By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court decided Thursday that a Catholic charity doesn’t have to pay Wisconsin unemployment taxes, one of a set of religious-rights cases the justices are considering this term.

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The unanimous ruling comes in a case filed by the Catholic Charities Bureau, which says the state violated the First Amendment’s religious freedom guarantee when it required the organization to pay the tax while exempting other faith groups.

Wisconsin argues the organization has paid the tax for over 50 years and doesn’t qualify for an exemption because its day-to-day work doesn’t involve religious teachings. Much of the groups’ funding is from public money, and neither employees nor people receiving services have to belong to any faith, according to court papers.

Catholic Charities, though, says it qualifies because its disability services are motivated by religious beliefs and the state shouldn’t be making determinations about what work qualifies as religious. It appealed to the Supreme Court after Wisconsin’s highest court ruled against it. President Donald Trump’s administration weighed in on behalf of Catholic Charites.

Wisconsin has said that a decision in favor of the charity could open the door to big employers like religiously affiliated hospitals pulling out of the state unemployment system as well.

The conservative-majority court has issued a string of decisions siding with churches and religious plaintiffs in recent years. This term, though, a plan to establish a publicly funded Catholic charter school lost after when the justices deadlocked after Amy Coney Barrett recused herself.

The nine-member court is also considering a case over religious objections to books read in public schools. In those arguments, the majority appeared sympathetic to the religious rights of parents in Maryland who want to remove their children from elementary school classes using storybooks with LGBTQ characters.

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday blocked a $10 billion lawsuit Mexico filed against top firearm manufacturers in the U.S. alleging the companies’ business practices have fueled tremendous cartel violence and bloodshed.

The unanimous ruling tossed out the case under U.S. laws that largely shield gunmakers from liability when their firearms are used in crime.

Big-name manufacturers like Smith & Wesson had appealed to the justices after a lower court let the suit go forward under an exception for situations in which the companies themselves are accused of violating the law.

But the justices found that Mexico hadn’t made a plausible argument that the companies had knowingly allowed guns to be trafficked into the country. “It does not pinpoint, as most aiding-and-abetting claims do, any specific criminal transactions that the defendants (allegedly) assisted,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in the court’s opinion.

Mexico had asked the justices to let the case play out, saying it was still in its early stages.

The case began in 2021, when the Mexican government filed a blockbuster suit against some of the biggest gun companies, including Smith & Wesson, Beretta, Colt and Glock.

Mexico has strict gun laws and has just one store where people can legally buy firearms. But thousands of guns are smuggled in by the country’s powerful drug cartels every year.

The Mexican government says at least 70% of those weapons come from the United States. The lawsuit claims that companies knew weapons were being sold to traffickers who smuggled them into Mexico and decided to cash in on that market.

The companies reject Mexico’s allegations, arguing the country’s lawsuit comes nowhere close to showing they’re responsible for a relatively few people using their products to commit violence.

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A federal judge tossed out the lawsuit under a 2005 law that protects gun companies from most civil lawsuits, but an appeals court revived it. The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston found it fell under an exception to the shield law for situations in which firearm companies are accused of knowingly breaking laws in their business practices.

That exception has come up in other cases, including in lawsuits stemming from mass shootings.

Families of victims of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, for example, argued it applied to their lawsuit because the gunmaker had violated state law in the marketing of the AR-15 rifle used in the shooting, in which 20 first graders and six educators were killed.

The families eventually secured a landmark $73 million settlement with Remington, the maker of the rifle.

By MARK SHERMAN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A unanimous Supreme Court made it easier Thursday to bring lawsuits over so-called reverse discrimination, siding with an Ohio woman who claims she didn’t get a job and then was demoted because she is straight.

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The justices’ decision affects lawsuits in 20 states and the District of Columbia where, until now, courts had set a higher bar when members of a majority group, including those who are white and heterosexual, sue for discrimination under federal law.

The court ruled in an appeal from Marlean Ames, who has worked for the Ohio Department of Youth Services for more than 20 years.

