By Susanne Rust, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — Since the avian flu arrived en force in California’s dairy industry in 2024, not only has it sickened cows, it has killed hundreds of domestic cats. Some pet cats that live on dairy farms were infected with the H5N1 virus by drinking raw milk. Both pets and feral barn cats got sick after eating raw pet food that harbored the virus. Still others got it by eating infected wild birds, rats or mice, or from contact with dairy workers’ contaminated clothes or boots.

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But a new published case suggests that death may be averted if infected cats are treated early with antiviral medications, such as Tamiflu, or oseltamivir. Once treated, these animals may carry antibodies to the virus that makes them resistant to reinfection, at least temporarily.

The discovery was made by Jake Gomez, a veterinarian who treats small animals, such as cats and dogs, as well as large ones, including dairy cows, from his clinic, Cross Street Small Animal Veterinary Hospital, in Tulare.

Last fall, Gomez worked with a team of scientists from the University of Maryland and University of Texas who were in the Central Valley collecting blood samples from outdoor cats at dairy farms, looking to see if they could find antibodies to the H5N1 flu.

Cats are exquisitely sensitive to H5N1; one of the telltale signs that a dairy herd is infected is the presence of dead barn cats.

On Oct. 31, a cat owner brought in an indoor/outdoor cat to Gomez’ clinic that was ADR — a technical veterinarian acronym that stands for “ain’t doing right.”

The cat was up-to-date on all its vaccinations and the owner reported no known exposure to toxic chemicals.

Gomez offered to do blood work and urinalysis to probe more deeply what was going on, but the owner declined. So, Gomez sent them home with an antibiotic and an appetite stimulant. Two days later, the cat died.

It turned out the family had had another cat die just a few days earlier, Gomez said, recalling the visit.

Also during that time, Gomez was treating infected dairy herds around Tulare. Thousands of cows were falling sick from the virus. The family with the sick cats, he learned, lived less than a mile from an infected dairy, and the cat owner worked delivering hay to local dairies, spending time on infected farms.

“Considering how quickly it moved from one cat to the next, it occurred to me it might be H5N1,” he said.

Gomez said he reached out to the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the California Department of Food and Agriculture to see if they would test the dead animals for the virus. The agencies, he said, gave him the runaround and he couldn’t get anyone to answer his calls — which he said was perplexing, considering the rapid response when he alerted them to infected cattle.

“If I called to tell them a dairy herd had it, within 24 hours a SWAT team from the USDA and state would be swarming the farm,” he said. But for a cat? Crickets.

On Nov. 6 and 7, the family returned with two more sick cats.

Gomez said he still didn’t know what they had, but had a suspicion they could be infected with H5N1. So, he treated them with the antiviral oseltamivir, known also as Tamiflu, and they recovered.

In March this year, blood samples collected from the two cats showed high levels of antibodies to H5N1 — suggesting the cats had been exposed.

The case was published in the journal One Health.

Kristen Coleman, an airborne infectious disease researcher at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, and an author on the paper, said the findings suggest that cats may be effectively treated and that antiviral medications could help prevent further spread of the virus among cats living in the same home and the humans who care for them.

She said there have been no known transmissions from cats to humans in this outbreak, but there have in the past — in 2005, Thai zookeepers were infected by tigers that had the virus, and in 2016, New York veterinarians at an animal shelter got it from tending to sick cats.

But Jane Sykes, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, said she’s not convinced the cats in this case actually had H5N1 — and urged people to read the study with care and caution.

“It’s possible that the positive antibody test results were unrelated to the reasons why those two cats died,” she said. “The virus wasn’t detected in any of the four cats, so infection was not proven.”

And whether the cats recovered because they were treated with Tamiflu, or whether the medication was incidental and they’d have recovered on their own — from another virus, infection or ailment — isn’t clear.

In addition, she said, no one has researched the effects of Tamiflu on cats. And while these two cats appeared to tolerate the drug, that doesn’t mean other cats will.

“Cats metabolize some of the anti-infective compounds very differently than other animals, including people, and they’re quite susceptible to bad side effects of many of these drugs,” she said. “We have to be really careful when we start just using random antiviral drugs that haven’t been studied for safety in cats, because they are so likely to get bad side effects.”

