By YURI KAGEYAMA

TOKYO (AP) — Fast-food chain McDonald’s Japan has canceled a Happy Meal campaign that came with coveted Pokemon cards, apologizing after resellers rushed to buy the meals and then discarded the food, leaving trash outside stores.

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The meals, called Happy Sets in Japan, were meant for children. They came with a toy, such as a tiny plastic Pikachu, and a Pokemon card. They sold out in a day, according to Japanese media reports.

Mounds of wasted food were found near the stores.

“We do not believe in abandoning and discarding food. This situation goes against our longtime philosophy that we have cherished as a restaurant to ‘offer a fun dining experience for children and families.’ We sincerely accept that our preparations had not been adequate,” the company said in a statement Monday.

McDonald’s said it was working on ways to prevent such a situation from happening again, such as limiting the number of meals each person can buy and ending online orders. It said it might deny service to customers who fail to abide by the rules.

“We vow to return to the basics of what lies behind the Happy Set, which is about helping to bring smiles to families so we can contribute to the wholesome development of the hearts and bodies of children, who are our future,” the company said.

Collecting Pokemon cards is popular among adults and children in many places, with the most popular cards selling for $1,000 or more.

Unusually large crowds were seen flocking to McDonald’s stores when the meals with Pokemon cards went on sale. The cards were later being resold for up to tens of thousands of yen (hundreds of dollars) online.

McDonald’s has been selling Happy Meals for more than 40 years. In Japan, they usually sell for 510 yen ($3.40).

Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama

By ALEX VEIGA, AP Business Writer

Homeowners are cashing in on years of home equity gains, even as mortgage rates remain elevated.

The trend sent cash-out home refinancing activity to a nearly three-year high in the April-June quarter, according to data from home loan data tracker ICE Mortgage Technology.

In a cash-out refinance, a homeowner takes out a loan for more than they owe on their mortgage and then pockets the difference. The funds are often used to consolidate debt, finance home improvement projects and pay for big-ticket purchases.

The average cash-out refinance in the second quarter resulted in the homeowner pulling $94,000 in home equity, increasing their monthly payment by $590. On average, they also raised the interest rate on their home loan by 1.45 percentage points, according to the report.

To qualify for a cash-out refinance, homeowners must have at least 20% home equity, have owned the home for at least six months and have at least a 620 credit score, among other criteria. Borrowers who got a cash-out refinance in the second quarter had an average credit score of 719, ICE noted.

Years of rising home values have made tapping their home equity a tempting option for many homeowners. The median price of a previously occupied U.S. home climbed to an all-time high of $435,500 in June. That’s a 48% increase from just five years ago.

Total homeowner equity in the U.S. hit an all-time high of $17.8 trillion in the second quarter, with $11.6 trillion of available for homeowners to draw upon by refinancing, ICE said.

All told, cash-out refinances accounted for roughly 60% of all home loan refis in the second quarter.

A cash-out refinance can give a borrower more financial flexibility, especially if they can reduce their mortgage rate and use the funds to lower higher-interest debt. However, the borrower is signing up for a larger loan, possibly at a higher interest rate than they previously had, and they’re often extending the loan repayment term by several years.

That can be risky, because if a borrower can’t pay back the loan, they may not have enough equity left to avoid foreclosure.

Often, a home equity line of credit, or HELOC, may be a better option for homeowners, as they generally come with lower interest rates and the borrower isn’t giving up their equity, just borrowing against it.

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Stubbornly high mortgage rates have helped keep the U.S. housing market in a sales slump since early 2022, when rates started to climb from the rock-bottom lows they reached during the pandemic. Home sales sank last year to their lowest level in nearly 30 years.

The market has remained in a slump this year, and while prices have kept rising nationally, the rate of growth has been slowing or falling in many metro areas, including Atlanta, Austin and Tampa, Florida.

The slower pace of home price appreciation, especially for homes in Sunbelt and Western markets, have led to home equity growth slowing by its lowest rate in two years, ICE said.

As a result, tappable equity has dropped by at least 5% in nearly one-quarter of U.S. markets. And about 1% of homeowners with a mortgage, or roughly 564,000 borrowers, now owe more than their homes are worth, ICE said.

NEW YORK — Ten months after the Pohlad family announced it was exploring a sale of the Twins, the family has decided that it will instead retain control over the team that it has owned for four decades.

