Fresh from serving as the musical guest on “Saturday Night Live,” emerging pop star Benson Boone will kick off his first arena tour Aug. 22 at St. Paul’s Xcel Energy Center.

Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday through Ticketmaster. American Express cardholders have access to a presale that starts at 10 a.m. Wednesday.

A Washington state native, Boone’s first experience performing was when a friend asked him to play piano and sing in their high school’s battle of the bands. After graduating in 2020, he briefly attended Brigham Young University before dropping out to pursue a career in music.

Boone made it onto the 19th season of “American Idol” in 2021, but withdrew from the competition after making it to the top 24. He focused on posting his music to TikTok and won the attention of Imagine Dragons frontman Dan Reynolds, who signed Boone to his Night Street Records label.

His 2021 debut single “Ghost Town” went platinum, as did 2022’s “In the Stars.” But Boone’s career really took off with last year’s “Beautiful Things,” one of the year’s biggest hits on the planet. It reached No. 2 in the States and topped the charts in 19 other countries.

On “SNL,” Boone played “Sorry I’m Here for Someone Else” and “Mystical Magical” from his upcoming sophomore album “American Heart,” which is due out June 20.

Boone is known for his athleticism, bombastic performing style and arena-ready songs. Last month at Coachella, he covered Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” and had guitarist Brian May join him for his first of two shows. (He brought out a cardboard cutout of May for the second performance.)

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By JOSH FUNK

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Saturday that he wants to step down as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year. The revelation came as a surprise because the 94-year-old had previously said he did not plan to retire.

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Buffett, one of the world’s richest people and most accomplished investors, took control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 when it was a textiles manufacturer. He turned the company into a conglomerate by finding other businesses and stocks to buy that were selling for less than they were worth.

His success made him a Wall Street icon. It also earned him the nickname “Oracle of Omaha,” a reference to the Nebraska city where Buffett was born and chose to live and work.

Here are some of his best and worst investments over the years:

Buffett’s Best

— National Indemnity and National Fire & Marine: Purchased in 1967, the company was one of Buffett’s first insurance investments. Insurance float — the premium money insurers can invest between the time when policies are bought and when claims are made — provided the capital for many of Berkshire’s investments over the years and helped fuel the company’s growth. Berkshire’s insurance division has grown to include Geico, General Reinsurance and several other insurers. The float totaled $173 billion at the end of the first quarter.

— Buying blocks of stock in American Express, Coca-Cola Co. and Bank of America at times when the companies were out of favor because of scandals or market conditions. Collectively, the shares are worth over $100 billion more than what Buffett paid for them, and that doesn’t count all the dividends he has collected over the years.

— Apple: Buffett long said that he didn’t understand tech companies well enough to value them and pick the long-term winners, but he started buying Apple shares in 2016. He later explained that he bought more than $31 billion worth because he understood the iPhone maker as a consumer products company with extremely loyal customers. The value of his investment grew to more than $174 billion before Buffett started selling Berkshire Hathaway’s shares.

— BYD: On the advice of his late investing partner Charlie Munger, Buffett bet big on the genius of BYD founder Wang Chanfu in 2008 with a $232 million investment in the Chinese electric vehicle maker. The value of that stake soared to more than $9 billion before Buffett began selling it off. Berkshire’s remaining stake is still worth about $1.8 billion.

— See’s Candy: Buffett repeatedly pointed to his 1972 purchase as a turning point in his career. Buffett said Munger persuaded him that it made sense to buy great businesses at good prices as long as they had enduring competitive advantages. Previously, Buffett had primarily invested in companies of any quality as long as they were selling for less than he thought they were worth. Berkshire paid $25 million for See’s and recorded pretax earnings of $1.65 billion from the candy company through 2011. The amount continued to grow but Buffett didn’t routinely highlight it.

— Berkshire Hathaway Energy: Utilities provide a large and steady stream of profits for Berkshire. The conglomerate paid $2.1 billion, or about $35.05 per share, for Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy in 2000. The utility unit subsequently was renamed and made several acquisitions, including PacifiCorp and NV Energy. The utilities added more than $3.7 billion to Berkshire’s profit in 2024, although Buffett has said they are now worth less than they used to be because of the liability they face related to wildfires.

