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National home prices have risen by 2.6% year-over-year from January 2024 to January 2025, according to the Zillow Home Value Index, a slightly decelerated rate from the 4.6% year-over-year rate last spring. However, not every housing market is seeing rising home prices. Among the 300 largest metro area housing markets, 31 markets are seeing falling home prices on a year-over-year basis.
While home prices continue to rise in regions with tight inventorysuch as much of the Northeast, Midwest, and Southern Californiasome housing markets in states like Texas, Florida, and Louisiana, where inventory has now surpassed pre-pandemic 2019 levels, are experiencing modest price corrections.
These year-over-year declines are evident in major metros such as Austin (-3.4%); Tampa (-2.8%); San Antonio (-1.8%); New Orleans (-1.1%); Jacksonville, Florida (-0.9%); Phoenix (-0.8%); Dallas (-0.7%); and Orlando (-0.6%).\]
The markets seeing the most softness, where homebuyers are gaining leverage, are primarily located in Sun Belt regions, particularly the Gulf Coast and Mountain West. These areas saw major price surges during the pandemic housing boom, with home price growth outpacing local income levels. As pandemic-driven migration slowed and mortgage rates rose, markets like Tampa and Austin faced challenges, relying on local income levels to support frothy home prices.
This softening trend is further compounded by an abundance of new home supply in the Sun Belt. Builders are often willing to lower prices or offer affordability incentives to maintain sales, which also has a cooling effect on the resale market. Some buyers, who would have previously considered existing homes, are now opting for new homes with more favorable deals.
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This morning, Apple announced its largest spend commitment to date: A whopping $500 billion thats set to be invested in American manufacturing, engineering, and AI efforts over the next four years.
The major news comes just days after Apple CEO Tim Cook met with President Donald Trump to discuss the tech giants current manufacturing practices and the presidents tariff initiatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration moved ahead with a 10% tariff on all Chinese imports and proposed even larger tariffs on Mexican importsboth countries that serve as major manufacturing suppliers for Apples partner, Foxconn Technology Group. After Cook and Trump met on Friday, the president said that Apple planned to close existing plants in Mexico and build more products in the U.S. instead, claiming, They dont want to be in the tariffs.
[Cook] is going to start building, Trump told reporters of the CEOs plans for U.S. investment. Very big numbersyou have to speak to him. I assume theyre going to announce it at some point.
Now, Cooks plans have come into sharper focus. Heres everything you need to know about Apples supersized American investment:
Where will the money go?
According to a press release from Apple, the $500 billion investment will be spread across a few major projects and several smaller initiatives.
To start, the company plans to begin building servers in the U.S. via a new 250,000-square-foot manufacturing facility. The plant will be located in Houston, Texas, and is slated to open sometime in 2026. Meanwhile, in Detroit, Apple will open the Apple Manufacturing Academy, a tech education initiative.
Apple engineers, along with experts from top universities such as Michigan State, will consult with small- and medium-sized businesses on implementing AI and smart manufacturing techniques, the press release notes.
The company will also use the new investment to double its existing U.S. Advanced Manufacturing Fund, a program designed to create American manufacturing jobs. Part of that expansion will entail a multibillion-dollar commitment from Apple to produce advanced silicon in TSMCs Fab 21 facility in Arizona, the release reads.
What can Apple users expect?
Another core beneficiary of the $500 billion initiative will be Apples U.S.-based research and development (R&D) teams, which are responsible for new product releases like the recent iPhone 16E.
Over the next four years, Apple expects to hire around 20,000 new employees, the vast majority of whom will be focused on R&D, silicon engineering, software development, AI, and machine learningeach a subcategory that will presumably shape Apples future product releases.
Why is Apple doing this now?
As Trump continues to pursue higher tariffs, costs for overseas manufacturing are rising for Apple, especially given that China is the companys largest manufacturing hub. Meanwhile, Cooklike many tech CEOs in Trumps second administrationseems intent on maintaining a strong relationship with the president, including via donations to his campaign and visits to his Mar-A-Lago estate. During Trumps first term, Cook leveraged his connection to the president to secure a tariff exemption for the iPhone.
Now, it seems, this unprecedented new investment is part of Cooks plan to shepherd Apple forward in a political climate that rewards American manufacturing while punishing production abroad.
