An Air Canada plane is seen at Pearson International Airport on August 14, 2025 in Toronto, Canada. (Cole Burston/Getty Images)
(TORONTO) — An Air Canada pilot was arrested Monday after a probe discovered he had been allegedly flying hundreds of flights for at least 17 years without a proper license.
Canadian police officials outlined Geoffrey Wall’s alleged fraud, which they said, “read like a movie script.”
Since 2009, when Wall was promoted to captain, he has been flying with a fraudulent airline transport pilot license, the credential that would allow him to fly commercial airplanes as a captain, Peel Regional Police said.
Authorities compared Wall to a doctor who is licensed to practice family medicine marching into a hospital to perform brain surgery.
“Licensing requirements exist for a reason. They exist to keep people safe,” Deputy Chief Nick Milinovich of the Peel Regional Police said.
Wall’s arrest was part of a fraud investigation dubbed “Project Icarus,” which started after a random certification check done last year at Pearson International Airport in Toronto turned up “anomalies,” investigators said.
Wall, 59, of Barrie, Ontario, is no longer working with Air Canada, the airline said Monday night.
In a news release, Air Canada said it “takes this matter with utmost seriousness.”
“Safety was not compromised by this incident because all pilots at Air Canada undergo mandatory recurrent training every six months to validate their flying competency, including a flight check with a certified Transport Canada check-pilot every 12 months,” the airline said in a statement.
“However, appropriate licensing is an essential layer of the airline industry’s multi-layered approach to safety, so Air Canada takes this matter with utmost seriousness,” it added.
Wall is charged with fraud, public mischief and other offenses. He was released on his own recognizance and is due back in court later this month.
In this Nov. 16, 2023, file photo, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman looks on during the APEC CEO Summit at Moscone West in San Francisco. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images, FILE)
(NEW YORK) — OpenAI, the artificial-intelligence company behind ChatGPT, announced Monday night it had filed confidentially for an initial public offering (IPO), setting up the firm to raise fresh funds as it competes with deep-pocketed tech giants in the fast-growing AI industry.
In a post on X, OpenAI said it had not determined when the company would begin listing on public markets.
“We have not decided on timing yet; it may be a while because there are things we want to do that are likely easier as a private company. But it’s a complicated set of tradeoffs and this gives us the option to go public sooner if that ends up being best,” the company said.
The move would subject the privately held company to new scrutiny from public investors and regulators, as well as ongoing financial reporting requirements. OpenAI valued itself at $852 billion after a round of funding in March.
e HR recruitment manager holding resume in hands while having an interview in a modern office. (Xavier Lorenzo/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Hiring blew past expectations in May, registering at a blockbuster clip despite a continued rise in inflation set off by the Iran War.
The U.S. added 172,000 jobs in May, according to the report, which marked an acceleration from 115,000 jobs added in April. The reading for April exceeded economists’ expectations. The reading amounted to a slight downshift from March, when the U.S. economy gained 185,000 jobs.
Still, the job gains in May indicated a robust expansion of the labor market, defying concern about a potential economic downturn. Hiring has proven unexpectedly resilient in recent months, despite a rise in costs borne by businesses and shoppers.
The unemployment rate held steady at 4.3% in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said. Unemployment remains low by historical standards.
The leisure and hospitality sector added 70,000 jobs in May, far exceeding an average of 14,000 jobs added each month over the past year. Job gains also came in local government and healthcare.
The Middle East conflict, which began on Feb. 28, prompted the Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime trading route that facilitates the transport of about one-fifth of global oil supply. The standoff triggered one of the largest oil shocks ever recorded.
The U.S. is a net exporter of petroleum, meaning the country produces more oil than it consumes. But since oil prices are set on a global market, U.S. prices move in response to swings in worldwide supply and demand.
The price of an average gallon of gas stood at $4.24 as of Thursday, AAA data showed – an increase of $1.26 per gallon since the war began on Feb. 28. That amounts to a roughly 42% price jump in about three months.
