By Andrew J. Campa, Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES — As guests pass through the foyer and enter Disneyland’s popular Haunted Mansion attraction, a ghoulish host delivers one last chilling message: “There’s no turning back now.”

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That phrase will take on new meaning this July as Disneyland announced its famed ghostly estate will become available for weddings for the first time.

The spooky price ranges from $25,000 to $40,000 to reserve and use the mansion’s courtyard.

“Couples today are looking for a destination wedding venue with unique storytelling so that it reflects their passions and interests,” Korri McFann, marketing director for Disney’s Fairy Tale Weddings and Honeymoons, said in a statement. “Haunted Mansion has always been a fan favorite, and we’re delighted to bring their dream wedding to life!”

Although the mansion is open to booking, there are some restrictions.

The event can host up to 25 guests (not including the bride and groom) and ceremonies must happen before the park opens, which can present some challenges. On July 1, for instance, the park opens at 8 a.m.

Disneyland said it provides minimal lighting. On the other hand, the theme park is offering an officiant, transportation to and from the Disneyland Resort hotels, light decor and photography.

It also said that Disney entertainment is required for the location, though it’s unclear what that entails and how much extra it would cost. A representative for the wedding unit’s public relations team could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Haunted Mansion, which opened in 1969, completed a nearly one-year renovation before reopening in January 2025.

The gardens have been upgraded to be more narrative-focused, and a greenhouse was added for guests waiting in line.

One of the mansion’s signature characters is, aptly, a tortured bride. She was also updated via a projector, as she now floats before guests while holding a physical three-pronged candelabra.

The mansion’s availability is part of a celebration of 35 years by Disney’s Fair Tale Weddings and Honeymoons.

Disney has said it is planning “a series of surprise announcements” each week in February.

Fans could previously wed at courtyards and ballrooms at Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel, at the Disneyland Hotel ballroom, in the Fantasyland Faire Garden and at Sleeping Beauty’s Castle Forecourt. The latter’s starting estimate is $100,000.

Those interested in booking their nuptials at the Haunted Mansion can find more information at Disneyweddings.com. Patrons can also attend a boutique tour, with the next Southern California showing taking place in Rancho Cucamonga on March 7.

©2026 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By STAN CHOE, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are feeling both the upside and downside Wednesday of a surprisingly strong report that said the nation’s unemployment rate improved last month.

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After initially rising toward its all-time high, the S&P 500 erased its early modest gain and fell 0.1%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 82 points, or 0.2%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.4% lower. Both also flipped after initially rising.

Treasury yields, meanwhile, held onto their gains in the bond market after the Labor Department said U.S. employers added 130,000 jobs to their payrolls last month, more than the 75,000 that economists expected. That helped calm worries that had heightened a day earlier, when a discouraging report suggested spending by U.S. households, the main engine of the economy, may be stalling.

On one hand, the strong data on jobs raises hopes that the U.S. economy can remain solid and keep driving big profits for companies. Stocks in the energy and raw-material industries jumped to the biggest gains in the S&P 500, for example, and their profits tend to be closely tied to the health of the economy.

Exxon Mobil climbed 2.2%. Smurfit Westrock jumped nearly 11% even though the packaging company reported a weaker profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. It gave forecasts for financial results through 2030 that some analysts found encouraging.

But on the other hand for the broad stock market, the strong jobs data could also keep the Federal Reserve on hold when it comes to interest rates. And higher rates can drag on prices for stocks and all kinds of other investments.

After the U.S. unemployment rate unexpectedly improved, traders pushed back their bets for when the Fed could begin cutting interest rates again, though most are still betting on at least two cuts for 2026, according to data from CME Group.

If Wednesday’s jobs report had shown further weakening, that could have pushed the Fed to resume its cuts more quickly. That’s because lower rates can give the economy a boost, though they can also worsen inflation. The next monthly update on inflation at the U.S. consumer level is arriving on Friday.