“After a detailed and robust process, our family will remain the principal owner of the Minnesota Twins,” executive chair Joe Pohlad said in a statement on behalf of the family.

Twins Executive Vice President for Brand Strategy and Growth Joe Pohlad during a fashion show to introduce the team’s new logo and uniforms at the Mall of America in Bloomington on Friday Nov. 18, 2022. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Instead of selling the team fully, the Twins will take on two “significant limited partnership groups, each of whom will bring a wealth of experience and share our family values,” Pohlad said in the statement.

The family has owned the Twins since 1984, when Carl Pohlad purchased it for $44 million. After his death, his son Jim took over as chairman in 2009. Joe, Carl’s grandson, has been the organization’s executive chair since November 2022.

“We see and hear the passion from our partners, the community, and Twins fans,” Pohlad said in the statement. “That passion inspires us. This ownership group is committed to building a winning team and culture for this region, one that Twins fans are proud to cheer for.”

This is a developing story. Check back later for updates.

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By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are ticking higher on Wednesday after a rally spurred by hopes for lower U.S. interest rates wrapped around the world.

The S&P 500 rose 0.4%, coming off its latest all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 364 points, or 0.8%, as of 10:20 a.m. Eastern time, while the Nasdaq composite was adding 0.3% to its own record set the day before.

Stocks got a lift from easing Treasury yields in the bond market, as expectations reach a virtual consensus that the Federal Reserve will cut its main interest rates for the first time this year at its next meeting in September. Lower rates can boost investment prices and the economy by making it cheaper for U.S. households and businesses to borrow to buy houses, cars or equipment, though they risk worsening inflation.

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Stock indexes jumped in Asia in their first trading after Tuesday’s better-than-expected report on U.S. inflation triggered a jump in bets that a cut to interest rates is coming. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng leaped 2.6%, Japan’s Nikkei 225 rallied 1.3% and South Korea’s Kospi climbed 1.1%.

Indexes also rose in Europe, though the moves were more modest after they already had the chance to trade on the U.S. inflation data the afternoon before. Germany’s DAX returned 0.8%, and France’s CAC 40 rose 0.7%.

On Wall Street, the hopes for lower interest rates are helping to drown out criticism that the U.S. stock market has grown too expensive after its big leap since hitting a low in April.

One way companies can make their stock prices look less expensive is to deliver strong growth in profits, and Brinker International added 0.8% after reporting stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The company behind the Chili’s brand said it’s seeing more customers coming to its restaurants, and it’s also making more profit off each $1 in sales.

“Chili’s is officially back, baby back!” said CEO Kevin Hochman.

HanesBrands climbed 5.4% after it agreed to sell itself to Gildan Activewear for $2.2 billion in cash and Gildan stock. The deal would combine North Carolinas’ HanesBrands with Canada’s Gildan, and Gildan’s stock that trades in the United States rose 11.6%.

On the losing end of Wall Street were grocery stores and delivery companies, which fell after Amazon said it will offer fresh groceries to customers in more than 1,000 cities and towns through same-day delivery. Kroger fell 4.6%, and DoorDash dropped 3.6%, while Amazon rose 0.9%.

Cava Group sank 17.2% after the Mediterranean restaurant chain reported weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected, though its profit topped forecasts. It also cut its forecast for 2025 growth in sales at restaurants that have been open for more than a year, where guest traffic has been roughly flat recently from year-ago levels.

CoreWeave lost 13.7% after the company, whose cloud platform helps customers running artificial-intelligence workloads, reported a larger loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected.

In the bond market, Treasury yields eased as expectations built for coming cuts to interest rates by the Fed.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.23% from 4.29% late Tuesday and from 4.50% in mid-July. That’s a notable move for the bond market.

President Donald Trump has angrily been calling for cuts to help the economy, often insulting the Fed’s chair personally while doing so.

But the Fed has been hesitant so far because of the possibility that Trump’s tariffs could make inflation much worse. Lowering rates would give inflation more fuel, potentially adding oxygen to a growing fire. That’s why Fed officials have said they wanted to see more data come in about inflation before moving.

On Thursday, a report will show how bad inflation was at the wholesale level across the United States. Economists expect it to show inflation accelerated a touch to 2.4% in July from 2.3% in June.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.