sure nothing has changed,” Altman said. “Most people sail through and are able to stay covered without taking any proactive step.”

If flagged for mismatched data, applicants are asked for additional information. Under current law, “we have 90 days for them to have a tax credit while they submit paperwork,” Altman said.

That would change under the tax and spending plan before Congress, ending presumptive eligibility while a person submits the information.

A white paper written for Capital Policy Analytics, a Washington-based consultancy that specializes in economic analysis, concluded there appears to be little upside to the changes.

While “tighter verification can curb improper enrollments,” the additional paperwork, along with the expiration of higher premiums from the enhanced tax subsidies, “would push four to six million eligible people out of Marketplace plans, trading limited fraud savings for a surge in uninsurance,” wrote free market economists Ike Brannon and Anthony LoSasso.

“Insurers would be left with a smaller, sicker risk pool and heightened pricing uncertainty, making further premium increases and selective market exits [by insurers] likely,” they wrote.

Appleby writes for KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.

WASHINGTON — Republicans have suffered a sizable setback on one key aspect of President Trump’s big bill after their plans to gut the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and other provisions from the Senate Banking Committee ran into procedural violations with the Senate parliamentarian.

Republicans in the Senate proposed zeroing out funding for the CFPB, the landmark agency set up in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, to save $6.4 billion. The bureau had been designed as a way to better protect Americans from financial fraud, but has been opposed by many GOP lawmakers since its inception. The Trump administration has targeted the CFPB as an example of government overregulation and overreach.

The findings by the Senate parliamentarian’s office, which is working overtime scrubbing Trump’s overall bill to ensure it aligns with the chamber’s strict “Byrd Rule” processes, signal a tough road ahead. The most daunting questions are still to come, as GOP leadership rushes to muscle Trump’s signature package to the floor for votes by his Fourth of July deadline.

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), the chairman of the Banking Committee that drafted the provisions in question, said in a statement, “My colleagues and I remain committed to cutting wasteful spending at the CFPB and will continue working with the Senate parliamentarian on the Committee’s provisions.”

For Democrats, who have been fighting Trump’s 1,000-page package at every step, the parliamentarian’s advisory amounted to a significant win.

“Democrats fought back, and we will keep fighting back against this ugly bill,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee, who engineered the creation of the CFPB before she was elected to Congress.

Warren said that GOP proposals “are a reckless, dangerous attack on consumers and would lead to more Americans being tricked and trapped by giant financial institutions and put the stability of our entire financial system at risk — all to hand out tax breaks to billionaires.”

The parliamentarian’s rulings, while advisory, are rarely, if ever ignored.

With the majority in Congress, Republicans have been drafting a sweeping package that extends some $4.5-trillion tax cuts Trump approved during his first term, in 2017, that otherwise expire at the end of the year. It adds $350 billion to national security, including billions for Trump’s mass deportation agenda. And it slashes some $1 trillion from Medicaid, food stamps and other government programs.

All told, the package is estimated to add at least $2.4 trillion to the nation’s deficits over the decade, and leave 10.9 million more people without healthcare coverage, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s review of the House-passed package, which is now undergoing revisions in the Senate.

The parliamentarian’s office is responsible for determining if the package adheres to the Byrd Rule, named after the late Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who was considered one of the masters of Senate procedure. The rule essentially bars policy matters from being addressed in the budget reconciliation process.

Senate GOP leaders are using the budget reconciliation process, which is increasingly how big bills move through Congress, because it allows passage on a simple majority vote, rather than face a filibuster with the higher 60-vote threshold.

But if any of the bill’s provisions violate the Byrd Rule, that means they can be challenged at the tougher 60-vote threshold, which is a tall order in the 53-47 Senate. Leaders are often forced to strip those proposals from the package, even though doing so risks losing support from lawmakers who championed those provisions.

One of the biggest questions ahead for the parliamentarian will be over the Senate GOP’s proposal to use “current policy” as opposed to “current law” to determine the baseline budget and whether the overall package adds significantly to deficits.

Already the Senate parliamentarian’s office has waded through several titles of Trump’s big bill, including those from the Senate Armed Services Committee and Senate Energy & Public Works Committee.

The Banking panel offered a modest bill, just eight pages, and much of it was deemed out of compliance.

The parliamentarian found that in addition to gutting the CFPB, other provisions aimed at rolling back entities put in place after the 2008 financial crisis would violate the Byrd Rule. Those include a GOP provision to limit the Financial Research Fund, which was set up to conduct analysis, saving nearly $300 million; and another to shift the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which conducts oversight of accounting firms, to the Securities and Exchange Commission and terminate positions, saving $773 million.

The GOP plan to change the pay schedule for employees at the Federal Reserve, saving $1.4 billion, was also determined to be in violation of the Byrd Rule.

The parliamentarian’s office also raised Byrd Rule violations over GOP proposals to repeal certain aspects of the Inflation Reduction Act, including on emission standards for some model year 2027 light-duty and medium-duty vehicles.

Mascaro writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.