In 1976, record shoppers knew what they liked – the Eagles and Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder and Bob Dylan – and they bought it in droves.

Only 11 different albums reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart that year, with Peter Frampton and George Benson sneaking to the top between the better-known likes of Wings, Led Zeppelin, Earth, Wind & Fire, and a few other familiar acts.

The singles chart, meanwhile, was all over the place, with radio stations in transition and not sure where to land. Wings’ “Silly Love Songs” was the overall top single of ’76, but Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright)” wasn’t far behind.

Disco was starting to make inroads on the airwaves with No. 1 hits such as Johnny Taylor’s “Disco Lady” and “Walter Murphy’s “A Fifth of Beethoven.” Soul and funk showed up strongly with Ohio Players’ “Love Rollercoaster” and Wild Cherry’s “Play That Funky Music.”

And ’70s soft rock was hanging around too, with Barry Manilow‘s “I Write the Songs,” Chicago‘s “If You Leave Me Now,” and, um, the Starland Vocal Band’s “Afternoon Delight,” which for some reason I can still sing from memory, also all reaching No. 1.

But we’re here for the albums, and now let’s get to ’em!

“Chicago IX: Chicago’s Greatest Hits” spent two weeks at No. 1 on the album charts to start 1976 after finishing 1975 with three weeks at the top spot on the Billboard 200 album chart. (Album jacket courtesy of the record label)

“Chicago IX: Chicago’s Greatest Hits,” Chicago / Weeks at No. 1: 2

Chicago, which finished 1975 with three weeks at 1, held onto the top spot for two more weeks to open 1976 on the Billboard 200 album chart. This album is so stacked with hits that you can drop the needle anywhere and land on a huge hit song, from “Saturday In the Park” and “Feelin’ Stronger Every Day” to “Make Me Smile” and “Wishing You Were Here.” Yet somehow it didn’t chart in the United Kingdom.

New and noteworthy: You know what was No. 1 on the UK album charts at the start of 1976? Perry Como’s “40 Greatest Hits,” proof that the Sex Pistols couldn’t show up soon enough. Some little-known guy named Peter Frampton released an album titled “Frampton Comes Alive!” in the United States on Jan. 15. I wonder what happened with that?

Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Gratitude” spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1976. (Album jacket courtesy of the record label)

“Gratitude,” Earth, Wind & Fire / Weeks at No. 1: 3

Eight months after Earth, Wind & Fire scored its first No.1 album in May 1975 with “That’s the Way of the World,” the soul-funk-pop band was back there with “Gratitude,” a mostly live double album. There’s stuff on here that’s less-than-essential, but you’ll feel good even listening to that. It also contained a handful of newly recorded songs, including “Sing a Song” and “Can’t Hide Love.”

New and noteworthy: The Thin White Duke reached record stores when David Bowie released “Station to Station” in February, an album that spun off the singles “Golden Years” and “TVC15.” Diana Ross’s self-titled album included the disco classic “Love Hangover,” and Lynyrd Skynyrd requested that you “Gimme Back My Bullets.”

Bob Dylan’s “Desire” spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1976. (Album jacket courtesy of the record label)

“Desire,” Bob Dylan / Weeks at No. 1: 5

Dylan released his follow-up to “Blood on the Tracks” between legs of his 1975-76 Rolling Thunder Tour, recording it before heading out in ’75 with many of the same musicians who’d join him on the road. The familiarity of bard and band shines through here with classic songs, such as “Hurricane,” “Isis,” “Mozambique,” and “One More Cup of Coffee.” It wraps up with “Sara,” a heartfelt, unusually personal song for his soon-to-be ex-wife, Sara Dylan.

New and noteworthy: What were the Brits digging as “Desire” topped our charts? Oh dear. They’d just put “The Very Best of Slim Whitman” at No. 1 for six weeks. Phil Collins replaced Peter Gabriel as vocalist for Genesis’s “A Trick of the Tail.” Captain and Tennille released “Song of Joy,” and finally muskrats had something to dance to at the prom. Be-Bop Deluxe released “Sunburst Finish,” which you should go listen to now.