Grocery prices have also climbed as a result of higher diesel costs borne by suppliers.
A persistent increase in consumer prices may put pressure on the Fed to raise interest rates as a means of dialing back inflation. The choice to raise interest rates could slow price increases, but it risks a cooldown in economic performance.
For now, the U.S. economy appears robust. The economy grew at a solid pace over the first three months of 2026, rebounding from sluggish performance at the end of last year.
Futures markets overwhelmingly expect the Fed to hold interest rates steady when policymakers meet next month, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of investor sentiment.
Fuel prices are displayed at a gas station in Brooklyn on June 01, 2026, in New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(NEW YORKI) –Drivers stung by high gas prices have enjoyed some welcome relief over the last couple of weeks, even as the impact of the Iran war continues to choke off oil supply.
The national average price of a gallon of gas stood at $4.26 on Wednesday, marking a decline of 30 cents, or 6.5%, since a recent peak on May 21.
Still, prices remain well above where they clocked in before a historic oil shock set off by the war. In late February, the average gallon of gas ran less than $3.
The dropoff in gas prices owes to a decline in oil costs over the latter part of last month, which coincided with a slump in demand following Memorial Day weekend, some analysts said.
Still, they cautioned, gas prices may rise again as oil prices jump and the war shows little sign of an imminent resolution. If the war continues, some analysts said, gas price could top $5 a gallon by next month.
“It’s so volatile,” Patrick Penfield, a professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University, told ABC News. “If the war ended, prices would likely go down. But if it continues, you’ll see prices go up.”
In Georgia, the state with the lowest average gas prices, a gallon costs about $3.79, AAA data shows. In all, the AAA data says six states currently sell gas at or below an average price of $4 per gallon.
By contrast, the cost of a gallon of gas in California stands at $5.99, making it the state with the highest prices, AAA data shows. Even in California, however, the average price has fallen about 10 cents over the past week.
At the outset of the war, gasoline prices surged in response to Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime trading route that facilitates the transport of about one-fifth of global crude supply.
Oil prices began to fall in mid-May, however, as Iran and the U.S. appeared willing to strike an agreement that would reopen the strait. Crude oil is the main ingredient in auto fuel, accounting for more than half of the price paid at the pump, according to the federal U.S. Energy Information Administration.
On Friday, U.S. oil prices fell as low as about $86 a barrel, marking a drop of about 20% over a 10-day stretch.
“Gas prices have seen a big push because crude prices have dropped. Crude prices have dropped largely because the president has been indicating that we’re close to an agreement with Iran,” Ramanan Krishnamoorti, a professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Houston, told ABC News.
The U.S. is a net exporter of petroleum, meaning the country produces more oil than it consumes. But since oil prices are set on a global market, U.S. prices move in response to swings in worldwide supply and demand.
Oil prices have ticked up in recent days, but they remain below $100 a barrel. As long as oil prices remain under that benchmark, gas prices may continue to hold steady or even decline, Denton Cinquegrana, chief oil analyst at Dow Jones Energy, told ABC News.
A near-term drop in gas prices appears possible because gas sellers are holding onto unusually large profit margins, meaning they could reduce retail prices even if their input costs maintain current levels, Cinquegrana said. Over the past two years, the average margin for sellers came in at about 34 cents per gallon, he added, but it currently stands at 50 cents per gallon.
“There’s still some room for gas prices to move down,” Cinquegrana said.
Looking weeks or months into the future, however, analysts cautioned about a rise in oil and gasoline prices unless normal tariff resumes in the Strait of Hormuz.
“It’s still possible later this summer, even ahead of July 4, we could see the national average pass $5 a gallon,” Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, told ABC News Live on Monday.
“We could be seeing much higher gas prices in very short order if the strait doesn’t reopen,” he added.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House on May 27, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A court filing shows how businesses are getting money back from the U.S. government after the Supreme Court ruled many of President Donald Trump’s tariffs were illegal.
