SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The outer bands of distant Hurricane Humberto lashed Bermuda on Tuesday ahead of a more direct pass from the newer and stronger Hurricane Imelda on the tiny British territory.
Humberto was passing well north of the island in the north Atlantic, but wind gusts and some rain were forecast into Wednesday.
Imelda had maximum sustained winds of 140 kph (85 mph) late Tuesday and its center was expected to be near the island Wednesday evening, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
A hurricane warning for Bermuda was in effect ahead of Imelda, which was expected to strengthen into a Category 2 hurricane, according to the Bermuda Weather Service.
“I cannot overstate the seriousness of this threat,” Michael Weeks, Bermuda’s minister of national security, said of Imelda. “This is not, I must stress, a passing squall.”
He said Bermuda would endure sustained hurricane-force winds for up to six hours starting late Wednesday.
The island’s international airport, schools and government offices were to close Wednesday, and Weeks said residents should have all storm preparations completed by noon.
“Imelda has the potential to damage and disrupt our island significantly,” he said.
Bermuda is a wealthy British territory with strong concrete structures capable of withstanding serious storms.
Imelda was 835 kilometers (520 miles) west-southwest of Bermuda and was moving east-northeast at 28 kph (17 mph), U.S. forecasters said. The storm is expected to bring hurricane-force winds to Bermuda late Wednesday, they added.
Far northwest of the island, Humberto was still hurricane strength with 130 kph (80 mph) winds late Tuesday. The Category 1 storm was moving east-northeast at 17 kph (10 mph).
Both hurricanes were creating ocean swells that were likely to cause dangerous surf conditions on Bermuda, the Bahamas and the U.S. East Coast. Five unoccupied houses along North Carolina’s Outer Banks collapsed into the ocean Tuesday as wave after wave rolled in from the Atlantic.
Earlier this week, Imelda battered eastern Cuba, killing two people, according to Prime Minister Manuel Marrero. Flooding and landslides also cut off communities and forced evacuations, according to state media.
One person was also missing in Haiti after Imelda swelled rivers and caused flooding in some 35 communities, its Civil Protection Agency said. Imelda also caused significant crop destruction in a country where more than half of its nearly 12 million inhabitants were expected to experience severe hunger through the first half of the year.
Imelda also flooded parts of the Bahamas on Monday, with New Providence hit hard. More than a dozen public schools on that island and on nearby Grand Bahama and Abaco remained closed on Tuesday.
“The aftermath is serious,” Prime Minister Philip Davis said. “Floodwaters remain.”
Imelda, which reached hurricane strength earlier Tuesday, is the Atlantic season's fourth hurricane this year.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had predicted an above-normal season with 13 to 18 named storms. Of those, five to nine were forecast to become hurricanes, including two to five major hurricanes, which pack winds of 111 mph or greater.
The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.
This GOES-19 GeoColor satellite image taken Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025 and provided by NOAA, shows weather systems in the Atlantic Ocean, Hurricane Imelda, left, and Hurricane Humberto at right. (NOAA via AP)
This Monday, Sept. 29, 2025, satellite image released by NASA shows Tropical Storm Imelda, left, and Hurricane Humberto in the Atlantic Ocean. (NASA Worldview, Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) via AP)
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. stock market is flirting with its all-time high on Friday.
The S&P 500 rose 0.5% and is on track to squeak past its record closing level, which was set in late October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 238 points, or 0.5%, as of 10:15 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.6% higher.
If the S&P 500 finishes the day at an all-time high, it would be just the latest time the U.S. stock market has powered past what appeared to be a debilitating set of worries. Most recently, those concerns centered on what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates, whether too many dollars are flowing into artificial-intelligence technology and if sharp drops for cryptocurrencies would bleed over into other markets.
Ulta Beauty helped lead the way on Friday and jumped 11% after the retailer reported stronger profit and revenue for the latest quarter than analysts expected. CEO Kecia Steelman said its customers are broadly feeling pressure, but Ulta saw growth across its categories, particularly in e-commerce. It raised its forecast for revenue over the full year.
Another encouraging signal for the holiday shopping season came from Victoria’s Secret & Co. It reported a milder loss for the latest quarter than analysts expected, and it likewise raised its forecast for sales over the full year. Its stock jumped 20.4%.
Warner Bros. Discovery was also strong and rose 3.2%. Netflix said it would buy Warner Bros. for $72 billion in cash and stock following the pending split for the company behind HBO Max, “Casablanca” and “Harry Potter” from Discovery Global.
The deal between the two giants could raise fears about too much industry power residing in one company, though, meaning it may not be a sure thing. After initially falling more than 5%, Netflix's stock pared its drop to a dip of 0.2%.
Paramount Skydance, which earlier had been seen as a front-runner to buy Warner Bros., fell 6.3%.
Also on the losing end of Wall Street was Hewlett Packard Enterprise. It slipped 0.6% after reporting weaker revenue for the latest quarter than analysts forecast, though its profit topped expectations.
The U.S. stock market broadly has been much quieter this week. It’s a respite following earlier weeks of sharp and scary swings.
After some back and forth, the widespread expectation among traders is that the Fed will cut its main interest rate next week in hopes of shoring up the slowing U.S. job market. If it does, that would be the third cut of the year, and such expectations have been a major reason the S&P 500 has climbed back toward its record.
Investors love lower interest rates because they boost prices for investments and can juice the economy. The downside is that they can worsen inflation, which is stubbornly remaining above the Fed’s 2% target.
A set of economic reports released on Friday did little to change expectations for a coming cut. One report said that an underlying measure of inflation that the Fed prefers to use was at 2.8% in September, exactly as economists expected.
A separate report said U.S. consumers appear to be bracing for less-bad inflation in the coming year. They're now forecasting 4.1% inflation for the year ahead, down from their forecast of 4.5% last month, and the lowest reading since January, according to the University of Michigan. That's important because when expectations for inflation are doing the opposite and rising, it can create a vicious cycle that only worsens inflation.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady. The yield on the 10-year Treasury remained at 4.11%, where it was late Thursday.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose across much of Europe and Asia.
Germany’s DAX returned 0.9%, and South Korea’s Kospi jumped 1.8% for two of the world’s bigger gains.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.1% after data showed household spending in Japan fell 3.0% in October from a year earlier. It was the sharpest drop since January 2024. Japanese markets have been shaky recently after the Bank of Japan hinted that hikes to interest rates may be coming.
AP Writer Teresa Cerojano contributed.
Options trader Joseph D'Arrigo works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Currency traders work near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top right, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top right, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders pass by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Dec. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