Buffett’s Worst

— Berkshire Hathaway: Buffett had said his investment in the Berkshire Hathaway textile mills was probably his worst investment ever. The textile company he took over in 1965 bled money for many years before Buffett finally shut it down in 1985, though Berkshire did provide cash for some of Buffett’s early acquisitions. Of course, the Berkshire shares Buffett began buying for $7 and $8 a share in 1962 are now worth $809,350 per share, so even Buffett’s worst investment turned out OK.

— Dexter Shoe Co.: Buffett said he made an awful blunder by buying Dexter in 1993 for $433 million, a mistake made even worse because he used Berkshire stock for the deal. Buffett says he essentially gave away 1.6% of Berkshire for a worthless business.

— Missed opportunities. Buffett said that some of his worst mistakes over the years were the investments and deals that he didn’t make. Berkshire easily could have made billions if Buffett had been comfortable investing in Amazon, Google or Microsoft early on. But it wasn’t just tech companies he missed out on. Buffett told shareholders he was caught “sucking his thumb” when he failed to follow through on a plan to buy 100 million Walmart shares that would be worth nearly $10 billion today.

— Selling banks too soon. Not long before the COVID pandemic, Buffett seemed to sour on most of his bank stocks. Repeated scandals involving Wells Fargo gave him a reason to start unloading his 500 million shares, many of them for around $30 per share. But he also sold off his JP Morgan stake at prices less than $100. Both stocks have more than doubled since then.

— Blue Chip Stamps: Buffett and Munger, Berkshire’s former vice chairman, took control of Blue Chip in 1970 when the customer rewards program was generating $126 million in sales. But as trading stamps fell out of favor with retailers and consumers, sales steadily declined; in 2006, they totaled a mere $25,920. However, Buffett and Munger used the float that Blue Chip generated to acquire See’s Candy, Wesco Financial and Precision Castparts, which are all steady contributors to Berkshire.

Presidential second terms are rarely successful, and on the evidence of his first 100 days Donald Trump’s won’t be different. The president needs a major reset if he wants to rescue his final years from the economic and foreign-policy shocks he has unleashed.

There’s no denying his energy or ambition. Mr. Trump is pressing ahead on multiple fronts, and he has had some success. His expansion of U.S. energy production is proceeding well and is much needed after the Biden war on fossil fuels. He has ended the border crisis in short order.

He is also rolling back federal assaults on mainstream American values — such as by policing racial favoritism. Mr. Trump was elected to counter the excesses of the left on climate, culture and censorship, and he is doing it.

On other priorities, the execution hasn’t matched the promises. That would seem to apply to DOGE, which we’ve supported but has been so frenetic it isn’t clear what it is achieving. Easy targets like USAID make for symbolic victories but no fundamental change in the growth of government. The Trump budget will offer more reform proposals, if the White House can get them through Congress. He badly needs a pro-growth tax bill.

Even on popular causes, one problem has been needless excess. Harvard and other universities need to change, but trying to dictate their curriculum and faculty choices is an intrusion on free speech and risks defeat in court. His deportation of criminals is worthwhile, but denying due process and toying with the courts will sour the effort. The White House motto seems to be that if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing too much.

That’s especially true on tariffs, which could sink his presidency. Mr. Trump was elected to control inflation and raise real incomes, but tariffs do the opposite. They guarantee at least a one-time increase in prices on imported goods that will flow through the economy. They portend shortages for consumers, and for businesses that source goods and components from abroad.

The tariffs are the largest economic policy shock since Richard Nixon blew up Bretton Woods in 1971, which unleashed inflation that Nixon tried to stop with wage and price controls and a tariff. The economic consequences arguably doomed Nixon’s second term, perhaps as much as Watergate.

It’s a mistake to think the tariff damage is only domestic. The willy-nilly assault on friends and foes has shaken global confidence in U.S. reliability. Ken Griffin, the investor and major donor to Mr. Trump, summed it up last week as a self-inflicted blow to the American brand. The U.S. is needlessly ceding global economic leadership.

China is already taking advantage by courting U.S. allies as a more dependable giant market. This will make it much harder to build a trade alliance to stop China’s often predatory economic behavior. Mr. Trump last week called us “China Loving,” which must amuse Beijing. Mr. Trump’s tariffs on allies are the real gift to Xi Jinping.

