By PAUL WISEMAN, Associated Press Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit fell by nearly 24% in August as President Donald Trump’s sweeping global tariffs pushed imports lower.

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In a report delayed for more than seven weeks by the federal government shutdown, the Commerce Department said Wednesday that the the gap between what the United States buys from other countries and what it sells them fell to $59.6 billion in August, from $78.2 billion in July.

Imports of goods and services dropped 5% to $340.4 billion in August from July when U.S. companies were stocking up on foreign products before Trump finalized taxes on products from almost every country on earth. Those levies went into effect Aug. 7.

U.S. exports blipped up 0.1% in August to $280.8 billion.

Trump, charging that America’s persistent trade deficits mean that other countries have taken advantage of the U.S., has overturned decades of U.S. policy in favor of free trade, slapping double-digit tariffs on imports from most countries and targeting specific products, including steel, copper and autos, with their own levies.

Still, the U.S. trade deficit is up so far in 2025, coming in at $713.6 billion through August, up 25% from $571.1 billion in January-August 2024.

A drop in imports and the trade deficit is good for economic growth because foreign products are subtracted from the nation’s gross domestic product. GDP is the output of a nation’s goods and services.

“August’s smaller trade deficit will be a tailwind for third quarter real GDP, since it means that more U.S. expenditures were directed toward domestically-produced goods and services rather than foreign ones,” Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank, wrote in a commentary. “While this release is quite dated because of the government shutdown, it contributes to evidence that the economy was growing briskly in the third quarter.”

Tariffs, which Trump says will protect U.S. industries and lure factories to America, are paid by importers who typically attempt to pass along the higher cost to their customers. Economists say Trump’s tariffs are one reason U.S. inflation remains stubbornly above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target.

After voters’ dissatisfaction with the high cost of living led to big Democratic gains in the Nov. 4 elections, the president relented and dropped tariffs last week on beef, coffee, tea, fruit juice, cocoa, spices, bananas, oranges, tomatoes and certain fertilizers, saying they “may, in some cases” have contributed to higher prices.

A worker arranges produce at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

His tariffs are also facing a legal challenge that has gone to the Supreme Court. In a Nov. 5, hearing, the justices sounded skeptical that the president had the authority to bypass Congress and slap unlimited tariffs on most imports simply by declaring a national emergency.

AP Writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.

Before Hollywood, California, became America’s undisputed film capital, silent-film studios flocked to two equally sunny locales to strike it big: Palm Beach and Jacksonville.

These winter movie meccas rich in warmth and inexpensive labor drew some 30 New York- and Chicago-based studios to the thriving Florida cities during the 1910s. Here, studios made over 300 mostly short films and marketed them to a movie-obsessed public. By decade’s end, the studios were gone or bankrupt and its silent films lost to time and neglect — though it wouldn’t be the last time the Sunshine State lured Hollywood back.

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The legacy of films using Florida as both a character and a glamorous backdrop will be unspooled in the new memorabilia exhibit, “Sunshine Cinema: Florida in Film,” at the Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum in West Palm Beach.

A century-spanning chronology of movies filmed in Florida with a Palm Beach emphasis, the show comes from the Historical Society of Palm Beach County and features 25 artifacts, iconic props and movie costumes, from a 1910s Thomas Edison kinetoscope to Tony Montana’s tropical shirt in “Scarface.” Many items are on loan from NBCUniversal and the Edison and Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers.

“We’ve got the earliest images of Palm Beach ever captured on film, the golden age of movie palaces, the age of the drive-in up to COVID-19’s effects on the local movie industry,” says Erica Grant, the historical society’s director of curatorial affairs. “It’s a lot. I don’t know if we’ll ever get to put on a sequel to this show, so we wanted to pack in as much information as we could.”

Grant couldn’t think of a better place to start than 1910s Jacksonville, home to Metro Pictures (later Hollywood titan Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) and an upstart named Norman Studios, where Richard Norman produced groundbreaking “race films” casting Black actors in positive roles in the segregated South. Clips from the 1926 aviation romance, “The Flying Ace,” one of Norman’s last-surviving films, will be shown in the museum’s 2,000-square-foot gallery.

“It features an all-African American cast and went on to inspire entire generations to dare to be a pilot, an aviator,” Grant says. “It’s the power of film to move generations.”