After nearly 40 years providing decor for countless birthdays across the United States, Party City is entering its final days of operations. And as the companys last storefronts close their doors, competitors including Five Below and Dollar Tree are vying to move in for majorly discounted prices.
Party City filed for bankruptcy twicefirst in 2023 and again this past Decemberbefore ultimately announcing at the end of 2024 that it could not recover its losses and would be permanently shutting down its 800 locations. In a memo sent to employees at the time, the company listed February 28 as its last day of operations (though, since then, some Redditors have noted extensions at their local locations).
While most Party City stores are living out their last hurrah this week, the company itself is working down to the wire to sell designation rights for more than 200 existing leases.
Discount retailers are stepping up
According to documents submitted to bankruptcy court in the southern district of Texas, Party City is currently hoping to secure deals with two new tenants: Five Below and Dollar Tree.
Per a memo submitted on February 19, the proposed Five Below deal would include 44 storefronts in exchange for a $2 million upfront payment, followed by an additional $70,000 for each lease agreement signed after 29 leases.
Likewise, the proposed Dollar Tree deal (submitted to court on February 21) would include 148 storefronts for a $1 million upfront payment, followed by an additional $65,000 for each lease agreement over 10 leases.
In both cases, Party Citys legal representation noted, the company has an urgent need to close the transactions quickly, given that its dwindling budget does not provide for continued payment of rent. Both proposals are expected to be heard in court this week.
Fast Company reached out to Party City, Five Below, and Dollar Tree for more information on the deals, and did not hear back from any of the parties involved at the time of publication.
Many legacy retailers are struggling in 2025
Party City’s final woes come amidst a larger retail apocalypse affecting stores like 7-Eleven, Big Lots, and Joann Inc. (which also just announced it will permanently cease operations).
As inflation persists and e-commerce continues to gain ground as consumers preferred method of shopping, physical retail locations are taking a major hit. According to a report from Coresight Research, this year could be the worst yet for U.S. retailers (including pandemic years), with an estimated 15,000 closures on the near horizon.
Based on a report from The Independent, while the Party City corporations days are numbered, the store wont entirely fade into oblivion just yet. Currently, nine franchisees representing 29 Party City locations are planning to run their stores independently for the foreseeable future. A similar phenomenon has kept the last remaining Blockbuster store open years after the company itself died offpreserving a beloved site of retail nostalgia against all odds.
Anthropic released on Monday its Claude 3.7 Sonnet model, which it says returns results faster and can show the user the chain of thought it follows to reach an answer. This latest model also powers a new coding tool called Claude Code that can perform some development tasks autonomously.
Claude 3.7 Sonnet offers an extended thinking mode that engages in a more detailed chain of thought reasoning but takes longer to generate a response. For simpler questions it eschews this mode and instead focuses on speed. Other models offer their own versions of thinking mode, but typically the user has to select that feature for harder problems; Anthropic says Claude 3.7 Sonnet is the first publicly available model with the capability to choose the best mode based on the users question. If Grok 3 and DeepSeek-R1 are stick shifts, then Anthropics new model is an automatic.
Just as humans use a single brain for both quick responses and deep reflection, we believe reasoning should be an integrated capability of frontier models rather than a separate model entirely, Anthropic says in a blog post.
Claude 3.7 Sonnet outperforms other thinking models in some important benchmark tests. On SWE-bench, which evaluates AI models ability to solve real-world software issues, the model beat OpenAIs o1 and o3-mini and DeepSeek-R1 by a comfortable margin. It was the same story on TAU-bench, which tests AI agents on complex real-world tasks with user and tool interactions. However, OpenAIs o1 model still edges out Claude 3.7 Sonnet in math problem solving, visual reasoning, multilingual Q&A, and graduate-level reasoning benchmarks.
Anthropic describes the Claude Code tool as an active collaborator that can search and read code, edit files, write and run tests, and commit and push code to GitHub. The company says the tool has already become indispensable for its own coders, completing tasks in a single pass that would normally take 45 minutes or more of manual work.
Claude 3.7 Sonnet is now available on all Claude subscription plansFree, Pro, Team, and Enterprisebut the extended thinking mode isnt available to users of the free tier. Claude 3.7 Sonnet is also available to developers as an API for the same price as earlier Claude models.
BP‘s chief executive will scrap a target to increase renewable generation 20-fold by 2030, returning the focus to fossil fuels, as part of a strategy shift announced on Wednesday to tackle investor concerns over earnings, two sources told Reuters.
