Shoppers may get a bitter surprise in their Easter baskets this year. Chocolate eggs and bunnies are more expensive than ever as changing climate patterns eat into global cocoa supplies and the earnings of farmers in Africa. Cocoa is the main ingredient in chocolate, and about three-quarters of it comes from trees in West Africa. Severe seasonal winds and heavy rainfall have cut the amount harvested in recent months. The global price of cocoa has soared to record highs. Farmers who harvest cacao beans say the increases aren’t enough to cover their lower yields and higher production costs. But big confectionery companies have maintained profit margins by raising chocolate prices.

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Investigators are collecting evidence from the cargo ship that plowed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge and caused its collapse. Meanwhile in the waters below, divers searched Wednesday through twisted metal for six construction workers who plunged into the harbor and were feared dead. The investigation picked up speed as the Baltimore region reeled from the sudden loss of a major transportation link that’s part of the highway loop around the city. The disaster also closed the port that is vital to the city’s shipping industry. Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board boarded the ship and planned to recover information from its electronics and paperwork.

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Krispy Kreme and McDonald’s are getting together over breakfast. The doughnut chain and the fast food giant unveiled plans on Tuesday to offer Krispy Kreme products at McDonald’s locations across the United States. The companies say a phased rollout is expected to start this year, with availability at participating restaurants nationwide expected by the end of 2026. McDonald’s plans to make three Krispy Kreme doughnut varieties available. The partnership is hardly the first bringing major restaurant chains and popular food brands together. Taco Bell, for example, has long boasted Doritos-flavored tacos while Wendy’s brought a Cinnabon “pull-apart” treat to its menu last month. McDonald’s didn’t specify how many of its 13,500 U.S. locations would be participating.

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A New York appeals court has agreed to hold off collection of former President Donald Trump’s more than $454 million civil fraud judgment if he puts up $175 million within 10 days. If Trump does, it will stop the clock on collection and prevent the state from seizing his assets while he appeals. Monday's order is a significant victory for Trump as the presumptive Republican nominee defends the real estate empire that vaulted him into public life. The development came just before New York Attorney General Letitia James was expected to initiate efforts to collect the judgment. Trump says he'll post a bond, securities or cash to cover the $175 million.

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The fast-food chain Chick-Fil-A backtracked from its decade-old “no antibiotics ever” pledge intended to help prevent human antibiotic resistance linked to the rampant use of the drugs in livestock production. Instead, the company said, it will embrace a standard known as “no antibiotics important to human medicine,” which entails avoidance of such medicines commonly used to treat people and limits the use of animal antibiotics to cases of animal illness. Livestock producers have long used antibiotics to boost rapid weight gain in animals such as chickens, pigs, cows and sheep, although many nations, including the United States, have begun to restrict the practice.

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Two crew members on a Holland America cruise ship died during an “incident” in the ship's engineering space. The cruise line says the unidentified crew members died Friday while the Florida-based Nieuw Amsterdam was at Half Moon Cay in the Bahamas. Authorities have been notified and the cause of the deaths is being investigated. Crew members were being offered counseling. The cruise line didn’t offer any further details about the crew members. It later said the Bahamas Maritime Authority was leading the investigation. The ship set sail out of Fort Lauderdale on March 16 for a seven-night trip.

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Conservatives are calling for a boycott of Tyson Foods after false claims spread online that the company planned to hire 52,000 people who came to the U.S. illegally. But the company has no such plans. Tyson has committed to hiring 2,500 refugees in the U.S. over three years as part of a 2022 agreement. It requires all of its employees to be authorized to work in the country.

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One of Vermont’s historic covered bridges is under threat from modern technology. Box truck drivers relying on GPS designed for cars continually crash through Lyndon’s 140-year-old Miller’s Run bridge. That's despite signs, including a flashing one, to deter vehicles that are too tall or too heavy from crossing. Drivers can face fines of $5,000 from the town, plus state penalties. But the bridge keeps getting whacked. Lyndon is far from alone. According to head of the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges, last November, a tractor trailer truck seriously damaged a covered bridge in Princeton, Illinois, and a bridge in Ohio was damaged in a similar way a year earlier.

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JetBlue Airways is cutting back. In June, it will end service in Kansas City and three destinations in South America, and it will reduce flights out of Los Angeles and Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The moves announced Tuesday are designed to focus JetBlue's flying on more profitable routes. The airline has been losing money since the start of 2020. It tried to grow through a partnership with American Airlines and a merger with Spirit Airlines, but federal judges rejected both plans, saying they violated antitrust laws.

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The College Football Playoff and ESPN have announced a deal that will give the network exclusive rights to the expanded postseason through the 2031 season. The agreement puts the national championship game on ABC starting in 2026. Financial terms were not announced, but as previously reported the new six-year agreement will pay the CFP and participating conferences $1.3 billion annually and nearly $8 billion in all. The major conferences and Notre Dame agreed on a new revenue-sharing plan last week that allowed the CFP to finalize the deal with ESPN.

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BP’s sprawling oil refinery in northwest Indiana has resumed normal operations more than six weeks after a power outage prompted the energy giant to temporarily shut down the complex and evacuate workers. BP spokesperson Christina Audisho said Tuesday that “the Whiting Refinery is back to normal operations” at the site along Lake Michigan about 15 miles southeast of Chicago. The refinery is the sixth-largest nationally, processing about 440,000 barrels of crude oil daily, making a variety of liquid fuels and asphalt. A Feb. 1 power outage prompted BP to shut down the refinery complex, evacuate workers and begin flaring its stacks to burn off remaining fuel stock in its system.

