By STAN CHOE, Associated Press Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is rallying on Friday after the head of the Federal Reserve indicated cuts to interest rates may be coming in a highly anticipated speech, though he gave no clear clue about when.

The S&P 500 jumped 1.3% and erased all of its loss for the week. It’s coming off its fifth straight modest loss after setting an all-time high last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 649 points, or 1.4%, as of 10:05 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.3% higher.

Related Articles

As AI becomes part of everyday life, it brings a hidden climate cost

Cracker Barrel unveils a new logo as part of wider rebrand efforts, sparking ire among some online

Musk’s X reaches tentative settlement with former Twitter workers in $500 million lawsuit

More frozen shrimp recalled for possible radioactive contamination

Passengers sue United and Delta for selling ‘window’ seats next to blank walls

The hope among investors had been that Jerome Powell would hint in his speech at a central bankers’ symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, that cuts to interest rates may be imminent. Wall Street loves lower rates because they can give a boost to the economy and to investment prices, even if they risk worsening inflation at the same time.

President Donald Trump has angrily been calling for lower rates, often insulting Powell while doing so. And a surprisingly weak report on job growth this month pushed many on Wall Street to assume cuts are coming as soon as the Fed’s next meeting in September.

But Powell did not commit to any kind of timing in his speech on Friday, saying only that the Fed was prepared to act if necessary, as he has for much of this year while the Fed kept interest rates steady. The Fed’s two jobs are to keep the job market healthy and to keep a lid on inflation, and helping one by moving interest rates often means hurting the other.

Powell said the job market looks OK at the moment, even if “it is a curious kind of balance” where fewer new workers are chasing after fewer new jobs. Inflation, meanwhile, still has the potential to push higher because of Trump’s tariffs.

In sum, Powell said that “the stability of the unemployment rate and other labor market measures allows us to proceed carefully as we consider changes to our policy stance.”

Treasury yields tumbled in the bond market after the release of the text of Powell’s speech.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.27% from 4.33% late Thursday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for what the Fed will do with its main interest rate, sank to 3.71% from 3.79%.

On Wall Street, Ross Stores rose 1.7% after the retailer reported a stronger profit for its latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Jim Conroy said sales trends picked up at the end of the quarter in July following a lull in June.

Shares of Nio, a Chinese electric-vehicle maker, that trade in the United States climbed 9.8% after it began pre-sales of its flagship premium SUV model, the ES8.

Nvidia rose 0.9% to trim its loss for the week. The company, whose chips are powering much of the world’s move in to artificial-intelligence technology, has seen its stock struggle recently amid criticism that it and other AI superstars shot too high, too fast and became too expensive.

Nvidia’s CEO, Jensen Huang, said Friday that the company is discussing a potential new computer chip designed for China with the Trump administration. The chips are graphics processing units, or GPUs, a type of device used to build and update a range of AI systems. But they are less powerful than Nvidia’s top semiconductors today, which cannot be sold to China due to U.S. national security restrictions.

In stock markets abroad, Germany’s DAX returned 0.1% after government data showed that its economy shrank by 0.3% in the second quarter compared with the previous three-month period.

Indexes rose across much of Asia, with stocks climbing 1.4% in Shanghai and 0.9% in South Korea.

AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.

Russia’s top diplomat said Friday there are no plans for a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss their three-year war, days after U.S. President Donald Trump said he had begun arrangements for them to sit down together.

“There is no meeting planned” between the Russian and Ukrainian leaders, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a taped interview for NBC’s Sunday show “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.”

Related Articles

Israel’s defense minister says Gaza City could be destroyed as Israeli strikes kill 17 Palestinians

Famine grips Gaza’s largest city and is likely to spread, authority on food crises says

Today in History: August 22, hostages taken during botched Brooklyn bank robbery

Netanyahu says he’ll push ahead with Gaza City takeover and renewed ceasefire talks

Russian attack on western Ukraine hits an American factory during the US-led push for peace

Trump said in a social media post Monday that he had spoken to Putin and set in motion arrangements for a summit at a location to be decided. Trump added he would join them for a trilateral meeting afterward.

Uncertainty has grown in recent days about Moscow’s commitment to U.S.-led peace efforts, as Russian officials have raised objections about cornerstones of the nascent proposals.

Lavrov said Thursday that Putin is ready to meet with Zelenskyy to discuss peace terms, but only after key issues have first been worked out by senior officials. That could involve a protracted negotiating process because the two sides remain far apart.

Ukraine wants Western security guarantees to deter any postwar Russian attack, and U.S. and European officials are scrambling to come up with detailed proposals of how that might work. But Lavrov said earlier this week that making security arrangements for Ukraine without Moscow’s involvement was pointless.

On Thursday, a major Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine struck an American-owned electronics plant, despite Trump’s criticism of Putin for continuing to bomb Ukrainian targets while talking peace.