Having said that, she said if she were faced with a similar situation, a high certainty that a cat had been exposed, whether from drinking raw milk or eating raw food that had been infected, she would consider prescribing the medication. But she’d caution her client that it was experimental, and the animal could die from the drug.

She said there are numerous labs across the country that will test blood and urine for the virus.

Sykes urged people not to feed raw food or milk to their pets.

She said she’s seeing more raw food products for pets “and people want them, and they don’t understand the harms and the fact that some of these are contaminated for a long period of time with influenza viruses, like H5N1.”

Neither freezing nor smoking meat kills the virus.

“It’s astonishing how big this industry is getting,” Sykes said. “It’s crazy.”

©2025 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By DEE-ANN DURBIN and TED SHAFFREY, Associated Press

VALHALLA, New York (AP) — Pepsi has a new challenge: keeping products like Gatorade and Cheetos vivid and colorful without the artificial dyes that U.S. consumers are increasingly rejecting.

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PepsiCo, which also makes Doritos, Cap’n Crunch cereal, Funyuns and Mountain Dew, announced in April that it would accelerate a planned shift to using natural colors in its foods and beverages. Around 40% of its U.S. products now contain synthetic dyes, according to the company.

But just as it took decades for artificial colors to seep into PepsiCo’s products, removing them is likely to be a multi-year process. The company said it’s still finding new ingredients, testing consumers’ responses and waiting for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve natural alternatives. PepsiCo hasn’t committed to meeting the Trump administration’s goal of phasing out petroleum-based synthetic dyes by the end of 2026.

“We’re not going to launch a product that the consumer’s not going to enjoy,” said Chris Coleman, PepsiCo’s senior director for food research and development in North America. “We need to make sure the product is right.”

Coleman said it can take two or three years to shift a product from an artificial color to a natural one. PepsiCo has to identify a natural ingredient that will have a stable shelf life and not change a product’s flavor. Then it must ensure the availability of a safe and adequate supply. The company tests prototypes with trained experts and panels of consumers, then makes sure the new formula won’t snag its manufacturing process. It also has to design new packaging.

Experimenting with spices to color Cheetos

Tostitos and Lay’s will be the first PepsiCo brands to make the shift, with naturally dyed tortilla and potato chips expected on store shelves later this year and naturally dyed dips due to be on sale early next year. Most of the chips, dips and salsas in the two lines already are naturally colored, but there were some exceptions.

The reddish-brown tint of Tostitos Salsa Verde, for example, came from four synthetic colors: Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Red 40 and Blue 1. Coleman said the company is switching to carob powder, which gives the chips a similar color, but needed to tweak the recipe to ensure the addition of the cocoa alternative wouldn’t affect the taste.

Damien Browne, vice president of research and development for PepsiCo’s beverages, is interviewed at the company’s R&D Campus, in Valhalla, NY, Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

In its Frito-Lay food labs and test kitchens in Plano, Texas, PepsiCo is experimenting with ingredients like paprika and turmeric to mimic the bright reds and oranges in products like Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, Coleman said.

The company is looking at purple sweet potatoes and various types of carrots to color drinks like Mountain Dew and Cherry 7Up, according to Damien Browne, the vice president of research and development for PepsiCo’s beverage division based in Valhalla, New York.

Getting the hue right is critical, since many consumers know products like Gatorade by their color and not necessarily their name, Browne said.

“We eat with our eyes,” he said. “If you look at a plate of food, it’s generally the different kinds of colors that will tell you what you would like or not.”

Consumer demand goes from a whisper to a roar

When the Pepsi-Cola Company was founded in 1902, the absence of artificial dyes was a point of pride. The company marketed Pepsi as “The Original Pure Food Drink” to differentiate the cola from rivals that used lead, arsenic and other toxins as food colorants before the U.S. banned them in 1906.

But synthetic dyes eventually won over food companies. They were vibrant, consistent and cheaper than natural colors. They are also rigorously tested by the FDA.

Still, PepsiCo said it started seeing a small segment of shoppers asking for products without artificial colors or flavors more than two decades ago. In 2002, it launched its Simply line of chips, which offer natural versions of products like Doritos. A dye-free organic Gatorade came out in 2016.

“We’re looking for those little signals that will become humongous in the future,” Amanda Grzeda, PepsiCo’s senior director of global sensory and consumer experience, said of the company’s close attention to consumer preferences.

