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Chinas Pop Mart says it is rolling out a mini version of its popular Labubu plush toys this month, along with a new long-fur version of the toothy little monster. The Labubu, by artist and illustrator Kasing Lung, first appeared with pointed ears and pointy teeth, in three picture books inspired by Nordic mythology in 2015. In 2019 Lung struck a deal with Pop Mart, a company that caters to toy connoisseurs and influencers, to sell Labubu figurines. But it wasnt until Pop Mart started selling Labubu plush toys on key rings in 2023 that the toothy monsters suddenly seemed to be everywhere. Pop Mart said Friday that the mini-sized Labubu vinyl plush pendant, which is part of the Monsters Pin For Love series, will be available in various colors corresponding to letters of the alphabet. They will cost $22.99 each. The series also includes 30 letter pendant blind boxes, each with a unique pattern and Monsters charm. They will be priced at $18.99 a piece. In addition, Pop Mart is launching the Rock the Universe vinyl plush doll, which is part of the Monsters Big Into Energy Series. The plush, which will have a pearl-and-alloy heart necklace, will be the first of the Monsters to have long fur and uses a specialized dyeing technique that ensures no two figures are exactly alike. The dolls will cost $114.99 each. All of the new products will bbe available starting August 29 on Pop Mart’s website either for in-store pickup or shipping. They will also be available on the company’s app and its official TikTok accounts. Labubu has been a bonanza for Pop Mart. Its revenue more than doubled in 2024 to 13.04 billion yuan ($1.81 billion), thanks in part to its elvish monster. Revenue from Pop Marts plush toys soared more than 1,200% in 2024, nearly 22% of its overall revenue, according to the companys annual report. Earlier this week Pop Mart reported that its profit attributable to shareholders skyrocketed almost 400% for the first six months of the year. Revenue jumped more than 200% to 13.88 billion yuan ($1.93 billion). Revenue for the Asia Pacific region surged more than 250%, while revenue for the Americas soared more than 1,000%. Michelle Chapman, AP business writer
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Pricey prescriptions and nagging medical costs are swamping some insurers and employers now. Patients may start paying for it next year.Health insurance will grow more expensive in many corners of the market in 2026, and coverage may shrink. That could leave patients paying more for doctor visits and dealing with prescription coverage changes.Price increases could be especially stark in individual coverage marketplaces, where insurers also are predicting the federal government will end some support that helps people buy coverage.“We’re in a period of uncertainty in every health insurance market right now, which is something we haven’t seen in a very long time,” said Larry Levitt, an executive vice president at the nonprofit KFF, which studies health care. What’s hitting insurers In conference calls to discuss recent earnings reports, insurers ticked off a list of rising costs: More people are receiving care. Visits to expensive emergency rooms are rising, as are claims for mental health treatments.Insurers also say more healthy customers are dropping coverage in the individual market. That leaves a higher concentration of sicker patients who generate claims.Enrollment in the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces swelled the past few years. But a crackdown on fraud and a tightening of eligibility verifications that were loosened during the COVID-19 pandemic makes it harder for some to stay covered, Jefferies analyst David Windley noted.People who use little care “are disappearing,” he said.Prescription drugs pose another challenge, especially popular and expensive diabetes and obesity treatments sometimes called GLP-1 drugs. Those include Ozempic, Mounjaro, Wegovy, and Zepbound.“Pharmacy just gives me a headache, no pun intended,” said Vinnie Daboul, Boston-based managing director of the employee benefits consultant RT Consulting. There are more super expensive drugs New gene therapies that can come with a one-time cost of more than $2 million also are having an impact, insurance brokers say. Those drugs, which target rare diseases, and some newer cancer treatments are part of the reason Sun Life Financial covered 47 claims last year that cost over $3 million.The financial services company covers high-cost claims for employers that pay their own medical bills. Sun Life probably had no claims that expensive a decade ago and maybe “a handful at best” five years ago, said Jen Collier, president of health and risk solutions.Some of these drugs are rarely used, but they cause overall costs to rise. That raises insurance premiums.“It’s adding to medical (cost growth) in a way that we haven’t seen in the past,” Collier said. Marketplace pain is in the forecast Price hikes will be most apparent on the Affordable Care Act’s individual coverage marketplaces. Insurers there are raising premiums around 20% in 2026, according to KFF, which has been analyzing state regulatory filings.But the actual hike consumers see may be much bigger. Enhanced tax credits that help people buy coverage could expire at the end of the year, unless Congress renews them.If those go away, customer coverage costs could soar 75% or more, according to KFF.Business owner Shirley Modlin worries about marketplace price hikes. She can’t afford to provide coverage for the roughly 20 employees at 3D Design and Manufacturing in Powhatan, Virginia, so she reimburses them $350 a month for coverage they buy.Modlin knows her reimbursement only covers a slice of what her workers pay. She worries another price hike might push some to look for work at a bigger company that offers benefits.“My employee may not want to go to work for a large corporation, but when they consider how they have to pay their bills, sometimes they have to make sacrifices,” she said. Employers may shift costs Costs also have been growing in the bigger market for employer-sponsored coverage, the benefits consultant Mercer says. Employees may not feel that as much because companies generally pay most of the premium.But they may notice coverage changes. About half the large employers Mercer surveyed earlier this year said they are likely or very likely to shift more costs to their employees. That may mean higher deductibles or that people have to pay more before they reach the out-of-pocket maximum on their coverage. Drug coverage changes are possible For prescriptions, patients may see caps on those expensive obesity treatments or limits on who can take them.Some plans also may start using separate deductibles for their pharmaceutical and medical benefits or having patients pay more for their prescriptions, Daboul said.Coverage changes could vary around the country, noted Emily Bremer, president of a St. Louis-based independent insurance agency, the Bremer Group.Employers aren’t eager to cut benefits, she said, so people may not see dramatic prescription coverage changes next year. But that may not last.“If something doesn’t give with pharmacy costs, it’s going to be coming sooner than we’d like to think,” Bremer said. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Tom Murphy, AP Health Writer
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President Donald Trump is calling national security and privacy concerns related to TikTok and its Chinese parent company “highly overrated” and said Friday he’ll keep extending the deadline for the popular video-sharing platform until there’s a buyer.Congress approved a U.S. ban on TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold its controlling stake. But Trump has so far extended the deadline three times during his second termwith the next one coming up on September 17.“We’re gonna watch the security concerns,” Trump told reporters, but added, “We have buyers, American buyers,” and “until the complexity of things work out, we just extend a little bit longer.”The first extension was through an executive order on January 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national banapproved by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Courttook effect. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump’s tariff announcement.His comments follow the White House starting a TikTok account this week.“I used TikTok in the campaign,” Trump said.“I’m a fan of TikTok,” he said. “My kids like TikTok. Young people love TikTok. If we could keep it going.”As the extensions continue, it appears less and less likely that TikTok will be banned in the U.S. any time soon. The decision to keep TikTok alive through an executive order has received some scrutiny, but the administration has not faced a legal challenge in courtunlike many of Trump’s other executive orders.Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago.A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren’t sure.Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users’ data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report. Associated Press
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