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BANGKOK — Japanese automakers Nissan Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. confirmed Wednesday that they are discussing closer collaboration but denied reports they have decided on a merger. Nissan’s share price soared nearly 24% in Tokyo after reports citing unnamed sources said it might merge with Honda to form the world’s third-largest automaking group.

NEW YORK — U. S. stocks tumbled to one of their worst days of the year after the Federal Reserve hinted Wednesday it may deliver fewer shots of adrenaline for the U. S. economy in 2025 than earlier thought. The S&P 500 fell 2.9%, just shy of its biggest loss for the year, to pull further from its all-time high set a couple weeks ago.

A prospective class-action lawsuit filed by a resident of Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood this week alleges Amazon deceptively provides slower delivery service to residents of certain ZIP codes throughout the country. The complaint comes just two weeks after the online retail giant was hit with a similar lawsuit from the District of Columbia’s attorney general. The lawsuit, like the District of Columbia complaint, centers on the company’s paid Amazon Prime subscription service.

The Louisiana resident infected with H5N1 bird flu is hospitalized in critical condition and suffering from severe respiratory symptoms, the Louisiana health department revealed Wednesday. The health department had reported the presumptive positive case on Friday and noted the person was hospitalized, as Ars reported. But a spokesperson had, at the time, declined to provide Ars with the patient's condition or further details, citing patient confidentiality and an ongoing public health investigation. This morning, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it had confirmed the state's H5N1 testing and determined that the case "marks the first instance of severe illness linked to the virus in the United States."Read full article Comments

In theory, it ought to be as good a time as ever to be a gamer on the iPhone. Classic console emulators have rolled out to the platform for the first time, and they work great. There are strong libraries of non-skeezy mobile games on Apple Arcade and Netflix Games, streaming via Xbox and PlayStation services is continuing apace, and there are even a few AAA console games now running natively on the platform, like Assassin's Creed and Resident Evil titles. Some of those games need a traditional, dual-stick game controller to work well, though, and Apple bafflingly offers no first-party solution for this.

DETROIT — U. S. auto safety regulators have backed away from seeking a giant recall of nearly 50 million air bag inflators and will investigate further after the auto industry raised questions about whether all of the inflators are defective. The move Wednesday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is vastly different from a decision reiterated by the agency in July that the inflators made by ARC Automotive Inc.