The Eagles’ ‘Greatest Hits’ spent five weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1976. (Album jacket courtesy of the record label)

“Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975),” the Eagles / Weeks at No. 1: 5

For decades, this was the one Eagles album that almost everyone you knew had on vinyl or CD. For good reason, too, because like the Chicago compilation that opened ’76 at No. 1, this Eagles‘ collection had nothing but massive hits: “Take It Easy,” “Desperado,” “Tequila Sunrise,” “Lyin’ Eyes” and more. This baby is certified to have sold more than 38 million copies in the U.S. alone, making it the No. 1 selling album of the 20th century.

New and noteworthy: Kiss released “Destroyer” with singles such as “Shout It Out Loud” and “Detroit Rock City.” Kiss drummer Peter Criss also let his lady know that he and the boys just couldn’t find the sound, which was a lie because “Beth” became Kiss’s biggest single ever. Marvin Gaye sang “I Want You,” one of his sexiest songs ever, and the Doobie Brothers were “Takin’ It to the Streets,” with Michael McDonald on vocals for the first time. And more! Thin Lizzy dropped “Jailbreak,” Rush delivered “2112,” and Boz Scaggs had “Silk Degrees.”

Peter Frampton’s “Frampton Comes Alive!” spent 10 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1976. (Album jacket courtesy of the record label)

“Frampton Comes Alive!” Peter Frampton / Weeks at No. 1: 10

Here’s that guy with all those lovely curls! Peter Frampton‘s double live album debuted at No. 1 for a single week in April at first, but came back for another week in July, three more in August and five in September and October. Ten weeks, the top album of the whole year, powered by the singles “Show Me the Way,” “Baby, I Love Your Way,” and “Do You Feel Like We Do” – and that rad talk-box that had many teenage boys trying to imitate it as they drove aimlessly around their small towns looking to meet girls.

New and noteworthy: It’s a little tricky because of the gaps between “Comes Alive!” at No. 1, but in its three weeks in August alone, Boston released its self-titled debut as did that city’s Modern Lovers; Hall & Oates delivered “Bigger Than Both of Us,” which spun off the single “Rich Girl”; and Lee “Scratch” Perry and the Upsetters’ released the dub classic “Super Ape.” New Zealand’s Split Enz put out “Second Thoughts,” produced by Phil Manzanera of Roxy Music, whose live album “Viva!” also landed.

Wings’ album “Wings at the Speed of Sound” spent seven weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1976. (Album jacket courtesy of the record label)

“Wings at the Speed of Sound,” Wings / Weeks at No. 1: 7

Like Frampton, Paul McCartney‘s band bounced up and down to No. 1 a few times – a week in April, another in May, and five in June and July. This was a softer Wings sound than earlier albums such as “Band on the Run.” The hits included “Let ‘Em In,” which taught us all what to do when someone’s knockin’ at the door, and “Silly Love Songs,” which was exactly what it said on the tin. But the record was huge, and the subsequent tour, Wings Over the World, saw McCartney play live in the U.S. for the first time in a decade since the Beatles’ last shows here.

New and noteworthy: Rod Stewart’s “A Night on the Town” included “Tonight’s the Night (Gonna Be Alright),” which got banned by the BBC for being too s-e-x-y, and his classic Cat Stevens cover, “The First Cut Is the Deepest.” The title track of Maxine Nightingale’s “Right Back Where We Started From” was a delightful pop hit. The Beach Boys‘ “15 Big Ones” is a good latter-day album. Reggae singer Peter Tosh made his debut with “Legalize It,” and Graham Parker and the Rumour’s “Howlin’ Wind” signaled the shift of British pub rock toward new wave.

Led Zeppelin’s “Presence” spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1976. (Album jacket courtesy of the record label)

“Presence,” Led Zeppelin / Weeks at No. 1: 2

Some acts are big enough that they’re always going to grab the top spot on the charts based on reputation alone. “Presence” is probably the least-known of Zeppelin’s studio albums, with only “Achilles’ Last Stand” and “Nobody’s Fault But Mine” ever being played in live shows before the band split. Today it’s seen as a return to the hard rock of Led Zeppelin’s earlier days, but in 1976 it quickly sold the usual millions of copies before being overshadowed by “The Song Remains the Same” when the concert film and soundtrack arrived that fall.

