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China’s economy expanded at the slowest annual pace in a year in July-September, growing 4.8%, weighed down by trade tensions with the United States and slack domestic demand.The July-September data was the weakest pace of growth since the third quarter of 2024, and compares with a 5.2% pace of growth in the previous quarter, the government said in a report Monday.In January-September, the world’s second largest economy grew at a 5.2% annual pace. Despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s higher tariffs on imports from China, its exports have remained relatively strong as companies expanded sales to other world markets.China’s exports to the United States fell 27% in September from the year before, even though growth in its global exports hit a six-month high, climbing 8.3%.Exports of electric vehicles doubled in September from a year earlier, while domestic passenger car sales climbed 11.2% year-on-year in last month, down from a 15% rise in August, according to data released last week.Tensions between Beijing and Washington remain elevated, and it’s unclear if Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will go ahead with a proposed meeting during a regional summit at the end of this month.Xi and other ruling Communist Party members are convening one of China’s most important political meetings for the year on Monday, where they will map out economic and social policy goals for the country for the next five years.The economy slowed in the last quarter as the authorities moved to curb fierce price wars in sectors such as the auto industry due to excess capacity.China is also facing challenges including a prolonged property sector downturn which has been affecting consumption and demand.Data released Monday showed China’s residential property sales fell 7.6% by value in the January-September period from a year earlier. Industrial output rose 6.5% year-on-year last month, the fastest pace since June, but retail sales growth slowed to 3% from the year before.Ratings agency S&P estimates nationwide new home sales will fall by 8% in 2025 from the year before and by 6% to 7% in 2026.The World Bank expects China’s economy to grow at a 4.8% annual rate this year. The government’s official growth target is around 5%.Chinese shares rose Monday, with the Hang Seng in Hong Kong climbing 2.3% and the Shanghai Composite index up 0.5%.A National Bureau of Statistics spokesman said China has a “solid foundation” to achieve its full-year growth target, but cited external complications including trade friction with the U.S. and other trading partners and protectionist policies in many countries as reasons for the slowdown.China’s stronger economic growth in the first half of this year gives it “some buffer” to achieve the growth target, said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING Bank.However, spending during China’s eight-day Golden Week national holiday in October was “mildly disappointing,” reflecting sluggish consumer confidence and demand, Morningstar analysts said in a note this month.Investments in factories, equipment and other “fixed assets” fell 0.5% in the last quarter, underscoring weakness in domestic demand. It also was reflected in prices, which have continued to fall both at the consumer and the wholesale level.There’s room for the government to do more, Song said.“(We) are looking to see if there will be further measures to support consumption and the property market, as the impact from previous policies begins to weaken,” Song said.Economists are also expecting a rate cut by China’s central bank by the end of the year, which could encourage more spending and investment.China’s economy is also likely to further slow in 2026, said Jacqueline Rong, chief China economist at BNP Paribas, as property investment in the country “looks (to) continue falling” and the AI boom, which helped lift China’s economy and fueled a stock market rally, is expected to moderate. Chan Ho-Him, AP Business Writer
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President Donald Trump said Sunday that the United States could purchase Argentinian beef in an attempt to bring down prices for American consumers.“We would buy some beef from Argentina,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One during a flight from Florida to Washington. “If we do that, that will bring our beef prices down.”Trump promised earlier this week to address the issue as part of his efforts to keep inflation in check.U.S. beef prices have been stubbornly high for a variety of reasons, including drought and reduced imports from Mexico due to a flesh-eating pest in cattle herds there.Trump has been working to help Argentina bolster its collapsing currency with a $20 billion credit swap line and additional financing from sovereign funds and the private sector ahead of midterm elections for his close ally, President Javier Milei. Christopher Megerian, Associated Press
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A popular frozen food producer has recalled nearly 92,000 pounds of breakfast burrito and breakfast wrap products that contain eggs due to a risk of contamination with Listeria monocytogenes. The ready-to-eat burritos and wraps were recalled after the producer, M.C.I. Foods, discovered a positive Listeria result while doing routine testing on scrambled eggs from external suppliers, according to a recall notice posted by the U.S. Department of Agricultures Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). The recall impacts multiple brands supplied by M.C.I. Foods, including some that contain branding from the popular Minions animated franchise. The California-based company reported its findings to the FSIS, which published the notice on Saturday, October 18. Fortunately, no illnesses have been linked to the consumption of the affected products to date. Heres what you need to know: Which products are being recalled? The individually packaged and bulk-packed frozen breakfast burritos and wraps were produced between September 17 and October 14, 2025. Affected products have establishment numbers EST. 1162A or P-5890A inside the USDA mark of inspection. These products were shipped to food service institutions nationwide, including schools. The FSIS notice notes that the Los Cabos, El Más Fino, and Midamar brand products are included in the USDAs National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs. Below are the specific product details for impacted products. El Mas Fino: Egg, Ham, and Cheese Breakfast Burrito El Mas Fino: Egg, Sausage, and Cheese Breakfast Burrito Los Cabos: Sausage, Egg & 3 Cheese Breakfast Burrito Los Cabos: Egg, Cheese, Potato & Cooked Sausage Crumbles (Made with Turkey) Breakfast Wrap Los Cabos: Egg, Cheese & Cooked Sausage Crumbles (Made with Turkey) Breakfast Wrap Los Cabos: Cheese, Cooked Sausage Crumbles (Made with Turkey) & Egg Breakfast Wrap Midamar: Egg, Cheese & Beef with Sausage Seasoning Breakfast Wrap You can find a full list of product and lot codes on the FSIS website. Note that some of the products have Minions branding on the packaging. You can also find images of the product labels on the FSIS website. What if I have this product? Foods service institutions are instructed to throw away the recalled products. The FSIS is concerned that the recalled products may still be in refrigerators or freezers at these institutions, the notice states. Institutions are being urged to avoid serving the affected products. Recalled products should be thrown out. Where was this product sold? The recall notice doesnt include a list of locations where the products were distributed. However, it notes that they were shipped to food service institutions nationwide, including schools. Fast Company has reached out to M.C.I. Foods for a list of distribution locations. We will update this story if we receive a response. If you have questions about the recall, you can contact M.C.I. Foods at 888-345-5364. What is Listeria? Listeria infection is an illness caused by bacteria that can spread through contaminated food. According to the Mayo Clinic, healthy people rarely become seriously ill from Listeria infection. But the disease can be fatal for unborn babies, newborns, and those with weakened immune systems. Pregnant women, adults 65 and older, and people with weakened immune systems are more at risk for infection.