BP’s shares have underperformed rivals in recent years and the oil major has already dropped its target to cut oil and gas output by 2030, Reuters reported in October.
On Wednesday, when BP holds a capital markets day, CEO Murray Auchincloss will tell investors the company is abandoning its target to grow renewable generation capacity 20-fold between 2019 and 2030 to 50 gigawatts, two sources close to the matter said. The plan to drop the target has not been previously reported.
BP declined to comment.
Its earnings reports show the company has 8.2 GW of renewable generation capacity, and that for 2019, BP’s net wind generation capacity reached 926 megawatts. It did not give a figure on total renewable capacity for that year.
The sources said BP will also ditch a target to reach core earnings (EBITDA) of $49 billion this year and instead set an annual percentage growth target, the sources said. They declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak publicly on the strategy change.
While BP has said in a call with analysts it could drop the targets, it has yet to formally announce any decision. BP failed to reach its 2024 EBITDA target of 40.9 billion.
The company will also make public plans to divest assets and cut other low-carbon investments to reduce debt and boost returns, the sources said.
The capital markets day was originally scheduled for February 11 in New York, but was changed to to Wednesday in London because Auchincloss had to undergo a medical procedure.
Sector-wide shift
Across the energy sector, major companies that shifted their portfolios in response to the need to lower carbon emissions and curb climate change have returned the focus to oil and gas, where returns have become easier as fossil fuel prices have rebounded from pandemic lows.
The investor environment has also been transformed by the re-election of U.S. President Donald Trump, a climate sceptic and advocate of fossil fuels.
Pressure has become intense on BP after activist investor Elliott Investment Management built up a nearly 5% stake.
Elliott, known for pushing changes at companies such as Honeywell and Southwest Airlines, is demanding an overhaul, including tighter cost discipline at BP.
A separate source familiar with the matter told Reuters Elliott wanted BP to scale down its green energy spending and sell assets such as wind and solar.
BP would also benefit from selling its Castrol lubricants and its network of service stations to unlock value and boost share buybacks, added the source, who also asked not to be named.
Under Auchincloss predecessor, Bernard Looney, BP pledged in 2020 to cut oil and gas output by 40% while rapidly growing renewables by 2030.
BP lowered the reduction target to 25% in 2023.
Since taking office, Auchincloss has slowed investments in renewables and announced plans to cut costs and reduce staff by 5%.
BP could on Wednesday announce cuts to its annual low-carbon capex by $2-$3 billion, analysts at Bank of America said. BP’s 2024 capital spending was $16.24 billion.
Arunima Kumar and Anousha Sakoui, Reuters
I had a bit of a harsh reality check today, and felt like its important to share with whoever is listening, model and actress Hunter Schafer said in an eight-minute video posted on TikTok last week.
Speaking in a rare direct-to-camera clip, the Euphoria actress held up her new passport and reflected on what it said about trans rights under the Trump administration.
Schafer explained that the gender marker on her passport had been changed, a direct consequence of President Donald Trumps January 20 executive order. The order declared that the United States would “recognize two sexes, male and female,” and “these sexes are not changeable.” It added that documents like passports and visas must “accurately reflect the holders sex.”
Schafer also referenced the State Department’s Bureau of Consular Affairs policy under Trump’s executive order, which states, in part: “We will no longer issue U.S. passports or Consular Reports of Birth Abroad (CRBAs) with an X marker. We will only issue passports with an M or F sex marker that match the customer’s biological sex at birth.”
“My initial reaction to this, because our president is a lot of talk, was like, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ and today, I saw it on my new passport,” Schafer said in the video, which has already been viewed over one million times.
Schafer had her gender listed as female on official documents since updating her drivers license as a teenager. But after her passport was stolen while filming in Barcelona, she applied for a routine replacementonly to find that the new document listed her gender as male.
“I’m not making this post to fearmonger or to create drama or receive consolation, Schafer continued. I don’t need it, but I do think it’s worth posting to sort of note the reality of the situation and that it is actually happening.”
She said the new passport marker would not change anything about her identity. “I don’t go give a f— that they put an M on my passport. It doesn’t change really anything about me or my transness. However, it does make life a little harder,” she said.
