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The United Auto Workers union and Stellantis say they’ve reached a tentative agreement on a new contract, leaving General Motors as the only one of the Big Three automakers without a contract with the union.

The deal, which still has to be ratified by members, follows a six-week strike by more than 14,000 workers at Stellantis assembly plants in Michigan and Ohio, and at parts warehouses across the nation.

“Once again, we have achieved what just weeks ago we were told was impossible,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a written statement. “At Stellantis in particular, we have not only secured a record contract, we have begun to turn the tide in the war on the American working class.’

The tentative agreement is patterned off a 4½-year agreement reached between the union and Ford on Wednesday, sources previously told CNBC.

Employees will return to work while the agreement goes through the ratification process, UAW said in a statement Saturday.

‘We look forward to welcoming our 43,000 employees back to work and resuming operations to serve our customers and execute our Dare Forward 2030 strategic plan to maintain Stellantis’ position at the forefront of innovation,’ Stellantis North America COO Mark Stewart said in a written statement Saturday.

In a statement Saturday night, GM said it was ‘disappointed by the UAW’s action in light of the progress we have made.’

‘We have continued to bargain in good faith with the UAW, and our goal remains to reach an agreement as quickly as possible,’ GM said.

United Auto Workers signs for a strike are shown at a Stellantis assembly plant in in Sterling Heights, Mich., on Monday.Paul Sancya / AP

Around 40,000 UAW members have gone on strike since their last contract with GM, Ford and Stellantis expired on Sept. 15. They shut down dozens of factories along the way, including GM’s full-size truck plant in Arlington, Texas, on Tuesday.

UAW President Shawn Fain said in a video statement Wednesday that the move was part of a step to get negotiations over the finish line.

The deal, according to UAW, includes 25% in base wage increases through April 2028, and the starting wage will increase to over $30 an hour.

Both the Ford and Stellantis deals include a right to strike over plant closures, according to the union.

‘The agreement reinstates major benefits lost during the Great Recession, including Cost-of-Living Allowances and a three-year Wage Progression, as well as killing divisive wage tiers in the union,’ the UAW said in a statement.

The agreement will need to be ratified by UAW members before it becomes binding, and that process will take time. On Wednesday night, Fain said a national committee will meet to review the Ford deal on Sunday. Local groups will review it after that, and then members will vote on the proposed contract.

Still, the proposal means Ford workers left the picket lines and will soon go back to work.

Talks between the union and Stellantis had appeared to be more contentious than those with GM and Ford. Fain repeatedly criticized Stellantis for what he called outsize profits and CEO pay, and on Friday he said on a livestream that the company was trying to ‘lowball’ the union before throwing a ream of pages, which he said were Stellantis’ proposal, in an office trash can.

On Monday, Fain called for workers at Stellantis’ Ram 1500 truck plant to go on strike. The company responded that it was ‘outraged’ by the move.

In a statement Saturday, President Joe Biden, who made history as the first sitting president to appear on a picket line, called the contract “groundbreaking.”

“This contract is a testament to the power of unions and collective bargaining to build strong middle-class jobs while helping our most iconic American companies thrive,” Biden said. “The final word on this tentative agreement will ultimately come from UAW Stellantis members themselves in the days and weeks to come.”

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

The United Auto Workers union and Ford have agreed in principle to the terms of a tentative agreement that could signal the end to the nearly six-week strike with the Big Three automaker, sources with knowledge of the discussions confirmed Wednesday to CNBC.

A tentative agreement could be announced as early as Wednesday night, pending approval of UAW leaders, according to two sources, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the talks.

The agreement will need to be ratified by UAW members, thousands of whom have walked off the job at Ford factories throughout the U.S., including its Kentucky Truck Plant, the company’s largest factory worldwide.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain after a rally for striking workers at UAW Local 551 in Chicago on Oct. 7.John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune via Getty Images file

The automaker and the union participated in intense bargaining Tuesday and Wednesday in an attempt to finalize a record deal, the sources said.

Spokespeople for Ford declined to comment to CNBC on the negotiations earlier Wednesday other than to say talks were continuing. A UAW spokesman did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

The talks this week involved a proposal for wage increases of at least 25% over the term of the deal, as well as other improved benefits previously outlined by the union and company, two sources confirmed to CNBC.