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E-Commerce
U.K. banks and government tech systems going down. University students in Australia struggling to complete their coursework. Homes across Europe losing access to their Ring doorbells. While you were sleeping, large parts of the Amazon Web Services (AWS)-based internet went offline around the world. According to the AWS outage monitor, the problem stemmed from a misconfiguration of Domain Name System (DNS) resolution within the company’s cloud infrastructure. The problem was remedied within three hours of being encounteredby people unable to log onto Roblox or search the web with Perplexity. But the outage highlights just how much the web’s day-to-day functionality relies on the the existence of too few companies. AWS controls around a third of the market; Microsoft, through its Azure cloud service, and Google hold around another third. They are some of a handful of companies that dominate the marketand do so because of their ordinary success and smooth running of cloud infrastructure services. That success, some argue, has translated to overly concentrated control by a small number of companies of key bits of the webs infrastructure, which was always meant to be distributed and with many points of failure. The main reason for this issue is that all these big companies have relied on just one serviceAWSwithout planning for redundancy, says Nishanth Sastry, director of research at the University of Surreys department of computer science. It means that in the rare event of an outage from those key infrastructure providers, we see catastrophic consequences across different sectors, from gaming to government. Once again, we are experiencing how the concentration in the computing industry, in this case in cloud computing, can crash major parts of our internet, all at once, says Corinne Cath-Speth, an expert on cloud computing and head of digital at human rights organization ARTICLE 19. The infrastructure underpinning democratic discourse, independent journalism, and secure communications cannot be dependent on a handful of companies. Even those that do have multiple eggs in multiple metaphorical baskets were affected. Signal, the secure messaging app which rents cloud infrastructure from AWS, Google and Microsoft Azure, faced outages because of AWSs issues. Amazon did not immediately respond to Fast Companys request for comment. That urgency needs to go to the top of governments, nevermind businesses, reckons Amandine LePape, chief operating officer and cofounder of Element, which provides secure communications to governments. Centralized systems may offer convenience and scale, but they also create single points of failure, she says. True resilience comes from decentralisation and self-hosting. That needs to be considered for the futuresimilar outages of AWS have occurred in 2020, 2021, and 2023because its likely to happen again. Governments and other organizations must rethink their infrastructure strategies now, says LePape, or risk being next in line when the cloud goes dark, especially when it comes to their communications.
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French luxury goods company Kering said Sunday it is selling its beauty division to L’Oreal for 4 billion euros ($4.66 billion).Under the agreement, Clichy, France-based L’Oreal will acquire the House of Creed high-end fragrance company as well as licenses to create beauty and fragrance products for Kering brands like Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga.The companies said they will establish a strategic committee to ensure coordination between Kering brands and L’Oréal. Kering and L’Oréal said they are also exploring joint business opportunities in the wellness and longevity market, combining L’Oreal’s innovation with Kering’s deep understanding of luxury clients.The deal has some precedence. L’Oreal acquired the beauty license for Kering’s Yves Saint Laurent brand in 2008.Luca de Meo, CEO of Paris-based Kering, said the deal combines L’Oreal’s expertise with Kering’s luxury reach.“Joining forces with the global leader in beauty, we will accelerate the development of fragrance and cosmetics for our major houses, allowing them to achieve scale in this category and unlock their immense long-term potential, as did Yves Saint Laurent Beauté under L’Oréal’s stewardship,” de Meo said in a statement.Nicolas Hieronimus, the CEO of L’Oreal Groupe, said Creed is one of the fastest growing players in the niche fragrance market, while Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga are “exceptional couture brands with enormous potential for growth.”The all-cash deal is expected to close in the first half of 2026. L’Oréal will also pay royalties to Kering for the use of its licensed brands. Dee-Ann Durbin, AP Business Writer
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E-Commerce
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