The flight suit that Tom Hanks wore in the 1995 movie, “Apollo 13,” is on display as part of the “Sunshine Cinema: Florida in Film” exhibit. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Florida East Coast Railway expansion drew more tourism to the Palm Beaches, and by 1917 filmmakers had already made “Island of Happiness” and “Isle of Tomorrow,” two pictures capturing glamorous life in Palm Beach and the bluebloods who lived there, Grant adds. Even silent-movie stars like Lionel and Ethel Barrymore, Rudolph Valentino and Billie Burke (later Glinda in the original “Wizard of Oz”) swooped in for winter visits, she says.

“Lillian Gish, Bebe Daniels — they all made a habit of coming to Palm Beach to film. They set the tone for class expectations and beauty norms for audiences to follow,” she says.

Other sections of the exhibit feature 1890s clips from Thomas Edison — including one of Wild West sharpshooter Annie Oakley firing a rifle — alongside century-old Palm Beach photos from the Historical Society’s collection. One section on golden-age movie houses spotlights the old Bijou Theatre in West Palm Beach and Lake Worth Playhouse as lavish gathering spaces for premieres.

By the 1940s, Palm Beach enjoyed a second filmmaking boom, and another section on display confronts Hollywood’s “harmful, not-so-great” history of racial stereotyping from that period, Grant says. For example, the 1953 Rock Hudson Western, “Seminole,” also screening in the gallery, depicts characters in war paint attacking white men against a score of thudding drums.

“So we break that scene apart to encourage visitors to confront how stereotypical images on film try to replace reality,” she says.

Among the big attention-grabbers are the memorabilia, including Tom Hanks’ NASA suit from “Apollo 13,” Vin Diesel’s tank top from “2 Fast 2 Furious,” and the sheriff uniform worn by Roy Scheider’s character, Chief Martin Brody, in “Jaws 2.”

A section is devoted to late actor and Jupiter resident Burt Reynolds, featuring scripts and movie costumes donated to the museum by Reynold’s niece, Nancy Hess.

The exhibit also highlights the career of late actor and Jupiter resident Burt Reynolds. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

Visitors also will find interactive touchscreens where they can create movie posters or build a movie scene from scratch.

“We are thrilled to bring this dynamic exhibition to life,” says Jeremy Johnson, president and CEO of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. “‘Sunshine Cinema’ celebrates not just the movies filmed here, but the people, places and legacy behind them.”

IF YOU GO

WHAT: “Sunshine Cinema: Florida in Film,” presented by the Historical Society of Palm Beach County

WHEN: Exhibit runs Nov. 14-May 30

WHERE: Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum, 300 N. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach

COST: Admission is $12 for adults and free for guests age 18 and younger.

INFORMATION: 561-832-4164; PBCHistory.org

Artifacts of the silent movie era are on display as part of the “Sunshine Cinema: Florida in Film” exhibit in West Palm Beach. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun Sentinel)

By SAM McNEIL, Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union rolled out a new defense package on Wednesday to allow tanks and troops to deploy more rapidly across the many borders of the 27-nation bloc in the event of a conflict, as concern mounts that Russia is already probing its defenses.

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Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the EU has watched warily as a full-scale war raged just across its eastern border. That nervousness has only increased in recent months, as the EU has scrambled to deal with mysterious drone incursions linked to Russia.

Europe’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said that spending on defense now might avert war.

“Weakness invites them to make their move,” she said, speaking of Russia. She said if the EU increases its defensive capabilities and readiness, “then Russia will not attack because we are not weak.”

The new military mobility proposal by the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, would invest 17.65 billion euro ($20.4 billion) into 500 locations that have been identified as choke points, such as bridges, ports and tunnels currently unable to handle heavy traffic and vehicles.

During conflict or disaster, emergency protocols would snap in place. Armed forces would be given priority access to infrastructure like airports, roads and railways during emergencies, and current regulations in some areas such as transporting dangerous goods would be scrapped for militaries or private defense companies.

The defense package underscored a sea change in geopolitics spurred on by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has called into question 80 years of cooperation based on the understanding that the U.S. would help protect European nations following World War II.

The EU arose out of the determination to avoid a repetition of the horrors of the two world wars by binding the countries of Europe into closer economic and political cooperation. However, since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, the bloc has increasingly focused on defense and security.

EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said European intelligence services have warned that Russia could attack the EU in the next three or four years, or test NATO’s Article 5 guarantee that says an attack against one member is an attack against all.

“Resilient infrastructure. Joint action. Safer Europe. Today’s Military Mobility Package will strengthen Europe’s readiness and ability to move quickly in crisis,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen posted on X after Wednesday’s announcement.

‘Military Schengen’

One of the biggest challenges facing the push for defense integration is updating transport systems so that they operate seamlessly across borders, in terms of languages and protocols used at ports and train stations. Some railway gauges, for example, are mismatched, making it difficult to send trains carrying armored vehicles from western Europe to the eastern flank bordering Russia, Belarus and Ukraine.

Kubilius said that eventually it aims to forge a “military Schengen,” a reference to Europe’s ID-check-free travel zone, which is made up of 25 EU member countries, plus Liechtenstein, Iceland, Norway and Switzerland.

He said that “frontier countries” like Estonia, Latvia, and Finland on the eastern flank require deeper infrastructure connections to ”continental countries” like France and Germany.

“This is how we turn industrial strength into operational readiness — and make sure Europe can move as one, with the speed and coordination of our security demands,” Kubilius said.

The new plan would be for each EU nation to send a representative to the Military Mobility Transport Group to streamline military deployments in times of peace, emergencies and conflict.

Auditors had warned in February that the EU’s military mobility was too small and poorly managed to be effective.

Boosting domestic production

The commission also announced a Defense Industry Transformation Roadmap which aims to simplify and unify regulations on the EU’s defense industry, and corral investment into domestic production of weapons, vehicles, satellites, shells and bullets.

Both the package and the road map follow the Commission’s “ Readiness 2030 ” security strategy built around the threat of Russian aggression. The commission estimates that EU defense spending this year will total around 392 billion euros ($457 billion), almost double the amount of four years ago, before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

It believes that some 3.4 trillion euros ($4 trillion) will probably be spent on defense over the next decade. To help, it intends to propose boosting the EU’s long-term budget for defense and space to 131 billion euros ($153 billion).

EU member countries are being urged to buy much of their military equipment within the bloc, working mostly with European suppliers — in some cases with EU help to cut prices and speed up orders. Under the roadmap, EU nations should only purchase equipment from abroad when costs, performance or supply delays make it preferable.

The Trump administration has signaled it is prioritizing U.S. security on its own domestic borders and in Asia. It has told Europeans that they must fend for themselves and Ukraine in the future.

By JAKE COYLE

“Give us a clock tick” is an expression uttered several times in “Wicked: For Good.” But Jon M. Chu’s two-part musical has asked for quite a bit more than that.

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Together, the two halves of this “Wicked” adaptation have run 297 minutes, which, more than the threat of lions and tigers and bears, is enough to make any moviegoer not entirely bewitched by the “Wizard of Oz” revision breathe a sigh of “Oh, my.”

So it’s a lot of clock ticks, quite a few more than the stage musical, which had roughly half the runtime. But “Wicked” has always been a spectacle of scale: power ballads and sprawling sets, all in retina-testing technicolor. Muchness is part of the point of “Wicked,” a song-and-dance assault of allegory and anthems relayed with an earnestness that you might call endearing if you’re good or tiresome if you’re, well, you know.

For anyone in the former camp who somehow felt last year’s part one wasn’t enough, “For Good” will probably be a very welcoming second helping. Since these films were shot at the same time, much of the tone and tenor of the first chapter continues in “For Good.” There’s more Cynthia Erivo, more Ariana Grande and more soaring soliloquies. For most “Wicked” fans, more is good.

But for those of us who felt — what’s a non-wicked way to say this? — mildly waterboarded, in pink and green, by “Wicked,” “For Good” doesn’t offer much relief. There is, to be sure, great talent on display in these films, particularly in the case of Erivo. But “For Good,” like its predecessor, often feels more like a Production than a movie, with characters shuffled on and offstage with Oz-like orchestration.

That may be an unavoidable aspect of a pop amalgamation like “Wicked.” This is a big-screen adaptation of a 2003 stage musical (Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz) based on a 1995 book (Gregory Maguire) inspired by a 1939 movie (Victor Fleming and company) and the original 1900 “The Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum. More than a century of American entertainment is packed inside “Wicked.”

