A late Tennessee sheriff who inspired a Hollywood movie about a law enforcement officer who took on organized crime killed his wife in 1967 and led people to believe she was murdered by his enemies, authorities said Friday.

Authorities acknowledged that the finding will likely shock many who grew up as Buford Pusser fans and watched 1973’s “Walking Tall,” which immortalized him as a tough but fair sheriff with zero tolerance for crime. The movie was remade in 2004, and many officers joined law enforcement because of his story, according to Mark Davidson, the district attorney for Tennessee’s 25th judicial district.

There is enough evidence that if Pusser, the McNairy County sheriff who died in a car crash seven years after his wife’s death, were alive today, prosecutors would present an indictment to a grand jury for the killing of Pauline Mullins Pusser, Davidson said. Investigators also uncovered signs that she suffered from domestic violence.

Prosecutors worked with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which began reexamining decades-old files on Pauline’s death in 2022 as part of its regular review of cold cases, agency director David Rausch said. Agents found inconsistencies between Buford Pusser’s version of events and the physical evidence, received a tip about a potential murder weapon and exhumed Pauline’s body for an autopsy.

“This case is not about tearing down a legend. It is about giving dignity and closure to Pauline and her family and ensuring that the truth is not buried with time,” Davidson said in a news conference streamed online. “The truth matters. Justice matters. Even 58 years later. Pauline deserves both.”

Evidence does not back up sheriff’s story

The case dates to Aug. 12, 1967. Buford Pusser got a call in the early morning hours about a disturbance. He reported that his wife volunteered to ride along with him as he responded. Buford Pusser said that shortly after they passed New Hope Methodist Church, a car pulled up and fired several times into the vehicle, killing Pauline and injuring the sheriff. Buford Pusser spent 18 days in the hospital and required several surgeries to recover. The case was built largely on his own statement and closed quickly, Rausch said.

During the reexamination of the case, Dr. Michael Revelle, an emergency medicine physical and medical examiner, studied postmortem photographs, crime scene photographs, notes made by the medical examiner at the time and Buford Pusser’s statements. He concluded that Pauline was more likely than not shot outside the car and then placed inside it.

He found that cranial trauma suffered by Pauline didn’t match crime scene photographs of the car’s interior. Blood spatter on the hood outside the car contradicted Buford Pusser’s statements. The gunshot wound on his cheek was in fact a close-contact wound and not one fired from long range, as Buford Pusser described, and was likely self-inflicted, Revelle concluded.

Pauline’s autopsy revealed she had a broken nose that had healed prior to her death. Davidson said statements from people who were around at the time she died support the conclusion that she was a victim of domestic violence.

Brother says investigation gave him closure

Pauline’s younger brother, Griffon Mullins, said the investigation gave him closure. He said in a recorded video played at the news conference that their other sister died without knowing what happened to Pauline and he is grateful he will die knowing.

“You would fall in love with her because she was a people person. And of course, my family would always go to Pauline if they had an issue or they needed some advice and she was always there for them,” he said. “She was just a sweet person. I loved her with all my heart.”

Mullins said he knew there was some trouble in Pauline’s marriage, but she wasn’t one to talk about her problems. For that reason, Mullins said he was “not totally shocked.”

Asked about the murder weapon and whether it matched autopsy findings, Rausch recommended reading the case file for specifics.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation plans to make the entire file, which exceeds 1,000 pages, available to the public by handing it over to the University of Tennessee at Martin once it finishes with redactions. The school will create an online, searchable database for the case. Until then, members of the public can make appointments to review it in person or can purchase a copy, said university Chancellor Yancy Freeman Sr.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

California energy regulators Friday put the brakes on plans requiring oil companies to pay a penalty if their profits climb too high, a temporary win for the fossil fuel industry two years after the governor declared the state had “finally beat big oil.”

The postponement by the California Energy Commission until 2030 comes after two oil refineries accounting for roughly 18% of the state’s refining capacity announced their plans to close in the coming months. The commission has the power to implement a penalty but has not done so since it was given that authority in 2023.

The penalty was considered a landmark piece of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s government and the state’s ambitious goals to curb climate change. The state faces challenges in its efforts to take on the oil industry while ensuring a stable and affordable fuel supply. His administration is also proposing to temporarily streamline approvals of new oil wells in existing oil fields in an effort to maintain a stable fuel supply.

Siva Gunda, the commission’s vice chair, said the state is not “walking back” its efforts to wean itself off fossil fuels but must prioritize protecting consumers at the gas pump.

“I personally truly believe that this pause will be beneficial to ensure that this mid-transition is smooth,” he said.

The commission still plans to set rules that would require oil refineries to keep a minimum level of fuel on hand to avoid shortages when refineries go offline for maintenance.

Jamie Court, the president of Consumer Watchdog who supported the law, said the energy commission’s vote is “basically a giveaway to the industry.”

“I’m really disheartened and disgusted by Newsom,” he said. “I feel like this is just a total about-face. And in the end it’s going to result in greater price spikes.”

But the Western States Petroleum Association recommended that the state postpone a penalty for 20 years.

“While today’s action by the CEC stopped short of a full statutory repeal or a 20-year pause, it represents a needed step to provide some certainty for California’s fuels market,” CEO Catherine Reheis-Boyd said in a statement. “The vote demonstrates the CEC’s understanding that imposing this failed policy would have likely exacerbated investment concerns contributing to California’s recent refinery closures.”

In 2022, Newsom called the Legislature into a special session to pass a law aimed at holding oil companies accountable for making too much money after a summer of record-high gas prices in California. The governor signed a law the following year authorizing the energy commission to penalize oil companies for excessive profits.

The law also required oil companies to report more data on their operations to the state. It created an independent division at the commission to oversee the oil and gas industry and provide guidance to the state on its energy transition.

Newsom’s office thanked the energy commission for voting to postpone implementing a penalty, saying it was a “prudent step” toward stabilizing the oil market.

“When Governor Newsom signed this legislation two years ago, he promised that we would utilize the new transparency tools to look under the hood of our oil and gas market that had been a black box for decades,” spokesperson Daniel Villaseñor said in a statement. “We did exactly that.”

Julia Stein, deputy director of a climate institute at UCLA School of Law, said state officials are still intent on advancing their efforts to transition away from fossil fuels.

“But I think there is also a sense at the state level that we’re entering a different phase of the transition where some of these problems are going to be presented more acutely,” she said. “And folks are kind of now trying to understand how they’re going to approach that in real time.”

California has the highest gas prices in the nation, largely due to taxes and environmental regulations. Regular unleaded gas prices were $4.59 a gallon Friday, compared to a national average of $3.20, according to AAA.

The commission has not determined what would count as an excessive profit under the policy.

Setting a penalty could be risky for the state because it could unintentionally discourage production and drive prices up, said Severin Borenstein, an economist and public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

“It’s pretty clear they are shifting towards more focus on affordability and recognition that the high prices in California may not be associated with the actual refinery operations,” he said of state officials.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File

A simmering feud over management of one of North America’s longest rivers reached a boiling point when the U.S. Supreme Court sent western states and the federal government back to the negotiating table last year.

Now the battle over waters of the Rio Grande could be nearing resolution as New Mexico, Texas and Colorado announced fresh settlement proposals Friday designed to rein in groundwater pumping along the river in New Mexico and ensure enough river water reliably makes it to Texas.

New Mexico officials say the agreements allow water conservation decisions to be made locally while avoiding a doomsday scenario of billion-dollar payouts on water shortfalls.

Farmers in southern New Mexico increasingly have turned to groundwater as hotter and drier conditions reduced river flows and storage. That pumping is what prompted Texas to sue, claiming the practice was cutting into water deliveries.

It will be up to the special master overseeing the case to make a recommendation to the Supreme Court.

If endorsed by the court, the combined settlements promise to restore order to an elaborate system of storing and sharing water between two vast, adjacent irrigation districts in southern New Mexico and western Texas.

Still, tough decisions await New Mexico under its new obligations.

Divvying up a dwindling resource

In 1939, when New Mexico was a young, sparsely populated state, it ratified a compact with Texas and Colorado for sharing the waters of the Rio Grande. The agreement defined credits and debits and set parameters for when water could be stored upstream.