Next week, shell be using the passport for the first time and added that she anticipates having to out herself to Border Patrol agents and officials. “I just want to say trans people are beautiful,” she said. “We are never going to stop existing. I’m never gonna stop being trans. A letter and a passport can’t change that.”
In 2024, Amazon introduced its AI-powered HR assistant, which helps managers with performance reviews and workforce planning. Similarly, Tesla deployed AI personas to assist in real-time production monitoring and supply chain optimization. These advancements showcase how AI personas are becoming essential in business operations, streamlining processes, and enhancing decision-making.
As artificial intelligence evolves, we’re witnessing two interrelated phenomena shaping our future: AI personas and agentic AI. These developments bring both opportunities and challenges.
Understanding AI Personas
AI personas are collections of digital elements that combine to form hybrid characters with defined traits and priorities that interact with users in sophisticated ways. They range from professional advisors to creative collaborators and emotional support systems. Their ability to adapt interactions based on user needs makes them powerful tools for organizations.
AI personas can be understood through three key dimensions:
Function: The specific role and tasks the persona will perform
Epistemic perspective: The knowledge base and information sources the persona draws upon
Relationship type: The mode of interaction that best serves the intended purpose
AI personas maintain consistent personality traits while evolving through interactions. For instance, an AI persona might serve as a strategic planning partner in a business context, accumulating knowledge about the organization’s goals and culture over time.
The Emergence of Agentic AI
Agentic AI refers to systems with increasing autonomy and decision-making capability. Unlike traditional AI that processes inputs and generates outputs, agentic AI can initiate actions and pursue objectives independently within defined parameters.
The intersection of AI personas and agentic AI creates new collaboration possibilities. Consider these examples:
Supply Chain Management: Tesla’s AI system doesn’t just process inventory datait autonomously adjusts production schedules, initiates parts orders, and redirects shipments based on real-time demand and disruption predictions. The system can decide to expedite certain components or switch suppliers without human intervention, though within predefined parameters.
Financial Trading: Modern trading algorithms don’t simply execute preset rules. They actively monitor market conditions, news feeds, and social media sentiment, making independent decisions to open, adjust, or close positions. JPMorgan’s AI trading system, for instance, can autonomously modify its strategies based on changing market conditions.
Network Security: Darktrace’s Enterprise Immune System doesn’t wait for security teams to identify threats. It learns normal network behavior and autonomously takes action to counter potential attacks, such as quarantining suspicious devices or blocking unusual data transfers.
These systems showcase how AI can not only respond to requests but proactively identify opportunities, suggest improvements, and take initiative within defined parameters.
Challenges and Considerations
However, this evolution presents challenges:
Authenticity and Trust: As AI personas become more sophisticated, maintaining transparency is critical. Organizations must establish clear guidelines on AI capabilities and limitations.
Emotional Engagement: Humans naturally form emotional connections with AI personas, which can enhance interactions but also raise ethical concerns about dependency and manipulation.
Autonomy Boundaries: Setting clear limits on what decisions AI personas can make independently versus requiring human oversight is essential.
Managing the Future
To harness these technologies effectively, organizations should focus on:
Purposeful Design: AI personas should align with organizational goals, capabilities, and ethical guidelines.
Human-Centered Approach: AI should enhance human capabilities rather than replace them.
Ethical Frameworks: Transparency, privacy, and clear boundaries must guide AI interactions.
Continuous Monitoring: Organizations should track AI behavior to ensure compliance and effectiveness.
Implementation Frameworks
The OPEN framework (Outline, Partner, Experiment, Navigate) provides a systematic four-step process for harnessing AI’s potential, guiding organizations from initial assessment through to sustained implementation. The CARE framework (Catastrophize, Assess, Regulate, Exit) offers a parallel structure for identifying and managing AI-related risks, that can guide organizations in implementing AI personas effectively:
The OPEN framework helps organizations unlock AI’s potential through systematic:
Outlining of possibilities and goals
Partnership development with AI and stakeholders
Experimentation with different approaches
Navigation of evolving capabilities
The CARE framework helps manage associated risks through:
Catastrophizing to identify potential threats
Assessment of risk likelihood and impact
Regulation of risk through controls
Exit strategies for when things go wrong
Looking Forward
The future of AI personas and agentic AI offers unprecedented potential for human cognition and collaboration. However, balancing technological advancement with ethical considerations is crucial.