After the jobs report, the yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.17% from 4.16% late Tuesday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for moves by the Federal Reserve, added more. It climbed to 3.51% from 3.45%.

To be sure, all is still not perfectly clear for the U.S. economy. Wednesday’s report included major revisions, which said employers added just 181,000 jobs for all of last year. That’s less than a third of the previously reported 584,000 and the weakest showing for a year since 2020, when COVID-19 shut down the economy.

“We all knew there would be downward revisions, but these were better than expected,” Brian Jacobsen, chief economic strategist at Annex Wealth Management, said of the markdowns for 2025.

On Wall Street, Moderna dropped 11.9% after saying the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is refusing to consider its application for a new flu vaccine made with Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology. It’s the latest sign of the FDA’s heightened scrutiny of vaccines under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Robinhood Markets fell 12.7% even though the trading and investment app reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected. Its revenue fell short of forecasts, and analysts highlighted Robinhood’s forecast for expenses in 2026, along with concerns about how long a slowdown in crypto trading will last.

Kraft Heinz erased an early loss and was flat after CEO Steve Cahillane said he’s pausing the company’s planned split into two businesses as he tries to return it to profitable growth. He also announced a $600 million investment across marketing, sales and research and development.

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

South Korea’s Kospi rose 1%, and the United Kingdom’s FTSE 100 gained 1% for two of the bigger moves.

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.

By CHEYANNE MUMPHREY

Doing something romantic for Valentine’s Day does not need to involve a heart-shaped box of chocolates, roses or an atypically expensive dinner, according to relationship experts.

In fact, therapists encourage couples craving intimacy and a deeper connection to focus less on grand gestures and more on expressing love with mundane acts that recognize what matters to their partner.

Romance is not one size fits all. For some people, it means holding hands, opening a car door or drawing a bath for their lover. Others respond to receiving a hilarious text, coffee in bed or an offer to run a nagging errand. Either way, demonstrating kindness and care in small ways over time helps to support relationships as they evolve, says Traci Lee, a licensed marriage and family therapist in Dallas.

“The more that early on, you as a couple are able to establish good habits of whatever romance is going to look like for you, the better it is,” Lee said.

Couples counselors and people in relationships share ideas for showing a romantic partner love throughout the year:

Romance is constantly evolving

Early in a relationship, it doesn’t take much to show romantic intentions, but that changes as couples learn more about each other as individuals, discover what their partner needs for emotional and physical well-being, and experience life together.

“Depending on what stage of the relationship you’re in, romance can mean different things,” Lee said. For example, couples with parenting and caregiving responsibilities have less time to devote to each other than they did during the honeymoon phases right after they started dating or got married.

Gabrielle Gambrell, who lives in New York with her husband of seven years and their two children, thinks romance “should be an evolution” and therefore takes work. One piece of advice she received before getting married stuck with her: Never stop dating.

“You keep romance alive by continuously dating,” Gambrell said. “No matter how busy or what happens in the world, me and my husband have a mandatory date night. And every single date night, we leave the date energized and happy and grateful, and reminded what means the most to us.”

Taking the pressure off Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day carries a heavy burden of social pressures, fantasies from movies and books, and individual desires and expectations that often go unexpressed. All can be managed with planning and communication, experts say.

“Some people will say, ‘If I have to tell my partner what to do, then it won’t be romantic.’ But I have to remind people that their partner is not a mind reader,” Lee said. “I try to blow up the myth that romance can only happen if it’s created spontaneously out of thin air.”

Gambrell, who describes herself as a planner by nature, says she typically starts asking her husband questions about their plans for Feb. 14 days before. Making assumptions about the best way to celebrate Valentine’s Day and comparisons with other couple’s relationships are likely to lead to disappointment, she said.

“Love is not perfect. Romance is not perfect. Relationships, there’s nothing perfect about them, but they are beautiful,” she said.