From the San Luis Valley in Colorado to below Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico, the compact called for gages to monitor the river, ensuring downstream obligations were met.

Meeting the nearly century-old metrics has become harder as snowpacks shrink in the mountains that feed the Rio Grande. Thirsty soil soaks up more snowmelt and runoff before it reaches tributaries, warmer temperatures fuel evaporation, and summer rainy seasons that once boosted flows and recharged reservoirs are more erratic.

The equation is further complicated by growing populations. The Rio Grande provides drinking water for about 6 million people and helps to irrigate millions of acres of cropland in the U.S. and in Mexico.

While the Colorado River gets all the headlines, experts say the situation along the Rio Grande is just as dire.

Triple whammy

The proposed settlements would provide a detailed accounting system for sharing water with Texas.

New Mexico could rely on credits and debits from year to year to navigate through drought and wet periods, though it could be responsible for additional water-sharing obligations if deliveries are deferred too long.

The international group Sustainable Waters is wrapping up an extensive study on how the river’s water is being used.

Brian Richter, the group’s president, said that over the last couple of decades, New Mexico has lost more than 70% of its reservoir storage along the river while groundwater has been extracted faster than it can be replenished. Add to that New Mexico has fallen behind in its water deliveries to Texas.

Richter called it a triple whammy.

“We’re definitely in a precarious situation and it’s going to become more challenging going forward,” he said. “So I think it’s going to require sort of a major reenvisioning of what we want New Mexico’s water future to look like.”

The parties in the case say the proposed agreements will facilitate investments and innovation in water conservation.

“The whole settlement package really provides for the long-term vitality, economic vitality, for the communities in both New Mexico and Texas,” said Hannah Riseley-White, director of the Interstate Stream Commission.

New Mexico would have two years to adopt a plan to manage and share water along its southernmost stretch of the Rio Grande. The state can still pump some groundwater while monitoring aquifer levels.

“The burden is on New Mexico,” said Stuart Somach, lead attorney for Texas in the Rio Grande dispute.

All dried up

In Albuquerque, it looks grim.

It’s common to have stretches of the Rio Grande go dry farther south, but not in New Mexico’s largest city. Prior to 2022, it had been four decades since Albuquerque had seen the muddy waters reduced to isolated puddles and lengthy sandbars.

Aside from a changing climate, water managers say the inability to store water in upstream reservoirs due to compact obligations exacerbates the problem.

Many of the intricacies of managing the Rio Grande are as invisible to residents as the water itself.

Sisters Zoe and Phoebe Hughes set out to take photos during a recent evening, anticipating at least a sliver of water like usual. Instead they found deep sand and patchwork of cracked, curled beds of clay.

“It’s so dystopian. It’s sad,” Phoebe Hughes said, adding that the river isn’t so grand now.

Looking for a silver lining, the two collected pieces of riverbed clay, hoping they could fashion it into something. Other curious visitors played in the sand and walked dogs.

Downstream, Elephant Butte stands at less than 4% of capacity. The reservoir is an irrigation lifeline for farmers, fuels a hydropower station and serves as a popular recreation spot.

Reducing use

The settlements call for reducing groundwater depletions to a rate of 18,200 acre-feet per year. While that’s about one-sixth of the drinking water supplied to New York City each day, for the arid West, it’s a monumental amount.

New Mexico officials expect to achieve most of those reductions from buying water rights from willing sellers, meaning more than 14 square miles (36 square kilometers) of farmland would be retired.

Many details — and the price tag — have yet to be worked out, the general counsel for the New Mexico state engineer’s office told state lawmakers this month. The Legislature in 2023 set aside $65 million toward the settlements and related infrastructure projects, and the state is tapping additional federal dollars. But it will still need more funds, experts say.

Riseley-White said it will take a combination of efforts, including long-term fallowing programs, water conservation and more efficient irrigation infrastructure.

“There isn’t one answer. It’s going to be necessarily an all-of-the-above approach,” she said, acknowledging that there will be less water in the future.

Attorney Sam Barncastle, who worked for years on behalf of irrigators, worries small farming operations and backyard gardeners could ultimately be pushed out.

“Farmland does not come back once it’s gone,” she said.

Peppers and pecans

The overall idea is to avoid abruptly curtailing water for users, but farmers in southern New Mexico have concerns about how much water will be available and who will be able to use it.

New Mexico is the nation’s No. 2 pecan producer, and the sprawling orchards would die without consistent water. The state also is home to world-renowned chilies — a signature crop tightly woven into New Mexico’s cultural identity.

Ben Etcheverry, a board member of the New Mexico Chile Association, said farmers have transitioned to drip irrigation to save water and energy but are continually told they have to do more with even less water and pay higher rates.

“It just becomes a game of whack-a-mole while we try to do better,” he said. “Every time we do better, it seems they turn it into a punishment.”

___

Lee reported from Santa Fe.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan

President Donald Trump has audaciously claimed virtually unlimited power to bypass Congress and impose sweeping taxes on foreign products.

Now a federal appeals court has thrown a roadblock in his path.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled Friday that Trump went too far when he declared national emergencies to justify imposing sweeping import taxes on almost every country on earth. The ruling largely upheld a May decision by a specialized federal trade court in New York. But the 7-4 appeals court decision tossed out a part of that ruling striking down the tariffs immediately, allowing his administration time to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ruling was a big setback for Trump, whose erratic trade policies have rocked financial markets, paralyzed businesses with uncertainty and raised fears of higher prices and slower economic growth.

Which tariffs did the court knock down?

The court’s decision centers on the tariffs Trump slapped in April on almost all U.S. trading partners and levies he imposed before that on China, Mexico and Canada.

Trump on April 2 — Liberation Day, he called it — imposed so-called reciprocal tariffs of up to 50% on countries with which the United States runs a trade deficit and 10% baseline tariffs on almost everybody else.

The president later suspended the reciprocal tariffs for 90 days to give countries time to negotiate trade agreements with the United States — and reduce their barriers to American exports. Some of them did — including the United Kingdom, Japan and the European Union — and agreed to lopsided deals with Trump to avoid even bigger tariffs.

Those that didn’t knuckle under — or otherwise incurred Trump’s wrath — got hit harder earlier this month. Laos got rocked with a 40% tariff, for instance, and Algeria with a 30% levy. Trump also kept the baseline tariffs in place.

Claiming extraordinary power to act without congressional approval, Trump justified the taxes under the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act by declaring the United States’ longstanding trade deficits “a national emergency.”

In February, he’d invoked the law to impose tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China, saying that the illegal flow of immigrants and drugs across the U.S. border amounted to a national emergency and that the three countries needed to do more to stop it.

The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to set taxes, including tariffs. But lawmakers have gradually let presidents assume more power over tariffs — and Trump has made the most of it.

The court challenge does not cover other Trump tariffs, including levies on foreign steel, aluminum and autos that the president imposed after Commerce Department investigations concluded that those imports were threats to U.S. national security.

Nor does it include tariffs that Trump imposed on China in his first term — and President Joe Biden kept — after a government investigation concluded that the Chinese used unfair practices to give their own technology firms an edge over rivals from the United States and other Western countries.

Why did the court rule against the president?

The administration had argued that courts had approved then-President Richard Nixon’s emergency use of tariffs in the economic chaos that followed his decision to end a policy that linked the U.S. dollar to the price of gold. The Nixon administration successfully cited its authority under the 1917 Trading With Enemy Act, which preceded and supplied some of the legal language later used in IEEPA.

In May, the U.S. Court of International Trade in New York rejected the argument, ruling that Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs “exceed any authority granted to the President’’ under the emergency powers law. In reaching its decision, the trade court combined two challenges — one by five businesses and one by 12 U.S. states — into a single case.

On Friday, the federal appeals court wrote in its 7-4 ruling that “it seems unlikely that Congress intended to … grant the President unlimited authority to impose tariffs.”

A dissent from the judges who disagreed with Friday’s ruling clears a possible legal path for Trump, concluding that the 1977 law allowing for emergency actions “is not an unconstitutional delegation of legislative authority under the Supreme Court’s decisions,” which have allowed the legislature to grant some tariffing authorities to the president.

So where does this leave Trump’s trade agenda?