Around 13,000 UAW members went on strike Sept. 15 in an action that hit Ford, General Motors and Stellantis at the same time. The union had never engaged in a simultaneous strike against all three companies.

The UAW gradually ramped up those strikes in subsequent weeks, and as of Wednesday, about 40,000 people had walked off the job. That slowly cut into vehicle production and supply lines.

In mid-October, the union told workers to strike at plants where highly profitable vehicles like full-size SUVs and trucks were made. They were Kentucky Truck, a Stellantis facility in Sterling Heights, Michigan; and a GM plant in Arlington, Texas.

The UAW said those three were the largest manufacturing plant owned by each company.

GM said days ago that the strikes were costing it about $200 million a week.

In another historic first, President Joe Biden became the first sitting president to walk a picket line when he visited UAW workers in Belleville, Michigan.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Pharmacies are boring. Pharmacies are supposed to be boring. But lately, they might be getting too interesting for comfort.

The normally staid business has been shaken awake by a series of nonunion ‘wildcat strikes’ over the last few weeks. In incidents scattered around the country, pharmacists have refused to go to work or walked off the job.

There are signs that a larger strike is brewing, with more walkouts targeting large chains like Walgreens, CVS and Rite Aid in late October and early November. The pharmacists don’t have a union, so there is no way to tell how many people might participate or how many locations could be affected.

The strikes are unusual in that the strikers aren’t asking their employers for better pay. They’re asking them to hire more staff so their workloads are less overwhelming. They are also seeking better working conditions in many cases.

‘It’s really about having support to do the job safely,’ Bled Tanoe, a pharmacist in Oklahoma City. She currently works for a hospital pharmacy and formerly worked for Walgreens. Tanoe isn’t going on strike herself, but she has been a spokesperson for frustrated pharmacists.

She created the hashtag PizzaIsNotWorking in 2021 to criticize the pharmacy chains’ response to complaints from staff. More recently she’s been calling the potential Oct. 30 to Nov. 1 walkout ‘Pharmageddon.’

Mounting frustrations

There are signs a lot of pharmacists are unhappy with the state of the business. In a nonrandomized survey in 2021, the American Pharmacists Association and National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations reported that 74% of 4,482 pharmacy workers said they did not have enough time to safely perform nonclinical work, and 75% said there were not enough other staff, like techs and nurses, to safely perform clinical work.

The issue made headlines in late September, when numerous CVS pharmacies in the Kansas City area were shut down. The company soon met with the strikers and said it would address some of their concerns.

The pharmacists who organize, strike or speak out are taking some notable risks. Employees in a union usually have a legally protected right to strike, but the pharmacists’ employers can fire them for striking or organizing a walkout.

A number of factors have combined to ratchet up the tension behind the counter. Pharmacies are offering more services to patients, especially immunizations, which means they are busier. That makes for more frustrated customers.

‘This is a nationwide problem that pharmacists have been internally yelling about for years,’ said Amanda Applegate, a licensed pharmacist and director of practice development with the Kansas Pharmacists Association. Her group spoke with some of the people who went on strike in Kansas City.

Pharmacist Jennifer Morrow says she worked for CVS from 2013 to 2021. She told NBC News she saw staffing problems from the very beginning, and wasn’t able to spend enough time with patients as a result.

Over time, Morrow said there was a ‘gradual decline’ in which management would repeatedly cut back on the hours for pharmacy technicians, which made it harder to train new hires. That created more work for experienced technicians, who would get burned out and quit.

‘What we end up doing is cutting care to our patients. At some point it has to stop,’ she said.

Morrow says that when she warned managers that the company was at risk of violating New York state pharmacy staffing regulations, she was demoted. She later quit, and now works at a nonfranchised pharmacy.

The potential strike is targeting big chains for a reason. According to Applegate, many pharmacists are also frustrated that those companies have been buying up the small stores where they used to work, or else using their superior size and their insurance and pharmacy benefits management units to put them out of business. She said pharmacists at those stores often feel that their working conditions are deteriorating and their jobs are getting busier.

‘There’s nothing special about what happened in Kansas City. You just had a group of individuals that reached the end of their rope because they’ve been asking for these changes from management for years, even pre-Covid,’ she said.

