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PITTSBURGH (AP) — On a three-lane test track along the Monongahela River, an 18-wheel tractor-trailer rounded a curve. No one was on board. A quarter-mile ahead, the truck’s sensors spotted a trash can blocking one lane and a tire in another. In less than a second, it signaled, moved into the unobstructed lane and rumbled past the obstacles. The self-driving semi, outfitted with 25 laser, radar and camera sensors, is owned by Pittsburgh-based Aurora Innovation. Late this year, Aurora plans to start hauling freight on Interstate 45 between the Dallas and Houston areas with 20 driverless trucks. Within three or four years, Aurora and its competitors expect to put thousands such self-driving trucks on America’s public freeways. The goal is for the trucks, which can run nearly around the clock without any breaks, to speed the flow of goods, accelerating delivery times and perhaps lowering costs. They’ll travel short distances on secondary roads, too. The companies say the autonomous trucks will save on fuel, too, because they don’t have to stop and will drive at more consistent speeds. The image of a fully loaded, 80,000-pound driverless truck weaving around cars on a super-highway at 65 mph or more may strike a note of terror. A poll conducted in January by AAA found that a decisive majority of Americans — 66% — said they would fear riding in an autonomous vehicle. But in less than nine months, a seven-year science experiment by Aurora will end, and driverless trucks will start carrying loads between terminals for FedEx, Uber Freight, Werner and other partners. Aurora and most of its rivals plan to start running freight routes in Texas, where snow and ice are generally rare. For years, it seemed as though the initial venture for autonomous vehicles would be ride hailing in large cities. But General Motors’ Cruise robotaxi unit is struggling in the aftermath of a serious crash. And Alphabet’s Waymo faces opposition to expanding its autonomous ride service in California. The result is that self-driving trucks are poised to become the first computer-controlled vehicles deployed in widespread numbers on public roads. The vehicles have drawn skepticism from safety advocates, who warn that with almost no federal regulation, it will be mainly up to the companies themselves to determine when the semis are safe enough to operate without humans on board. The critics complain that federal agencies, including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, take a generally passive approach to safety, typically acting only after crashes occur. And most states provide scant regulation. But Aurora and other companies that are developing the systems argue that years of testing show that their trucks will actually be safer than human-driven ones. They note that the vehicles’ laser and radar sensors can “see” farther than human eyes can. The trucks never tire, as human drivers do. They never become distracted or impaired by alcohol or drugs. “We want to be out there with thousands or tens of thousands of trucks on the road,” said Chris Urmson, Aurora’s CEO and formerly head of Google’s autonomous vehicle operations. “And to do that, we have to be safe. It’s the only way that the public will accept it. Frankly, it’s the only way our customers will accept it.” Phil Koopman, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University who studies vehicle automation safety, said he agreed that self-driving trucks can theoretically be safer than human-driven ones — for the very reason that they lack drivers who might become distracted or impaired. But he cautioned that the vehicles’ computers inevitably will make errors. And just how the trucks will fare in real-world situations, he said, will depend on the quality of their safety engineering. With billions of dollars in investments at stake, Koopman said, he wonders how the companies will balance safety decisions against cost concerns. “Everything I see indicates they’re trying to do the right thing,” he said. “But the devil is in the details.” On the test track, reporters saw Aurora’s semis avoid simulations of road obstacles, including pedestrians, a blown tire, even a horse. But the trucks were running at only 35 mph (56 kilometers per hour) in a controlled environment with nothing unexpected happening. (The trucks are being tested with human safety drivers on Texas freeways at speeds of 65 mph (105 kph) or higher.) On the track, the trucks spotted obstacles more than a quarter-mile away and acted immediately to avoid them. Urmson said the trucks’ laser sensors can detect people walking on a highway at night, far beyond the distance of headlights. Since 2021, Aurora trucks have autonomously hauled freight over 1 million miles on public highways — but with human safety drivers in the cabs. There have been only three crashes, Urmson said, all of them caused by mistakes by human drivers in other vehicles. A federal database