TikTok’s Chinese parent ByteDance plans to develop an AI model trained primarily with chips from compatriot Huawei Technologies, said three people familiar with the matter, as U.S. curbs turn the social media giant homeward in search of chips.

ByteDance has diversified to domestic suppliers of chips used in artificial intelligence and accelerated development of its own since the U.S. in 2022 started restricting exports of advanced AI chips such as from market leader Nvidia.

AI has become central to the technology industry with firms in sectors as varied as gaming and e-commerce differentiating offerings through the integration of custom AI models — programs that employ pattern recognition to make decisions.

ByteDance’s next step in the AI race is to use Huawei’s Ascend 910B chip to train a large-language AI model, said the people, declining to be identified as the plan is confidential.

A fourth person also said ByteDance is planning a new AI model but could not say whether it will use Huawei chips.

ByteDance already uses the Ascend 910B primarily for less computationally intensive inference tasks, which involve pre-trained AI models making predictions, the three people and a separate source said.

Training AI models is far more demanding and requires huge amounts of data, necessitating the use of ultra-high-performance chips such as Nvidia’s premium graphics processing units.

The new model’s capability and complexity, measured by its computing parameters, will be less powerful than ByteDance’s existing AI model Doubao, one of the people said.

“The entire premise here is wrong. No new model is being developed,” said ByteDance spokesman Michael Hughes.

Huawei did not reply to Reuters’ requests for comment.

Tight supply

ByteDance has ordered more than 100,000 Ascend 910B chips this year but has received fewer than 30,000 as of July, a pace too slow to meet company needs, one of the people said.

The constrained supply and limited computing power versus Nvidia’s China-available chips have prevented ByteDance from setting a timeline for the new model, two of the people said.

ByteDance’s current AI technology is used in its flagship large-language model launched in August 2023 and rebranded as chatbot Doubao, and in many other applications including a text-to-video tool Jimeng. It introduced two video-focused Doubao models this month to compete with OpenAI.

Use of such applications has ballooned since early this year, with ByteDance’s chatbot becoming one of China’s most popular apps with more than 10 million monthly active users.

The increased emphasis on AI has made ByteDance one of the largest buyers of Huawei’s AI chips, the three people said.

It is also the biggest buyer of Nvidia’s H20 AI chip, which the U.S. chipmaker tailored for the China market in response to trade restrictions, said two of the people. The TikTok owner is also Microsoft’s biggest client in Asia for Nvidia chips accessible via cloud computing, said two separate sources.

Reuters previously reported that ByteDance allocated $2 billion for Nvidia chips last year.

Nvidia declined to comment. Microsoft did not reply to a request for comment.

(This story has been corrected to fix ByteDance spokesperson Michael Hughes’s attribution and location, in paragraph 9)

—Reuters

Questions hang over who will succeed JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and when, but analysts and investors say one thing is almost certain: the bank’s stock will slump when the powerful bank chief eventually departs.

JPMorgan shares reflect a so-called “Jamie premium” of 10% to 15% that could evaporate when the longest-running chief of a major Wall Street bank decides to leave, according to estimates from four investors and three analysts.

A 15% figure translates to almost $90 billion in market capitalization as of Friday’s closing price.

JPMorgan declined to comment.

“The premium will also depend on how the succession happens,” said Walter Todd, chief investment officer at Greenwood Capital Associates, which manages $1.7 billion in assets, including JPMorgan shares. “If it is unexpectedly, then it could be the tune of 10% or more… If it is a more well-thought out, gradual plan, then the premium could be lower.”

Analysts and investors say the “Jamie premium” has grown in recent years, helped by the bank’s steady performance and its lack of major regulatory problems. It is also believed to be higher than those commanded by his peers, three investors said.

Earlier this year, Dimon announced that his timeline for stepping down is no longer five years and could be as soon as two-and-a-half years, putting the spotlight on succession. Focus on the issue has also grown after Dimon had cancer in 2014 and emergency heart surgery in 2020.

JPMorgan Chase’s board and CEO are focused on succession planning, spending a lot of time thinking about what happens after he retires.

“We’ll do the right thing,” Dimon told investors at a conference this month. “It’s the last and most important thing I’ll ever deal with, and we all want to get that exactly right.”

Dimon has run JPMorgan for 18 years and is one of the most influential figures in corporate America. The 68-year-old is seen as a key force behind its record profits, market share gains and performance that consistently beats rivals.

Under his leadership, JPMorgan became the largest bank in the U.S. by assets in 2008 when it bought Washington Mutual, once the nation’s largest savings and loan institution, during the global financial crisis.

Dimon is also the only bank CEO among the six largest U.S. lenders to have been at the helm during that crisis.

When last year’s regional banking turmoil threatened to destabilize the industry, Dimon acquired First Republic and made the nation’s biggest lender even bigger.