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The latest U.S. agricultural census data, out last month with the latest five-year update of data from 2022, shows an increase in the proportion of farms utilizing contract labor compared to those hiring labor overall. In addition, the number of farms utilizing migrant labor went up. That reflects an ongoing trend -- farmers say they are finding it harder to find the labor that they need, and that they are increasingly turning to contract programs like H-2A for help with farm work. That means that contract workers are more likely to be on the front lines of climate change, dealing with increasing heat and extreme weather. Climate change affects all farm workers, but advocates say this is a reason to focus on helping contract workers with their specific challenges and needs.

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It is time to fill out those NCAA Tournament brackets with the arrival of March Madness. Duke statistics Professor Ezra Miller says an informed fan has perhaps a 1 in 2 billion chance at picking a perfect ballot. Experts say artificial intelligence has been used by bracketologists for years and is always evolving. But AI is no guarantee of success and doesn't provide some of the critical thinking on details by human beings. The experts say finding the balance between statistical modeling and intuition is ongoing in the hunt for bracket perfection.

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As March Madness gets underway, more people than ever now can legally bet on sports. North Carolina became the latest state to allow online sports betting last week. A total of 38 states and the District of Columbia now allow some form of sports betting. That's up from just one state, Nevada, where people could legally wager on games before a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling cleared the way for expansion. The American Gaming Association estimates $2.7 billion will be bet on the NCAA men's and women's basketball tournaments through legal sports betting operators.

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Tyson Foods will continue streamlining its operations by closing a pork plant in Iowa that employs 1,200 people and eliminating the largest employer in the town of Perry. The plant closure will be the second major blow to the town this year coming just two months after a 17-year-old student opened fire at school, killing a sixth grader and his principal as well as wounding six others. Tyson announced the plant closure Monday. It comes after the company closed several other plants last year and consolidated its corporate operations. Tyson didn't say what kind of severance packages it is offering.

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Hundreds of giant papier-mâché bulls stuffed with fireworks are erected in the front yards of the Mexican town of Tultepec every year in the first week of March. Thousands of restless fingers carefully cut, paste and painted the colorful patterns that brought the “toritos” to life on Friday during an annual celebration when the bull-shaped figures were set alight. Thousands of people gathered to dance and dodge amid the bulls as roman candles showered them with sparks and spinners nipped at their legs. Many wore heavy cotton clothes soaked in water to protect against burns.

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As WWE gears up for its biggest annual premium live event next month, the company continues to harness the power of its social media presence to reach its fans. A key component of that strategy is YouTube, where WWE has hit an important milestone: surpassing 100 million subscribers. WWE, a sports entertainment company that is part of TKO Group, is also among the top 10 most subscribed YouTube channels globally, with no professional sports leagues currently in that mix.

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A coalition of conservation groups filed a federal lawsuit seeking to stop a transmission line from crossing a Mississippi River wildlife refuge. American Transmission Company, ITC Midwest and Dairyland Power Cooperative Inc. want to build a 102-mile transmission line linking Iowa's Dubuque County and Wisconsin's Dane County. A portion of the line would cross the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge. The National Wildlife Refuge Association, the Driftless Area Land Conservancy and the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation filed suit in federal court in Madison on Wednesday, alleging that the utilities' promise to transfer about 36 acres into the refuge in exchange for 19 acres for the line violates federal laws governing refuge improvement.

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The Meta outage that affected Facebook, Messenger and Instagram for a few hours on Tuesday was an inconvenience for most. But businesses that rely on the platforms for advertising, client communication or direct sales lost out more. Experts say that whenever there’s an outage — be it social media or other software we’ve come to rely on —  it’s a reminder that small businesses need to make sure they aren’t reliant on one platform and have a contingency plan in place and be able to roll with the punches when an outage does occur.

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Teamsters working for Budweiser brewer Anheuser-Busch have voted to ratify a labor agreement with the company. The union said Tuesday that the five-year contract was ratified with 86% support. The deal covers 5,000 unionized employees at Anheuser-Busch, including brewers, packagers and warehouse workers. The union said workers will get wage increases totaling 23% over the life of the contract, plus a $2,500 ratification bonus. The Teamsters had threatened a strike at the brewer’s 12 U.S. plants if an agreement wasn’t reached by last week. Before the deadline, the two sides said they had reached a tentative agreement that was put to union members for a ratification vote.

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Missouri residents could see a roughly $138 million tax break under legislation intended to offset a surge in local property tax collections caused by higher vehicle values. The state House overwhelmingly passed the legislation Thursday, sending it to the Senate. Missouri is among several states considering property tax cuts this year. Typically, the assessed value of vehicles declines as they get older. But used vehicle values surged during the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in higher tax bills for many people. State Rep. Mike McGirl says his bill is intended to return a part of that tax “windfall” by changing how vehicle values are calculated for taxes.

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The Federal Aviation Administration is giving Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to fix quality problems and meet safety standards for building new planes. The agency said Wednesday that the directive follows meetings with top Boeing officials, including the company’s CEO at FAA headquarters in Washington. The company has been beset by quality problems in manufacturing of its popular 737 Max jetliner. The FAA said Wednesday that the new 90-day deadline comes after FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker met with Boeing CEO David Calhoun and other top company officials.

A new product is hitting some retail shelves this year that has been in the making for some time. It is called OC7. It’s a powerful deodorizer, stain remover and general cleaner. And one of th…

Average gasoline prices in Iowa have risen 1.4 cents per gallon in the last week, averaging $3.37/g Monday, according to GasBuddy’s survey of 2,036 stations in Iowa. Prices in Iowa are 2.1 cen…

Outstanding client service, ethics and professionalism have elevated Brian Foecke of the Cedar Rapids General Office of New York Life to qualify for the exclusive “Court of the Table” of the M…

DES MOINES – Iowa’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped to 2.8 percent in March from 2.9 percent in February. In comparison, the U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 3.5 percent in Marc…