And over the last two years, the three biggest drugstore chains have all started closing stores. CVS is in the middle of shuttering 900 locations in three years, while Walgreens said in June that it would close 150 U.S. locations. Rite Aid is closing at least 154 stores, and probably more, as it goes through Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization. That means there are fewer locations serving customers, which makes the remaining stores busier.

‘When you’re moving that quickly you miss a lot of things, and we are the last line of defense until the patient gets the med,’ Morrow said.

After leaving CVS, she said she now works at a community pharmacy.

‘The difference is beyond night and day,’ Morrow said. ‘It took about four months for me to be able to calm down enough to go to the bathroom once a day.’

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Facing decades in prison on fraud and money laundering charges, FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried testified in his own defense on Friday.

After his attorneys first asked him how FTX protected customers’ assets, they then asked Bankman-Fried if FTX had a risk management department.

“We sure should have,” he answered.

FTX filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2022 after customers got nervous about its health and began withdrawing their money. It soon emerged that billions of dollars in customers’ assets had been transferred to Alameda Research, a cryptocurrency hedge fund that was FTX’s ‘sister’ firm.

He also testified that he borrowed money from Alameda because he owned the company, and that he saw no reason he could not borrow from its substantial profits.

FTX co-founder Gary Wang testified earlier that Bankman-Fried directed him to make the transfer because Bahamian regulators were friendly to him and seemed willing to let Bankman-Fried stay in charge of the company.

Bankman-Fried’s lawyers say he was acting in good faith and trying to do right by customers.

The prosecution rested its case early Thursday morning and the defense began presenting its case shortly after noon Eastern Time. Two other defense witnesses testified before Bankman-Fried did. He then took the stand without the jury present as part of a hearing about what types of evidence would be admissible in court.

Sam Bankman-Fried during his trial in New York City on Thursday.Elizabeth Williams / via AP

Bankman-Fried also testified that he never directed former FTX CEO Ryan Salame or former engineering director Nishad Singh to make political donations. He also said he didn’t recall an incident where, according to Singh, he asked employees to find a way to make it look like FTX had more than $1 billion in annual revenue.

Court filings from Bankman-Fried’s lawyers show that he also plans to testify that he approved of the transfer of FTX assets to regulators in the Bahamas, where FTX was based, because he believed they would act in customers’ best interests.

It’s often risky for defendants to testify in their defense in high-profile cases, but Bankman-Fried may not have much to lose.

Earlier in the trial, Wang, Singh, and Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison, who also dated Bankman-Fried, all testified for the prosecution. They said that they committed crimes alongside Bankman-Fried, including misleading investors about the financial state of FTX and its sister hedge fund, Alameda Research, and stealing $10 billion from FTX customers and giving it to Alameda.

Wang, Ellison and Singh have all pleaded guilty to criminal charges and are cooperating with the federal government in the hope they will get lighter sentences.

Bankman-Fried is charged with wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering that defrauded FTX’s customers and Alameda’s lenders.

His lawyers argue that Bankman-Fried did not defraud anyone, that startups like FTX are complex and often fail, and that the government is looking for someone to blame for customers’ losses.

Bankman-Fried is expected to finish testifying Monday, and prosecutors are expected to cross-examine him afterward.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

The U.S. economy grew even faster than expected in the third quarter, buoyed by a strong consumer in spite of higher interest rates, ongoing inflation pressures, and a variety of other domestic and global headwinds.

Gross domestic product, a measure of all goods and services produced in the U.S., rose at a 4.9% annualized pace in the July-through-September period, up from an unrevised 2.1% pace in the second quarter, the Commerce Department reported Thursday.. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for a 4.7% acceleration.

The sharp increase came due to contributions from consumer spending, increased inventories, exports, residential investment and government spending.

Consumer spending, as measured by personal consumption expenditures, increased 4% for the quarter after rising just 0.8% in Q2. Gross private domestic investment surged 8.4% and government spending and investment jumped 4.6%.

Spending at the consumer level split fairly evenly between goods and services, with the two measures up 4.8% and 3.6%, respectively.

The GDP increase marked the biggest gain since the fourth quarter of 2021.

Markets reacted little to the news, with stock market futures negative heading into the open and Treasury yields mostly lower.

While the report could give the Federal Reserve some impetus to keep policy tight, traders were still pricing in no chance of an interest rate hike when the central bank meets next week, according to CME Group data. Futures pricing pointed to just a 27% chance of an increase at the December meeting following the GDP release.