The Trump administration has sent out $20.6 billion in tariff refunds so far, according to a new court filing.
The filing sheds light on how tens of thousands of American businesses are starting to get money back from the federal government after the Supreme Court ruled many of President Donald Trump’s tariffs were illegal in February.
Walmart suggested last week it will cut prices for shoppers using the estimated $2.4 billion in refunds it’s owed.
“On tariffs, we are availing ourselves of the process to get refunds. We would definitely bias and try to prioritize price investment for that … we think the single best return that we can have on a $1 of capital right now is to invest in the customer and invest in price,” Walmart CFO John David Rainey said on the company’s earnings call.
Major companies like Walmart, Costco, Apple, Home Depot and General Motors have all confirmed in recent weeks they’re applying for refunds.
It’s unlikely that most companies will give money directly back to shoppers who already bought products with higher prices because of tariffs. The nonpartisan Tax Foundation estimates the tariffs that were ruled illegal cost the typical American household $700 last year.
UPS, FedEx and DHL said they will directly refund customers. UPS recently updated its website with details on how importers can claim to get money back.
In total, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has said it could owe up to $166 billion to more than 330,000 importers. The new filing notes $85 billion in refunds have been accepted so far, and the $20.6 billion represents money that has successfully gone back to importers who filed for refunds on the government’s online portal.
A U.S. trade official previously overstated the amount of money that had gone out to companies by $10 billion, the filing noted.
In this Jan. 19, 2026, file photo, New York City Comptroller Mark Levine speaks at an event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. (Jason Mendez/Getty Images for Brooklyn Academy Of Music, FILE)
(NEW YORK) — The top financial officer in New York City on Thursday warned that artificial intelligence could put thousands of workers in the nation’s largest metropolis out of a job as soon as this year, while acknowledging that the ultimate impact of AI remains uncertain.
The only sure thing, New York City Comptroller Mark Levin said in a new report: AI promises a “radical transformation” in the globe’s financial capital, influencing everything from wages to pension payments to Wall Street profits.
Levin, a Democratic former New York City Council member, predicted a range of scenarios both positive and negative, gauging the likelihood of outcomes as bullish as a broad-based productivity boom and as detrimental as mass layoffs.
City policymakers stand to play a central role in the technology’s ultimate fate, Levin added, calling for urgent steps like creating a multi-billion dollar financial cushion in case economic calamity strikes.
“There is no city in America – and perhaps none on earth – more exposed to both the promise and peril of artificial intelligence than New York City. And there are few places with more power to steer the transformation ahead,” Levin said in the report.
New York City hosts “hundreds of firms competing to make New York the capital of applied AI,” Levine added, as well as roughly one million workers who labor in Manhattan office towers, many of whom stand at risk of AI disruption. The high stakes exemplify a reckoning likely to play out in cities nationwide, he said.
“Uncertainty is not an excuse for inaction,” Levin said, saying local policies should complement much-needed efforts at the federal level. “We are not helpless.”
The report comes as the stock market and the economy overall have both come to increasingly rely on massive spending on AI to propel continued growth, even as companies warn of job losses tied to the technology.
A wave of thousands of job cuts attributed to artificial intelligence over recent months has taken hold in industries as diverse as tech and airlines. In April, AI company Anthropic opted against releasing its latest model, Mythos, expressing concern that the tool could be used to bypass cybersecurity protections across the internet.
Blockbuster earnings from chip giant Nvidia on Wednesday, meanwhile, rebuked fears of a slowdown in the rip-roaring pace of growth for the artificial intelligence behemoth.
In his report, Levin assessed five potential scenarios for AI uptake in New York City, focusing on potential economic downsides and benefits of each. The forecast draws upon national AI scenarios developed by Moody’s Analytics, adapting them for New York City, Levin said.