The government has argued that if Trump’s tariffs are struck down, it might have to refund some of the import taxes that it’s collected, delivering a financial blow to the U.S. Treasury. Revenue from tariffs totaled $159 billion by July, more than double what it was at the same point the year before. Indeed, the Justice Department warned in a legal filing this month that revoking the tariffs could mean “financial ruin” for the United States.

It could also put Trump on shaky ground in trying to impose tariffs going forward.

“While existing trade deals may not automatically unravel, the administration could lose a pillar of its negotiating strategy, which may embolden foreign governments to resist future demands, delay implementation of prior commitments, or even seek to renegotiate terms,” Ashley Akers, senior counsel at the Holland & Knight law firm and a former Justice Department trial lawyer, said before the appeals court decision.

The president vowed to take the fight to the Supreme Court. “If allowed to stand, this Decision would literally destroy the United States of America,” he wrote on his social media platform.

Trump does have alternative laws for imposing import taxes, but they would limit the speed and severity with which he could act. For instance, in its decision in May, the trade court noted that Trump retains more limited power to impose tariffs to address trade deficits under another statute, the Trade Act of 1974. But that law restricts tariffs to 15% and to just 150 days on countries with which the United States runs big trade deficits.

The administration could also invoke levies under a different legal authority — Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 — as it did with tariffs on foreign steel, aluminum and autos. But that requires a Commerce Department investigation and cannot simply be imposed at the president’s own discretion.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers have struck a deal with rideshare companies Uber and Lyft to allow drivers to join a union and bargain collectively for better wages and benefits.

The agreement includes a bill for collective bargaining backed by the Service Employees International Union along with a measure sponsored by Uber and Lyft that would significantly reduce the companies’ insurance requirements for accidents caused by underinsured drivers, would ultimately reduce costs for passengers.

“Labor and industry sat down together, worked through their differences, and found common ground that will empower hundreds of thousands of drivers while making rideshare more affordable for millions of Californians,” Newsom said in a press release.

The legislative package represents a significant compromise in the yearslong battle between labor unions and tech companies.

Last July, the California Supreme Court ruled that app-based ride-hailing and delivery services like Uber and Lyft can continue treating their drivers as independent contractors not entitled to benefits like overtime pay, paid sick leave and unemployment insurance. It upheld a voter-approved ballot measure passed in 2020 that reversed a 2019 law mandating that Uber and Lyft provide drivers with benefits.

The collective bargaining bill would allow the more than 800,000 rideshare workers in California to join a union while still being classified as independent contractors. Currently, independent contractors are excluded from the National Labor Relations Act, a federal law that grants workers collective bargaining rights and protections.

David Green, president of SEIU Local 721, called it the “largest expansion of private sector collective bargaining in California history.”

With the endorsement from Newsom and legislative leaders, it will likely become law, but it still has to be passed in the Senate and the Assembly in the next two weeks before being signed by the governor to be enacted.

Some of the issues that rideshare drivers say they face include being “deactivated” from the app without an explanation or fair appeals process if a passenger complains.

Margarita Penazola, a driver and member of the California Gig Workers Union advocacy group, said this happened to her a few years ago, resulting in three days of lost income. She believes the ability to unionize would give drivers a voice to address these issues.

“It means being able to speak up and protect ourselves and our passengers without fear,” Penazola said. “We’re the ones out there every day. We’re the ones that know what’s really happening on the ground, and we should be a part of the decisions that impact our jobs and the people we are trusted to drive safely.”

Another driver, Mike Robinson, said he saw his pay go from $700 per week driving 40 hours per week when he first started in 2015, to $500 per week today, before expenses like gas and maintenance. When he was diagnosed with cancer in 2023, he couldn’t work and did not have health insurance, he said.

“We need to be able to bargain for fair pay, basic protections and real benefits,” Robinson said.

California would be the second state where drivers would be able to unionize after Massachusetts voters passed a ballot referendum last November allowing drivers to do the same. Uber and Lyft initially opposed the bill.

“We’re encouraged to see these two bills advancing in tandem,” Ramona Prieto, Uber’s head of public policy for California, said in a press release. “Together, they represent a compromise that lowers costs for riders while creating stronger voices for drivers.”

Uber and Lyft fares in California are consistently higher than in other parts of the U.S. because of insurance requirements, according to the companies. Uber has said that nearly one-third of every ride fare in the state goes toward paying for state-mandated insurance.

The insurance bill would reduce the coverage requirement for accidents caused by uninsured or under-insured drivers from $1 million to $60,000 per individual and $300,000 per accident.

Nick Johnson, director of public policy at Lyft, said it will bring “runaway insurance costs under control” and help “maintain the affordability of rideshare.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Lea Suzuki—San Francisco Chronicle via AP,

Thousands of Americans will head to beaches for one last summer splash this Labor Day weekend, but taking a dip might be out of the question: Many of the beaches will caution against swimming because of unsafe levels of fecal contamination.

Beaches from Crystal River, Florida, to Ogunquit, Maine, have been under advisories warning about water quality this week because of elevated levels of bacteria associated with fecal waste. The advisories typically discourage beachgoers from going in the water because the bacteria can cause gastrointestinal illness, rashes and nausea.

There have been closures this week at some of the country’s most popular beach destinations, including Keyes Memorial Beach in the Cape Cod village of Hyannis in Barnstable, Massachusetts; Benjamin’s Beach on Long Island in Bay Shore, New York; and a portion of the Imperial Beach shoreline near San Diego. Even on the pristine, white sand beaches of Hawaii, the Hawaii State Department of Health is warning of a high bacteria count at Kahaluu Beach Park on the Big Island.

It’s a longstanding and widespread problem. Nearly two-thirds of beaches tested nationwide in 2024 experienced at least one day in which indicators of fecal contamination reached potentially unsafe levels, conservation group Environment America said in a report issued this summer.

The group reviewed beaches on the coasts and Great Lakes and found that 84% of Gulf Coast beaches exceeded the standard at least once. The number was 79% for West Coast beaches, 54% for East Coast beaches and 71% for Great Lakes beaches.

The report also said more than 450 beaches were potentially unsafe for swimming on at least 25 percent of the days tested. A key reason is outdated water and sewer systems that allows contamination from sewage to reach the places where people swim, said John Rumpler, clean water director and senior attorney with Environment America.

“These beaches are a treasure for families across New England and across the country. They are a shared resource,” said Rumpler, who is based in Boston. “We need to make the investment to make sure that literally our own human waste doesn’t wind up in the places where we are swimming.”

Other factors have also played a role in contaminating beaches, including increasingly severe weather that overwhelms sewage systems, and suburban sprawl that paves over natural areas and reduces the ecosystem’s ability to absorb stormwater, Rumpler said.

But many people plan to jump in the ocean anyway. Despite a two-day warning of elevated fecal indicator bacteria last month at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, beachgoer Yaromyr Oryshkevych was not concerned.

“I really don’t expect to be in any kind of danger of fecal contamination,” said Oryshkevych, a retired dentist. He said he didn’t think Rehoboth was close enough to notable pollution to be concerned, and he expected the ocean’s natural currents to take care of any problems with contamination in the area.

Dana West, a federal worker visiting Rehoboth Beach, recalled an instance earlier this year where a dozen members of his vacationing party experienced gastrointestinal issues. The symptoms occurred after they went on a snorkeling excursion, an activity that increases the likelihood of swallowing seawater, off the coast of Isla Mujeres, Mexico.

It was an unpleasant experience, but he doesn’t expect a repeat this weekend in Delaware.

“But generally, I have no concerns about the level of fecal and bacterial matter,” said West while admiring Rehoboth’s shore. ”I assume the local authorities will tell us if there are higher levels than normal.”

Despite West’s confidence, some beaches in the area of Rehoboth, including nearby Rehoboth Bay and Dewey Beach bayside, were indeed under water advisories this week. Such advisories are not always posted on public signs.

Environment America assessed beach safety in its report by examining whether fecal bacteria levels exceeded standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that trigger an alert to avoid the water. Fecal bacteria at those levels can cause illness in 32 out of every 1,000 swimmers.