New and noteworthy: Speaking of hard rock, Aerosmith released “Rocks” during “Presence’s two weeks at No. 1. Soul-jazzer Roy Ayers put out “Everybody Loves the Sunshine,” the title track of which would make a few hundred hip-hop samplers happy in future decades. And the Southern California all-female rock band the Runaways released their self-titled debut, giving the world its first glimpse of future solo star Joan Jett.

The Rolling Stones’ “Black and Blue” spent four weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1976. (Album jacket courtesy of the record label)

“Black and Blue,” the Rolling Stones / Weeks at No. 1: 4

As with Led Zeppelin and “Presence,” the Stones‘ album this year sold a ton, wasn’t praised as much at the time, but then saw its reputation grow as the years passed. The band didn’t technically have a lead guitarist when they recorded it – Mick Taylor quit the band two years earlier, and though Ronnie Wood plays on some of the tracks, he wasn’t officially invited to join until it was time to tour. “Fool to Cry” and “Memory Motel” are the songs you remember most.

New and notable: Warren Zevon’s self-titled major-label debut didn’t sell a lot, but he still made bank thanks to Linda Ronstadt’s covers of “Carmelita,” “Poor Poor Pitiful Me,” and “Hasten Down the Wind.” Billy Joel’s “Turnstiles” produced a pair of his standards, “Say Goodbye to Hollywood” and “New York State of Mind.” David Bowie added another terrific compilation to the year with “Changesonebowie,” and the Steve Miller Band did the same in all but name with “Fly Like an Eagle,” packed with great songs.

George Benson’s “Breezin’” spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1976. (Album jacket courtesy of the record label)

“Breezin’,” George Benson / Weeks at No. 1: 2

Jazz-soul guitarist George Benson broke out of the jazz genre to score a hat trick of No. 1s on the pop, R&B and jazz charts. It’s a smooth record with a pair of acclaimed and enduring hits. The single “This Masquerade,” a cover of Leon Russell’s song, went on to win the Grammy for record of the year in 1977, while the title track earned the Grammy for best pop instrumental performance.

New and noteworthy: New releases were a bit thin during Benson’s two weeks at the top, but we did get Merle Haggard‘s “My Love Affair With Trains,” for which Hag’s only original was “No More Trains to Ride.” It also included a pair of hobo songs, “The Hobo” and “Where Have All the Hoboes Gone.” Remarkably, this was Merle’s second train-based album, after the Jimmy Rodgers tribute “Same Train, A Different Time,” which itself included a pair of hobo songs, “Hobo Meditation” and “Hobo Bill’s Last Ride.”

Fleetwood Mac’s self-titled album spent one week at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1976. (Album jacket courtesy of the record label)

“Fleetwood Mac,” Fleetwood Mac / Weeks at No. 1: 1 

Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham joined Christine McVie, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood for this album, and suddenly Fleetwood Mac rocketed toward the stardom it would carry into commercial and critical acclaim in the decades that followed. But it took time! The album was released in July 1975, and it wasn’t until the singles “Over My Head, “Rhiannon,” and “Say You Love Me” had been all over the radio that the album hit No. 1 for a week in September 1976.

New and noteworthy: Bob Dylan, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Rush all released live albums, “Hard Rain,” “One More From the Road,” and “All the World’s a Stage,” respectively. Funkadelic released “Tales of Kidd Funkenstein,” which opened with a track titled “Butt-to-Butresuscitation” and closed out side 1 with “Take Your Dead Ass Home!” Joan Armatrading and Tom Waits released two different takes on singer-songwriter albums, with hers self-titled and his titled “Small Change.”