Grzeda said the whisper PepsiCo detected in the early 2000s has become a roar, fueled by social media and growing consumer interest in ingredients. More than half of the consumers PepsiCo spoke to for a recent internal study said they were trying to reduce their consumption of artificial dyes, Grzeda said.

Synthetic and natural colors are in FDA’s hands

Some states, including West Virginia and Arizona, have banned artificial dyes in school lunches. But Browne said he thinks consumers are driving the push to overhaul processed foods.

“Consumers are definitely leading, and I think what we need to do is have the regulators catching up, allowing us to approve new natural ingredients to be able to meet their demand,” he said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has said it’s expediting approval of natural additives after calling on companies to halt their use of synthetic dyes. In May, the FDA approved three new natural color additives, including a blue color derived from algae. In July, the agency approved gardenia blue, which is derived from a flowering evergreen.

The FDA banned one petroleum-based dye, Red 3, in January because it was shown to cause cancer in lab rats. And in September, the agency proposed a ban on Orange B, a synthetic color that hasn’t been used in decades.

Six synthetic dyes remain FDA-approved and widely used, despite mixed studies that show they may cause neurobehavioral problems in some children. Red 40, for example, is used in 25,965 food and beverage items on U.S. store shelves, according to the market research firm NIQ.

But even if decades of research has shown that synthetic colors are safe, PepsiCo has to weigh public perceptions, Grzeda said.

“We could just blindly follow the science, but it probably would put us at odds with what our consumers believe and perceive in the world,” she said.

Passing taste and texture tests

PepsiCo also has to balance the needs of consumers who don’t want their favorite snacks and drinks to change or get more expensive because of the costs of natural dyes. NIQ data shows that unit sales of products advertised as free of artificial colors fell sharply in 2023 as prices rose.

Susan Mazur-Stommen, a small business owner in Hinton, West Virginia, picked up some Simply brand Cheetos Puffs recently at a convenience store because they were the only variety available. She found the texture to be much different from regular Cheetos Puffs, she said, and their pallid color made them less appetizing.

Mazur-Stommen said she agrees with the move away from petroleum-based dyes, but it’s not a critical issue for her.

“What I am looking for is the original formulation,” she said.

Ultimately, PepsiCo does not want customers to have to choose between natural colors and familiar flavors and textures, Grzeda said.

“That’s where it requires the deep science and ingredients and magic,” she said.

Durbin reported from Detroit.

By Lane Gillespie, Bankrate.com

Katey Davern, a 46-year-old in St. Paul, Minnesota, has learned firsthand just how much paperwork is involved when planning someone’s last years.

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Davern, along with her three siblings, started planning for their elderly parents’ end-of-life needs about three years ago. As the parent of five children herself — three of whom are under 18 and still live at home — Davern is increasingly navigating two different financial worlds. In one, she’s helping her parents with end-of-life financial planning. In the other, she and her husband are managing their own immediate family’s spending, saving for their children’s college, contributing to their retirement accounts and adding to their health savings accounts (HSA).

“I think the weird part about being Gen X is while you are raising your kids and they’re becoming less dependent on you, you start to kind of raise your parents. But they don’t want to be dependent on you. It’s a really tricky situation,” Davern says.

Most Gen Xers’ parents either already need end-of-life care or are at the age where they’ll need to make plans for future care. As a result, many Gen Xers themselves (ages 45-60) are in the rare position of having two financial priorities: serving as caretakers for their parents, who could need extensive and time-consuming care, while also sometimes raising kids under the age of 18, who could need child care, school expenses and a college fund. These costs have only grown more expensive over the last few years because of inflation.

The combination of multiple, high-cost financial priorities can have negative effects on Gen Xers’ finances, including their ability to budget and save. And whether they’re caregivers or not, Bankrate data shows that many Gen Xers already struggle to meet important financial milestones, like building a sufficient emergency fund or saving enough to retire. Overall, 84 percent of Gen Xers say they are not completely financially secure, a higher percentage than any other generation, according to Bankrate’s Financial Freedom Survey.