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Cynthia Erivo, left, and Jonathan Bailey in a scene from “Wicked for Good..” (Universal Pictures via AP)

So, yes, “The Wizard of Oz” is basically history at this point. And that was much of the wit of Maguire’s book, which took Baum’s Oz and imagined that all of its apparent dichotomies — the vilified Wicked Witch of the West, the perfect Glinda the Good Witch, the powerful Wizard — were mere propaganda. If history is a set of falsehoods agreed upon, then Oz, too, is a lie.

Those political metaphors move to the forefront in “For Good.” Having spent much of part one filling in the backstory of Elphaba (Erivo) and Glinda (Grande) as classmates at Shiz University, the second chapter finds Oz in an increasingly agitated state. Elphaba, demonized as the Wicked Witch of the West, is now living in exile.

“Shield your children,” trumpets the government messaging. “Trust no animals!”

While the Yellow Brick Road is laid down, like railroad tracks on the frontier in an industrial haze, the hunt for Elphaba ratchets up. A travel ban is put in effect for animals and Munchkins, alike. Oz, it’s said, is “a place that seems to be devolving.”

This image released by Universal Pictures shows Jonathan Bailey, left, and Ariana Grande in a scene from “Wicked for Good..” (Universal Pictures via AP)

No one above the age of 10 will fail to miss the target of these references. “Wicked: For Good” isn’t shy about them, and that frankness — and the movie’s ardent belief in empathy and multiculturalism — is both the film’s most stirring and most heavy-handed trait. Each iteration of “Wicked” has come with its own political relevancy. Maguire, himself, was influenced by the drumbeat leading up the Gulf War. “For Good” may be the most pointed and timely interpretation yet. Some of that is woven into the play, and some of it is expanded upon in Holzman’s and Dana Fox’s script, which pads the second act with a little more minor character development and a pair of new songs.

The catchiest tunes (“Popular,” Defying Gravity”) are in the rearview, though. Instead, “Wicked: For Good” is all storm clouds and rebellion, as Elphaba mounts a resistance to the Wizard (Jeff Goldblum) and Madame Morrible (Michelle Yeoh). Characters like Fiyero (Jonathan Bailey), captain of the Wizard’s guard, are forced to pick a side.

Considering the source material of the 1939 classic — old Hollywood at the very height of its powers — you would think Oz would come through clearly as a setting, only seen from a different perspective. But despite Chu’s energetic handling of earlier films like “In the Heights” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” “Wicked: For Good” struggles to really orient us in a place. When Dorothy and Toto drop in (they’re seen only from afar), you almost yearn for the clear pathway they begin skipping down.

Instead, “Wicked: For Good,” rather than conjuring Oz anew, always feels like it’s jumping from one set piece to another. Maybe this is a silly gripe for a fantasyland. (“I don’t have any idea where the offices of the Lollipop Guild are!”) But I rarely found myself lifted into a movie world, but rather sat watching it — sometimes with admiration, rarely with delight — from the mezzanine. The rub of going for maximum effect all the time is that the actors never have a chance to simply be.

This image released by Universal Pictures showsJeff Goldblum, left, and Cynthia Erivo in a scene from “Wicked for Good..” (Universal Pictures via AP)

All the momentum that “Wicked: For Good” does gather is owed significantly to its stars. To a large degree, these movies have been the Erivo-and-Grande show, a grand spectacle of female friendship that rises above all the petty biases and misjudgments to forge a vision of harmony in opposites. It’s a compelling vision, and Chu, as he did in the triumphant “Defying Gravity” culmination of part one, knows how to stick the landing.

Grande is best at the (too few) comic moments, like a brief impression of Margaret Hamilton’s cackle. But it’s Erivo who really elevates the material. Her Elphaba seems to both believe in the hopeful possibility of “Wicked” and fear its impossibility. When she melancholily sings one of the new songs, “No Place Like Home,” Erivo appears to grasp that it’s going to take more than a click of the heels, or tick of the clock, to get there.

“Wicked: For Good,” a Universal Pictures release is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for action/violence, some suggestive material and thematic material. Running time: 137 minutes. Two stars out of four.