AI personas are reflections of human values and culture. Developing better AI personas isn’t just a technical challengeit’s a human one. Organizations must embody values that AI systems can learn and replicate.
Success lies in embracing AI with “mature optimism”leveraging its potential while acknowledging limitations. The goal is to create AI personas that enhance human potential, support relationships, and help ndividuals become better versions of themselves.
This transformation isn’t just about building better AIit’s about fostering a future where artificial and human intelligence thrive together in meaningful ways.
A Texas pipeline company’s lawsuit accusing Greenpeace of defamation, disruptions, and attacks during protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline goes to trial in North Dakota on Monday, in a case the environmental advocacy organization says threatens free speech rights and its very future.The lawsuit stems from the protests in 2016 and 2017 over the oil pipeline’s planned Missouri River crossing, upstream from the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation. The tribe has long argued that the pipeline threatens its water supply. Of the thousands of people who protested the project, hundreds were arrested.Energy Transfer and its subsidiary Dakota Access allege trespass, nuisance, defamation, and other offenses by Netherlands-based Greenpeace International and its American branch, Greenpeace USA. The lawsuit also names the group’s funding arm, Greenpeace Fund Inc.The jury trial in state court in Mandan, North Dakota, is scheduled to last five weeks.
What are details of the case?
Dallas-based Energy Transfer alleges Greenpeace tried to delay construction of the pipeline, defamed the companies behind it, and coordinated trespassing, vandalism, and violence by pipeline protesters. The lawsuit seeks millions of dollars in damages.The Dakota Access Pipeline was completed and has been transporting oil since June 2017.Greenpeace International said it shouldn’t be named in the lawsuit because it is distinct from the two U.S.-based Greenpeace entities, operates outside the U.S., and its employees were never in North Dakota or involved with the protests.Greenpeace USA said the plaintiffs have failed to back up their claims in the years since the protests.Earlier in February, a judge denied motions by Greenpeace to throw out or limit parts of the case.
What is Greenpeace’s position?
Representatives of the environmental organization founded over 50 years ago said the company just wants to silence oil industry critics.“This trial is a critical test of the future of the First Amendment, both freedom of speech and peaceful protest, under the Trump administration and beyond,” Greenpeace USA Interim Executive Director Sushma Raman told reporters. “A bad ruling in this case could put our rights and freedoms in jeopardy for all of us, whether we are journalists, protesters, or anyone who wants to engage in public debate.”Greenpeace USA helped support “nonviolent, direct-action training” on safety and de-escalation at the protests, Senior Legal Adviser Deepa Padmanabha said.Energy Transfer is arguing that “anyone engaged in a training at a protest should be held responsible for the actions of every person at that protest,” Padmanabha said. “So it’s pretty easy to see how, if successful, this kind of tactic could have a serious chilling effect on anyone who might consider participating in a protest.”Earlier in February, Greenpeace International filed an anti-intimidation suit in the District Court of Amsterdam against Energy Transfer, saying the company acted wrongfully and should pay costs and damages resulting from its “meritless” litigation.
What does Energy Transfer say?
An Energy Transfer spokesperson said the lawsuit is about Greenpeace not following the law.“It is not about free speech as they are trying to claim. We support the rights of all Americans to express their opinions and lawfully protest. However, when it is not done in accordance with our laws, we have a legal system to deal with that,” Energy Transfer spokeswoman Vicki Granado said in a statement.The company filed a similar case in federal court in 2017, which a judge dismissed in 2019. Soon after, Energy Transfer filed the state court lawsuit now headed to trial.Energy Transfer launched in 1996 with 20 employees and 200 miles (320 kilometers) of natural gas pipelines. Today the 11,000-employee company owns and operates over 125,000 miles (200,000 kilometers) of pipelines and related facilities.
Jack Dura, Associated Press
A year before Elon Musk helped start OpenAI in San Francisco, philanthropist and Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen already had established his own nonprofit artificial intelligence research laboratory in Seattle.Their mission was to advance AI for humanity’s benefit.More than a decade later, the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, or Ai2, isn’t nearly as well-known as the ChatGPT maker but is still pursuing the “high-impact” AI sought by Allen, who died in 2018. One of its latest AI models, Tulu 3 405B, rivals OpenAI and China’s DeepSeek on several benchmarks. But unlike OpenAI, it says it’s developing AI systems that are “truly open” for others to build upon.The institute’s CEO Ali Farhadi has been running Ai2 since 2023 after a stint at Apple. He spoke with the Associated Press. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Why is openness important to your mission?