Stevie Wonder’s “Songs in the Key of Life” spent 11 weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1976. (Album jacket courtesy of the record label)

“Songs in the Key of Life,” Stevie Wonder / Weeks at No. 1 / 11

Stevie’s masterpiece of masterpieces closed out 1976 with 11 consecutive weeks at No. 1. A double album with a bonus 4-track EP, “Songs” is stuffed with fantastic tunes from “Sir Duke,” “I Wish” and “Pastime Paradise” to “As,” “Another Star” and “Isn’t She Lovely?” Seeing him perform it in full at the Forum in 2014 was a bucket list moment. That it arrived in 1976 after a run of albums that began in 1972 with “Music of My Mind,” “Talking Book,” “Innervisions,” and “Fulfillingness’ First Finale” says everything you need to know about the genius of Stevie Wonder in his prime.

New and noteworthy: ABBA’s “Arrival” landed with hits including “Dancing Queen,” “Money, Money, Money,” and “Knowing Me, Knowing You.” Elton John and Bob Seger released “Blue Moves” and “Night Moves” on the same day in October, yet somehow we didn’t get the Blue Night Moves tour from the two of them. The Patti Smith Group released “Radio Ethiopia,” Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers dropped their self-titled debut, the Eagles checked us all into the “Hotel California,” Queen took us to “A Day at the Races,” and just before the end of the year, Blondie made its self-titled debut, too.

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With Super Bowl Sunday approaching, I’m on the lookout for a nosh that is scrumptious and easy to prepare. White cheddar cheese topped with wine-soaked cherries andherbs is the perfect answer.

The dried cherries need to soak in a mixture of wine, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, herbs de Provence and salt for 2 to 7 days in the fridge, so allow time for this little do-aheadchore.

White Cheddar with Wine-Soaked Dried Cherries and Herbs

Yield: Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

1/3 cup Merlot, or other dry red wine

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon herbes de Provence

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

2/3 cup dried cherries, half of amount coarsely chopped

8 ounces medium-sharp white cheddar cheese

For serving: sturdy crackers

DIRECTIONS

1. In medium glass or stain-resistant plastic container, combine the wine, oil, vinegar, herbes de Provence, and salt, whisking to dissolve salt. Add the cherries, cover and refrigerate for at least 2 days or up to 7 days, stirring occasionally. Bring the mixture to room temperature before serving.

2. Place cheese on a plate or small platter. Stir room temperature cherry mixture and spoon over and around the cheese. Serve with crackers on the side. Provide a knife.

Source: Adapted from “100 Perfect Pairings” by Jill Silverman Hough

Award-winning food writer Cathy Thomas has written three cookbooks, including “50 Best Plants on the Planet.” Follow her at CathyThomasCooks.com.

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By Shalina Chatlani, Stateline.org

Editor’s note: If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org.

States are passing laws to prevent artificially intelligent chatbots, such as ChatGPT, from being able to offer mental health advice to young users, following a trend of people harming themselves after seeking therapy from the AI programs.

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Chatbots might be able to offer resources, direct users to mental health practitioners or suggest coping strategies. But many mental health experts say that’s a fine line to walk, as vulnerable users in dire situations require care from a professional, someone who must adhere to laws and regulations around their practice.

“I have met some of the families who have really tragically lost their children following interactions that their kids had with chatbots that were designed, in some cases, to be extremely deceptive, if not manipulative, in encouraging kids to end their lives,” said Mitch Prinstein, senior science adviser at the American Psychological Association and an expert on technology and children’s mental health.

“So in such egregious situations, it’s clear that something’s not working right, and we need at least some guardrails to help in situations like that,” he said.

While chatbots have been around for decades, AI technology has become so sophisticated that users may feel like they’re talking to a human. The chatbots don’t have the capacity to offer true empathy or mental health advice like a licensed psychologist would, and they are by design agreeable — a potentially dangerous model for someone with suicidal ideations. Several young people have died by suicide following interactions with chatbots.

States have enacted a variety of laws to regulate the types of interactions chatbots can have with users. Illinois and Nevada have completely banned the use of AI for behavioral health. New York and Utah passed laws requiring chatbots to explicitly tell users that they are not human. New York’s law also directs chatbots to detect instances of potential self-harm and refer the user to crisis hotlines and other interventions.

