Fitch downgraded its credit rating for the U.S. government, from AAA to AA+, two months after the debt-ceiling crisis was resolved.

“In Fitch’s view, there has been a steady deterioration in standards of governance over the last 20 years, including on fiscal and debt matters,’ the rating agency said Tuesday. Fitch said the U.S. appeared to suffer from an “erosion of governance,’ pointing to the Washington brinkmanship over the debt ceiling as an example.

With a rating of AA+, the U.S. still holds among the highest possible ratings, which Fitch saying the nation still benefits from a “large, advanced, well-diversified and high-income economy.”“I strongly disagree with Fitch Ratings’ decision,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement Tuesday, calling the change “arbitrary and based on outdated data.”

Fitch is one of three major credit rating agencies, along with S&P Moody’s, that evaluate a company or country’s ability to pay its debts. The agencies use scales to “rate” a debtor’s risk of making full and timely payments, helping investors understand the credit history and outlook associated with any bonds they choose to buy.

The move came after Fitch placed the country’s AAA rating on negative watch on May 24, citing political brinksmanship over the debt ceiling.

The first and only other time the U.S. has faced a credit downgrade was in 2011, when S&P lowered its rating from AAA, meaning “outstanding,” to AA+, or “excellent.” That move, which came days after Congress resolved an earlier debt-ceiling standoff, coincided with a stock market drop and a spike in interest rates for consumer-facing products like auto loans and mortgages.

President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan bill on June 3 to lift the federal debt ceiling, a legal limit on how much the debt government is allowed to issue to pay bills it has already racked up through spending legislation. The move avoided a default that economists warned would have had devastating consequences for the U.S. and global economy.

While a broader crisis was sidestepped, the Fitch downgrade underscores concerns among analysts and holders of U.S. Treasury bonds — widely seen as extraordinarily safe investments — that partisan wrangling over the debt ceiling puts the country at heightened risk of eventually missing a payment on its more than $31 trillion in debt at some point in the future.

“The repeated debt-limit political standoffs and last-minute resolutions have eroded confidence in fiscal management,” Fitch said.

S&P’s U.S. credit downgrade in 2011 came on Aug. 5, three days after then-President Barack Obama signed a bill to avoid a government default. But the agency said at the time that “political brinksmanship” had already compromised the effectiveness and predictability of federal policymaking, creating longer-term doubts about the nation’s ability to manage its debt.

The downgrade more than a decade ago, which has never been reversed, caused stock markets to tumble, with the S&P 500 losing 17% between July 22 and Aug. 8. The move also raised government borrowing costs by an estimated $1.3 billion.

Although the debt ceiling is a mechanism to cap government borrowing, it does not cap spending. The federal budget process, separate from the debt ceiling, determines how much money the government spends in which areas.

Until relatively recently, raising or suspending the debt limit was a routine procedural affair. The Treasury Department has noted that since 1960 Congress has acted 78 separate times to resolve the debt limit — 49 times under Republican presidents and 29 times under Democratic ones.

Ford is recalling more than 870,000 newer F-150 pickup trucks in the U.S. because the electric parking brakes can turn on unexpectedly.

The recall covers certain pickups from the 2021 through 2023 model years with single exhaust systems. Ford’s F-Series pickups are the top-selling vehicles in the U.S.

The company says in documents posted by government safety regulators Friday that a rear wiring bundle can come in contact with the rear axle housing. That can chafe the wiring and cause a short circuit, which can turn on the parking brake without action from the driver, increasing the risk of a crash.

Drivers may see a parking brake warning light and a warning message on the dashboard.

Ford says in documents that it has 918 warranty claims and three field reports of wire chafing in North America. Of these, 299 indicated unexpected parking brake activation, and 19 of these happened while the trucks were being driven.

The company says it doesn’t know of any crashes or injuries caused by the problem.

Dealers will inspect the rear wiring harness. If protective tape is worn through, the harness will be replaced. If the tape isn’t worn, dealers will install a protective tie strap and tape wrap.

Owners will be notified by letter starting Sept. 11.

Owners with questions can call Ford customer service at (866) 436-7332.

Facebook users have less than one month left to apply for their share of a $725 million settlement over the social network’s privacy violations, part of the lengthy fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal that rocked the U.S. electoral process and Silicon Valley.

The settlement, signed in December 2022, was the largest class action settlement of its kind, according to Keller Rohrback, the law firm that brought the class action suit. It ended years of litigation over Facebook’s role in improper data sharing with a data consultancy firm used by Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

In all, the Cambridge Analytica scandal cost Meta, Facebook’s parent company, nearly $5.9 billion. Beyond the $725 million settlement, the company paid a record $5 billion settlement to the Federal Trade Commission, alongside a further $100 million to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Facebook rebanded itself as Meta in 2021 and settled the suit a year later. In some ways, it’s a much different company than it was during the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The company has since expanded further into the metaverse with new hardware products like the Quest 3, coming this fall. It’s also revealed its Llama 2 large language artificial intelligence model, Reels to compete with TikTok and, more recently, Threads, which is taking on Twitter.

The breach forced Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress and to take out full-page ads where he apologized for the missteps. “I’m sorry we didn’t do more at the time. We’re now taking steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” Zuckerberg said.

The $725 million settlement was not an admission of wrongdoing.

Facebook users can make a claim by visiting Facebookuserprivacysettlement.com and entering their name, address, email address, and confirming they lived in the U.S. and were active on Facebook between the aforementioned dates.

People who had an active U.S. Facebook account between May 2007 and December 2022 have until Aug. 25 to enter a claim. Individual settlement payments haven’t yet been established because payouts depend on how many users submit claims and how long each user maintained a Facebook account.

Trudi Shertzer can’t wait bring her 8-month-old to work every day.

An operations duty manager at Pittsburgh International Airport, she is counting the days until she can drop off her son at a 61-slot child care center opening there next month — the only such facility housed in a U.S. airport terminal.

“I’m just waiting for them to give us the list of stuff I need to start packing up for my son Hunter,” said Shertzer, whose husband, Ben, works as a wildlife manager at the airport. “This will be so convenient. With the facility right here, we’ll be able pop in and check on him, which will give us peace of mind.”

While the airport authority’s 475 employees get first dibs on enrollment, the child care center is also open to kids of other staffers at PIT’s 6,000-person campus, including concessionaires, cleaners and construction workers.