that started in June 2021 shows at least 13 crashes with other vehicles involving autonomous semis, including three involving Aurora. In all the cases, the crashes were caused by other vehicles changing lanes or rear-ending the trucks. Sometimes, human safety drivers took over just before the crash. Aurora won’t compromise safety, Urmson said, even if ensuring it might delay the timetable for achieving a profit. “If we put a vehicle on the road that isn’t sufficiently safe — that we aren’t confident in the safety of — then it kills everything else,” he said. Last month, when Urmson displayed the trucks to Wall Street analysts in Pittsburgh, he said the publicly held company expects to turn a profit by late 2027 or early 2028. To meet that goal, Aurora must succeed in putting thousands of the trucks on the roads, hauling freight from terminal to terminal and collecting a per-mile charge from customers. The company’s competitors — Plus.ai, Gatik, Kodiak Robotics and others — also plan soon to put driverless trucks on the roads hauling freight for customers. Gatik expects it to happen this year or next; the others haven’t set timetables. Don Burnette, CEO of Kodiak, said freeways are a better environment for autonomous vehicles than congested cities where ride-hailing robotaxis have been running. There are fewer pedestrians, and fewer unexpected things happen. Still, there are higher speeds and longer braking distances. In testing on highways with human backup drivers, Burnette said, Kodiak has never experienced a crash in which its trucks were at fault. “At the end of the day,” Burnette said, “these trucks should be much safer than human drivers.” Almost every year in the United States, a tractor-trailer plows into traffic that is stopped because of road construction, often causing deaths and injuries. By contrast, Burnette said, autonomous trucks pay attention all the time and are always watching 360 degrees. Perhaps so. But at a Buc-ee’s mega convenience store and gas station along Interstate 45 about 35 miles south of Dallas, the prospect of driverless semis struck a note of fear. “It sounds like a disaster waiting to happen,” said Kent Franz, a high school basketball coach in Chandler, Oklahoma, who was traveling to Houston for a wedding. “I’ve heard of the driverless cars — Tesla, what have you — and the accidents they’ve been having. Eighteen-wheelers? Something that heavy, relying on technology that has proven it can be faulty? Doesn’t sound very comfortable to me.” Patti Pierce, a retired accountant from Plano, Texas, said she would be OK with the technology — in about a decade. “I don’t want to be on the road with them right now,” she said. “I like the gadgets in my car, but I’m not sure the technology is good enough right now to have a truck that drives itself.” No federal regulations specifically cover autonomous vehicles, Koopman of Carnegie Mellon noted. Most states have no such regulations, either. Koopman said the automated-vehicle industry has persuaded many states to bar local governments from enacting such regulations. The result, he said, is that the public must trust the companies that are deploying autonomous semis. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, both part of the federal Department of Transportation, lack authority to stop autonomous vehicles from going on the roads. If something goes wrong, though, they can require recalls or order trucks out of service. “You can’t expect the government to protect you here,” Koopman said. “The company’s going to decide when they think they’re safe, and the only thing the regulator is going to do is judge them after the fact.” For the past five years, the motor carrier administration has been preparing safety standards for trucks with automated driving systems. The standards will govern inspections, maintenance and the remote monitoring of the trucks. But it’s unclear when the rules will emerge from the regulatory process. In the meantime, the autonomous semi companies say they can help address a truck driver shortage, estimated by the industry to amount to 64,000 drivers. Yet there also are worries that autonomous trucks eventually will supplant human drivers and cost them their livelihoods. The Teamsters union, which represents about 600,000 drivers, most of them truckers, is pushing state legislatures to require human drivers to monitor the self-driving systems, contending that they are unsafe. A 2021 Transportation Department study concluded that the nationwide use of fully automated semis was years away, giving drivers time to transition to other transportation and logistics jobs that will be created. Aurora’s Urmson said he thinks driverless semis will complement the work already done by human drivers, because many more goods will have to be moved for a growing population. “If you’re driving a truck today,” he said, “my expectation is you’re going to be able to retire driving a truck.” ____ AP Business Writer David Koenig contributed to this report from Dallas and AP Data Journalist Aaron Kessler from Washington. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

