TOKYO — Nissan is slashing 12,500 jobs or about 9% of its global workforce to cut costs and achieve a turnaround amid tumbling profits, the Japanese automaker said Thursday.

Nissan Motor Co. also said it will cut global production capacity by 10% and reduce model lineups by at least 10% by the end of fiscal 2022.

As if it’s 1994 all over again, “The Lion King” is monopolizing pop culture. For two consecutive weeks, Disney’s pseudo-live-action remake has conquered the box office, already accumulating $1 billion in global grosses. This time around, no one can claim they’re surprised. 

Audiences may be satisfied with Jon Favreau’s photorealistic take on Simba and the gang, but what about the animators responsible for the original? After all, much of the new film mimics their imagery shot for shot, which is either a welcome dose of technologically sophisticated nostalgia or a creatively inert exercise in uncanny redundancy.

Here’s the scoop: Avocado prices continue to dip.

While wholesale avocado prices have come down nearly $20 for a 25-pound box after an early July spike, the popular fruit still costs 80% more than this time last year, said David Magaña, vice president and senior analyst at Rabobank based in Fresno, California.

Some restaurants have started charging more for guacamole or taking avocados off the menu. Faux guacamole recipes made from Calabasas, a small Mexican squash, have been circulating on social media.

More than 10 years after the financial recession and the bursting of the housing bubble, another economic crisis could be looming on the horizon in the U.S.

According to a study published on Tuesday by GoBankingRates, there are at least 40 American cities in danger of another housing crisis.

In case you hadn’t heard (or are not following Celine Dion on Instagram), haute couture fashion houses brought the heat to an already overwhelmingly hot Paris from June 30 to July 4. 

It was, as expected, an impressive array of intricately detailed gowns, supermodel sightings, and a whole lot of ruffles. But the week-long showing from iconic design houses like Dior, Givenchy, and Jean-Paul Gaultier also delivered some truly wild looks.

Quebec’s education minister is facing criticism for tweeting a photo of himself with Nobel Peace Prize recipient Malala Yousafzai after his government banned public employees from wearing headscarves like hers.

CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis. (AP) — The Latest on the slayings of four people in weekend attacks at two homes in Wisconsin (all times local):

12:55 p.m.

Authorities in Wisconsin say a man suspected of killing four people may have been imitating the abduction last year of teenager Jayme Closs.

Sheriff Jim Kowalczyk said Tuesday that investigators may never know exactly what led to the Sunday attacks. He says Ritchie German Jr. killed three of his family members and later killed a 24-year-old woman at another home before killing himself.

Kowalczyk says German used a shotgun to blast his way into the woman’s home, and then shot and wounded her parents. Authorities also say German left his car running with items inside that suggested similarities to the Closs case.

They wouldn’t elaborate on those items.

Chief Deputy Chad Holum says if abduction was intended, “it did not work out for him.”

Jayme Closs was abducted from her parents’ home last fall in Barron, just 40 miles (64 kilometers) from the site of the most recent slayings. Jayme’s parents were killed, but she eventually escaped from her abductor.

___

11:43 a.m.

A Wisconsin sheriff says a man suspected in the weekend killings of four people exchanged texts with one of the victims — a woman who apparently didn’t know him.

Chippewa County Sheriff James Kowalczyk (koh-WAHL’-chik) says investigators believe 34-year-old Ritchie German Jr. carried out the Sunday attacks at two homes.

Kowalczyk told The Associated Press on Tuesday that investigators believe German fatally shot his mother, brother and brother’s 8-year-old son at their home in Lafayette before going to a home in nearby Lake Hallie and killing a 24-year-old woman and wounding her parents. German was found dead there, but authorities haven’t said whether he killed himself.

Kowalczyk says German had texted the 24-year-old woman inquiring about a personal relationship, but she texted back saying she didn’t know him.

Reference: https://news.yahoo.com/latest-wisconsin-sheriff-draws-parallel-175731918.html

When the Food and Drug Administration approved Zolgensma, a lifesaving medication to treat spinal muscular atrophy, parents of young children with the rare and fatal disease rejoiced.