Clarence Smith IV, a 29-year-old middle school teacher and video content creator in Phoenix, remains a big believer in using traditional acts of chivalry to communicate respect and care for his girlfriend, such as positioning himself closer to the curb when they are walking together on a street.

“Romance today involves more seen gestures – let this be seen, let this be shown, let this be big,” Smith said, adding that in his dating experience some people see his gentlemanly behavior as old-fashioned. “I do little things like that, and they’re looked at as superbly impactful. We don’t do this anymore. But to me, baby, this is basics.”

Express love beyond February

While some relationship experts recommend establishing traditions around meaningful holidays, anniversaries and birthdays, others say that creating rituals to mark new seasons or weekends are equally valuable as part of the foundation for merging lifestyles and routines.

Lee says she often explains to her clients a popular analogy in the counseling industry: If you get in a fight with your partner and apologize with a dozen roses, that would be great, but bringing one rose every day for 12 days would communicate consistency and dedication.

She asks patients, “What are some small things that you can do that are going to be a way for you to show up for your partner in the way that they need it?”

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Gambrell says gift-giving is the way she prefers to receive and show love. As a result, it touches her deeply and comes across as a romantic gesture when her husband buys her a scratch-off lottery ticket or stationery item, like a pen or notebook, at the store.

“It’s knowing that you’re thinking about me, that I’m on your mind, that you stop what you’re doing to think of me,” she said.

Smith encourages people to not be afraid of expressing love regardless of how experienced a dating life or how long a relationship they have.

“Do not be afraid to love in your own way,” he said. “It’s always worth it. You always win in the end.”

By FATIMA HUSSEIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office’s 10-year outlook projects worsening long-term federal deficits and rising debt, driven largely by increased spending, notably on Social Security, Medicare, and debt service payments.

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Compared with the CBO’s analysis this time last year, the fiscal outlook has deteriorated modestly.

Major developments over the last year are factored into the latest report, released Wednesday, including Republicans’ tax and spending measure known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” higher tariffs, and the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration, which includes deporting millions of immigrants from mainland U.S.

As a result of these changes, the projected 2026 deficit is about $100 billion higher, and total deficits from 2026 to 2035 are $1.4 trillion larger, while debt held by the public is projected to rise from 101% of GDP to 120% — exceeding historical highs.

Notably, the CBO says higher tariffs partially offset some of those increases by raising federal revenue by $3 trillion, but that also comes with higher inflation from 2026 to 2029.

Rising debt and debt service is important because repaying investors for borrowed money crowds out government spending on basic needs such as roads, infrastructure and education, which enable investments in future economic growth.

Congressional Budget Office projections also indicate that inflation doesn’t hit the Federal Reserve’ s 2% target rate until 2030.

Jonathan Burks, executive vice president of economic and health policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center said “large deficits are unprecedented for a growing, peacetime economy” though “the good news is there is still time for policymakers to correct course.”

“We encourage lawmakers to work together to explore options for raising revenue, trimming spending, and slowing the growth of the major cost drivers,” Burks said, “Congress and the administration should seize the opportunity to act now before the available menu of choices becomes much more painful.”

Lawmakers have recently addressed rising federal debt and deficits primarily through targeted spending caps and debt limit suspensions, as well as deploying “extraordinary measures” when the U.S. is close to hitting its statutory spending limit, though these measures have often been accompanied by new, large-scale spending or tax policies that maintain high deficit levels.

And President Donald Trump at the start of his second term deployed a Department of Government Efficiency, which set a goal to balance the budget by cutting $2 trillion in waste, fraud and abuse, however, budget analysts estimate that DOGE cut anywhere between $1.4 billion to $7 billion, largely through workforce firings.

Michael Peterson, CEO of the Peterson Foundation said the CBO’s latest budget projection “is an urgent warning to our leaders about America’s costly fiscal path.”

“This election year, voters understand the connection between rising debt and their personal economic condition. And the financial markets are watching. Stabilizing our debt is an essential part of improving affordability, and must be a core component of the 2026 campaign conversation.”