Ames contends she was passed over for a promotion and then demoted because she is heterosexual. Both the job she sought and the one she had held were given to LGBTQ people.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars sex discrimination in the workplace. A trial court and the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against Ames.

The 6th circuit is among the courts that had required an additional requirement for people like Ames, showing “background circumstances” that might include that LGBTQ people made the decisions affecting Ames or statistical evidence of a pattern of discrimination against members of the majority group.

The appeals court noted that Ames didn’t provide any such circumstances.

By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street remains listless on Thursday, as the countdown ticks toward Friday’s highly anticipated jobs report.

The S&P 500 was edging up by 0.1% in early trading. After sprinting through May and rallying within a couple good days’ worth of gains of its all-time high, the index at the center of many 401(k) accounts has lost momentum as financial markets wait for the next big trigger to move, up or down.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 10 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.2% higher.

Trading activity in options markets suggests investors believe the next big move for the S&P 500 could come on Friday, when the U.S. Labor Department will say how many more jobs U.S. employers created than destroyed during May. The expectation on Wall Street is for a slowdown in hiring from April.

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A resilient job market has been one of the linchpins that’s propped up the U.S. economy, and the worry is that all the uncertainty created by President Donald Trump’s on-and-off tariffs could cause businesses to freeze their hiring.

A report on Thursday said that more U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits last week than economists expected. It still remains relatively low compared with history, but it hit its highest level in eight months.

A separate report said that U.S. workers overall produced less stuff per hour during the start of the year than economists expected. The drop in productivity is a potentially discouraging trend for inflation.

On Wall Street, Five Below rallied 9.9% after the retailer, which sells products priced between $1 and $5, reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Winnie Park credited broad-based strength across most of its merchandise.

MongoDB jumped 16.6% after the database company likewise delivered a stronger profit than analysts expected.

On the losing side of Wall Street was Brown-Forman, the company behind Jack Daniel’s and Woodford Reserve. Its profit and revenue for the latest quarter fell short of Wall Street’s expectations, and the company said it expects its upcoming fiscal year to be challenging because of “consumer uncertainty, the potential impact from currently unknown tariffs” and other potential challenges. Its stock fell 15.7%.

The CEO of PVH, the company behind the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands, likewise cited challenges from “an increasingly uncertain consumer and macroeconomic backdrop.”

Its stock fell 16.3% even though it reported stronger revenue and profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. The company cut its profit forecast for its full fiscal year, saying it will likely be able to offset only some of the potential hit it will take because of tariffs.

Hopes that Trump would lower his tariffs after reaching trade deals with other countries have been among the main reasons the S&P 500 has rallied back after dropping roughly 20% below its record two months ago. But talks are still ongoing, and nothing is assured. In the meantime, many companies have been cutting or withdrawing their forecasts for profit this upcoming year because of all the uncertainty.

Trump spoke with China’s leader, Xi Jinping, on Thursday as the world hopes for progress between its two largest economies. The conversation was confirmed by the Chinese foreign ministry, which said Trump initiated the call. The White House did not immediately comment.

Expectations are also building that the Federal Reserve will need to cut interest rates later this year in order to prop up the economy. Yields took a sharp turn lower on Wednesday after reports came in weaker than expected on the U.S. job market and on activity among U.S. services businesses.

The Fed has yet to cut interest rates this year after slashing them through the end of 2024. Part of the reason for the pause is that the Fed wants to see how much Trump’s tariffs will hurt the economy and raise inflation. While lower interest rates could boost the economy, they also tend to give inflation more fuel.

In the bond market, Treasury yields were a bit steadier on Thursday ahead of Friday’s jobs report. The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.35% from 4.37% late Wednesday and from 4.46% the day before that.

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

South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.5% for one of the biggest moves after the country’s new president and leading liberal politician Lee Jae-myung began his term, vowing to restart talks with North Korea and beef up a trilateral partnership with the U.S. and Japan.

AP Business Writers Yuri Kageyama and Matt Ott contributed.