Our mission is to do AI innovation and AI breakthroughs to solve some of the biggest working problems facing humanity today. The biggest threat to AI innovation is the closed nature of the practice. We have been pushing very, very strongly towards openness. If you think about open-source software, the core essence was, “I should be able to understand what you did. I should be able to change it. I should be able to fork from it. I should be able to use part of it, half of it, all of it. And once I build my thing, I put it out there and you should be able to do the same.”
What do you consider an open-source AI model?
It is a really heated topic at the moment. To us, open-source means that you understand what you did. Open weights models (such as Meta’s) are great because people could just grab those weights and follow the rest, but they aren’t open source. Open source is when you actually have access to every part of the puzzle.
Why aren’t more AI developers sharing training data for models they say are open?
If I want to postulate, some of these training data have a little bit of questionable material in them. But also the training data for these models are the actual IP. The data is probably the most sacred part. Many think there’s a lot of value in it. In my opinion, rightfully so. Data plays a significant role in improving your model, changing the behavior of your model. It’s tedious, it’s challenging. Many companies spend a lot of dollars, a lot of investments, in that domain and they don’t like to share it.
What are the AI applications you’re most excited about?
As it matures, I think AI is getting ready to be taken seriously for crucial problem domains such as science discovery. A good part of some disciplines involves a complicated search for a solutionfor a gene structure, a cell structure, or specific configurations of elements. Many of those problems can be formulated computationally. There’s only so much you can do by just downloading a model from the web that was trained on text data and fine tuning it. Our hope is to empower scientists to be able to actually train their own model.
Matt O’Brien, AP Technology Writer
Vivek Ramaswamy, the Cincinnati-born biotech entrepreneur who departed the Department of Government Efficiency initiative on President Donald Trump’s first day, was expected to launch his bid for Ohio governor Monday.Ramaswamy, 39, is set to kick off his campaign in Cincinnati, joining the 2026 Republican primary just a month after presumed frontrunner and then-Lt. Gov. Jon Husted left the running to take a U.S. Senate appointment.Ramaswamy sought the GOP nomination for president in 2024 before dropping out to back Trump, who later tapped him to cochair the efficiency initiative with billionaire Elon Musk. A near-billionaire himself, Ramaswamy has promoted his ties to Trump as he lines up key endorsements and donors in the governor’s race, but the president has made no formal endorsement yet.Ramaswamy joins a competitive GOP primary field to succeed Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, 78, a veteran center-right politician who is term-limited.Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced a bid for the seat in January and Heather Hill, a Black entrepreneur from Appalachia, also is running. Dr. Amy Acton, the former state health director who helped lead Ohio through the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, is running as a Democrat.They will compete in a former bellwether state that has tacked reliably red in recent years, having voted for Trump three times by more than 8 percentage points. Republicans also hold every statewide executive office, a majority on the Ohio Supreme Court and supermajorities in both legislative chambers.Ramaswamy, who is Hindu, outlined the 10 core beliefs featured in his presidential campaignled by “God is real” followed by “there are two genders”in the 2024 book, Truths: The Future of America First. He first rose to political prominence with his 2021 book, Woke Inc: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam, a scorching critique of corporations that he said use social justice causes as a smokescreen for self-interested policies.He seeks to buck the traditional route to Ohio’s governorship, which runs through extensive government service often stretching decades, and instead mount a Trump-style ascent into the job directly from the business world.The formula has worked for Vice President JD Vance and U.S. Sen. Bernie Moreno, two political newcomers who won Senate seats with the help of Trump’s endorsement in 2022 and 2024, respectively. But Ramaswamy will test it in a state government-level race for the first time in recent memory.DeWine passed Ramaswamy over to appoint Husted to the Senate seat vacated by Vance, citing Husted’s decades of elective experience. The gubernatorial bid by Husted, a former Ohio House speaker and secretary of state, had locked down many key endorsements and wealthy donors, who are now largely free agents.Yost joined the race as rumors circulated that Ramaswamy was planning a run. Since then, however, Ohio Treasurer Robert Sprague and Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose have endorsed Ramaswamy.
Julie Carr Smyth, Associated Press