In the most likely outcome, dubbed the “AI-Empowered Economy,” Levin predicted that AI would improve productivity while delivering moderate economic growth, including an average of about 52,000 jobs added each year through 2030. Levin pegged the likelihood of this outcome at 35%.
A more pessimistic scenario, which Levin called “AI Falls Flat,” foresees a drop-off in AI investment and an accompanying stock market slide. If this outcome comes to pass, New York City would lose about 52,500 jobs as soon as this year, suffering temporary ill-effects akin to those that coincide with a recession, Levin said. The probability of this scenario, he added, stands at 25%.
Other possible outcomes include “faster-than-expected AI” adoption that improves productivity but replaces jobs, as well as an “AI shockwave” that upends white-collar employment.
The “most optimistic” of the five scenarios, Levin says, is a “Productivity Boon,” in which AI-driven productivity growth complements job growth, rather than displacing it, boosting compensation in the process. Levin puts the likelihood of this outcome at 15%.
To be sure, Levin said, the potential economic impact of AI remains highly uncertain. Other economic trends unrelated to AI could also hold significant implications for the city’s economy, Levin added, pointing to a historic oil shock that has driven up fuel and grocery prices.
Levin touted the role of local government in responding to the changes wrought by AI, whether they prove favorable or otherwise.
“These are not questions we can leave to Silicon Valley, Washington, or the market alone. New Yorkers must help shape the future ourselves,” Levin said.
Houses with a ‘For Sale’ sign in a small new neighborhood in Gunnison, Colorado 6/18/20 (Nathan Bilow/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — U.S. Treasury yields soared in recent days as the Iran war stoked inflation fears, threatening to drive up borrowing costs for everything from mortgages to credit cards to auto loans.
The yields on 30-year bonds – the amount paid to a bondholder annually – touched their highest point since 2007. Ten-year Treasury yields peaked at about 4.69% on Tuesday, marking a roughly three-quarter percentage point jump from the start of the war on Feb. 28.
The yield on 10-year Treasuries retreated on Wednesday, registering at 4.58%. Still, yields exceed the level reached during a bond selloff in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April 2025.
Since bonds pay a given investor a fixed amount each year, the specter of inflation risks higher consumer prices that would eat away at those annual payouts. In this case, a global oil shock has pushed up energy prices which in turn has trickled into other costs, such as groceries.
As a result, bonds have become less attractive. When demand falls, bond yields rise.
“It’s really all about the Iran war and its inflationary impact,” Ted Rossman, a senior industry analyst at Bankrate, told ABC News.
High bond yields make borrowing more expensive for average Americans because Treasury rates influence the rates offered by lenders.
Long-term Treasury yields help set interest payments for mortgages, credit cards, car loans and just about any other type of borrowing, Patrice Carrington, a professor of real estate at New York University, told ABC News.
The reason for the rise in borrowing costs is that regulated lenders are required to hold reserve assets, often made up in part by U.S. Treasuries, Carrington added. When Treasury yields rise, it raises the costs incurred by banks holding Treasuries on their books. Lenders, in turn, offset those added expenses with higher borrowing costs.
“The bank will pass along that higher cost of capital to any consumer loan,” Carrington said.
The onset of this pain for consumers is exemplified by the housing market, where the average interest rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage stands at 6.72% as of Monday, Mortgage News Daily data showed. Mortgage rates have climbed three-quarters of a percentage point from pre-war levels.
“That’s a really big jump,” Rossman said.
Each percentage-point rise in a mortgage rate can impose thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in additional costs each year, depending on the price of the house, according to Rocket Mortgage.
Credit card rates, by contrast, have remained flat over the course of the Iran war, though at heightened levels, Rossman said.
The average credit card interest rate stands at 19.57%, just slightly below where it stood before the war began, Bankrate data showed. At the start of 2026, futures markets expected the Fed to likely cut interest rates at least once by the end of the year, which would put downward pressure on credit card rates.