“Generation Xers are the classic group that many of us call the ‘sandwich generation,’” says Bankrate U.S. Economic Reporter Sarah Foster, who reports on economic policy and its effect on American households. “They’re wedged in the middle between conflicting financial goals, like caring for their parents and raising their children. They may feel economic turning points more severely.”

In today’s economic landscape — marked by market volatility, inflation concerns, and tenuous job security — financial decisions have never felt more consequential. Our “Navigating Now” series cuts through the noise with targeted advice for diverse financial situations. Each profile examines real-world challenges and opportunities faced by different Americans, offering actionable strategies tailored to their unique circumstances. Whether you’re struggling to build savings amid rising costs, protect retirement funds during market volatility, or secure your income in an uncertain job landscape, these roadmaps provide clarity in uncertain times.

Rising prices, limited resources are squeezing caregivers — especially Gen Xers

Twenty-nine percent of family caregivers of any age have children or grandchildren under the age of 18 living at home while also caring for an adult family member or friend, according to AARP.

Caring for aging parents is expensive, and those costs often fall on caregivers. Caregivers spend 26 percent of their personal income on caregiving expenses on average, according to AARP, and the average family caregiver spends roughly $7,200 per year on out-of-pocket caregiving expenses. Caregivers might also take on other indirect expenses, like additional transportation costs to take their parents to the doctor.

Even if Gen X caregivers were to help their parents as frugally as possible — such as going without hired help and keeping their parents at home — several economic factors make elder care more expensive today.

For one, costs of caring for the elderly at home are actually rising faster than costs of nursing homes or other inpatient care. The inflation rate for the care of ill and elderly people at home has risen 5.6 percent year-over-year, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), while nursing homes and adult day services have risen 4.7 percent. The cost of caring for the elderly at home has grown more than twice the overall inflation rate for all consumer goods (2.7 percent).

Additionally, new restrictions to Medicare passed in the Trump administration’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act will reduce — or eliminate — access to health care for many elderly Americans. The bill blocks improvements to Medicare Savings Programs, blocks nursing home staffing standards and limits Medicare’s ability to negotiate drug prices for some rare medical conditions, among other changes. Without widely available access to care, many low-income elderly Americans may need to rely on their Gen X children even more, including paying for their increasingly expensive medications or helping them find health care providers.

In addition to the cost of caring for their parents, Gen X caregivers have to consider the rising costs of raising their own kids. The average cost of day care and preschool rose 5.7 percent between July 2024 and July 2025, according to the BLS. Infant care for one child alone already costs at least 10 percent of a family’s yearly income in most states, according to Bankrate’s Child Care Costs by State Study.

Once their kids are in school, parents still aren’t financially relieved — the average cost of elementary and high school tuition and fees rose 3.1 percent year-over-year as of July, according to the BLS. That’s before the cost of school supplies, extracurricular activities, saving for college and other necessary children’s expenses.

As Gen X caregivers tackle the dual costs of caring for parents and their own children, many Gen Xers’ finances are lagging behind. More than two-thirds (68 percent) of Gen X workers feel behind on where they should be on their retirement savings, according to Bankrate’s 2024 Retirement Savings Survey, even though the oldest Gen Xers are only a few years away from retirement — or are already retired. Additionally, 69 percent of Gen Xers feel uncomfortable with their level of emergency savings, according to Bankrate’s Emergency Savings Report.

With the majority of Gen Xers feeling behind on their retirement and emergency savings, some, especially low-income Gen Xers, may have trouble paying their bills when they hit retirement age themselves. The effects of these struggles go beyond the figures in their bank accounts: Gen Xers are also the likeliest generation to say money negatively impacts their mental health, according to Bankrate’s Money and Mental Health Survey.

‘Navigating Now’: 4 tips for Gen Xers who have competing financial priorities

Managing one household’s finances can be a challenge. Managing two households’ finances can be an even bigger challenge. If your parents are aging, and you’re raising kids of your own, the best way you can financially care for your entire family is to plan proactively.

1. Prioritize your own financial needs

Although you may have many financial priorities, it’s still important to take care of your own financial needs first.

“Airline attendants like to say, ‘Put your oxygen mask on before assisting others.’ The same is often true for financial advice,” Foster says. “You cannot be in a position to help others if you’re not on solid financial footing yourself.”