WASHINGTON (AP) — Since retiring two years ago, Joan Harris has upped her travel game. Once or twice a year, she visits her two adult children in different states. She’s planning multiple other trips, including to a science fiction convention in Scotland and a Disney cruise soon after that, along with a trip next year to neolithic sites in Great Britain. “I really have more money to spend now than when I was working,” said Harris, 64, an engineer who worked 29 years for the federal government and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Back then, she and her now-ex-husband were paying for their children’s college educations and piling money into savings accounts. Now, she’s splurging a bit and, for the first time, is willing to pay for first-class plane tickets. She plans to fly business class to Scotland and has arranged for a higher-level suite on the cruise. “I suddenly realized, with my dad getting old and my mom dying, it’s like, ‘No, you can’t take it with you,’ ” she said. “I could become incapacitated to the point where I couldn’t enjoy something like going to Scotland or going on a cruise. So I better do it, right?” Older Americans like Harris are fueling a sustained boost to the U.S. economy. Benefiting from outsize gains in the stock and housing markets over the past several years, they are accounting for a larger share of consumer spending — the principal driver of economic growth — than ever before. And much of their spending is going toward higher-priced services like travel, health care and entertainment, putting further upward pressure on those prices — and on inflation. Such spending is relatively immune to the Federal Reserve’s push to slow growth and tame inflation through higher borrowing rates, because it rarely requires borrowing. Affluent older Americans, if they own government bonds, may even be benefiting from the Fed’s rate hikes. Those hikes have led to higher bond yields, generating more income for those who own such bonds. The so-called “wealth effect,” whereby rising home and stock values give people confidence to increase their spending, is a big reason why the economy has defied expectations of a sharp slowdown. Its unexpected strength, which is contributing to stickier inflation, has forced a shift in the Fed’s plans. As recently as March, the Fed’s policymakers had projected that they would cut their benchmark rate three times this year. Since then, though, inflation measures have remained uncomfortably high, partly a consequence of brisk consumer spending. Chair Jerome Powell made clear recently that the Fed isn’t confident enough that inflation is sustainably easing to cut rates. When the Fed meets this week, it is sure to keep its benchmark rate unchanged at a 23-year high, the result of 11 rate hikes. The Fed’s hikes have forced up borrowing costs across the economy — for everything from home and auto loans to credit cards and business loans. Even as the Fed has jacked up borrowing costs, stock and home values have kept rising, enlarging the net worth of affluent households. Consider that household wealth grew by an average of 5.5% a year in the decade after the 2008-2009 Great Recession but that since 2018, it’s accelerated to nearly 9%. Stock prices, as measured by the S&P 500 index, are about 72% higher than they were five years ago. Home values soared 58% from the end of 2018 through 2023, according to the Federal Reserve. All told, Americans’ wealth has ballooned from $98 trillion at the end of 2018 to $147 trillion five years later. Adjusting for inflation, the gains are less dramatic, but still substantial. “People have had significant wealth gains in stocks, significant wealth gains in fixed income, significant wealth gains in home prices, significant wealth gains even in crypto,” said Torsten Slok, chief economist at the Apollo Group, an asset manager. “All that adds up to still a very significant tailwind.” The gains are hardly universal. The wealthiest one-tenth of Americans own two-thirds of all household wealth. Still, wealth for the median household — the midpoint between the richest and poorest — rose 37% from 2019 to 2022, the sharpest rise on record since the 1980s according to the Fed, to $193,000. Wealth is also disproportionately held by older Americans. People ages 55 and over now own nearly three-quarters of all household wealth, up from 68% in 2010, according to the Fed. In percentage terms since the pandemic, household net worth has also surged for younger households. But because younger adults started from a much lower level, their gains haven’t been anywhere near enough to keep pace with older Americans. “The baby boomers are the richest retiring generation we’ve ever had,” said Edward Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research. “Not everybody is well-off, but we’ve never