Like a crisp breeze and a color-changing leaf, pumpkin spice is the harbinger of fall. And it’s here — unavoidably so. As in, you can’t turn your head in a grocery store without seeing some kind of pumpkin-spice-flavored food: cookies, pancake mix, oatmeal, coffee creamer, granola bars, donuts, muffins, hummus, cereal, ice cream … you get the picture.

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Pumpkin spice is traditionally a blend of five spices — cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and allspice — and they’re all sourced primarily outside the U.S.

The spice industry is bracing for how tariffs could impact prices to import a variety of spices. The American Spice Trade Association says many spices require tropical conditions, which means they can’t be cultivated domestically. That includes staple spices like cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg, cloves and vanilla.

There is a 10% baseline tariff on all countries, with higher tariffs for certain countries. A major source for global spices is India, which faces a 50% tariff; a variety of spices originate there including red chilli, cumin, turmeric, black pepper, curry, nutmeg, cardamom, coriander, ginger and mustard seeds, among others.

Back to pumpkin spices. Let’s break down where they’re sourced from, based on import data from the World Bank’s World Integrated Trade Solution (WITS), and the tariffs those countries face:

Cinnamon:

Indonesia: 19% tariff.
Vietnam: 20% tariff.
India: 50% tariff.
Sri Lanka: 20% tariff.
China: 30% tariff.

Nutmeg:

Indonesia: 19% tariff
India: 50% tariff.
Vietnam: 20% tariff.
Sri Lanka: 20% tariff.
Netherlands: 15% tariff (the Netherlands re-imports spices)

Ginger:

China: 30% tariff.
Netherlands: 15% tariff.
India: 50% tariff.
Peru: 10% tariff.
Thailand: 19% tariff.

Cloves

Madagascar: 10% tariff.
Indonesia: 19% tariff.
Tanzania: 10% tariff.
Sri Lanka: 20% tariff.
United Arab Emirates: 10% tariff.

Allspice

Jamaica: 10% tariff.
Mexico: 25% tariff.
Honduras: 10% tariff.
Guatemala: 10% tariff.
Nicaragua: 18% tariff.

Tariffs are expected to increase the cost to ship spices to the U.S. That means that producers will need to absorb prices and/or pass them onto the consumer. That could result in fewer premium spice options and higher prices on grocery store shelves, in restaurants and, yes, even in your pumpkin spice latte. The taste of your food and spices may even change if companies need to source from countries that produce similar (but not identical) spices at a lower tariff rate — or turn to artificial flavors, as some products already have.

For McCormick & Company, a worldwide spice brand, it calculates its exposure to tariffs at about $90 million annually, with $50 million in 2025 alone. The company sources globally: roughly 17,000 unique materials from over 90 countries, which helps limit its tariff exposure. In the U.S., 90% of what’s sold is sourced domestically. In the call, executives said the tariffs don’t encourage U.S. production, but do raise costs for U.S. businesses and restaurants, as well as consumers.

There may be hope: The American Spice Trade Association says it’s possible that the administration is considering a reduction in tariffs on specific commodities that can only be sourced abroad, like spices (which it says can be considered “Unavailable Natural Resources”).

That said, the financial impact of tariffs takes time to settle in so it may not impact spice prices this fall. Starbucks, which arguably launched the pumpkin spice craze, has yet to change the price of its signature latte.

Anna Helhoski writes for NerdWallet. Email: anna@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @AnnaHelhoski.

The article How Tariffs Could Mess With Your Pumpkin Spice originally appeared on NerdWallet.

By AMY TAXIN and ANNE D’INNOCENZIO, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — At a Home Depot parking lot, a man patrols on a bicycle for federal immigration agents, toting a megaphone on his hip so he can blast a warning to day laborers waiting to land a landscaping or construction job.

The workers from Mexico, El Salvador and elsewhere carry whistles to also sound the alarm, while activists swap details over two-way radios about whether cars whizzing by could be unmarked vehicles carrying officers preparing for a raid.

Their work is cut out for them. Agents have raided the lot outside the 108,000 square-foot Home Depot store in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles at least five times this summer, rounding up some immigrants and sending others running in search of safety.

A day laborer waits for work in the parking lot of a Home Depot in the Van Nuys section of Los Angeles, TAug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Home Depot stores in Southern California have long been an informal job-seeking hub for day laborers in the country both legally and illegally. Now the locations have become a prime target for immigration agents.

In fact, Home Depot was reportedly mentioned as a target for immigration raids by Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and chief architect of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, earlier this year.

At least a dozen Home Depot stores have been targeted, some of them repeatedly, in Southern California since the administration stepped up its immigration crackdown this summer.

Immigrant advocates sued over the raids but on Monday the Supreme Court cleared the way for federal agents to continue conducting sweeping immigration operations for now in Los Angeles, the latest victory for the Trump administration at the high court. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem called it “a win” for the rule of law, while advocates swiftly criticized the ruling.