In North Carolina, five beaches were under advisories in late August because of elevated levels of fecal bacteria. The beaches are open, but swimmers are advised that going in the water could be risky, said Erin Bryan-Millush, environmental program supervisor with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

Hurricane Erin caused extensive erosion and storm surge in some coastal areas, according to the Department of Environmental Quality. Heavy rain events this summer also exacerbated the contamination problem in some areas, Bryan-Millush said.

“Those storm drains carry everything,” Bryan-Millush said. “It could be really bad for someone who is immune compromised.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Eduardo Contreras—The San Diego Union-Tribune via AP

Budget carrier Spirit Airlines said Friday that it has filed for fresh bankruptcy protection months after emerging from a Chapter 11 reorganization.

The ultra low-cost airline said it plans to keep flying as usual during the restructuring process, meaning passengers can still book trips and use their tickets, credits and loyalty points. Employees and contractors will also continue to get paid, the company said.

CEO Dave Davis said the airline’s previous Chapter 11 petition focused on reducing debt and raising capital, and since exiting that process in March, “it has become clear that there is much more work to be done and many more tools are available to best position Spirit for the future.”

Flight attendants, meanwhile, were warned by union leaders to “prepare for all possible scenarios.”

“We are being direct because even as we have many ways to fight because of our union, we also want to get you the truth about the situation at our airline and how each of us can take actions to protect and prepare ourselves for any challenge,” the Association of Flight Attendants said Friday in a letter to its members.

Spirit, known for its bright yellow planes and no-frills service, has had a rough ride since the COVID-19 pandemic, struggling to rebound amid rising operation costs and its mounting debt. By the time of its first Chapter 11 filing in November, Spirit had lost more than $2.5 billion since the start of 2020.

The airline now carries $2.4 billion in long-term debt, most due in 2030, and reported a negative free cash flow of $1 billion at the end of the second quarter.

Friday’s news comes as budget carriers like Spirit are under pressure by bigger airlines, which have rolled out their own low-cost offerings. Spirit, meanwhile, is attempting to tap into a growing market for more upscale travel with its new tiered pricing that includes more perks on the higher end.

But in a quarterly report issued earlier this month, Spirit Aviation Holdings, the carrier’s parent company, revealed that it had “substantial doubt” about its ability to stay in business over the next year. The company cited “adverse market conditions” the company faced after its most recent restructuring.

That included poor demand for domestic leisure travel and “uncertainties in its business operations” that the Florida company expected to continue through at least the end of 2025.

Spirit’s cost-cutting efforts continued after emerging from bankruptcy protection in March, including plans to furlough about 270 pilots and downgrade some 140 captains to first officers in the coming months.

Those changes, which go into effect Oct. 1 and Nov. 1, were tied to expected flight volumes in 2026, the company has said. They also follow previous furloughs and job cuts before the company’s bankruptcy filing last year.

Despite the cuts, Spirit has said it needs more cash. As a result, the company said it was considering selling off certain aircraft and real estate.

Spirit’s fleet is relatively young, which has made the airline an attractive target. But buyout attempts from budget rivals like JetBlue and Frontier were unsuccessful both before and duringSpirt’s first bankruptcy process.

Spirit operates 5,013 flights to 88 destinations in the U.S., the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, Panama and Colombia, according to travel search engine Skyscanner.net

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Charles Krupa—AP Photo

One international student after another told the University of Central Missouri this summer that they couldn’t get a visa, and many struggled to even land an interview for one.

Even though demand was just as high as ever, half as many new international graduate students showed up for fall classes compared to last year.

The decline represents a hit to the bottom line for Central Missouri, a small public university that operates close to its margins with an endowment of only $65 million. International students typically account for nearly a quarter of its tuition revenue.

“We aren’t able to subsidize domestic students as much when we have fewer international students who are bringing revenue to us,” said Roger Best, the university’s president.

Signs of a decline in international students have unsettled colleges around the U.S. Colleges with large numbers of foreign students and small endowments have little financial cushion to protect them from steep losses in tuition money.

International students represent at least 20% of enrollment at more than 100 colleges with endowments of less than $250,000 per student, according to an Associated Press analysis. Many are small Christian colleges, but the group also includes large universities such as Northeastern and Carnegie Mellon.

The extent of the change in enrollment will not be clear until the fall. Some groups have forecast a decline of as much as 40%, with a huge impact on college budgets and the wider U.S. economy.

International students face new scrutiny on several fronts

As part of a broader effort to reshape higher education, President Donald Trump has pressed colleges to limit their numbers of international students and heightened scrutiny of student visas. His administration has moved to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian activism, and new student visa appointments were put on hold for weeks as it ramped up vetting of applicants’ social media.

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security said it will propose a rule that would put new limits on the time foreign students can stay in the U.S.

The policies have introduced severe financial instability for colleges, said Justin Gest, a professor at George Mason University who studies the politics of immigration.

Foreign students are not eligible for federal financial aid and often pay full price for tuition — double or even triple the in-state rate paid by domestic students at public universities.

“To put it more dollars and cents-wise, if an international student comes in and pays $80,000 a year in tuition, that gives universities the flexibility to offer lower fees and more scholarship money to American students,” Gest said.

A Sudanese student barely made it to the US for the start of classes

Ahmed Ahmed, a Sudanese student, nearly didn’t make it to the U.S. for his freshman year at the University of Rochester.

The Trump administration in June announced a travel ban on 12 countries, including Sudan. Diplomatic officials assured Ahmed he could still enter the U.S. because his visa was issued before the ban. But when he tried to board a flight to leave for the U.S. from Uganda, where he stayed with family during the summer, he was turned away and advised to contact an embassy about his visa.

With the help of the University of Rochester’s international office, Ahmed was able to book another flight.

At Rochester, where he received a scholarship to study electrical engineering, Ahmed, 19, said he feels supported by the staff. But he also finds himself on edge and understands why other students might not want to subject themselves to the scrutiny in the U.S., particularly those who are entirely paying their own way.

“I feel like I made it through, but I’m one of the last people to make it through,” he said.

Colleges are taking steps to blunt the impact

In recent years, international students have made up about 30% of enrollment at Central Missouri, which has a total of around 12,800 students. In anticipation of the hit to international enrollment, Central Missouri cut a cost-of-living raise for employees. It has pushed off infrastructure improvements planned for its campus and has been looking for other ways to cut costs.

Small schools — typically classified as those with no more than 5,000 students — tend to have less financial flexibility and will be especially vulnerable, said Dick Startz, an economics professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Lee University, a Christian institution with 3,500 students in Tennessee, is expecting 50 to 60 international students enrolled this fall, down from 82 the previous school year, representing a significant drop in revenue for the school, said Roy Y. Chan, the university’s director of graduate studies.

The school already has increased tuition by 20% over the past five years to account for a decrease in overall enrollment, he said.

“Since we’re a smaller liberal arts campus, tuition cost is our main, primary revenue,” Chan said, as opposed to government funding or donations.

The strains on international enrollment only add to distress for schools already on the financial brink.

Colleges around the country have been closing as they cope with declines in domestic enrollment, a consequence of changing demographics and the effects of the pandemic. Nationwide, private colleges have been closing at a rate of about two per month, according to the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association.

The number of high school graduates in the U.S. is expected to decline through 2041, when there will be 13% fewer compared to 2024, according to projections from the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.

“That means that if you lost participation from international students, it’s even worse,” Startz said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Matt Hamilton—Chattanooga Times Free Press via AP

President Donald Trump has picked Jim O’Neill, a former investor and critic of health regulations serving under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., to take control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, following a tumultuous week in which the agency’s director was forced out.

O’Neill, Kennedy’s deputy at the Department of Health and Human Services, will supplant Susan Monarez, a longtime government scientist who had been the CDC director for less than a month.

Monarez’s lawyers said she refused “to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts.”

O’Neill takes over as acting director of an agency that has been rocked by firings, resignations and efforts by Kennedy to reshape the nation’s vaccine policies to match his long-standing suspicions about the safety and effectiveness of long-established shots.

An HHS spokesperson said Friday that O’Neill would continue to serve as deputy of the department but did not provide details on his new role.

A former associate of billionaire tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel, O’Neill previously helped run one of Thiel’s investment funds and later managed several of his other projects. Those included a nonprofit working to develop manmade islands that would float outside U.S. territory, allowing them to experiment with new forms of government.