had a retiring generation with this much wealth. That’s one of the major reasons why the economy is strong.” That said, many older Americans face significant financial challenges. One-quarter of Americans over age 50 have no retirement savings, according to a survey by the AARP. Even so, as the huge baby boom generation has aged and, on average, has accumulated more assets, they have accounted for a rising share of consumer spending. Americans ages 65 or over supplied nearly 22% of consumer spending in 2022, the most recent year for which data is available. That’s the highest such figure on records dating to 1989, up from about 16% in 2010. One result of the Fed’s higher rates has been a kind of bifurcated economy, by age. Older, wealthier Americans who already own homes and cars have been much less affected by the Fed’s rate hikes. By contrast, younger Americans are enduring a combination of expensive home prices and high mortgage rates, making it much harder to buy a first home. Harris, for one, sees this divide in her own family: Her home and car are paid off, and higher interest rates have had little effect on her finances. She recently visited a home in her neighborhood that she was surprised to see priced at $500,000. She bought hers, which she thinks could fetch a higher price, for $162,000 in 1991. Her 25-year-old daughter, Ruby, had a vastly different experience during a recent visit to an open house near her boyfriend’s apartment in the Boston area. An older two-bedroom apartment was on sale for $800,000; it sold within a week. Ruby considers herself fortunate to have a well-paying job as a materials engineer. But that apartment price still seemed astronomical. She loves the area, especially for its walkability, but doubts she’ll ever be able to afford a house there. “In the long term, it probably won’t be affordable to stay here,” she said. “Whereas the Midwest is more affordable but won’t have the neighborhoods that I like.” Economists calculate that while the wealth effect generally has a relatively modest effect on spending, it may be larger now. That’s because retirement-age Americans, who are more likely to spend out of their wealth, constitute a larger proportion of the nation: Americans ages 65 and over make up about 17% of the population, up from 13% in 2010. And people with stock holdings can now easily access their account balances online, increasing their awareness of increases in their net worth. Research by Michael Brown, an economist at Visa and others has also found that significant stock market wealth typically boosts spending on discretionary items such as restaurants, travel and entertainment — sectors of the economy where spending is surging and inflation remains elevated. The Conference Board, a business research group, asks Americans in its monthly survey of consumer confidence whether they plan an overseas vacation in the next six months. Slok noted that more than one in five households say they are — a record-high proportion on records dating to 1967. The cruise provider Royal Caribbean just reported blowout earnings and strong demand, “leading to higher pricing for all our key products,” CEO Jason Liberty told investors. “Customer sentiment remains very positive, bolstered by resilient labor markets, wage growth, stabilizing inflation and record-high household net worth.” Last week, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, excluding volatile food and energy costs, rose 2.8% from a year earlier, a sign that inflation remains sticky. Solid consumer spending, particularly on services, was one key factor. In one measure of services inflation that the Fed watches closely, prices climbed 3.5% from a year earlier, far higher than is consistent with its 2% inflation target. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Growing up, Teresa Vicente spent long days in Spain’s Mar Menor swimming in transparent waters, cupping seahorses in her hands and partying under the moonlit sky. Out there, she recalled, time stood still. But over the decades, chronic contamination from mining, development and agricultural runoff turned the once crystal-clear waters of Europe’s largest saltwater lagoon into a graveyard. A mass fish die-off in 2019 prompted the professor of philosophy of law at the University of Murcia to take action. Over the next several years, Vicente, now 61, led a grassroots campaign to save the region’s ecological jewel from collapse. Her efforts helped lead to a new law passed in 2022, giving the lagoon the legal right to conservation, protection and damage remediation. Vicente is one of this year’s seven winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the “Green Nobel,” which honors grassroots activists and leaders from across the globe for achievements in protecting the natural world. The recipients were selected from about 100 nominees. “(This prize) signifies an international recognition that we are facing a new stage in humanity,” said Vicente