“When you undermine the civil rights of those who are more vulnerable, you undermine the civil rights of everyone else,” Pablo Alvarado, co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said Monday during a press conference held near a Home Depot.

Last month, outside a Home Depot in Monrovia, a man ran onto a nearby freeway to flee immigration authorities, and was struck and killed.

The Van Nuys location has been hit particularly hard.

Escaping three raids

Javier, a 52-year-old Mexican immigrant who has lived in U.S. states spanning from California to Kansas over the past three decades, said he narrowly escaped three raids at the store, avoiding agents by hiding beneath a truck, peeling off in his car and dashing inside among the busy shoppers.

“They come in big vans and they all go out to chase people,” he said in Spanish, asking that his last name not be used out of fear of government reprisal.

Luis poses with a megaphone used to alert other day laborers of ICE operations in the parking lot of a Home Depot in the Van Nuys section of Los Angeles, Aug. 28, 2025. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

The store sits on property near the Van Nuys Airport that is owned by Los Angeles World Airports, a department in a city whose policies limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement that her office supports the litigation against the sweeps and has trained city workers to prepare for immigration enforcement on city-owned properties.

City councilperson Ysabel Jurado has voiced opposition to a plan for a new Home Depot in her district, contending the company hasn’t done enough to fight the raids.

Chris Newman, legal director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, said “these locations should be protected by the city to the same degree the public libraries are.”

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.

Contractors make up about half its business

Immigrant advocates say the country’s largest big-box home improvement retailer benefits from having an ample labor pool at the ready for contractors and should do more to protect customers, employees and day laborers.

The Atlanta-based company, with nearly $160 billion in annual sales through Feb. 2, counts on contractors and professionals for about half its business — and that’s a key draw for largely immigrant-day laborers. Its second-ranked competitor, Lowe’s, gets about 30% of its business from contractors, relying more heavily on homeowners and DIY enthusiasts, said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData Retail.

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“So if you’re going for the volume, if you’re going where people are, and you can enforce things, you go to Home Depot,” Saunders said.

The raids haven’t hurt overall sales, but the disruptions could affect specific stores by making some customers afraid to shop there, Saunders said.

In the Los Angeles area, the company’s stores saw a 10.7% decline in foot traffic in June from a year ago and a 10% decline in July, according to Placer.ai, an analytics firm that tracks people’s movements based on cellphone usage. That’s a larger drop than the 3.8% and 2.7% declines reported at stores nationwide for the same months.

Home Depot says it is not alerted to raids

Home Depot has repeatedly denied being involved in immigration enforcement operations. The company’s late co-founder Bernie Marcus supported Trump, though a Home Depot political action committee has donated to both Democrats and Republicans.

The company said it isn’t told if a raid is going to take place at any of its roughly 2,300 stores.

“We tell associates to report any suspected immigration enforcement activity immediately and not engage with the activity for their safety,” said Beth Marlowe, a company spokesperson, adding that if employees feel uneasy after a raid, they can go home for the rest of the day with pay.

In Van Nuys, witnesses said federal agents have arrested those in the lot before appearing to ask about their immigration status. Local managers have shut the store’s automated glass doors to keep agents out, they said.

“They’re just fishing,” said Luis, a 37-year-old day laborer who is a legal resident and grew up in the United States after arriving from Mexico as a child. He declined to use his last name fearing government reprisal.

‘Home Depot is not an innocent bystander’

The trend of workers gathering outside Home Depot began with the rise of the home improvement retail store that allowed people, including contractors, to price shop and buy materials directly, said Nik Theodore, a professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

“The basis of competition began to shift and what distinguishes a contractor from getting the bid or not more and more has to do with labor costs,” Theodore said. “Home Depot is not an innocent bystander in all of this. Their sources of success were instrumental in catalyzing this change.”

As the trend grew so did complaints about workers congregating in store parking lots, and in 2008 Los Angeles passed an ordinance requiring similar retailers opening up to adopt plans to provide relief, such as a seating area, bathrooms and trash facilities.

In the parking lot in Van Nuys, a non-profit runs a labor center that takes workers’ names and tracks employers who fail to pay as promised. That’s one reason workers said they keep returning even after the repeated raids.

The other is community.

Since the raids, Javier said he’s started considering returning to Mexico to wait out the Trump administration. In the meantime, he said he’ll keep coming to Van Nuys to find work.

“It’s a place that becomes familiar,” he said. “Here, all of us together, we’ve become friends.”

D’Innocenzio reported from New York. Associated Press writer Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this report.

MINCO, Okla. (AP) — A school bus carrying softball team members crashed and ejected some passengers in Oklahoma, injuring eight people, the state highway patrol said.

The crash happened Monday night on U.S. Highway 152 near Minco in Grady County, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) southwest of Oklahoma City.

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Three adults and five juveniles were hurt and were taken to hospitals, Lt. Mark Southall of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said in a statement.