But that relief was quickly tempered by the price tag: $2.1 million — the most expensive ever for a single dose of a drug.

“I was pretty shocked,” Sarah Stanger of Monroe, Ohio, said. “You know, as a teacher, we definitely don’t have $2.1 million, and I don’t know anybody who does.”

Stanger’s son, Duke, was diagnosed with the condition as an infant. When Zolgensma was approved in May, doctors said that the medicine was the best option for Duke. But the family’s insurance company refused to pay for it.

Without the drug, Duke’s future is bleak. In babies with SMA, nerve cells in the brain stem and spinal cord that control the muscles needed for speaking, walking, breathing and swallowing are destroyed because a critical protein is missing. As the disease progresses, muscles weaken and atrophy and patients lose their ability to walk, eat or even breathe, according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

“Once those neurons die, there’s no reviving them,” Stanger told NBC News. “With no treatment, most children will pass away by age 2.”

When the drug was approved, Novartis, the maker of Zolgensma, said that it expected insurance companies would cover the cost of the treatment. Novartis also said that the high cost of the drug was justified, and the one-time treatment was half the cost of 10 years of treatment with an existing SMA drug.

But Butler Health Plan, the Stangers’ health insurance provider, said that their reasoning for refusing to pay for Zolgensma is that this type of therapy has historically been excluded from coverage. Zolgensma is a type of gene therapy.

“To date, gene therapy … has been excluded from the benefits provided under our health benefit plans,” Stephanie Hearn, executive director at Butler Health Plan, said in an email. That’s because, despite gene therapy’s potential to treat or cure debilitating diseases, the therapies are costly, and health insurance providers still need to figure out how to balance out the cost of these expensive treatments without jeopardizing coverage for the rest of the people on the plan, Hearn wrote.

But that math is going to become increasingly difficult to resolve as time goes on, according to David Mitchell, founder of the advocacy group Patients for Affordable Drugs.

“The situation we’re seeing right now with access to Zolgensma is a problem that will only get worse,” Mitchell said. There are at least 400 other gene therapies in development, and “if they all come to market with prices of $2 million, we won’t be able to afford them as families or as a nation,” he said.

Novartis told NBC News that a “wide range of patients” have had the drug covered by insurance since its approval, but noted that it’s not uncommon for patients to have to go through an appeals process for any new drug.

There may be some hope, however.

Just a few days ago, a major insurance company, UnitedHealthcare, reversed its decision to deny payment for Zolgensma to two children whose cases had received publicity. The company told NBC News that the reversals took place because they had received more information about the cases, not because of media attention.

Ultimately, these cases are yet another example of how the health care system in the United States is failing patients, said Dr. Albert Wu, an internist, and professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“It’s an unfortunate reflection of how our health care system is currently working — or not working — that the only way people can get drugs paid for is through a Hail Mary GoFundMe site or by generating enough bad press that the payer feels it isn’t worthwhile to resist,” Wu said.

McDonald’s on Friday reported same-store sales growth that topped estimates, as promotions and store upgrades pay off for its U.S. business.

Shares of the company hit an all-time high of $218.15 in morning trading before giving up some of those gains. The company’s stock, which has a market value of more than $165 billion, is up 20% so far this year.

NNPA ESSA AWARENESS CAMPAIGN — According to Dr. Rosa Castro Feinberg, who serves on the committee for LULAC Florida, an advocacy group serving all Hispanic nationality groups, Florida’s “current plan includes features that contradict common sense, expert opinion, popular will, and the intent of the ESSA. Contrary to the purposes of the ESSA, the Florida plan denies attention to struggling subgroups of students. Without attention, there can be no correction.”

Russian police have arrested a suspect in the murder of a 24-year-old Instagram influencer found dead in a suitcase in her Moscow apartment.

Ekaterina Karaglanova, who had recently graduated as a doctor, was known as @Katti_loves_life to her 86,000 followers on the image-sharing website. 

Her body was discovered by her landlord last week after he had been contacted by her alarmed parents, who had not been able to reach their daughter for several days.