“Investors should not be surprised that the consumer was spending in the final months of the summer,” said Jeffrey Roach, chief economist at LPL Financial. “The real question is if the trend can continue in the coming quarters, and we think not.”

In other economic news Thursday, the Labor Department reported that jobless claims totaled 210,000 for the week ended Oct. 21, up 10,000 from the previous period and slightly ahead of the Dow Jones estimate for 207,000. Also, durable goods orders increased 4.7% in September, well ahead of the 0.1% gain in August and the 2% forecast, according to the Commerce Department.

At a time when many economists had thought the U.S. would be in the midst of at least a shallow recession, growth has kept pace due to consumer spending that has exceeded all expectations. The consumer was responsible for about 68% of GDP in Q3.

Even with Covid-era government transfer payments running out, spending has been strong as households draw down savings and ramp up credit card balances.

The gains also come despite the Federal Reserve not only raising rates at the fastest clip since the early 1980s but also vowing to keep rates high until inflation comes back to acceptable levels. Price increases have been running well ahead of the central bank’s 2% annual target, though the rate of inflation at least has ebbed in recent months.

The chain-weighted price index, which takes into accounts changes in consumer shopping patterns to gauge inflation, rose 3.5% for the quarter, up from 1.7% in Q2 and higher than the Dow Jones estimate for 2.5%.

Along with rates and inflation, consumers have been dealing with a variety of other issues.

The resumption of student loan payments is expected to take a bite out of household budgets, while elevated gas prices and a wobbly stock market are hitting confidence levels. Geopolitical tensions also pose potential headaches, with fighting between Israel and Hamas and the war in Ukraine posing substantial uncertainties about the future.

While the U.S. has proven resilient to the various challenges, most economists expect growth to slow considerably in the coming months. However, they generally think the U.S. can skirt a recession absent any other unforeseen shocks.

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Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, pushed back against a senator’s call to expand its rollout of more transparent ticket costs.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., a letter Wednesday to Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino calling on the entertainment giant to make its new “all-in” pricing view a default setting across both Live Nation and Ticketmaster sales platforms.

Live Nation pledged in mid-June to show customers “the total cost from the start” of their online ticket searches beginning in September for events at Live Nation-operated venues — joining a broader Biden administration effort to reduce so-called junk fees that raise the advertised prices of many consumer products and services.

Live Nation criticized Klobuchar’s request as impractical and inaccurate, saying it has already fulfilled its promise to start disclosing “all-in” prices at the hundreds of venues it operates, adding that the initial pledge never included all of the thousands of other venues for which Ticketmaster sell tickets.

“If we had the power to do that it would have been part of our commitment to the White House and our June 15 announcement,” a Live Nation spokesperson said. “This just underscores the importance of all-in pricing legislation,” which the company has supported at the federal level despite failed attempts in Congress to advance it.

Speaking to NBC News on Wednesday, Klobuchar called on Live Nation to “keep your promises and be transparent about how much each ticket costs.”

But Live Nation disputed Klobuchar’s characterization of its pledge. A spokesperson said the change applied only to venues it owns and operates. The spokesperson also pointed to a new tool launched this year. Using the feature, Ticketmaster consumers can navigate to the “filters” menu on the search screen and toggle on an option to “show prices including fees.”

Key to the dispute is the extent of Live Nation’s ability — or, as Klobuchar sees it, willingness — to set rules about how prices are displayed for tickets at venues it doesn’t own.

“The existence of this [all-in] filter shows that Live Nation-Ticketmaster has the technical ability to display all-in prices, but chooses not to display that price to consumers as the default setting,” she wrote in her letter, asking Rapino to provide an update on price transparency efforts by Nov. 15.

Live Nation responded with its own letter Wednesday, viewed by NBC News, writing, “Ticketmaster does not have the unilateral right to do that, as it is an agent for the venues that issue tickets and along with the content owners (artists, sports teams, etc.) determine ticket pricing and how fees are displayed.”

But Klobuchar insisted the company could do more for transparency: “They can show how much the ticket costs, and that’s what they need to do.”

Live Nation already displays all-in prices at all venues — including those it doesn’t operate — in New York, Connecticut and Tennessee, which have laws requiring such transparency.