There are signs Mr. Trump is finally recognizing some of the tariff risks, as he now talks of doing some 200 trade deals. He is also saying he might unilaterally cut his 145% tariff on Chinese imports. We’d like nothing better than to see a retreat. But Mr. Trump remains a long way from making such a pivot, and those trade deals won’t be easy to strike.

Mr. Trump’s second-term foreign policy so far is a work in progress. He is trying to reclaim Middle East sea lanes from the Houthis after Joe Biden ’s timidity. And he is restoring “maximum pressure” on Iran to abandon its nuclear program. These are hopeful signs.

The main cause for alarm is his one-sided pursuit of peace in Ukraine. Until last weekend he had said scarcely a discouraging word about Vladimir Putin while squeezing Ukraine to make concessions that could doom it to future marauding. Much will hang on the details of an armistice, if there is one, and not merely for Europe’s future.

Joe Biden’s retreat from Afghanistan destroyed American deterrence. A debacle in Ukraine would do the same for Mr. Trump, with ramifications for Iran, North Korea and especially Chinese ambitions in the Pacific. Don’t be surprised if China decides to snatch Taiwan’s outer islands or tries a partial blockade. Mr. Trump told us in October that he’d respond to such a provocation with tariffs, but he’s already playing that card without success.

— The Wall Street Journal

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By ED WHITE

President Donald Trump wants to convert Alcatraz back into a federal prison, decades after the California island fortress was converted into a U.S. tourist destination because it had become too costly to house America’s worst criminals.

The prison off the coast of San Francisco is where the government sent notorious gangsters Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly as well as lesser-known men who were considered too dangerous to lock up elsewhere.

Circled by herons and gulls and often shrouded in fog, Alcatraz has been the setting for movies featuring Sean Connery, Nicolas Cage and Clint Eastwood.

Trump says Alcatraz, now part of the National Park Service, suddenly is needed to house America’s “most ruthless and violent” criminals.

“When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” Trump said Sunday on his Truth Social site.

What is Alcatraz?

Alcatraz is in San Francisco Bay off the coast of San Francisco and visible from the Golden Gate Bridge. It is best known for its years as a federal prison, from 1934-63, but its history is much longer.

President Millard Fillmore in 1850 declared the island for public purposes, according to the park service, and it soon became a military site. Confederates were housed there during the Civil War.

By the 1930s, the government decided that it needed a place to hold the worst criminals, and Alcatraz became the choice for a prison.

“A remote site was sought, one that would prohibit constant communication with the outside world by those confined within its walls,” the park service said. “Although land in Alaska was being considered, the availability of Alcatraz Island conveniently coincided with the government’s perceived need for a high security prison.”

Why did it close?

The remoteness eventually made it impractical. Everything from food to fuel had to arrive by boat.

“The island had no source of fresh water,” according to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, “so nearly one million gallons of water had to be barged to the island each week.”

The cost to house someone there in 1959 was $10.10 a day compared with $3 at a federal prison in Atlanta, the government said. It was cheaper to build a new prison from scratch.

Why is Alcatraz notorious?

Despite the location, many prisoners tried to get out: 36 men attempted 14 separate escapes into the bay, according to the FBI. Nearly all were caught or didn’t survive the cold water and swift current.

“Escape from Alcatraz,” a 1979 movie starring Eastwood, told the story of John Anglin, his brother Clarence and Frank Morris, who all escaped in 1962, leaving behind handmade plaster heads with real hair in their beds to fool guards.

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“For the 17 years we worked on the case, no credible evidence emerged to suggest the men were still alive, either in the U.S. or overseas,” the FBI said.

“The Rock,” a 1996 fictional thriller with Connery and Cage, centers on an effort to rescue hostages from rogue Marines on Alcatraz.

A national park

Alcatraz became part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and was opened to the public in 1973, a decade after it was closed as a prison.

The park service says the island gets more than 1 million visitors a year who arrive by ferry. A ticket for an adult costs $47.95, and visitors can see the cells where prisoners were held.

In 1969, a group of Native Americans, mostly college students, claimed to have a right to Alcatraz and began an occupation that lasted for 19 months. It ended in 1971 when federal authorities intervened.

“The underlying goals of the Indians on Alcatraz were to awaken the American public to the reality of the plight of the first Americans and to assert the need for Indian self-determination,” late historian Troy Johnson wrote.