Southall said the scene was cleared around midnight and an investigation into what caused the crash continues. The patrol is working with the National Transportation Safety Board, he said.

School was closed Tuesday, Minco Public Schools Superintendent Kevin Sims posted online.

“Please keep these student-athletes, coaches and their families in your prayers,” he said.

U.S. Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma posted online that he and his wife, Cindy, “join all of Oklahoma in praying for our neighbors in Minco tonight.”

The Minco First Baptist Church in the town of about 1,500 people posted online that the church sanctuary was open “if you would like to come and pray.”

The softball team was scheduled to play at 6 p.m. Monday at the Riverside Indian School in Anadarko, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) southwest of Minco, according to school athletic schedules.

By ANNIE MA and TODD FEATHERS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A decade-long slide in high schoolers’ reading and math performance persisted during the COVID-19 pandemic, with 12th graders’ scores dropping to their lowest level in more than 20 years, according to results released Tuesday from an exam known as the nation’s report card.

Eighth-grade students also lost significant ground in science skills, according to the results from the National Assessment of Education Progress.

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The assessments were the first since the pandemic for eighth graders in science and 12th graders in reading and math. They reflect a downward drift across grade levels and subject areas in previous releases from NAEP, which is considered one of the best gauges of the academic progress of U.S. schools.

“Scores for our lowest-performing students are at historic lows,” said Matthew Soldner, the acting commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics. “These results should galvanize all of us to take concerted and focused action to accelerate student learning.”

While the pandemic had an outsize impact on student achievement, experts said falling scores are part of a longer arc in education that cannot be attributed solely to COVID-19, school closures and related issues such as heightened absenteeism. Educators said potential underlying factors include children’s increased screen time, shortened attention spans and a decline in reading longer-form writing both in and out of school.

The dip in reading scores appeared alongside a shift in how English and language arts are taught in schools, with an emphasis on short texts and book excerpts, said Carol Jago, associate director of the California Reading and Literature Project at UCLA. As a high school English teacher 20 years ago, Jago said it was common for her high school students to read 20 books over the course of a year. Now, some English classes are assigning just three books a year.

“To be a good reader, you have to have the stamina to stay on the page, even when the going gets tough,” Jago said. “You have to build those muscles, and we’re not building those muscles in kids.”

Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the scores show why the Trump administration wants to give states more control of education spending.

“Despite spending billions annually on numerous K-12 programs, the achievement gap is widening, and more high school seniors are performing below the basic benchmark in math and reading than ever before,” McMahon said.

Fewer students show basic proficiency in math and reading

The test scores show more students are not reaching what would be considered “basic” achievement across subject areas, said Lesley Muldoon, executive director of the National Assessment Governing Board. While NAEP’s definition of “proficient” is a high bar, Muldoon said, it is not an unreasonable one, and it is based on what researchers believe students should be able to achieve by the end of high school.

“These students are taking their next steps in life with fewer skills and less knowledge in core academics than their predecessors a decade ago,” she said. “This is happening at a time when rapid advancements in technology and society demands more of future workers and citizens, not less.”

In reading, the average score in 2024 was the lowest score in the history of the assessment, which began in 1992. Thirty-two percent of high school seniors scored below “basic,” meaning they were not able to find details in a text to help them understand its meaning.

In math, the average score in 2024 was the lowest since 2005, when the assessment framework changed significantly. On the test, 45% of high school seniors scored below “basic” achievement, the highest percentage since 2005. Only 33% of high school seniors were considered academically prepared for college-level math courses, a decline from 37% in 2019.

The high school reading and math assessments, and the eighth grade science test, are given less frequently than the biannual fourth and eighth grade reading tests, which were last released earlier this year. The new scores reflect tests taken in schools around the country between January and March 2024.

Achievement gaps are widening

The gap between the highest- and lowest-performing students was its widest ever among eighth grade science students, reflecting growing inequality in the American school system. The achievement gap widened also in 12th grade math.

The scores also reflect the re-emergence of a gender gap in science, technology, engineering and math courses. In 2019, boys and girls scored virtually the same on the NAEP science assessment. But in 2024, girls saw a steeper decline in scores. A similar pattern occurred in state math assessments, according to an Associated Press analysis.

Schools had largely closed the gender gap in math and science, but it widened in the years following the pandemic as special programs to engage girls lapsed.

On a NAEP survey of students, a shrinking percentage of eighth grade students said they regularly took part in inquiry-based learning activities in the classroom. The pandemic disrupted schools’ ability to create those hands-on learning experiences for students, which are often critical to understanding scientific concepts and processes, said Christine Cunningham, senior vice president of STEM learning at the Museum of Science in Boston.

Still, she noted declines across subjects began well before schools closed in 2020.

“We don’t know exactly what the cause of it is, but it would be incomplete to assume that if we hadn’t had COVID, the score would not have gone down,” Cunningham said. “That’s not what the data showed even before the pandemic.” ___

Feathers reported from New York.

The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.