Crackling leaves and nippy mornings, early sunsets and football games. These are sure signs of fall. But it’s a walk through a farmer’s market or the aisles of a supermarket’s produce section, that fires up my longing to cook autumn-style dishes.

Autumn’s pear crop is always a showstopper. Initially, it’s their voluptuous contours that captivate. The long, slender necks and arched stems of Bosc pears, the round, silhouette of Comice. The gentle curves of the bell-shaped Bartlett.

In the marketplace most often, they are as hard as boulders. They feel more like baseballs than fruit. Not a whisper of sublime sweetness. Not a whiffet of sensuous aroma. They are picked mature but before ripened, then kept in controlled-atmosphere storage. Tree-ripened pears get mushy because they ripen from the inside out.

But ripening pears at home isn’t difficult, you just need to plan on buying firm pears three to five days before you plan to eat or cook with them. The bag-ripening process works like a charm. Place those ever-so-firm pears in a paper bag and loosely fold the top closed. Let them sit at room temperature, checking them every day until the area at the base of the stem slightly yields to gentle pressure. Pears ripen from the inside out, so they usually are ready when there is only a slight give. Then either use or refrigerate them.

Roasted Pears

Roasted pears are delicious used in both savory and sweet dishes. They pair irresistibly with pork; serve them alongside broiled or sauteed pork chops topped just before serving with chutney or chopped macadamia nuts. Or for dessert, serve them with ice cream (salted caramel and butter pecan are favorites). Or for an appetizer, serve them sliced atop toasted baguette slices spread with goat cheese.

Yield: 4 halves

INGREDIENTS

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1 tablespoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

2 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided use

2 ripe (but not squishy) pears, such as Bosc, Bartlett, D’Anjou or Comice, peeled, cut in half lengthwise

DIRECTIONS

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, stir together juice, sugar, cinnamon and cloves. Set aside.

2. Coat a medium-sized rimmed baking sheet with half of the vegetable oil. Toss pear halves in juice-spice mixture and place cut-side down on prepare baking sheet. Drizzle remaining oil on top. Roast until caramelized on bottom and tender, about 35 to 45 minutes (roasting times will vary depending on ripeness and size of pears). Remove from oven and allow to cool. Serve at room temperature.

Award-winning food writer Cathy Thomas has written three cookbooks, including “50 Best Plants on the Planet.” Follow her at CathyThomasCooks.com.

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By MATT OTT, Associated Press Business Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Consumer confidence weakened slightly in October as Americans remain anxious about their future financial prospects.

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The Conference Board said Tuesday that its consumer confidence index fell by 1 point to 94.6 in October from an upwardly revised September reading of 95.6. Economists were expecting the reading to come in unchanged from the previous month. One year ago, the reading was 109.5.

A measure of Americans’ short-term expectations for their income, business conditions and the job market dipped by 2.9 points to 71.5, remaining well below 80, the marker that can signal a recession ahead.

However, consumers’ assessments of their current economic situation rose 1.8 points to 129.3.

Write-in responses to the survey showed that prices and inflation remained consumers’ biggest concern. Mentions of tariffs declined again this month but remain elevated, the Conference Board said.

By LAURAN NEERGAARD, AP Medical Writer

Plan on a glorious extra hour of sleep as most of America “falls back” into standard time. But make sure to get outside for some morning sun, too — it’ll help your body clock reset faster.

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Daylight saving time ends at 2 a.m. local time Sunday, which means you should set your clock back an hour before you go to bed. Standard time will last until March 8 when we will again “spring forward” with the return of daylight saving time.

There’s a lot of grumbling about the twice-a-year time changes. The spring switch tends to be harder, losing that hour of sleep we allegedly recover in the fall. But many people also mourn fall’s end of daylight saving time, when days already are getting shorter and moving the clocks can mean less daylight after school or work for exercise or outdoor fun.

Some health groups, including the American Medical Association and American Academy of Sleep Medicine, have long urged adopting standard time year-round.

New research from Stanford University agrees, finding that switching back-and-forth is the worst option for our health. The study showed sticking with either time option would be a bit healthier, but they found permanent standard time is slightly better — because it aligns more with the sun and human biology, what’s called our circadian rhythm.

“The best way to think about it is as if the central clock were like a conductor of an orchestra and each of the organs were a different instrument,” said Jamie Zeitzer, who co-directs Stanford’s Center for Sleep and Circadian Sciences.

More light in the morning and less at night is key to keeping that rhythm on schedule — all the instruments in sync. When the clock is regularly disrupted by time changes or other reasons, he said each of the body’s organ systems, such as the immune system or metabolism, “just works a little less well.”

Most countries do not observe daylight saving time. For those that do — mostly in North America and Europe — the date that clocks are changed varies. In the U.S., Arizona and Hawaii don’t change and stay on standard time.

Here’s what to know about the twice-yearly ritual.

FILE – The sun rises, seen through morning mist and silhouetted maple leaves, as trees turn to fall foliage colors, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, in Auburn, N.H. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

How the body reacts to light

The brain has a master clock that is set by exposure to sunlight and darkness. This circadian rhythm is a roughly 24-hour cycle that determines when we become sleepy and when we’re more alert. The patterns change with age, one reason that early-to-rise youngsters evolve into hard-to-wake teens.

Morning light resets the rhythm. By evening, levels of a hormone called melatonin begin to surge, triggering drowsiness. Too much light in the evening — whether from later time outdoors doing daylight saving time or from artificial light like computer screens — delays that surge and the cycle gets out of sync.

And that circadian clock affects more than sleep, also influencing things like heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormones and metabolism.

How do time changes affect sleep?

Even an hour change on the clock can throw off sleep schedules because even though the clocks change, work and school start times stay the same.

The spring change to daylight saving time can be a little rougher as darker mornings and lighter evenings make it harder to fall asleep on time. Those first few days have been linked to increases in car crashes and even an uptick in heart attacks.

Some people with seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression usually linked to the shorter days and less sunlight of fall and winter, may struggle too.

Many people easily adjust, like how they recover from jet lag after traveling. But a time change can add pressure on shift workers whose schedules already are out of sync with the sun, or those regularly sleep-deprived for other reasons.

About 1 in 3 U.S. adults sleep less than the recommended seven-plus hours nightly, and more than half of U.S. teens don’t get the recommended eight-plus hours on weeknights.

Chronic sleep deprivation is linked to heart disease, cognitive decline, obesity and numerous other problems.

How to prepare for the time change

In both fall and spring, changing bedtimes by as little as 15 minutes a night in the days before the change can help ease into it.

But sunshine in the morning is critical to helping reset your circadian rhythm for healthful sleep. If you can’t get outdoors, sit by windows.

Will the US ever get rid of the time change?

In Congress, a bill named the Sunshine Protection Act that proposes making daylight saving time permanent has stalled in recent years.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

BOSTON (AP) — A man from India stabbed two teenagers with a fork, slapped a female passenger and a crew member and mimicked shooting himself during an international flight, authorities said.

The flight from Chicago to Germany on Saturday was diverted to Boston, where the 28-year-old man was arrested and charged with one count of assault with a dangerous weapon.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, a 17-year-old passenger awoke to find the man standing over him. The man stabbed the teen’s clavicle with a fork and then stabbed another 17-year-old boy in the head, causing a laceration.

The man, who entered the U.S. on a student visa, doesn’t have lawful immigration status, authorities said.

Information on the case, including whether he has an attorney, was not available in the federal court system Tuesday and the U.S. attorney’s office didn’t respond to a request for further details.