“If they are claiming that somehow no one will let them say how much the ticket costs,” Klobuchar said, “no, I don’t buy that.”

The Live Nation spokesperson said all-in pricing had already been instituted for all new events listed for sale at venues Live Nation owns and operates as of Sept. 25. But the company confirmed that coming events at those venues that were put on sale before that date don’t display all-in pricing upfront.

The Biden administration has pointed to research suggesting that so-called drip pricing, in which extra charges pile up the further a shopper moves through the purchasing process, generates tens of billions of dollars in revenue to sellers in industries from transportation and hospitality to banking and internet services. Administration officials argue the practice makes it harder to comparison-shop and artificially drives up the prices consumers pay, contributing to inflation.

Discrepancies between the base price of a ticket and the total after taxes and fees can be considerable on Ticketmaster or Live Nation.

For instance, shoppers who don’t find and click the “including fees” button would see a box seat ticket on LiveNation.com for Thursday’s Jessie Murph concert at Boston’s House of Blues, a Live Nation venue, listed at $103 apiece. The event went on sale in June.

Only by adding the ticket to their cart, signing in to a Live Nation account and then proceeding with the purchase would they see the total climb to $124.50, because of a “service fee” and a “processing fee” — a price jump of nearly 21%.

CLARIFICATION (Oct. 25, 6:30 p.m.): This article has been updated to clarify that Live Nation, not its Ticketmaster subsidiary, pledged in June to adopt all-in prices and that it was limited to Live Nation operated venues.

The article has also been updated to remove references to NBC News’ review of the prevalence of all-in pricing in listings on Live Nation’s website, which did not distinguish between venues operated by Live Nation and those operated by others. It also adds additional statements by Sen. Klobuchar and excerpts from Live Nation’s letter in response.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will take the stand to testify in his own defense, his attorney said in a conference call Wednesday. The decision by his legal team sets him up for a cross-examination by federal prosecutors, who will be able to press him on the collapse of his crypto exchange FTX.

Bankman-Fried’s decision to testify came after federal prosecutors and his defense team were able to secure the alleged fraudster an adequate supply of his ADHD medication. His defense had previously argued before the court that inadequate access to the medication impugned his ability to participate in his defense.

It is widely considered to be a risky maneuver. While his defense team will be able to question him, and the former billionaire would be able to provide his own narrative as to the collapse, it also opens up Bankman-Fried to a cross-examination by federal prosecutors. So far, the prosecution has called up several of Bankman-Fried’s top executives to testify, including Nishad Singh and Caroline Ellison, his one-time romantic partner and former CEO of Alameda Research.

Bankman-Fried stands accused of fraud and money laundering of his role in the collapse of the multi-billion dollar crypto exchange FTX. Since the company filed for bankruptcy, Bankman-Fried has been accused of systematically pilfering billions in customer assets from the exchanges reserves, in order to fund political contributions, real estate acquisitions and high profile sponsorship deals.

The government has also presented extensive evidence to support its claims, including Signal chats and internal documents, which prosecutors allege show how Bankman-Fried orchestrated the spending of customer funds.

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This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, pushed back on a senator’s call to expand its rollout of more transparent ticket costs.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., sent a letter to Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino Wednesday calling on the entertainment giant to make its new “all-in” pricing view a default setting across both Live Nation and Ticketmaster sales platforms.

Live Nation pledged in mid-June to show customers “the total cost from the start” of their online ticket searches beginning in September for events at Live Nation-operated venues — joining a broader Biden administration effort to reduce so-called “junk fees” that raise the advertised prices of many consumer products and services.

Live Nation criticized Klobuchar’s request as impractical and inaccurate, saying it has already fulfilled its promise to start disclosing “all-in” prices at the hundreds of venues it operates, adding that the initial pledge never included all of the thousands of other venues for which Ticketmaster sell tickets.

“If we had the power to do that it would have been part of our commitment to the White House and our June 15 announcement,” a Live Nation spokesperson said. “This just underscores the importance of all-in pricing legislation,” which the company has supported at the federal level despite failed attempts in Congress to advance it.

Speaking to NBC News Wednesday, Klobuchar called on Live Nation to “keep your promises and be transparent about how much each ticket costs.”

