By DEE-ANN DURBIN and CHRIS RUGABER AP Business Writers
It's getting more expensive for Americans to get their caffeine fix. U.S. government figures show the average price of a pound of ground coffee hit $9.14 in September, a 41% increase from the same month a year earlier. Coffee prices have been rising sharply since the start of this year. Tariffs are partly to blame. The U.S. imports 99% of its coffee. Its biggest provider is Brazil, which is currently subject to a 50% tariff. A bipartisan group of U.S. House members introduced a bill last month that would exempt coffee from U.S. tariffs. But there's been no action on the bill due to the government shutdown.
Chinese giant automaking company BYD bought Ford Motor Co.'s former facilities in Brazil and has promised to run the company's largest plant outside China in the hardscrabble city of Camacari in northeastern Bahia state. BYD is leading a boom in electric vehicle sales in Brazil, the world's sixth-largest auto market. Meanwhile, Camacari has been reeling since 2021, when Ford, the American carmaker that had been the city's largest employer, shuttered its operations in Brazil after more than a century in the country. However, in December, Brazilian authorities rescued 163 Chinese nationals said to be working in "slaverylike" conditions at the BYD site. That has raised questions about the future of the factory.
With Donald Trump settling back into the White House, advocates for the Amazon worry about what his second term will mean for the rainforest. Besides Trump's withdrawal already from the Paris climate agreement, they fear he'll cut U.S. funding for policing that has targeted illegal logging, mining and other things that have damaged the rainforest. They also worry he will back right-wing politicians who favor aggressive development in the Amazon, which is critical for storing carbon dioxide that would otherwise warm the planet. Trump's first week back in office was loaded with executive orders that prioritized fossil fuels. He capped the week by freezing new funding for almost all U.S. foreign assistance.
By CARLA BRIDI and NATÁLIA SCARABOTTO Associated Press
Brazil's capital is bracing for the possibility of more violent demonstrations by people seeking to overturn the presidential election. Local security officials are blocking access to buildings trashed on Sunday by rioters. A flyer promoting a "mega-protest to retake power" circulated on social media platforms urging protesters to turn out Wednesday in two dozen cities, including the capital. It is unclear how large or violent such demonstrations might shape up to be, but skittish authorities are taking no chances. The federal appointee who has assumed control of the capital's security says police are shutting down the main avenue to traffic and limiting pedestrian access with barricades. They will block all access to the square that was the site of Sunday's mayhem.
The Biden administration is under growing pressure from leftists in Latin America as well as U.S. lawmakers to expel Jair Bolsonaro from a post-presidential retreat in Florida following an attack by his supporters on Brazil's capital. But the far-right ex-president may preempt any plans for such a rebuke. On Tuesday, he told a Brazilian media outlet he would push up his return home after being hospitalized with abdominal pains. Bolsonaro arrived in Florida in late December and skipped the swearing-in of his successor, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. His visit to the Sunshine state went largely unnoticed in the U.S. until Sunday's attack by thousands of die-hard supporters who refused to accept Bolsonaro's narrow defeat in an October runoff.
By MIKE SCHNEIDER and MATT SEDENSKY Associated Press
As Brazil reels from mobs of rioters swarming its seats of power, its former leader has decamped to a Florida resort, where droves of supporters flocked to cheer on their ousted president. That man, Jair Bolsonaro, was hospitalized with abdominal pain Monday at a nearby hospital, keeping him away from devotees that made their way to a gated community with towering waterslides that has become his temporary home. Prior to the hospitalization and Sunday's angry storm of capital landmarks, Bolsonaro had been seen repeatedly in this central Florida community, wandering a Publix supermarket's aisles, dining alone at a local KFC and, most of all, surrounded by clusters of adoring fans.
