By JIANG JUNZHE and MATT OTT, Associated Press

Wall Street was poised to add to last week’s gains when markets open on Monday as investors juggle incoming corporate earnings along with possible tariff updates from the U.S. and its trading partners.

Futures for the S&P 500 gained 1.4% before the bell Monday, while futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1%. Nasdaq futures were up 1.7%.

Shares rose in technology companies that stood to be hit hardest by the U.S. tariffs against China after President Donald Trump said he was temporarily exempting smartphones, computers and other electronics from the import fees.

Apple jumped close to 6% in premarket trading Monday, with computer maker Dell and chipmaker Super Micro Computer also up by about the same amount.

Goldman Sachs rose 1.5% after the New York investment bank topped Wall Street’s first-quarter earnings and revenue targets.

Coming later this week are the latest financial results from Bank of America, United Airlines and Netflix, among others.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce said Trump’s weekend tariffs move was “a small step” toward fixing its wrongful action of what the U.S. president calls reciprocal tariffs. China urged him to completely cancel them.

China had announced Friday that it was boosting its tariffs on U.S. products to 125% in the latest tit-for-tat increase following Trump’s escalations on imports from China.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 2.4% to 21,417.40, while the Shanghai Composite index picked up 0.8% to 3,262.81 after the government reported that China’s exports surged 12.4% in March from a year earlier in a last-minute flurry of activity as companies rushed to beat increases in U.S. tariffs imposed by Trump.

The Taiex fell 0.1% in Taiwan, whose economy is heavily dependent on exports of computer chips and other high-tech goods after Trump said the new chip tariffs will be announced “over the next week.”

The friction between the world’s two largest economies could cause widespread damage and a possible global recession, even after Trump recently announced a 90-day pause on some of his tariffs for other countries, except for China.

In early European trading, Germany’s DAX gained 2.4%, the CAC 40 in Paris was up 2.1% and Britain’s FTSE 100 added 1.7%.

Asian shares logged sturdy gains. Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.2% to 33,982.36 and South Korea’s Kospi gained 1% to 2,455.89.

Shares in technology companies surged, with Tokyo Electron up 1.4% and Advantest, a testing equipment maker, up 4.9%. South Korea’s biggest company, Samsung Electronics, gained 1.8%.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 1.3%, closing at 7,748.60.

On Friday, the S&P 500 rose 1.8%, capping a chaotic and historic week. The Dow gained 1.6% and the Nasdaq composite jumped 2.1%. For the week, they each logged gains between 5% and 7%.

Stocks kicked higher as pressure eased a bit from within the U.S. bond market, which was flashing serious warning signals last week that drew Trump’s attention.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.44% early Monday. On Friday, it topped 4.58% in the morning, up from 4.01% a week ago. That’s a major move for a market that typically measures things in hundredths of a percentage point.

U.S. benchmark crude oil reversed early losses, gaining 83 cents to $62.33 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, climbed 81 cents to $65.57 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar dropped to 143.06 Japanese yen from 143.91 yen. The euro climbed to $1.1404 from $1.1320.

By HUIZHONG WU and ANIRUDDHA GHOSAL, Associated Press

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — China’s leader Xi Jinping said no one wins in a trade war as he kicked off a diplomatic tour of Southeast Asia on Monday, presenting China as a force for stability in contrast with U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest tariffs moves.

Although Trump has paused some tariffs, he has kept in place 145% duties on China, the world’s second-largest economy.

“There are no winners in a trade war, or a tariff war,” Xi wrote in an editorial jointly published in Vietnamese and Chinese official media. “Our two countries should resolutely safeguard the multilateral trading system, stable global industrial and supply chains, and open and cooperative international environment.”

Xi’s visit lets China show Southeast Asia it is a “responsible superpower in the way that contrasts with the way the U.S. under President Donald Trump presents to the whole world,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.

Xi was greeted on the tarmac by Vietnam’s President Luong Cuong at the start of his two-day visit, a mark of honor not often given to visitors, said Nguyen Thanh Trung, a professor of Vietnamese studies at Fulbright University Vietnam. Students of a drum art group performed as women waved the red and yellow Chinese and Communist Party flags.

While Xi’s trip likely was planned earlier, it has become significant because of the tariff fight between China and the U.S. The visit offers a path for Beijing to shore up its alliances and find solutions for the high trade barrier that the U.S. has imposed on Chinese exports.

In Hanoi, Xi met with Vietnam’s Communist Party General Secretary To Lam, his counterpart. “In the face of turmoil and disruption in the current global context, China and Vietnam’s commitment to peaceful development, and deepening of friendship and cooperation and has brought the world valuable stability and certainty,” he said.

He also met with Vietnam’s Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh. The two sides signed a series of memorandums, whose details were not made public. Nhan Dan, the official mouthpiece of Vietnam’s Communist Party, said that China and Vietnam will speed up a $8 billion railway project connecting the two countries in a deal that was approved in February.

Xi’s visit sends a message to the region

The timing of the visit sends a “strong political message that Southeast Asia is important to China,” said Huong Le-Thu of the International Crisis Group think tank. She said that given the severity of Trump’s tariffs and despite the 90-day pause, Southeast Asian nations were anxious that the tariffs, if implemented, could complicate their development.

Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives at the Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, Vietnam Monday, April 14, 2025. (Athit Perawongmetha/Pool Photo via AP)

Vietnam is experienced at balancing its relations with the U.S and China. It is run under a communist, one-party system like China but has had a strong relationship with the U.S.

In 2023, it was the only country that received both U.S. President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping. That year it also upgraded the U.S. to its highest diplomatic level, the same as China and Russia.

Vietnam was one of the biggest beneficiaries of countries trying to decouple their supply chains from China, as businesses moved here. China is its biggest trading partner, and China-Vietnam trade surged 14.6% year-on-year in 2024, according to Chinese state media.

That trade relationship goes both ways.

“The trip to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia is all about how China can really insulate itself against the from Trump,” said Nguyen Khac Giang, an analyst at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, pointing out that since Xi became the president in 2013, he has only visited Vietnam twice.

But the intensification of the trade war has put Vietnam in a “very precarious situation” given the impression in the U.S. that Vietnam is serving as a backdoor for Chinese goods, said Giang. Vietnam had been hit with 46% tariffs under Trump’s order before the 90-day pause.

China and Vietnam have real long-term differences, including territorial disputes in the South China Sea, where Vietnam has faced off with China’s coast guard but does not often publicize the confrontations.

After Vietnam, Xi is expected to go to Malaysia next and then Cambodia.

Wu reported from Bangkok. AP video journalist Hau Dinh contributed to this report.

The wind blows from two directions to the Los Vientos Wind Farm, Texas’ largest and the nation’s second largest, with 426 turbines towering over Willacy and Starr counties in the Rio Grande Valley. 

In one direction, the wind sweeps from the wintry north through the South Texas plains. In another, it rolls from the southeast over the chilly blue-green waters of the Gulf of Mexico, before meeting the warm Texas coast. These temperature differences produce gusts that blow inland at an average of 11 miles per hour, across the seashore saltgrass, across the sorghum and cotton fields, and across the farm-to-market roads, shaking cars, lashing palm trees, and whistling in the ears of those who live and work in the tiny town of Lyford, which sits in the Willacy County section of Los Vientos. 

Here is where the nomadic Coahuiltecan Indians once roamed against the winds. Where the winds once caused ships of a scattered Spanish armada to wreck off the coast on Padre Island. Where Spanish colonists once named the area after the lake they called Laguna Del Como Se Llama, or “What’s-It-Called Lake.” Where two different railroad lines once brought white farmers from the Midwest, who settled the town and segregated Mexican-American families. Where each of the town’s three cotton gins once employed over 100 workers. Where the Lyford town center once had a hotel, a bank, a theater, several drug stores, and the county once had a hospital. All this was before the 1990s, when farms began to shrink, jobs dwindled, and local youth looked elsewhere to chase their dreams.

The view from inside a 300-foot Los Vientos wind turbine (Josephine Lee)

At a time when Lyford was in decline, Duke Energy Renewables arrived in 2012 to build the first phases of a massive new wind farm—installing 171 turbines across 23,000 acres of leased farmland here (an area roughly the size of Disney World), 30 miles west of the Gulf by U.S. Highway 69. The winds in this coastal region have proven lucrative. At least 10 more energy companies have built wind projects in the area, erecting turbines extending further than the eye can see. This section of Los Vientos is sandwiched between the larger cities of Raymondville to the north and Harlingen to the south, which has a technical college offering a wind energy tech degree. Residents there can see the turbines’ whirling blades by day and its hundreds of red pulsing lights by night. 

The local wind energy boom has provided a small lifeline to the cash-strapped city and to Willacy County. Rick Salinas, a third-generation resident and former Lyford mayor, tells me wind farms have brought “good fortune” to the town—especially the tiny local school district, which has reaped new property tax revenue and direct contributions from the projects. The wind farm hires local residents for its technicians. And according to the company, now known as Deriva Energy after Brookfield Energy acquired Duke Energy’s renewable projects in 2023, it pays farmers up to $12,000 for each turbine standing on their land. Having dozens of turbines can potentially free (or at least lessen) a farmer’s dependence on cash crops and the harsh Texas weather. 

Glenn Wilde has been farming cotton and grains in Lyford since his family moved to the area after World War II. The 62-year-old isn’t happy that the sky-scraping turbines have taken over the vast, once-open landscape. Still, he’s leased some of his land for turbines on his own farm and sees the upside. “This crazy wind ought to be worth something, right? It really blows down here, and so if we can capitalize on it, I’d love to see it.”

Each turbine has the capacity to generate nearly 2.5 megawatts of energy, meaning this section of Los Vientos can churn out up to 400 megawatts, enough to power 120,000 homes daily (San Antonio and Austin’s public electric utilities both buy the wind farm’s power). A cylindrical or rectangular hub is mounted atop each 300-foot tower, housing a generator and an anemometer that detects the direction and speed of the wind, oscillating or “yawing” the center hub of its three blades towards it. High-pressure air hits one side of the blade and low-pressure another, creating a lift that makes it spin. Lines from each turbine run underground to substations where the power generated is transformed to high-voltage energy that feeds the state’s grid. 