He has no training in medicine or health care and holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in humanities.

A Washington insider on a team of outsiders

O’Neill has kept a markedly lower profile than Trump’s other top health officials, who all joined the administration as Washington outsiders. He’s also the only one with experience working at HHS, where he served for six years under President George W. Bush.

Those who know him say he’ll likely be tasked with trying to calm the situation at CDC — though it’s unclear what, if any, independence he’ll have from Kennedy.

“Jim O’Neill is a health care policy professional and I don’t think anybody can accuse him of being an RFK Jr. sock puppet,” said Peter Pitts, a former FDA official under Bush. “The question becomes whether the role of CDC director becomes a strictly paper tiger position, where the person only does what they’re told to by the secretary.”

O’Neill is not closely associated with Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement and its efforts against food dyes, fluoride and ultraprocessed foods.

He was also not a major critic of public health measures during the pandemic, unlike Food and Drug Administration chief Marty Makary and other Trump officials. Although O’Neill did use social media to criticize FDA efforts to stop the prescribing of unproven treatments for COVID-19, including the anti-parasite drug ivermectin.

O’Neill has pushed for less regulation

O’Neill has long-standing ties to the libertarian wing of the Republican Party, including Thiel, one of Trump’s leading supporters from Silicon Valley. Like Thiel, O’Neill has expressed disdain for many parts of the federal bureaucracy, saying it hinders advances in medicine, technology and other areas.

During Trump’s first term, O’Neill was vetted as a possible choice to lead the FDA, although his past statements about the agency raised alarms among pharmaceutical and medical technology executives.

In particular, O’Neill proposed doing away with FDA’s 60-year-old mandate of assuring new drugs are both safe and effective in treating disease. In a 2014 speech, O’Neill suggested drug effectiveness could be established after they hit the market.

Trump ultimately nominated Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former FDA official and supporter of the agency’s regulatory approach, as commissioner.

Refusal to break with Kennedy on vaccines

After being nominated to the HHS post, O’Neill voiced his support for the federal government’s traditional system for overseeing vaccines — including the role of the CDC — while refusing to criticize Kennedy’s views on the topic.

“I support CDC’s recommendations for vaccines,” O’Neill told Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy at a confirmation hearing in June. “I think that’s a central role that CDC has. It’s mandated in law.”

In follow-up questions, ranking Democrat Ron Wyden pressed O’Neill on statements by Kennedy downplaying the safety and effectiveness of vaccines to prevent measles and other diseases.

“Secretary Kennedy has not made it difficult nor discouraged people from taking vaccines,” O’Neill responded.

High-stakes vaccine decisions ahead

Within weeks, O’Neill could be asked to sign off on new recommendations from a CDC panel that Kennedy has reshaped with vaccine skeptics. The group is scheduled to meet next month to review vaccinations for measles, hepatitis and other conditions that have long been established on the government schedule for children.

Traditionally, the CDC director signs off on recommendations from the panel. But Monarez was ousted after, among other things, she refused to automatically sign off the committee’s recommendations, according to Dr. Richard Besser, a former CDC acting director who spoke to her.

As an acting official, federal law limits O’Neill to no more than 210 days heading the agency before he must step aside or be formally nominated to the post.

Dr. Anne Schuchat, who served twice as acting CDC director, says there are essentially no limits on the powers of the acting agency chiefs, beyond the time constraints.

“I was told, ‘You’re the director. Do what you need to do,’” Schuchat said.

Dueling health roles

Both of O’Neill’s roles at HHS and CDC are demanding, full-time jobs that would be extremely challenging for one person to do simultaneously, Schuchat said.

“But if the goal is to have an acting CDC director fulfill a predetermined decision about vaccines, it’s a different story,” Schuchat said.

It won’t help O’Neill that there was an exodus this week of four veteran CDC center directors, leaving the agency with few leaders who have a background in medicine, science or public health crisis management, she added.

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AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe contributed to this story from New York

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Amy Rossetti/Department of Health and Human Services via AP

The Transportation Department on Friday canceled $679 million in federal funding for a dozen offshore wind projects, the latest attack by the Trump administration on the reeling U.S. offshore wind industry.

Funding for projects in 11 states was rescinded, including $435 million for a floating wind farm in Northern California and $47 million to boost an offshore wind project in Maryland that the Interior Department has pledged to cancel.

“Wasteful wind projects are using resources that could otherwise go towards revitalizing America’s maritime industry,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a statement. “Thanks to President Trump, we are prioritizing real infrastructure improvements over fantasy wind projects that cost much and offer little.”

It’s the latest step by the administration against renewable energy sources

The Trump administration has stepped up its crusade against wind and other renewable energy sources in recent weeks, cutting federal funding and canceling projects approved by the Biden administration in a sustained attack on clean energy sources that scientists say are crucial to the fight against climate change.

President Donald Trump has vowed to restore U.S. “energy dominance” in the global market and has pushed to increase U.S. reliance on fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas that emit planet-warming greenhouse gases.

California Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, called Duffy’s action “outrageous” and deeply disappointing.

Trump and his Cabinet “have a stubborn and mystifying hatred of clean energy,” Huffman said in an interview. “It’s so dogmatic. They are willing to eliminate thousands of jobs and an entire sector that can bring cheap, reliable power to American consumers.”

The canceled funding will be redirected to upgrade ports and other infrastructure in the U.S., where possible, the Transportation Department said.

Other wind projects are also being halted

Separately, Trump’s Energy Department said Friday it is withdrawing a $716 million loan guarantee approved by the Biden administration to upgrade and expand transmission infrastructure to accommodate a now-threatened offshore wind project in New Jersey.

The moves come as the administration abruptly halted construction last week of a nearly complete wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut. The Interior Department said the government needs to review the $4 billion Revolution Wind project and address national security concerns. It did not specify what those concerns are.

Democratic governors, lawmakers and union workers in New England have called for Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to reverse course.

Trump has long expressed disdain for wind power, frequently calling it an ugly and expensive form of energy that “smart” countries don’t use.

Earlier this month, the Interior Department canceled a major wind farm in Idaho, a project approved late in former President Joe Biden’s term that had drawn criticism for its proximity to a historic site where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II.

Trump blames renewable power for rising energy prices

Last week, with U.S. electricity prices rising at more than twice the rate of inflation, Trump lashed out, falsely blaming renewable power for skyrocketing energy costs. He called wind and solar energy “THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY!” in a social media post and vowed not to approve any wind or solar projects.

“We’re not allowing any windmills to go up unless there’s a legal situation where somebody committed to it a long time ago,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

Energy analysts say renewable sources have little to do with recent price hikes, which are based on increased demand from artificial intelligence and energy-hungry data centers, along with aging infrastructure and increasingly extreme weather events such as wildfires that are exacerbated by climate change.

Revolution Wind’s developer, Danish energy company Orsted, said it is evaluating the financial impact of stopping construction on the New England project and is considering legal proceedings.

Revolution Wind was expected to be Rhode Island and Connecticut’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, capable of powering more than 350,000 homes. In addition to hampering the states’ climate goals, losing out on all that renewable power could drive up electricity prices throughout the region, Democratic officials say.

Critics say climate and jobs are at risk

Trump has made sweeping strides to prioritize fossil fuels and hinder renewable energy projects. Those include reviewing wind and solar energy permits, canceling plans to use large areas of federal waters for new offshore wind development and stopping work on another offshore wind project for New York, although construction was later allowed to resume.

Some critics say the steps to cancel projects put Americans’ livelihoods at risk.

“It’s an attack on our jobs,” Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said of the move to stop construction of Revolution Wind. “It’s an attack on our energy. It’s an attack on our families and their ability to pay the bills.”

Patrick Crowley, president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, said his union is “going to fight (Trump) every step of the way, no matter how long it takes.”

Under Biden, the U.S. held the first-ever auction of leases for floating wind farms in December 2022. Deep waters off the West Coast are better suited for floating projects than those that are anchored in the seabed, officials said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Donald Trump’s administration this week told 40 states to eliminate parts of lessons that focus on LGBTQ+ issues from federally funded sexual education materials or that they will lose funding.