But Live Nation disputed Klobuchar’s characterization of its pledge. A spokesperson said the change applied only to venues it owns and operates. The spokesperson also pointed to a new tool launched earlier this year. Using that feature, Ticketmaster consumers can navigate to the “filters” menu on the search screen and toggle on an option to “show prices including fees.”

Key to the dispute is the extent of Live Nation’s ability — or, as Klobuchar sees it, willingness — to set rules around how prices are displayed for tickets at venues it doesn’t own.

“The existence of this [all-in] filter shows that Live Nation-Ticketmaster has the technical ability to display all-in prices, but chooses not to display that price to consumers as the default setting,” she wrote in her letter, asking Rapino to provide an update on price transparency efforts by Nov. 15.

Live Nation responded to the senator with its own letter Wednesday, viewed by NBC News, writing, “Ticketmaster does not have the unilateral right to do that, as it is an agent for the venues that issue tickets and along with the content owners (artists, sports teams, etc.) determine ticket pricing and how fees are displayed.”

But Klobuchar insists the company could do more for transparency: “They can show how much the ticket costs, and that’s what they need to do.”

Live Nation already displays all-in prices at all venues — including those it doesn’t operate — in New York, Connecticut and Tennessee, which each have laws requiring that transparency.

“If they are claiming that somehow no one will let them say how much the ticket costs,” Klobuchar said, “no, I don’t buy that.”

The Live Nation spokesperson said all-in pricing has already been instituted for all new events listed for sale at venues Live Nation owns and operates as of Sept. 25. But the company confirmed that upcoming events at those venues that were put on sale before that date do not display all-in pricing upfront.

The Biden administration has pointed to research suggesting that so-called “drip pricing,” in which extra charges pile up the further a shopper moves through the purchasing process, generates tens of billions of dollars in revenue to sellers in industries from transportation and hospitality to banking and internet services. Administration officials argue the practice makes it harder to comparison shop and artificially drives up the prices consumers pay, contributing to inflation.

Discrepancies between the base price of a ticket and the total after taxes and fees can be considerable on Ticketmaster or Live Nation.

For instance, shoppers who don’t find and click the “including fees” button would see a box seat ticket on LiveNation.com for this Thursday’s Jessie Murph concert at Boston’s House of Blues, a Live Nation venue, listed at $103 apiece. The event went on sale in June.

Only by adding the ticket to their cart, signing in to a Live Nation account, and then proceeding with the purchase would they see the total climb to $124.50, due to a “service fee” and “processing fee” — a price jump of nearly 21%.

CLARIFICATION: This article has been updated to clarify that Live Nation, not its Ticketmaster subsidiary, pledged in June to adopt all-in prices and that it was limited to Live Nation operated venues.

The article has also been updated to remove references to NBC News’ review of the prevalence of all-in pricing in listings on Live Nation’s website, which did not distinguish between venues operated by Live Nation and those operated by others. This version also adds additional statements by Sen. Klobuchar and excerpts from Live Nation’s letter in response.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Chevron is buying Hess Corp. for $53 billion and it’s not even the biggest acquisition in the energy sector this month as major producers seize the initiative while oil prices surge.

Crude prices rose sharply in early 2022 with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and are hovering around $90 per barrel after ticking another 9% higher this year, meaning big drillers are flush with cash and looking for places to invest piles of cash.

The Chevron-Hess deal comes less than two weeks after Exxon Mobil said that it would acquire Pioneer Natural Resources for about $60 billion.

Upward pressure on oil prices are being applied from a number of fronts including the war in Ukraine.

Oil markets are being stretched by cutbacks in oil production from Saudi Arabia and Russia, and now, a war between Israel and Hamas runs the risk of igniting a broader conflict in the Middle East. While attacks on Israel do not disrupt global oil supply, according to an analysis by the U.S Energy Information Administration, “they raise the potential for oil supply disruptions and higher oil prices.”

Chevron said Monday that the acquisition of Hess adds a major oil field in Guyana as well as shale properties in the Bakken Formation in North Dakota. Guyana is a South American country of 791,000 people that is poised to become the world’s fourth-largest offshore oil producer, placing it ahead of Qatar, the United States, Mexico and Norway. It has become a major producer in recent years with oil giants, including Exxon Mobil, China’s CNOOC, and also Hess, squared off in a heated competition for highly lucrative oil fields in northern South America.