Europe’s chief diplomat warns of Putin ‘trap’

The European Union’s foreign policy chief said Friday that the possibility of Ukraine ceding land to Russia as part of a peace deal to end their three-year war is “a trap” set by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Russian leader is demanding Ukrainian concessions in return for halting his army’s invasion but granting him those demands would amount to rewarding the country that started the fighting, Kaja Kallas said.

The recent talk about handing Putin concessions is “exactly the trap that Russia wants us to walk into,” Kallas said in an interview with the BBC.

“I mean, the discussion all about what Ukraine should give up, what the concessions that Ukraine is willing to (make), whereas we are forgetting that Russia has not made one single concession and they are the ones who are the aggressor here, they are the ones who are brutally attacking another country and killing people,” she said.

“Russia is just dragging feet. It’s clear that Russia does not want peace,” Kallas said. “President Trump has been repeatedly saying that the killing has to stop and Putin is just laughing, not stopping the killing, but increasing the killing.”

Ukraine strikes a Russian oil pipeline

Ukraine, meanwhile, has hit back at Russia with long-range weapons that are targeting infrastructure supporting Moscow’s war effort. It has hit oil refineries, among other targets, and Russian wholesale gasoline prices have reached record highs in recent days.

Ukrainian servicemen of the 44th artillery brigade fire a 2s22 Bohdana self-propelled howitzer towards Russian positions at the frontline in the Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Danylo Antoniuk)

Ukrainian forces on Friday targeted the Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia, hitting the Unecha oil pumping station in the Bryansk region, according to the commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdy, also known as Magyar.

The Druzhba pipeline starts in Russia and takes oil through Belarus and Ukraine to Slovakia and Hungary. In Russia, a section of it goes through the Bryansk region and the Unecha district.

Ukraine fired HIMARS rockets and drones at the region in a combined attack, Bryansk regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz said in a Telegram post.

The pipeline supplies Hungary with more than half of its crude oil. Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó wrote on Facebook on Friday that the Druzhba pipeline had been attacked “for the third time in a short time.”

“This is another attack on the energy security of our country. Another attempt to drag us into war,” the minister wrote.

Hungary under Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has taken a combative stance toward both Kyiv and its EU backers while most EU countries have offered political, financial, and military support to Kyiv.

Orbán visited Moscow to meet with Putin last year in a rare trip to Russia by a European leader.

Slovakia and Hungary are the only remaining EU member states still receiving oil from Russia. The other 25 stopped buying it as part of EU sanctions following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

By WAFAA SHURAFA and SAM METZ, Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israel’s defense minister warned Friday that Gaza’s largest city would be destroyed unless Hamas yields to Israel’s terms, as the world’s leading authority on food crises said the city was gripped by famine from fighting and blockade.

A day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would authorize the military to mount a major operation to seize Gaza City, Defense Minister Israel Katz warned that it could “turn into Rafah and Beit Hanoun,” areas largely reduced to rubble earlier in the war.

“The gates of hell will soon open on the heads of Hamas’ murderers and rapists in Gaza — until they agree to Israel’s conditions for ending the war,” Katz wrote in a post on X.

Palestinians pray over the bodies of people who were killed in an Israeli military strike, during their funeral outside Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

He restated Israel’s cease-fire demands: the release of all hostages and Hamas’ complete disarmament. Hamas has said it would release captives in exchange for ending the war, but rejects disarmament without the creation of a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu on Thursday said he had instructed officials “to begin immediate negotiations” to release hostages and end the war on acceptable terms, Israel’s first public response to the latest ceasefire proposal.

With ground troops already active in strategic areas, the wide-scale operation in Gaza City could start within days.

Gaza City is Hamas’ military and governing stronghold, atop of what Israel believes is an extensive tunnel network. It is also sheltering hundreds of thousands of civilians and still houses some of the strip’s critical infrastructure and health facilities.

Hamas said earlier this week that it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal from Arab mediators, which if accepted by Israel could forestall the offensive. The parties do not negotiate directly and similar announcements have been made in the past that did not lead to ceasefires.

The proposal outlines a phased deal involving hostage and prisoner exchanges and a pullback of Israeli troops, while talks continue on a longer-term cease-fire. Israeli leaders have resisted such terms since abandoning a similar agreement earlier this year amid divisions within Netanyahu’s coalition and strong opposition from his right.

Many Israelis fear an assault could doom the roughly 20 hostages who have survived captivity since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack. Aid groups and international leaders warn it would worsen Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.

Alaa Hassanein carries the body of his 4-year-old niece, Sara Hassanein, who was killed in an Israeli military strike on a school used as a shelter, outside Al-Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, Friday, Aug. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

The logistics of evacuating civilians are expected to be daunting. Many residents say repeated displacement is pointless since nowhere in Gaza is safe, while medical groups warn Israel’s calls to move patients south is unworkable, with no facilities to receive them.