The move is the latest in a line of efforts since Trump returned to the White House in January to recognize people as only male or female and to eliminate what he calls “gender ideology.”

“Federal funds will not be used to poison the minds of the next generation or advance dangerous ideological agendas,” Acting Assistant Health and Human Service Secretary Andrew Gradison said in a statement.

That position contradicts what the American Medical Association and other mainstream medical groups say: that extensive scientific research suggests sex and gender are better understood as a spectrum than as an either-or definition.

The funds in question in the Personal Responsibility Education Program total over $81 million for the 40 states plus the District of Columbia and five territories where officials were also sent the letter. The officials were told they have 60 days to change the lessons or could lose their grants.

California was warned previously, and the $12 million grant for that state was stripped on Aug. 21.

Now, other states will have until late October to decide whether to comply or give up the funding.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong also suggested there could be legal challenges to the administration’s effort. “Threatening to defund our schools over this is completely unhinged and we’re not going to let Trump steal money from our kids,” he said in a statement.

The grants are used to teach adolescents about abstinence and contraception. They target education for those who are homeless, in foster care, living in rural areas or places with high teen birth rates — and minority groups, including LGBTQ+ populations.

Alison Macklin, spokesperson for SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change, said the grant money is used for things like training sex education instructors and for groups that present lessons in schools or after-school groups.

“This money is essential to states and territories to support sex education,” she said. “They build critical life skills for young people.”

She noted that some states have laws requiring education about lesbian, gay and transgender people.

In the letters, the federal Administration for Children and Families pointed to specific examples in textbooks and curricula that they find objectionable.

For instance, a curriculum used in Alabama encourages the instructor to ask participants to share the pronouns they use.

It also tells the instructor to tell the class that people “may identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual or straight. Some may identify as male, female or transgender. All of these differences make us unique. Regardless of how you see yourself, your background, previous relationships or experience, each of you has a place in this group.”

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster applauded the warnings during a question-and-answer period with reporters this week.

“The things they describe there really have got no business being in there,” he said. “Somebody has gone crazy somewhere trying to put all this stuff” in lessons.

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Associated Press reporters Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, and Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut, contributed to this article.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File

Delta Air Lines has agreed to pay $79 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 2020 after one of its airplanes that was experiencing engine trouble dumped its fuel over schoolyards and densely populated neighborhoods near Los Angeles.

The Delta jet had departed from Los Angeles to Shanghai on Jan. 14, 2020 when it needed to quickly return to Los Angeles International Airport. The Boeing 777-200 landed safely after circling back over Los Angeles while dumping 15,000 gallons of fuel to reach a safe landing weight.

Los Angeles County firefighters were called to schools in the city of Cudahy where nearly 60 schoolchildren and teachers were examined for minor skin and lung irritations. None required hospitalization.

Shortly after, teachers from Park Avenue Elementary School in Cudahy filed a lawsuit against the airline, saying they were exposed to jet fuel that drizzled down like raindrops with “overwhelming” fumes. They described feeling the fuel on their clothes, skin and eyes. Later, several Cudahy homeowners filed a class-action suit.

The teachers said they sought medical treatment after the incident and experienced physical and emotional pain.

Delta said in the lawsuit settlement reached Monday that one of the plane’s two engines lost thrust shortly after takeoff and that the plane, which was carrying enough fuel for the 13-hour flight, exceeded its maximum landing weight by around 160,000 pounds.

The weight of a full load of fuel carries a risk of damaging a jetliner during landing — which can be expensive for an airline to fix. Even if there isn’t damage, airlines try to avoid overweight landings because they are required to inspect planes, which puts them out of service.

The pilots decided to dump fuel “to reduce the serious risks of flying and landing an overweight airplane on just one engine.” the airline said in court documents.

Delta said in court documents that it agreed to the settlement without any admission of liability to avoid the legal expenses of a trial and “to eliminate the distraction and other burdens this litigation has caused to Delta’s business.”

Delta did not immediately respond Friday to a request for comment.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File

This could buy a lot of Labor Day weekend sunblock: Saturday’s Powerball jackpot is estimated at $1 billion, the sixth-largest prize in the game’s history.

Powerball, which costs $2 per ticket, is played in 45 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The jackpot has been growing each week because no one has matched all six numbers since May 31.

As ticket sales climbed this week, game officials raised the estimated Saturday night jackpot to $1 billion from $950 million, before taxes. Payments would be spread over 30 years, or a winner can choose an immediate lump sum of $453 million, again before taxes.

“We’re bringing extra excitement to Labor Day weekend,” said Matt Strawn, head of the Iowa Lottery and chair of Powerball.

The odds of matching all six numbers, of course, are daunting: 1 in 292.2 million. By comparison, the odds of getting a rare shark bite during a last summer dip in the ocean are much lower, according to the Florida Museum of Natural History.

Angela Schwartz, who sells tickets at City Market in downtown Detroit, said the message Friday was consistent: “Give me a lucky Powerball.”

“I don’t know if that’s enough for me,” she said with a laugh, referring to the lump-sum payout a winner could get. “It could pay a few bills.”

At a Fuel City in Dallas, Duran Hargest let the lottery machine spit out four tickets with random numbers.

“It could be a blessing,” he said of winning the jackpot. “It could also be a curse, depending on how you use it. I just wanted to make sure if I get it, you know, take care of my family and then probably help others that probably need it, too.”

Powerball and Mega Millions are lottery games with potentially huge jackpots because they are played in multiple states. The top Powerball jackpot was $2.04 billion on Nov. 7, 2022. The largest Mega Millions jackpot was $1.6 billion on Aug. 8, 2023.

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LaFleur reported from Dallas.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough

Twenty years after Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast with catastrophic storm surge and flooding, New Orleans marked the storm’s anniversary Friday with solemn memorials, uplifting music and a parade that honored the dead, the displaced and the determined survivors who endured and rebuilt.

Dignitaries and longtime residents gathered under gray skies at the memorial to Katrina’s victims in a New Orleans cemetery where dozens who perished in the storm but were never identified or claimed are interred.

“We do everything to keep the memory of these people alive,” said Orrin Duncan, who worked for the coroner when Katrina hit. He comes to the memorial every year, opening the cemetery gate and making sure the grass is cut.

A Category 3 hurricane when it made landfall in Louisiana on Aug. 29, 2005, Katrina inflicted staggering destruction. The storm killed nearly 1,400 people across five states and racked up an estimated $200 billion in damage, flattening homes on the coast and sending ruinous flooding into low-lying neighborhoods.

Two decades later, it remains the costliest U.S. hurricane on record, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The failure of New Orleans’ federal levee system inundated about 80% of the city in floodwaters that took weeks to drain. Thousands of people clung to rooftops to survive or waited for evacuation in the sweltering, under-provisioned Superdome football stadium.

In New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, a predominantly Black community devastated by flooding when parts of the protective levee collapsed, hundreds watched Friday as an ensemble of white-clad children atop the levee wall sang a song of the sorrow and survival.

“We are the children of the ones who did not die,” they sang. “We are the children of the people who could fly. And we are the children of the ones who persevered.”

Mayor says New Orleans came back ‘better and stronger’

At the cemetery memorial, revered jazz clarinetist Michael White played “When the Saints Go Marching In” as a procession carried several wreaths to lay beside mausoleums of the storm victims. Mayor LaToya Cantrell recalled the city’s sacrifices and projected optimism for its future.

“New Orleans is still here; New Orleans still stands,” Cantrell said. “New Orleans came back better and stronger than ever before.”

A minute of silence in front of the levee in the Lower Ninth Ward was followed by defiant speeches from community leaders recalling the delayed government response to Katrina that exacerbated suffering in New Orleans and worries that President Donald Trump’s talk of dismantling the Federal Emergency Management Agency, if carried out, would have grave consequences.

“Government neglect killed us,” local civil rights attorney Tracie Washington said. “We will never forget it.”

Hundreds more joined a brass band parade known as a second line. The beloved New Orleans tradition has its roots in African American jazz funerals, in which grieving family members march with the deceased alongside a band and trailed by a second line of dancing friends and bystanders.

A parade has been staged on every Katrina anniversary since local artists organized it in 2006 to help neighbors heal and unite the community.