Foster recommends that people prioritize their own retirement account and emergency fund before contributing financially to others. Identify what you want to save for — such as an emergency savings fund, retirement account or large purchase, such as a down payment on a home — and make sure your budget includes monthly contributions to those buckets, as well as room to pay off high-interest debt. After, you can use the remaining funds to determine how much financial assistance you can provide to an elderly relative.

“Be open and honest with your children, siblings and parents about how much you can afford to help,” Foster says. “With your children, that might be an opportunity to teach them about financial independence and planning — lessons that can pay dividends in their own lives.”

2. Develop a financial organization system

If you’re managing your parents’ finances and your own kids’, you’ll have to keep track of a lot of information, such as budgets, bank accounts, goals and to-do lists. You should start keeping that information in one place, so you can track of all those moving parts and won’t need to scramble to find important information in an emergency. You can use a pen and notebook to do that, but if you need a bit of digital assistance, you can also use a note-taking app, such as Notion, Evernote, Google Keep or Apple Notes.

Consider keeping track of:

Important dates, like when bills are due or when a subscription is set to expire
Your own budget and your parents’, if you’re managing their finances
Your financial goals, like savings goals or investment goals
Your debt payoff and savings goal progress
Future purchases, like gifts or large expenses
Scanned invoices, receipts and other miscellaneous documents
To-do lists, especially if you take care of daily tasks for your parents and kids
Emergency contacts

If you don’t already, you should also make sure you’re keeping your important financial documents — like vital records, deeds, titles and other hard copies of documents — together in an easily accessible place.

3. Set up necessary accounts for you and your children

If you don’t have them already, consider opening savings accounts to allow your emergency savings, retirement savings and college education savings to grow. To set yourself and your family up for future success, you can prioritize contributing to any or all of the following accounts:

An emergency savings fund with three to six months of expenses (or more, depending on your financial situation) saved for emergencies, like a sudden medical bill or job loss. A high-yield savings account is a great option for emergency savings funds because they typically offer higher interest rates than traditional savings accounts.
Retirement accounts, such as a 401(k) (if your employer offers one) and/or Roth IRA. Make sure to contribute enough to a 401(k) to receive your employer match, if you have one.
A health savings account (HSA), a tax-advantaged account that can pay for medical expenses now or in the future. Contributions are tax-deductible if you contribute by paycheck deduction, and earnings and withdrawals are tax-free if used for qualified healthcare expenses. Funds carry over from year to year.
A 529 account, another tax-advantaged savings account that can pay for your children’s education expenses, like tuition, fees, room and board.

“If uncertainty about college costs and the future of the job market have you nervous about locking up your funds for a specific purpose, even just contributing a few dollars every month into a low-cost index fund may go a long way in growing wealth for your child over time,” Foster says.

4. Consider investing in long-term care insurance

Long-term care for the elderly is expensive, and not everyone has sufficient savings to pay for it themselves. If you’re concerned about your parents’ future access to assisted living or home care, you might want to consider taking out a long-term care (LTC) insurance policy for them. LTC insurance can pay for senior living homes, assisted living facilities, daily care programs or home care — any aid for people who need help with activities of daily living, such as dressing themselves.

LTC insurance can be a guaranteed way to pay for intensive elder care, which, depending on the level of care needed, can quickly cost at least six figures per year. However, LTC insurance is also costly, and not all insurance providers offer it. A 55-year-old American man can expect to pay a premium of $2,200 per year on average for $165,000 long-term care insurance with a 3 percent inflation option, according to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance. A 55-year-old woman would pay $3,750 per year on average for the same coverage. Hybrid policies may cost even more.

However, Davern is a big fan of LTC insurance. Both her parents pay for their own policies, and Davern and her three siblings all have policies for themselves for the future.

“Having long-term care insurance, I think, provides that sense of security of, no matter what happens to the quality of my life or my parents’ life, we are financially able to deal with whatever comes our way,” she says.

5. Start financial conversations about elder care early on — before they’re urgent

Even if your parents are still healthy and aren’t thinking about elder care yet, you should consider sitting down with them now and asking if you can help them prepare for the future. This will give you more time to take any necessary financial steps, like saving money or taking out insurance policies. Having a plan ahead of time will also help you and your parents avoid having to make important decisions in a crisis.