in Spanish. It’s a stage where “human beings understand they are part of nature. And this recognition means that it is not a local or national conquest, but rather a European and international one.” “They call Mar Menor the lagoon of magic,” she added, “and all of us on this journey have seen a lot of magic.” The other winners are: — Marcel Gomes, executive secretary for the media nonprofit Repórter Brasil, who organized a campaign that alleged connections between beef from the world’s largest meatpacking corporation, JBS, and illegal deforestation in Brazil and helped pressure retailers around the world to stop selling the meat. — Indigenous activist Murrawah Maroochy Johnson, who helped stop development of a coal mine in Australia’s Queensland state that would have devasted nearly 20,000 acres (8,000 hectares) of a nature preserve, spewed nearly 1.6 billion tons of planet-warming carbon dioxide into the atmosphere over its lifetime, and endangered the rights and culture of Indigenous peoples. — Alok Shukla, who led a community movement that saved nearly half a million acres (200,000 hectares) of forests from 21 proposed coal mines in Chhattisgarh, a state in central India. — Andrea Vidaurre, who helped convince the state of California’s air quality agency to establish two transportation regulations that limit emissions from trains and trucks. The rules include the nation’s first emissions limit for trains. — Nonhle Mbuthuma and Sinegugu Zukulu, Indigenous activists who prevented seismic testing for coal and gas in a coastal area off South Africa’s Eastern Cape. Michael Sutton, executive director of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, called the winners “an incredible group of individuals laboring, sometimes in obscurity, against overwhelming odds to prevail against governments, against industry.” Vicente was born and raised in Spain’s southeastern city of Murcia, home to the Mar Menor. When she learned about the 2019 fish die-off, she was at the University of Reading in England studying how other countries had successfully bestowed legal rights upon natural resources to protect them. To save the lagoon, Vicente in 2020 helped write the first draft of a bill granting legal protection to the Mar Menor and submitted it to Spain’s Parliament, which allows citizens to propose laws directly. But the process required her to gather 500,000 signatures during COVID-19 lockdowns. By November 2021, with help from thousands of volunteers across Spain, Vicente had amassed nearly 640,000 signatures — and the law was passed in 2022. She never doubted she would succeed. “People had understood that they were part of that ecosystem and were excited about the idea of ​​being able to defend their rights,” she said. “When people forget their political differences, their religious differences or their economic differences, and give themselves over to a new idea of ​​justice, that is a sure success.” The Goldman Environmental Prize was founded in 1989 by philanthropists Richard and Rhoda H. Goldman to recognize common people working in their communities to protect and improve their environment. ___ AP video journalist Haven Daley contributed to this report from San Francisco. ___ The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A pair of giant pandas will soon make the journey from China to the U.S., where they will be cared for at the San Diego Zoo as part of an ongoing conservation partnership between the two nations, officials said Monday. The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance said its caretakers recently visited China to meet the giant pandas, Yun Chuan and Xin Bao, ahead of their planned trip to Southern California. An exact date for the handoff hasn’t been set. Yun Chuan, a mild-mannered male who’s nearly 5 years old, has “deep connections” to California, the wildlife alliance said. His mother, Zhen Zhen, was born at the San Diego Zoo in 2007 to parents Bai Yun and Gao Gao. Xin Bao is a nearly 4-year-old female described as “a gentle and witty introvert with a sweet round face and big ears.” “Our conservation partners in China shared photographs and personality traits of Yun Chuan and Xin Bao, but meeting them in person was so special,” said Dr. Megan Owen, the alliance’s vice president of conservation science. “It’s inspiring as people from around the world come together to conserve, protect, and care for these special bears, and we can’t wait to welcome them to San Diego.” The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has a nearly 30-year partnership with leading conservation institutions in China focused on protecting and recovering giant pandas and the bamboo forests they depend on. Brought to you by www.srnnews.com