“Second line allows everybody to come together,” said the Rev. Lennox Yearwood of Hip Hop Caucus, an organizer of the anniversary events. “We’re still here, and despite the storm, people have been strong and very powerful and have come together each and every year to continue to be there for one another.”

City leaders are pushing for the anniversary to become a state holiday.

Katrina’s impact still felt

In Mississippi, where hundreds perished as Katrina’s storm surge demolished homes overlooking the Gulf, residents and officials gathered to mark the anniversary in Gulfport.

Haley Barbour, Mississippi’s governor when the hurricane struck, recalled the “utter obliteration” he witnessed from a helicopter after the storm passed.

“It looked like the hand of God had wiped away the coast,” Barbour said.

The population of New Orleans, nearly half a million before Katrina, is now 384,000 after displaced residents scattered across the nation. While New Orleans remains a majority Black city, the exodus disproportionately affected its Black residents. Tens of thousands were unable to return after Katrina.

In the storm’s aftermath, the levee system was rebuilt, public schools were privatized, most public housing projects were demolished and a hospital was shuttered.

New Orleans resident Gary Wainwright said never misses the cemetery memorial service on Katrina’s anniversary. On Friday he wore a frayed red necktie, covered with the phrase “I love you.” He salvaged it from his battered home in the storm’s aftermath.

“It’s a little bit tattered, like the city,” Wainwright said. “But it’s still beautiful.”

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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

The leaders of India and Japan agreed Friday to bolster economic ties while also boosting cooperation in areas including clean energy and defense, as the two Asian powers face common challenges such as China’s growing influence and U.S. tariffs.

Following their summit in Tokyo, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba agreed on a goal of boosting Japanese private investment in India to about $6.8 billion a year over the coming decade, up from about $2.7 billion a year in the 2010s.

They also agreed to increase exchanges of workers and students to half a million people in the coming five years. The two governments hope India’s young workforce can help address labor shortages caused by Japan’s aging and declining population.

“We believe that Japanese technology and Indian talent are a winning combination,” Modi told a news conference.

The two leaders released a “joint vision” of cooperation for the next decade in areas such as security, defense, clean energy, technology and space, and signed a total of 11 documents.

“As the economies and vibrant democracies of the world, partnership is extremely important not just for our two countries but for global peace and stability as well,” Modi said.

“We need to have to take advantage of each other’s strengths, to bring solutions to our challenges and to help each other,” Ishiba said.

On Sunday, Ishiba will escort Modi on a bullet train to Sendai in northern Japan, for a tour of a factory that makes machinery for producing semiconductors, before the Indian leader flies to China, the next destination of his Asia tour.

Ishiba needs to rack up diplomatic successes to buoy public support because he is under pressure from opponents within his own party to step down over parliamentary elections results in July when his coalition lost its majority in the upper house.

Friday’s India-Japan summit came days after Modi met China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and hailed improving relations between the two sides, following yearslong disputes over their Himalayan borders.

At a business forum earlier Friday, Modi urged Japanese companies to invest in India, saying that reforms have created more a transparent and predictable business environment. “In India’s development journey, Japan has always been an important partner,” he told the forum hosted by Japan’s powerful business lobby Keidanren.

Modi noted Suzuki Motor Corp.’s success in his country and said Japan and India can replicate “the same magic” in batteries, robotics, semiconductors, shipbuilding and nuclear energy and contribute to the development of the so-called Global South nations and Africa.

“Japan is a tech powerhouse and India is a talent powerhouse,” Modi said, and that together the two countries can “lead this century’s tech revolution,” in areas such as green energy, next generation mobility and logistics infrastructure.

Ishiba said the two countries share universal values like democracy and the rule of law and that “Japan’s advanced technology and India’s outstanding talent, as well as its large market, are complementing each other to a dramatic expansion of our economic ties.”

He emphasized the importance of expanding their cooperation from the Indian Ocean to Africa and Europe.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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From barbecues to getaways to shopping the sales, many people across the U.S. mark Labor Day — the federal holiday celebrating the American worker — by finding ways to relax.

The holiday with activist roots is celebrated on the first Monday of September, creating a three-day weekend that marks the unofficial end of summer.

Over 17 million passengers and crew were expected to be screened for air travel from Thursday through Wednesday, according to the Transportation Security Administration, with Friday being the day with the most travelers. AAA said that according to its booking data, top destinations for the weekend include Seattle, New York and Orlando, Florida.

Here’s what to know about Labor Day:

Labor Day’s origins date to the Gilded Age

Activists first sought to establish a day to pay tribute to workers in the late 1800s.

The first Labor Day celebration in the U.S. took place in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882, when some 10,000 workers marched in a parade organized by the Central Labor Union and the Knights of Labor.

Workers’ quality of life was declining as they transitioned from artisan to factory jobs, while factory owners’ quality of life was “just skyrocketing,” said Todd Vachon, an assistant professor in the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations.

In the years that followed, a handful of cities and states adopted laws recognizing Labor Day. President Grover Cleveland signed a congressional act in 1894 making it a federal holiday.

That was the same year that workers for the Pullman Palace Car Company went on strike after the railcar-maker cut wages without reducing rent in the company-owned town where workers lived near Chicago, Vachon said. Over 12 workers were killed after Cleveland sent federal troops to crush the strike, he said.

Cleveland’s move to establish Labor Day as a federal holiday is seen by some historians as a way for him “to make peace” with the working class, Vachon said.

Labor Day has become the unofficial end of summer

Travelers crowd airports and highways for end-of-summer escapes, and backyard chefs prepare cookouts for family and friends.

Barbecuing has been a part of Labor Day celebrations from the start, said Robert F. Moss, food writer, culinary historian and author of “Barbecue: The History of an American Institution.”

He said it was already such an entrenched tradition in the U.S. that when the labor movements developed in the late 19th century, it was a natural way to celebrate as large groups gathered. In the 20th century, the holiday’s barbecues moved more toward gatherings of friends and family in backyards, he said.

“It still has a lot of that same communal sense, gathering around the grill, eating together,” he said.

How the labor movement has evolved over the decades

When Labor Day became a federal holiday in 1894, unions in the U.S. were largely contested and courts would often rule strikes illegal, leading to violent disputes, Vachon said. It wasn’t until the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 that private sector employees were granted the right to join unions.

Later into the 20th century, states also began passing legislation to allow unionization in the public sector. But even today, not all states allow collective bargaining for public workers.

In recent years, Vachon said, there’s been a resurgence in labor organizing, activism, interest and support.

The connection between fashion and Labor Day

The adage that one shouldn’t wear white after Labor Day is a “rule” that’s broken with fashionable results, but where did it originate?

Fashion experts say it likely goes back to the Gilded Age — the same period that spawned Labor Day. The cool, white frocks worn by wealthy New Yorkers summering in places such as Newport, Rhode Island, would be packed away upon their return to the city with its dirt-packed streets.

Christy Crutsinger, a professor in merchandising and digital retailing at University of North Texas, heard the adage from generations of women in her family. But “the fashion world’s not working that way anymore,” she added.

“People think it, say it, but don’t abide by it,” she said.

Still, fashion is on the mind of many around Labor Day, thanks to back-to-school shopping and a switch by many business people from a more relaxed summer dress code, said Daniel James Cole, adjunct assistant professor in fashion history at the Fashion Institute of Technology and co-author of “The History of Modern Fashion.”

The holiday, he said, “is kind of this hinge” between summertime dress and fun to going “back to more serious pursuits.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution will stop providing a print edition at year’s end and go completely digital, a dramatic change for a storied newspaper founded shortly after the Civil War.

The decision will make Atlanta the largest U.S. metro area without a printed daily newspaper, although some smaller metro Atlanta newspapers continue printing.

Publisher Andrew Morse said in his Thursday announcement that the news organization will aim to expand its audience as it continues to report the news using online, audio and video products.

“The fact is, many more people engage with our digital platforms and products today than with our print edition, and that shift is only accelerating,” Morse wrote in a letter to subscribers posted on the Journal-Constitution’s website. The AJC has about 115,000 total subscribers, of whom 75,000 are online only; Morse has set a goal of gaining 500,000 online subscribers.