More laws may be coming. California and Pennsylvania are among the states that might consider legislation to regulate AI therapy.

President Donald Trump has criticized state-by-state regulation of AI, saying it stymies innovation. In December, he signed an executive order that aims to support the United States’ “global AI dominance” by overriding state artificial intelligence laws and establishing a national framework.

Still, states are moving ahead. Before Trump’s executive order, Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis last month proposed a “Citizen Bill of Rights For Artificial Intelligence” that, among many other things, would prohibit AI from being used for “licensed” therapy or mental health counseling and provide parental controls for minors who may be exposed to it.

“The rise of AI is the most significant economic and cultural shift occurring at the moment; denying the people the ability to channel these technologies in a productive way via self-government constitutes federal government overreach and lets technology companies run wild,” DeSantis wrote on social media platform X in November.

‘A false sense of intimacy’

At a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last September, some parents shared their stories about their children’s deaths after ongoing interactions with an artificially intelligent chatbot.

Sewell Setzer III was 14 years old when he died by suicide in 2024 after becoming obsessed with a chatbot.

“Instead of preparing for high school milestones, Sewell spent his last months being manipulated and sexually groomed by chatbots designed by an AI company to seem human, to gain trust, and to keep children like him endlessly engaged by supplanting the actual human relationships in his life,” his mother, Megan Garcia, said during the hearing.

Another parent, Matthew Raine, testified about his son Adam, who died by suicide at age16 after talking for months with ChatGPT, a program owned by the company OpenAI.

“We’re convinced that Adam’s death was avoidable, and because we believe thousands of other teens who are using OpenAI could be in similar danger right now,” Raine said.

Prinstein, of the American Psychological Association, said that kids are especially vulnerable when it comes to AI chatbots.

“By agreeing with everything that kids say, it develops a false sense of intimacy and trust. That’s really concerning, because kids in particular are developing their brains. That approach is going to be unfairly attractive to kids in a way that may make them unable to use reason, judgment and restraints in the way that adults would likely use when interacting with a chatbot.”

The Federal Trade Commission in September launched an inquiry into seven companies making these AI-powered chatbots, questioning what efforts are in place to protect children.

“AI chatbots can effectively mimic human characteristics, emotions, and intentions, and generally are designed to communicate like a friend or confidant, which may prompt some users, especially children and teens, to trust and form relationships with chatbots,” the FTC said in its order.

Companies such as OpenAI have responded by saying that they are working with mental health experts to make their products safer and to limit chances of self-harm among its users.

“Working with mental health experts who have real-world clinical experience, we’ve taught the model to better recognize distress, de-escalate conversations, and guide people toward professional care when appropriate,” the company wrote in a statement last October.

Legislative efforts

With action at the federal level in limbo, efforts to regulate AI chatbots at the state level have had limited success.

Dr. John “Nick” Shumate, a psychiatrist at the Harvard University Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and his colleagues reviewed legislation to regulate mental health-related artificial intelligence systems across all states between January 2022 and May 2025.

The review found 143 bills directly or indirectly related to AI and mental health regulation. As of May 2025, 11 states had enacted 20 laws that researchers found were meaningful, direct and explicit in the ways they attempted to regulate mental health interactions.

They concluded that legislative efforts tended to fall into four different buckets: professional oversight, harm prevention, patient autonomy and data governance.

“You saw safety laws for chatbots and companion AIs, especially around self-harm and suicide response,” Shumate said in an interview.

New York enacted one such law last year that requires AI chatbots to remind users every three hours that it is not a human. The law also requires the chatbot to detect the potential of self-harm.

“There’s no denying that in this country, we’re in a mental health crisis,” New York Democratic state Sen. Kristen Gonzalez, the law’s sponsor, said in an interview. “But the solution shouldn’t be to replace human support from licensed professionals with untrained AI chatbots that can leak sensitive information and can lead to broad outcomes.”

In Virginia, Democratic Del. Michelle Maldonado is preparing legislation for this year’s session that would put limits on what chatbots can communicate to users in a therapeutic setting.