HONOLULU (AP) — For decades, tourists to Hawaii have brought home gift boxes of the islands’ famous chocolate-covered macadamia nuts for friends and family, but these days many of the kernels in the package might not be Hawaii-grown. This little-known fact is surfacing at the state Legislature as lawmakers wrestle over legislation that would force macadamia-nut processors of iconic brands like Mauna Loa to disclose whether their products contain nuts from outside the islands. Growers want the measure to protect their crops and farms, while commercial nut brands say what Hawaii needs is more capacity to process mac nuts locally. It’s the latest tussle over labels for agricultural products from a specific geographic area, a topic familiar to Hawaii due to long-running disputes over Kona coffee. It echoes similar challenges faced by maple syrup producers in Vermont and distilleries in Champagne, which have had to fend off sparkling wine producers from other places trying to appropriate the French region’s name. Foreign nuts are being “marketed cleverly as Hawaiian,” said Jeffrey Clark, chief operating officer of a trust that owns Hamakua Macadamia Nut Company. “It’s not clear to consumers what is Hawaii grown and what is foreign grown,” Clark told state lawmakers during a recent committee hearing. “It creates a problem for the farmers here in Hawaii.” The stakes are high for Hawaii’s 600-plus macadamia nut farmers, many of whom have small operations. Combined, they produced $62.7 million in nuts in 2021, just ahead of coffee in value and second only to seed farms that research genetically engineered corn. Growers say they can’t find buyers for their kernel and unharvested nuts are falling from their trees. Some farmers are giving up and trying to sell their equipment. In response, state lawmakers are due to vote on legislation Wednesday that would require consumer packages to disclose when they contain macadamia nuts grown outside of Hawaii. The measure would take effect on Jan. 1, 2026, if it becomes law. The governor has not indicated whether he will sign it. Macadamia nut trees are native to Australia and were introduced to Hawaii in 1881 by a Scotsman who managed a Big Island sugar mill. The first major attempt at commercial planting dates to 1948. Chocolate-covered macadamia nuts took off the following decade. In the 1970s and ’80s, Hawaii harvested more than 10 times the amount of the next four major producers combined. But today, Australia, South Africa, China and Kenya all grow more than Hawaii. In 2022, the state’s production plummeted 29% from the year before, according to industry data. Hawaiian Host Group sells macadamia nuts under some of the state’s most venerable brands. Their rectangular boxes of Hawaiian Host chocolate-covered macadamia nuts are favorites of tourists and locals alike. Their blue-colored Mauna Loa cans and bags are among the most recognizable macadamia products on store shelves. The company’s chief administrative officer told lawmakers in a Senate committee hearing that the amount of foreign macadamia nuts the company buys varies depending on the Hawaii crop. “We try to purchase as much local macadamias as the growers will sell to us,” Michelle Leon-Guerrero said. CEO Ed Schultz told lawmakers his company buys one-third of the mac nuts grown in Hawaii. It’s been doing so at a 35% premium to Australian prices in 2023 and that Hawaii’s nuts need to be competitive with those from Down Under, he said. He said what the industry needs is more processing capacity. Toward this end, Hawaiian Host wants the industry to form a co-op to run a new processing facility on the Big Island. Many growers are reluctant to join such a project without a labeling requirement that will differentiate their nuts from others around the world. Nathan Trump, the president of the Hawaii Macadamia Nut Association, said Hawaii macadamia nuts have strong brand recognition. But he said the status quo turns the nuts into a commodity. “When you look at things like Vermont maple syrup, New Zealand beef — different country of origin matters because quality matters to consumers,” he said. “If they understand the country of origin, I think they’ll be able to make the decision if they want to pay a higher price.” Vermont law says no maple product may be labeled as being from Vermont, or labeled in a way that implies it was, unless it was 100% produced in Vermont in compliance with state standards. In Europe, Champagne makers came together in the 19th century to prevent sparkling wine makers operating elsewhere from using the French region’s name for their beverage. Today, European Union rules allow products to obtain a geographical designation if they have a specific link to where the product is made. State Rep. Kristin Kahaloa’s Big Island district sits on the western slopes of Mauna Loa, the volcano that is the namesake of the popular nut brand. She said smaller farmers and producers want both labeling requirements and more processing capacity, and she agrees. “Mauna Loa is the name of our mountain,” Kahaloa said. “It’s about keeping a special agricultural product that is part of the fabric of our community on our island.” Brought to you by www.srnnews.com