The newspaper is privately owned by descendants of the Cox family. Former Ohio Gov. James Cox bought The Atlanta Journal in 1939 and The Atlanta Constitution in 1950. The Atlanta Constitution was founded in 1868, only a few years after the Civil War left Atlanta in ruins. It became the platform of famous editors including New South booster Henry Grady and anti-segregationist Ralph McGill.

Morse said The Journal-Constitution will offer a new mobile app by the end of the year and will provide an electronic replica edition for subscribers who prefer the experience of the paper edition.

Many smaller newspapers have stopped printing, while others have cut back their days of publication. For example, The Tampa Bay Times in Florida prints only two days a week. But it’s been unusual for major metropolitan dailies to entirely abandon print. The highest profile example is The Star-Ledger of Newark, New Jersey. Once the state’s top-selling newspaper, it stopped printing in February. It’s owned by the Newhouse family, which also stopped printing other sizable newspapers in New Jersey and Alabama.

The Medill Local News Initiative at Northwestern University counted 1,033 daily newspapers in 2024, down from 1,472 in 2005, and 650 digital-only news sites.

Some still see profits to be made with print. Decaturish, which covers the Atlanta suburb of Decatur, started as an online-only publication but launched a weekly print edition after it was bought last year by a suburban publisher. Dan Whisenhunt, the editor and founder of Decaturish, said some advertisers prefer print publications.

“They’re going to spend that money on print and they might as well spend it with us,” Whisenhunt said, saying that the end of a printed newspaper could create new opportunities for others. “Sustainability in journalism requires multiple revenue streams,” he said.

The Cox family has invested in The Journal-Constitution since Morse, a former CNN executive, became publisher in 2023. The Journal-Constitution has hired reporters in the Georgia cities of Athens, Macon and Savannah, expanded an offering focused on Black culture, and pushed new audio and video offerings. The business also moved into a new office in Atlanta’s Midtown area, returning inside the city limits from an office in the northern suburbs.

Company executives said the print edition was still profitable, after they outsourced printing to another newspaper in Gainesville, Georgia, in 2021. When Morse came on board, he paused a plan to curtail the print edition. But now the time is right, he said.

“We will begin the new year as a fully digital organization, committed, as always, to being the most essential and engaging news source for the people of Atlanta, Georgia and the South,” Morse wrote.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Jeff Amy

President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie before the body considers the largest railroad merger ever proposed.

Board member Robert E. Primus said on LinkedIn that he received an email from the White House Wednesday night terminating the position he has held since he was appointed by Trump in his first term. The vacancy would allow Trump to appoint two additional Republicans to the board before its decision on the Union Pacific-Norfolk Southern merger though the Senate would have to confirm them.

Primus was the only board member to oppose Canadian Pacific’s acquisition of Kansas City Southern railroad when it was approved two years ago because he was concerned it would hurt competition. He was named Board chairman last year by former President Joe Biden and led the board until Trump, after his election, elevated Board member Patrick Fuchs to Chairman.

This follows Trump’s previous firings of board members at the National Transportation Safety Board, Federal Reserve, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which are all supposed to be independent agencies.

“Robert Primus did not align with the President’s America First agenda, and was terminated from his position by the White House,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said. “The administration intends to nominate new, more qualified members to the Surface Transportation Board in short order.”

Primus said he doesn’t think the firing is valid because the White House didn’t offer any cause for it, and he plans to fight. He also rejected their explanation for the move because he has long tried to encourage railroads to serve every industry better and help them grow, but he has already been removed from the STB website.

“I’ve been pro growth across the board in terms of encouraging growth in the freight rail network, which in turn will grow our national economy. So if that’s not being in line with America first, then I don’t know what America he’s saying is first,” Primus said to The Associated Press.

He said the firings at all these agencies threaten their independence and credibility. Primus said in his tenure the STB always strove to be impartial and apolitical.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who serves on the Commerce Committee, said it’s clear that “Donald Trump is trying to stack the deck so the federal government rubberstamps the merger as a huge favor for Wall Street and wealthy railroad owners.” She said Primus has been a fair regulator who worked hard to make sure railroads delivered for their customers and focused on safety.

Every rail worker union and the nonprofit Rail Passengers Association also quickly condemned the firing.

“The explanation provided for this decision — that his position has been “eliminated” — is nothing short of outrageous. Appointed bodies established through federal code are not designed to be erased at the whim of powerful corporate interests,” said the SMART-TD union that represents concductors. “This action is unprecedented, unlawful in spirit, and reeks of direct interference from hedge funds and the nation’s largest rail carriers.”

The board is set to consider Union Pacific’s $85 billion acquisition of Norfolk Southern in the next two years before deciding whether to approve the nation’s first transcontinental railroad and reduce the number of major freight railroads in the U.S. to five.

Primus said the biggest problems in the industry are the lack of growth and poor service after all the deep cuts railroads have made over the last decade in the interest of efficiency and improving profitability. He hasn’t taken a position on the UP-NS deal, but he doesn’t think mergers will necessarily improve competition.

“We don’t need to merge to increase competition. We need to understand that we have to grow,” he said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Europeans angry at Elon Musk still aren’t buying his cars months after the billionaire predicted a “major rebound” in Tesla sales, data released Thursday shows.

Tesla sales plunged 40% in July in the 27 European Union countries compared with the year earlier even as sales overall of electric vehicle soared, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. Meanwhile sales of Chinese rival BYD continued to climb fast, grabbing 1.1% market share of all car sales in the month versus Tesla’s 0.7%.

Tesla stock fell 1.5% in afternoon trading Thursday.

Musk angered many Europeans by wading into politics there, embracing far-right candidates, calling a British prime minister an “evil tyrant” who belongs in prison and telling Germans “things will get very, very much worse” in their country if they didn’t vote for the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party. Protests broke out in several cities, including a hanging of the billionaire in effigy in Milan and posters in London likening him to a Nazi.

The company has several other problems that have hurt sales.

The company is still awaiting European regulatory approval to allow Tesla owners there to use its most advanced driver-assistance features available in the U.S., a big appeal to buyers. Musk had predicted approval of its so-called Full-Self Driving software was going to happen by March of this year.

Another hit came from Tesla’s decision to close down factories temporarily earlier this year to retool for a new version of its best selling Model Y sport utility vehicle

The company is hoping the introduction of cheaper Teslas in the last three months of this year will boost sales.

Overall, the company sold 6,600 cars in July in the EU versus 11,465 a year ago. The plunge came despite a 39% surge in battery electric vehicle sales overall.

For the first seven months of the year, Tesla sales have fallen 44%. For that entire period, as opposed to just July, Tesla accounted for 1.2% of European sales of all types —- battery, hybrid and gas powered —- versus 0.9% for BYD.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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About 780,000 pressure washers sold at retailers like Home Depot are being recalled across the U.S. and Canada, due to a projectile hazard that has resulted in fractures and other injuries among some consumers.

According to a Thursday recall notice published by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, TTI Outdoor Power Equipment is recalling certain models of its Ryobi-branded electric pressure washers because the products’ capacitor can overheat and burst, “causing parts to be forcefully ejected.”

That poses serious impact risks to users or bystanders. To date, the CPSC notes, the power tool and equipment company has received 135 reports of capacitors overheating in the U.S. — including 41 reports of explosions that resulted in 32 injuries and/or fractures to consumers’ fingers, hands, face and eyes. A corresponding notice from Health Canada noted that no additional incidents were reported in Canada.

Consumers in possession of the now-recalled pressure washers are urged to stop using them immediately and visit Ryobi’s recall website to learn about how to receive a free repair kit, which includes a replacement capacitor.

The Ryobi washers under recall have model numbers RY142300 and RY142711VNM. About 764,000 were sold in the U.S., in addition to 16,000 in Canada.

In the U.S. these products were sold at Home Depot and Direct Tools Factory Outlet between July 2017 and June 2024, the CPSC notes, for about $300 to $400 in stores and online.

TTI Outdoor Power Equipment is a subsidary of Techtronic Industries (TTI). The Associated Press reached out to the company for further comments on Thursday.

Beyond Thursday’s pressure washer recall, TTI also recalled Ryobi-branded mowers and hedge trimmers earlier this year — due to fire and laceration hazards, respectively.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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