“The federal level has been slow to pass things, slow to even create legislative language around things. So we have had no choice but to fill in that gap,” said Maldonado, a former technology lawyer.

She noted that states have passed privacy laws and restrictions on nonconsensual intimate images, licensing requirements and disclosure agreements.

New York Democratic state Sen. Andrew Gounardes, who sponsored a law regulating AI transparency, said he’s seen the growing influence of AI companies at the state level.

And that is concerning to him, he said, as states try to take on AI companies for issues ranging from mental health to misinformation and beyond.

“They are hiring former staffers to become public affairs officers. They are hiring lobbyists who know legislators to kind of get in with them. They’re hosting events, you know, by the Capitol, at political conferences, to try to build goodwill,” Gounardes said.

“These are the wealthiest, richest, biggest companies in the world,” he said. “And so we have to really not let up our guard for a moment against that type of concentrated power, money and influence.”

Stateline reporter Shalina Chatlani can be reached at schatlani@stateline.org.

©2026 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is drifting around its record heights Thursday following mixed profit reports from Microsoft and some other of Wall Street’s most influential companies. The action was strongest again in the gold market, where the metal’s price keeps ripping higher in its astounding run.

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The S&P 500 edged up by less than 0.1% and was flirting with its all-time high set earlier this week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 162 points, or 0.3%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% lower.

Microsoft sank 10.4% even though the tech giant reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Investors honed in instead on how much Microsoft is spending on investments, whether growth in its Azure cloud business will slow and how long its push into artificial-intelligence will take to turn into big profits.

Helping to offset that was Meta Platforms, which rallied 8.6% after topping profit expectations, even though it also said it will continue its massive investments in AI.

Companies across the market are under pressure to deliver solid growth in profits following record-setting runs for their stock prices. Stock prices tend to follow the path of corporate profits over the long term, and earnings need to rise to quiet criticism that stock prices have grown too expensive.

Tesla ’s profit report got a mixed reaction from investors. It swung from an initial gain to a dip of 0.7% after delivering a bigger profit than analysts expected, one that was sharply lower than from a year earlier. Tesla’s leader, Elon Musk, has been urging investors to focus less on its flagging car sales and more on the company’s robotaxis and robots.

IBM was a winner and rallied 7.1% after surpassing analysts’ expectations for profit and revenue. Southwest Airlines flew 9.7% higher even though its profit fell short of forecasts. It gave a forecast for earnings in 2026 that blew past analysts’ expectations, saying it’s seeing strong momentum after making big changes to its business like charging baggage fees and having assigned seating.

On the losing end of Wall Street was ServiceNow, which dropped 9.2% even though it reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than expected. Analysts praised the performance, but it wasn’t enough to stop a slide for the stock that’s been underway since the summer.

Some of the wildest action in financial markets was again for precious metals, as gold’s price rallied another 4.5% to $5,579.00 per ounce. It was only on Monday that it topped $5,000 for the first time. Gold’s price is up more than 25% for the young year so far and has roughly doubled over the last 12 months.

Its price has surged as investors look for safer things to own while weighing a wide range risks, including a U.S. stock market that critics call expensive, political instability, threats of tariffs and heavy debt loads for governments worldwide.

The U.S. dollar has seen its value sink over the last year because of many of those same risks, and it slipped a bit more Thursday against the euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Swiss franc and other competitors.

U.S. Treasury yields held a bit firmer in the bond market, though. The yield on the 10-year Treasury held at 4.26%, where it was late Wednesday.

The Federal Reserve decided Wednesday to at least pause cuts to its main interest rate. That was after the Fed cut rates three times in a row to close out 2025 in an attempt to shore up the job market.

Helping to keep the Fed on pause is the fact that inflation remains stubbornly above the central bank’s 2% target. Lower rates can worsen inflation.

They could also further undercut the U.S. dollar’s value, which would help U.S. exporters. Trump has been pushing aggressively for lower rates.

In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia.

South Korea’s Kospi climbed 1% for one of the world’s bigger moves, lifted to another record in part by chipmaker SK Hynix.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.