When I arrived at the plant’s main building, its 23 technicians for the Willacy area had already wrapped up their morning safety meeting, received their assignments, and headed out to scale the turbines, troubleshooting the problems that inevitably arise on any given day. Each turbine is numbered, and, if one goes offline, the control center can easily identify it. 

Working on the wind farm is a job for people who love the open land, the area plant manager Mason Price tells me. His father worked in the smog and grease of Houston’s shipping channel, but Price wanted something different. After finishing high school, he graduated from technical school and moved to the area to work at another wind farm before coming to Los Vientos. He’s been here for eight years. 

The Los Vientos Wind Farm in Lyford (Josephine Lee)

Both farmers and wind energy producers in the area worry there aren’t enough transmission lines to deliver the energy generated by Los Vientos and other South Texas wind farms to the rest of the state, a growing problem that’s contributed to power emergencies for the Texas grid. The last major addition to the state’s transmission lines was in 2013. “Not only do we need more transmission lines, but we also need more generation on that transmission, and we need it fast,” says Deriva Energy spokesperson Mandy Meadors. 

Locals like Salinas want to see the returns of this wind power stay in the community. Not head out in other directions, like many of the children born here, the energy generated here, or even the wind here, which eventually heads south. 

The post The Winds of Willacy: Inside Texas’ Largest Wind Farm appeared first on The Texas Observer.

By MARC LEVY, Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A man who authorities said scaled an iron security fence in the middle of the night, eluded police and broke into the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion where he set a fire had planned to beat Gov. Josh Shapiro with a hammer if he found him, according to court documents released Monday.

The fire left significant damage and forced Shapiro, his family and guests to evacuate the building early Sunday. The man, arrested later in the day, faces charges including attempted homicide, terrorism, aggravated arson and aggravated assault, authorities said.

During a police interview, authorities said Cody Balmer told them after he was taken into custody that he would have beaten Shapiro with a small sledge hammer if he had found him, the documents say. Balmer had walked an hour from his home to the governor’s residence, and during the police interview, “Balmer admitted to harboring hatred towards Governor Shapiro,” according to a police affidavit, but it wasn’t noted why.

Shapiro said he, his wife, their four children, two dogs and another family had celebrated the Jewish holiday of Passover at the residence on Saturday and were awakened by state troopers pounding on their doors at about 2 a.m. Sunday. They fled and firefighters extinguished the fire, officials said. No one was injured.

At a Sunday evening news conference in front of the badly damaged south wing of the governor’s residence, Pennsylvania State Police Col. Christopher Paris identified the man in custody as Balmer, 38, of Harrisburg.

Authorities did not say whether Balmer has a lawyer or where he was being held and calls to people believed to be relatives went unanswered or unreturned Sunday. One recent listed residence in Harrisburg was condemned in 2022. One recent listed residence in Harrisburg was condemned in 2022.

Shapiro says he is unbowed

Paris emphasized that the investigation is continuing. Authorities did not disclose the man’s motive, but an emotional Shapiro, who is viewed as a potential White House contender for the Democratic Party in 2028, said he is unbowed.

Shapiro said that if Balmer was trying to stop him from doing his job, then he’ll work harder, and he added that Balmer will not stop him from observing his faith.

“When we were in the state dining room last night, we told the story of Passover” and the exodus of the Jews from slavery in Egypt to freedom, Shapiro said. “I refuse to be trapped by the bondage that someone attempts to put on me by attacking us as they did here last night. I refuse to let anyone who had evil intentions like that stop me from doing the work that I love.”

Police say suspect hopped security fence and forcibly entered residence

Authorities said the suspect hopped over a nearly 7-foot-high iron security fence surrounding the property, eluded officers who became aware of the breach and forcibly entered the residence before setting it on fire. He used beer bottles filled with gasoline to make the Molotov cocktails, documents say,

Lt. Col. George Bivens said Balmer appeared to have carefully planned the attack. He was inside the residence for about a minute before he escaped, Bivens said.

Bivens said Balmer was later arrested in the area.

Balmer has faced criminal charges over the past decade including simple assault, theft and forgery, according to online criminal court records.

‘We have to be better than this,’ Shapiro says

Shapiro said the fire was set in the very room where he and his family celebrated Passover with a seder with members of Harrisburg’s Jewish community on Saturday night.

“We don’t know the person’s specific motive yet,” Shapiro told the news conference. “But we do know a few truths. First: This type of violence is not OK. This kind of violence is becoming far too common in our society. And I don’t give a damn if it’s coming from one particular side or the other, directed at one particular party or another or one particular person or another. It is not OK, and it has to stop. We have to be better than this.”

The fire badly damaged the inside of the large room that is often used for entertaining crowds and art displays. Large west- and south-facing windows were completely missing their glass panes, shattered glass littered the pathways and doors stood ajar amid signs of charring. Window panes and brick around doors and windows were blackened and charred.

Inside, a charred piano, tables, walls, metal buffet serving dishes and more could be seen through broken windows and fire-blackened doors.