As the Fed weathers a renewed bout of inflation, however, markets estimate about a 50% chance of interest rates remaining unchanged over the course of the year and a 37% chance of a rate hike, according to the CME FedWatch Tool, a measure of market sentiment. Markets peg the odds of a rate cut this year at less than 2%.
As a result, credit card rates “are staying higher for longer” than many observers anticipated, Rossman said.
Analysts differed in their recommendations for consumers weighing whether to move forward now with securing a loan or wait for a potential decline in interest rates.
Liu Lu, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, said mortgage rates are unlikely to decline substantially in the near-term, meaning borrowers who can afford a loan at current rates may as well take the plunge.
“I wouldn’t bet on trying to catch the opportune moment,” Lu told ABC News.
Carrington, on the other hand, counseled patience for loan seekers.
Eventually, the economy will falter and the Fed will cut interest rates, pushing down borrowing costs, according to Carrington.
“We’re long overdue for a downturn,” Carrington said. “I absolutely think borrowers should wait.”
In the meantime, the impact of elevated bond yields on consumers isn’t entirely negative. The trend means better returns for investors who place their money into financial instruments such as money market funds or high-interest savings accounts, which are historically safer investments than the stock market.
(NEW YORK) — A court on Monday ruled in favor of OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, in a lawsuit brought by Elon Musk over alleged misconduct in the company’s evolution from a non-profit upstart to a for-profit corporation.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — A court ruled in favor of OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, in a lawsuit brought by Elon Musk over alleged misconduct in the company’s evolution from a non-profit upstart to a for-profit corporation.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell attends a press conference in Washington, D.C., the United States, April 29, 2026. (Photo by Li Rui/Xinhua via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — A global pandemic that put millions of Americans out of work within days. The highest inflation in four decades. An unprecedented federal criminal investigation.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell faced a succession of crises over his 8-year tenure atop the central bank, which ends on Friday. Powell’s decisions along the way held stakes as concrete as the budgets of everyday Americans and as heady as the political independence of a pillar institution.
President Donald Trump’s Fed Chair nominee Kevin Warsh is set to take the helm, inheriting a resilient economy by some measures, though one suffering from a renewed bout of inflation.
Powell said last month that he would take the unusual step of staying on at the central bank’s 12-person board of governors after his term expires. The move grants Powell a role in interest-rate policy that could last until 2028, though he says he will step down once a Fed inspector general’s investigation into a renovation of the central bank headquarters is closed.
The transition offers an opportunity to look back at Powell’s tenure, which spanned two presidents, three Treasury secretaries and 66 interest-rate decisions.
“You don’t choose your challenges, but you do choose how you respond,” Claudia Sahm, chief economist at New Century Advisors and a former Fed official, told ABC News. “In the end, Powell’s legacy will be judged by those outcomes.”
When Trump nominated Powell to become Fed chair, Trump described him as a “consensus builder” who “understands what it takes for our economy to grow.”
Powell, a former investment banker and Treasury official under President George H.W. Bush, assumed the role in 2018. At the time, the economy was humming, the unemployment rate clocked in at a historically low level and inflation stood just a tick above the Fed’s target rate of 2%.
Powell hiked interest rates four times in his first year, putting strain on the stock market but leaving the Fed in position to stimulate the economy with rate cuts in the event of a slowdown. Policymakers wouldn’t have to wait long.
In the early months of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic put tens of millions of Americans into lockdown, halting business across industries like restaurants and hospitality, while putting a large swathe of the labor force out of work.
At an emergency meeting in March 2020, Powell slashed interest rates to near-zero levels in an effort to stimulate a battered economy.
“Families, businesses, schools, organizations, and governments at all levels are taking steps to protect people’s health. These measures, which are essential for containing the outbreak, will nonetheless understandably take a toll on economic activity in the near term,” Powell told reporters at the time.
The unemployment rate soared from 4.4% in March to 14.7% in April, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed.