But Netanyahu has argued the offensive is the surest way to free captives and crush Hamas.

“These two things — defeating Hamas and releasing all our hostages — go hand in hand,” Netanyahu said Thursday while touring a command center near in southern Israel.

Since 251 people were taken hostage more than 22 months ago, ceasefire agreements and other deals have accounted for the vast majority of the 148 released, including the bodies of eight deceased hostages.

Israel has only managed to rescue eight hostages alive and retrieved the bodies of 49 others. Fifty hostages remain in Gaza, about 20 of whom Israel believes to be alive.

Airstrike hits area ahead of broader offensive

Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital said at least 17 Palestinians were killed Friday as Israel escalates its activity in the area in the lead-up to its broader planned offensive.

Related Articles

Russia’s chief diplomat says no Putin-Zelenskyy meeting is planned, despite Trump’s efforts

Famine grips Gaza’s largest city and is likely to spread, authority on food crises says

Today in History: August 22, hostages taken during botched Brooklyn bank robbery

Netanyahu says he’ll push ahead with Gaza City takeover and renewed ceasefire talks

Russian attack on western Ukraine hits an American factory during the US-led push for peace

An Israeli airstrike hit a school in Sheikh Radwan, a Gaza City neighborhood where tens of Palestinians shelter in makeshift tents in the schoolyard. It killed at least seven people, according to an eyewitness and hospital records.

Israel’s military said it wasn’t aware of a strike in the area but in a statement said troops were operating on the outskirts of Gaza City and in the Zeitoun neighborhood.

The strike is part of Israel’s ongoing push in Gaza City, where the military says it is operating and witnesses have reported intense bombardment in the days since Israel approved its plans to take the city.

Amal Aboul Aas, who is now sheltering in Gaza City after being displaced four times, said the explosions were so intense he couldn’t sleep, yet she couldn’t leave either.

“We do not have the money, the resources, or the energy to evacuate again. I just wish for a quick death right where I am here because I am not going anywhere. Eventually one of these missiles will hit me,” she told The Associated Press.

The Gaza Health Ministry said Thursday that at least 62,192 Palestinians have been killed in the war. Another two people have died from malnutrition-related causes, bringing the total number of such deaths to 271, including 112 children, the Health Ministry said.

The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals. It does not say whether those killed by Israeli fire are civilians or combatants, but it says around half were women and children. The U.N. and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties. Israel disputes its toll but has not provided its own.

Hamas started the war when they attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking hostages.

Metz reported from Jerusalem. Melanie Lidman contributed from Tel Aviv, Israel.

By SAM MEDNICK and WAFAA SHURAFA, Associated Press

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — The world’s leading authority on food crises said Friday the Gaza Strip’s largest city is gripped by famine, and that it is likely to spread across the territory without a ceasefire and an end to restrictions on humanitarian aid.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, or IPC, said famine is occurring in Gaza City, home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, and that it could spread south to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis by the end of next month.

The IPC determination comes after months of warnings by aid groups that Israel’s restrictions of food and other aid into Gaza, and its military offensive, were causing high levels of starvation among Palestinian civilians, particularly children.

Gaza City offensive could exacerbate hunger

The grim milestone — the first time the IPC has confirmed a famine in the Middle East — is sure to ramp up international pressure on Israel, which has been in a brutal war since a Oct. 7, 2023 terrorist attack by Hamas. Israel says it plans to escalate the war soon by seizing Gaza City and other Hamas strongholds, which experts say will exacerbate the hunger crisis.

FILE – Palestinians open humanitarian aid packages that were airdropped into Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana, File)

Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, Canada and the European Union.

The IPC said hunger has been driven by fighting and the blockade of aid, and magnified by widespread displacement and the collapse of food production in Gaza, pushing hunger to life-threatening levels across the entire territory after 22 months of war.

More than half a million people in Gaza, about a quarter of the population, face catastrophic levels of hunger, and many are at risk of dying from malnutrition-related causes, the IPC report said. Last month, the IPC said the “worst-case scenario of famine” was unfolding in Gaza, but stopped short of an official determination.

Israel disputes report of famine

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied there is hunger in Gaza, calling reports of starvation “lies” promoted by Hamas. After the publication of images of emaciated children in Gaza and reports of hunger-related deaths, Israel announced measures to let more humanitarian aid in. Yet the U.N. and Palestinians in Gaza say what’s entering is far below what’s needed.

Related Articles

Today in History: August 22, hostages taken during botched Brooklyn bank robbery

Netanyahu says he’ll push ahead with Gaza City takeover and renewed ceasefire talks

Russian attack on western Ukraine hits an American factory during the US-led push for peace

Today in History: August 21, total solar eclipse captivates America

Brazilian police say ex-President Bolsonaro had planned to flee to Argentina seeking asylum

The Israeli military agency in charge of transferring aid to the territory rejected the report Friday, calling it “false and biased.” The agency, known as COGAT, rejected the claim that there was famine in Gaza and said that significant steps had been taken to expand the amount of aid entering the strip in recent weeks.