“This combination is aligned with our objective to safely deliver higher returns and lower carbon,” Chevron Chairman and CEO Mike Wirth said in prepared remarks. “In addition, Hess increases Chevron’s estimated production and free cash flow growth rates over the next five years, and is expected to extend our growth profile into the next decade supporting our plans to increase our peer-leading dividend growth and share repurchases.”

Chevron is paying for Hess with stock. Hess shareholders will receive 1.0250 shares of Chevron for each Hess share. Including debt, Chevron valued the deal at $60 billion.

And even with alarms being raised over climate change after a summer of record-smashing temperatures, elevated energy prices have driven more exploration and more drilling, and big payouts for investors.

Last month, Britain gave the go-ahead for a major oil and gas project in the North Sea, ignoring warnings from scientists and the United Nations that countries must stop developing new fossil fuel resources if the world is to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Chevron said the deal will help to increase the amount of cash given back to shareholders. The company anticipates that in January it will be able to recommend boosting its first-quarter dividend by 8% to $1.63. This would still need board approval. The company also expects to increase stock buybacks by $2.5 billion to the top end of its guidance range of $20 billion per year once the transaction closes.

The boards of both Chevron and Hess have approved the deal announced Monday after six months of negotiations and is targeted to close in the first half of next year. It still needs approval by Hess shareholders. John Hess, the company’s CEO, is expected to join Chevron’s board. His family owns a large chunk of Hess.

Shares of Chevron Corp., based in San, Ramon, California, declined more than 2% before the opening bell Monday. Share of Hess Corp., based in New York City, rose slightly.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Last Thursday the State Department advised travelers from the U.S. to “exercise increased caution” worldwide because of the Israel-Hamas war, citing “the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests.”

The warning “means what it says,” said Jeffrey Price, an aviation security expert and professor of aviation and aerospace science at Metropolitan State University of Denver. “Don’t go to areas where they are actively capturing or killing U.S. citizens, and be careful when going to countries where you could be put in harm’s way simply by being there.” 

But what about trips to Barcelona or Singapore or even just Baton Rouge? Here’s what to consider if you’ve got travel plans on the books or are making them now, given the conflict in the Middle East.

All-purpose safety precautions

In addition to telling U.S. travelers to reconsider travel to Israel and the West Bank and to avoid any travel to Gaza, federal officials also recommend staying especially alert in popular locations anywhere tourists gather globally.

They suggest following State Department accounts on social media for updates and joining the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program to make it easier for the agency get in touch with American travelers abroad in case of emergencies.

The State Department has alerts of various levels in effect for many countries because of conflict and other risk factors, but “worldwide caution” advisories are less common. The last one was issued in August 2022 after a U.S. drone strike killed a high-level Al Qaeda leader.

Some national security experts regard last week’s global alert “as one of the most urgent issued in light of the extremely high tensions throughout the Middle East,” said Howard Stoffer, a professor of international affairs at the University of New Haven and a former senior official in the State Department’s Foreign Service.

“This type of alert usually lasts a relatively short time,” he said, but the current one “may last for some period of time.”

If you’re planning upcoming travel, you can monitor the State Department’s travel advisories for any destinations on your itinerary both before and during your trip. The Council on Foreign Relations, a nonpartisan think tank, also maintains an interactive Global Conflict Tracker that provides additional information for specific areas around the world.

Stay alert and listen to the news carefully when out there.

Howard Stoffer, University of New Haven

Experts warn against slipping so deeply into vacation mode that you risk losing sight of potential shifts in the political or security situation on the ground. “Be aware of your surroundings and be sure to cooperate with any increased security measures,” Price said.

Stoffer said, “Stay alert and listen to the news carefully when out there.” Otherwise, exercise the same good judgment you would under any other circumstances, like steering clear of major protests and making sure friends and family back home know where you are.

Air travel

Israeli flag carrier El Al Airlines is the only airline that continues to fly between the U.S. and Israel, although its website notes that “there may be a change in the departure times of some flights.”

Major U.S.-based airlines that previously offered regular service to Tel Aviv, including American, Delta and United, have issued travel alerts for the Middle East and suspended all flights to Israel. United has also issued a travel alert for its flights to Amman, Jordan, but service there is continuing.

The suspensions include direct flights out of major hubs such as Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, New York City, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., as well as connecting flights on partner airlines, said Scott Keyes of the flight deal website Going.

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