There are varying ways to help your parents in their last years. For some families, adult children might eventually have total control of their parents’ finances, including estate, retirement and debt information, if they are no longer able to manage their finances themselves. For others, adult children might just want to know their parents’ health care and end-of-life preferences, like their preferred hospital or their funeral plans.

If your parents are open to it, you should also consider asking them to keep important identity and financial information — such as vital records and the account name and password to their financial accounts — in a safe place that you can access later. If you need to access or close their accounts, you’ll want that information easily available.

Together with her siblings, Davern has started sitting down with her parents to understand and organize her parents’ financial situation. This includes her parents’ medical information; the details of their estate, including whether they have outstanding mortgage balances and the name of their mortgage company; and their financial accounts, including their retirement accounts and their financial advisor’s information.

That’s just one example — every family is different. Your parents might not be ready or able to share information yet, and that’s OK. If you’re interested in helping them, tell them and be open to jumping in where you can.

The bottom line

Being caught between a relative’s financial needs and your own children’s often isn’t easy. But by planning early — perhaps much earlier than you think you need to — you can give yourself the tools to navigate hard decisions later. Just don’t forget to take care of yourself and your own financial needs along the way, too.

Key takeaways:

Many Gen Xers are stretched thin trying to meet both their elderly parents’ financial needs and their own. As many Gen Xers already report low retirement savings and emergency funds, the cost and time commitment of caregiving can make it even harder to meet financial goals for themselves and their kids.
To avoid being torn between financially assisting your aging parents and your own kids, consider prioritizing your own financial goals, taking out long-term care insurance for your parents and discussing your parents’ future needs with them early.

©2025 Bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting around their records on Thursday as technology stocks keep rising and as Wall Street keeps ignoring the shutdown of the U.S. government.

The S&P 500 rose 0.3%, coming off its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 78 points, or 0.2%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% higher and heading toward its own record.

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Thursdays on Wall Street typically mean investors are reacting to the latest weekly tally of U.S. workers applying for unemployment benefits. But D.C.’s shutdown means this week’s report on jobless claims has been delayed. An even more consequential report, Friday’s monthly tally of jobs created and destroyed across the economy, will likely also not arrive on schedule.

That increases uncertainty when much on Wall Street is riding on investors’ hopes that the job market will slow by a precise amount: enough to convince the Federal Reserve to keep cutting interest rates, but not by so much that it leads to a recession.

So far, the U.S. stock market has looked past the delays of such data. Shutdowns of the U.S. government have tended not to hurt the economy or stock market much, and the thinking is that this one could be similar, even if President Donald Trump has threatened large-scale firings of federal workers this time around.

That left corporate announcements as the main drivers of trading Thursday.

Stocks in the chip and artificial-intelligence industries climbed after OpenAI announced partnerships with South Korean companies for Stargate, a $500 billion project aimed at building AI infrastructure.

Samsung Electronics rose 3.5% in Seoul, and SK Hynix jumped 9.9%.

The announcement also sent ripples around the world. On Wall Street, Advanced Micro Devices climbed 3.5%, and Broadcom gained 2.5%. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., a major maker of chips, saw its stock that trades in the United States rise 1.2%.

Excitement around AI and the massive spending underway because of it has been a major reason the U.S. stock market’ has hit record after record, along with hopes for easier interest rates. But AI stocks have become so dominant, and so much money has poured into the industry that worries are rising about a potential bubble that could eventually lead to disappointment for investors.

Occidental Petroleum fell 2.3% after it agreed to sell its chemical business, OxyChem, to Berkshire Hathaway for $9.7 billion in cash. It could be the final big purchase for Berkshire Hathaway with famed investor Warren Buffett as its CEO.

Fair Isaac jumped 22.2% after announcing a program that will allow mortgage lenders to access and distribute FICO credit scores directly to their customers, cutting out such big credit bureaus as TransUnion, Equifax and Experian.

TransUnion’s stock tumbled 11.9%, while Equifax slid 10.2%. The stock of the United Kingdom’s Experian fell 3.6% in London.

London’s FTSE 100 edged down by less than 0.1%, but indexes were much stronger across Europe and Asia. South Korea’s Kospi jumped 2.7% for one of the biggest gains following the big jumps for Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix.

In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury ticked down to 4.11% from 4.12% late Wednesday.

AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.