In a post on social media, Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs also rejected the findings, saying the IPC report was “based on Hamas lies.” It said that more than 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, including a massive influx in recent weeks with staple foods.

“A rapidly increasing number of people, especially young children, are dying preventable deaths from starvation and disease because Israel made starvation a core part of its campaign to control the strip,” said Chris Newton, an analyst for the International Crisis Group.

Israel’s plan to escalate the war in Gaza City weeks after a warning that famine was beginning there demonstrates how “intentional the famine is and how Israel wields starvation,” he said.

Netanyahu says more military pressure is needed to achieve Israel’s goals of freeing the hostages held by Hamas and eliminating the group altogether.

How a famine is determined

Formal famine determinations are rare. The IPC has previously determined famines in Somalia in 2011, South Sudan in 2017 and 2020, and parts of Sudan’s western Darfur region last year.

The IPC says a famine exists in an area when all three of the following conditions are confirmed:

At least 20% of households have an extreme lack of food, or are essentially starving. At least 30% of children 6 months to 5 years old suffer from acute malnutrition or wasting, meaning they’re too thin for their height. And at least two people, or four children under 5, per 10,000 are dying daily due to starvation or the interaction of malnutrition and disease.

Israel’s offensive and its restrictions on access to Gaza have made collecting data difficult.

The data analyzed between July 1 and Aug. 15 showed clear evidence that thresholds for starvation and acute malnutrition have been reached. Gathering data for mortality has been harder, but the IPC said it is reasonable to conclude from the evidence that the necessary threshold has likely been reached.

The IPC warned that a third of Gaza’s population could face catastrophic levels of hunger by the end of September, and that this is probably an undercount.

Alex de Waal, author of “Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine” and executive director of the World Peace Foundation, said that had Israel allowed the IPC better access to collect data, a famine might have been determined months ago, which would have raised global awareness sooner.

“Sadly, it seems that it’s necessary for experts to shout ‘famine!’ before the world takes notice, by which time it is too late,” he said.

Israel has restricted aid to varying degrees throughout the war. In March, it cut off the entry of all goods, including fuel, food and medicine, to pressure Hamas to free hostages.

Israel eased those restrictions in May and says there’s currently no limit on how many aid trucks can enter Gaza. But it also pushed ahead with a new U.S.-backed aid delivery system that requires Palestinians to travel long distances and pass through Israeli military lines to get aid.

The traditional, U.N.-led aid providers say deliveries have been hampered by Israeli military restrictions and incidents of looting, while criminals and hungry crowds overwhelm entering convoys.

Witnesses, health officials and the U.N. rights office say hundreds of people have been killed by Israeli forces while seeking aid from both providers, while Israel says it has only fired warning shots and that the toll is exaggerated.

A parent in Gaza City watches his children waste away

On the eve of the war, Gaza City was home to some 700,000 people, about the population of Washington.

Throughout the conflict, it has been the focus of regular Israeli bombardment and ground operations. Several neighborhoods have been almost completely destroyed. Hundreds of thousands fled under Israeli evacuation orders at the start of the war but many returned during a ceasefire earlier this year.

Doctors and nurses in Gaza in recent weeks have seen rising numbers of visibly malnourished patients.

Kirsty Blacka, an Australian emergency nurse who worked in Gaza City’s Al-Quds hospital through June, said emaciated men with no preexisting conditions were coming in looking like teenagers because they were starving.

She said the lack of food has been compounded by contaminated water causing diarrhea and infections, and that diseases are harder to recover from when people are malnourished.

If Israel evacuates people from the city ahead of its new offensive, thousands will be too weak to leave, said Blacka. “Because of the starvation it will put extra strain on already depleted bodies and will lead to the death of many of the Palestinians,” she said.

Families in Gaza City say they’re watching their loved ones waste away.

Yousef Sbeteh’s two teenage children were injured by shrapnel during an Israeli airstrike in June and have spent the last two months in the hospital. While there, they’ve both lost weight because there hasn’t been enough food, he said, adding that he can’t afford to buy more because prices at markets have soared. Doctors say the teenagers had no preexisting conditions.

His 15-year-old daughter Aya lost nearly 44 pounds, or about 30% of her body weight, according to her doctors. Her 17-year-old brother Ahmad has lost about 33 pounds. The lack of nutritional supplements and healthy food is slowing their recovery, doctors say.

“Doctors say she needs protein, meat and fish,” Sbeteh said while sitting beside his frail daughter. “But I can’t provide that now.”

Mednick reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Sally Abou AlJoud contributed from Beirut, Lebanon.