To supercharge the recovery, Trump and President Joe Biden enacted economic stimulus meant to support people who’d lost their jobs or faced other hardship. Alongside low interest rates, that spending helped bring about a speedy economic recovery from the downturn.
The COVID-19 recession lasted only two months, making it the shortest in U.S. history, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The speedy recovery vindicated the Fed’s decision to slash interest rates, though it hadn’t been a particularly difficult choice, Alan Blinder, a professor of economics at Princeton University and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, told ABC News.
“The dropping of rates to the floor was both necessary and appropriate, and in a real sense, obvious,” Blinder said.
A bout of acute inflation soon took hold, however, emerging as a result of a supply shortage imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic and exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine war. Powell initially downplayed the price increases, describing them as “transitory.” It proved a consequential mistake — and Powell would later admit his error.
Annual inflation peaked at a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022. By then, Powell had begun to ratchet up interest rates and it would continue over the following year. The aggressive series of rate hikes put the central bank’s benchmark rate at its highest level since 2001. The move sent mortgage and credit card rates soaring.
By June 2023, annual inflation had plummeted to 3%, but Americans remained widely dissatisfied with price increases long afterward. Many economists forecast a recession and the type of job losses it typically entails. Fortunately, the downturn never came to pass.
“Inflation stayed high for too long but once it came down, it came down really fast. It came down without creating unnecessary pain in the labor market,” Wendy Edelberg, director of the Hamilton Project and senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, told ABC News.
In September 2024, less than two months before the presidential election, the Fed cut interest rates by 0.5%. The decision drew criticism from allies of Trump, who considered the move a potential boost for the economy that would benefit incumbent Democrats. Trump went on to win the election.
Within weeks of his return to the White House, in early 2025, Trump voiced public criticism of Powell, urging him to cut interest rates. The attacks intensified criticism of Powell that had begun in Trump’s first term.
Over the ensuing months, Trump began to slam Powell for cost overruns in a renovation project at the Fed’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Last July, Trump made the first official trip to the Fed by a sitting president in almost 20 years, donning a hard hat as he toured the renovation with Powell.
The Fed attributed spending overruns to unforeseen cost increases, saying that its building renovation would ultimately “reduce costs over time by allowing the Board to consolidate most of its operations,” according to the central bank’s website.
By January, the Department of Justice had opened a criminal investigation into Powell, ratcheting up an extraordinary clash between the White House and the Fed. It was the first criminal probe of a Fed chair in the 113-year history of the central bank.
The probe centered on Powell’s testimony to Congress last year about the cost overruns. Powell issued a rare video message rebuking the investigation as a politically motivated effort to influence the Fed’s interest rate policy.
“No one — certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve — is above the law,” Powell said. “But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.”
Trump previously denied any involvement in the criminal investigation. The DOJ moved to drop its criminal probe into Powell last month. Washington U.S. Attorney Jeaninne Pirro said the investigation into the office renovation would be taken up by the Fed’s inspector general.
“The attack on the Fed chair was appalling,” Rebel Cole, a professor of finance at Florida Atlantic University who formerly worked at the Federal Reserve, told ABC News. “Powell stood up to it.”
Warsh, a former Fed official, will serve a 4-year term as chair. He is set to lead the Fed in a challenging period for central bank policymakers.
Inflation rose for a second consecutive month as the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran continued to send gasoline prices surging in April, government data on Tuesday showed. Annual inflation jumped to its highest level in three years, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Despite the disruption, some measures of economic health have proven resilient.
The unemployment rate held steady at a historically low level of 4.3% in April, leaving it little changed from when Powell began his tenure in 2018.
“The economy is pretty good but far from perfect,” Blinder said, faulting Powell in part for elevated inflation, while attributing much of the blame to the Iran war. At the same time, Blinder praised Powell for his commitment to the independence of the Fed.
“That’s the legacy that Warsh is inheriting,” Blinder said.