‘Avoid such drama’

Born to a Greek family in the New York borough of Queens, Dimon earned his bachelor’s degree from Tufts University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Under the tutelage of former Citigroup CEO Sandy Weill, Dimon cemented his reputation as a savvy operator and strict cost-cutter while working at various institutions. Weill later ousted his protégé from Citi after the men clashed, and Dimon struck out on his own. He later became the CEO of Bank One.

Dimon often warns JPMorgan executives against the dangers of complacency and pushes them to excel, five executives said privately. He has also emphasized the importance of succession planning.

“Poor CEO succession has destroyed many a company,” Dimon wrote in a letter to shareholders published in 2010.

“CEO and management succession often seems more like a psychological drama or a Shakespearean tragedy than the reasoned and mature process it should be,” he wrote at the time. “It is in our best interest to avoid such drama.”

As the Nov. 5 presidential election nears, Dimon has been floated for senior positions on U.S. economic policy, such as Treasury secretary. He was praised by former president Donald Trump and spoke with Vice President Kamala Harris earlier this month. Despite opining on what qualities the next president should possess, Dimon has not publicly endorsed either candidate.

JPMorgan plans to split the CEO and chairman jobs, currently held by Dimon, after he eventually steps down, according to its proxy statement.

The board could line up an executive chairman role for Dimon, echoing a move by Morgan Stanley to retain former chief James Gorman during Ted Pick’s first year as CEO.

Some analysts expect Dimon to stay at the helm until 2026, when he stands to gain a retention award of 1.5 million options in the form of stock appreciation rights.

After a two-decade run as “probably the most well-regarded bank chief… (2026) could be seen as a reasonable time to pass the baton,” said Brian Mulberry, client portfolio manager at Zacks Investment Management.

‘Deep bench’

Dimon has cited a cadre of “extremely qualified” executives who are prepared to run the lender once he leaves.

Directors have identified Jennifer Piepszak and Troy Rohrbaugh, co-CEOs of its commercial and investment bank, and Marianne Lake, CEO of consumer and community banking as potential contenders for the top job. Mary Erdoes, who heads the asset and wealth management businesses, is also in the running.

The bank’s president, Daniel Pinto, “could run the bank tomorrow,” Dimon has also said.

“The market has often touted Lake and Piepszak as frontrunners and they are both very well regarded by the investment community,” HSBC analyst Saul Martinez said. Both women have served as finance chief at the bank.

Indeed, JPMorgan could be the next major U.S. bank to have a woman CEO after Citigroup in 2021 became the first to do so when it appointed CEO Jane Fraser.

JPMorgan has sought to build diversity in its ranks for decades, even though it says gender has not been a specific factor in CEO selection.

“The bank has a deep bench and the potential CEOs are all very competent” because they have run its businesses, said Macrae Sykes, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, which owns JPMorgan stock. “But it is possible that the board could consider an outsider.”

Still, Dimon’s departure will cast a long shadow.

Sykes cited Apple co-founder Steve Jobs as an example of a company whose success is closely tied to a key figure. Apple’s stock fell after Jobs’ death because he was seen as instrumental to its success.

“Investors knew that Jobs was unwell and the stock did react… but since then, and under the new management, it has been on an upward trajectory as the upheaval settled,” he added.

Analysts have also compared Dimon’s leadership to that of Warren Buffett, the 94-year-old billionaire chief of Berkshire Hathaway, because both leaders are so closely identified with the success of their companies.

Indeed JPMorgan’s fortunes have surged under his leadership – its profit jumped to a record in the second quarter after it brought in its highest-ever annual earnings last year.

The stock has climbed almost 24% so far in 2024, outperforming an index of broader U.S. bank shares that rose nearly 19%.

The lender raised its outlook for net interest income — or the difference between what it earns on loans and pays out on deposits — this year, and also boosted its dividend. It will report third-quarter earnings on Oct. 11.

—Nupur Anand, Reuters

Thinner benefits and coverage changes await many older Americans shopping for health insurance this fall. That’s if their plan is even still available in 2025.

More than a million people will probably have to find new coverage as major insurers cut costs and pull back from markets for Medicare Advantage plans, the privately run version of the federal government’s coverage program mostly for people ages 65 and older.

Industry experts also predict some price increases for Medicare prescription drug plans as required coverage improvements kick in.

Voters will learn about the insurance changes just weeks before they pick the next president and as Democrat Kamala Harris campaigns on promises to lower health care costs. Early voting has already started in some states.

“This could be bad news for Vice President Harris. If that premium is going up, that’s a very obvious sign that you’re paying more,” said Massey Whorley, an analyst for health care consulting company Avalere. “That has significant implications for how they’re viewing the performance of the current administration.”

Insurance agents say the distraction of the election adds another complication to an already challenging annual enrollment window that starts next month.

Insurers are pulling back from Medicare Advantage

Medicare Advantage plans will cover more than 35 million people next year, or around half of all people enrolled in Medicare, according to the federal government. Insurance agents say they expect more people than usual will have to find new coverage for 2025 because their insurer has either ended a plan or left their market.

The health insurer Humana expects more than half a million customers — about 10% of its total — to be affected as it pulls Medicare Advantage plans from places around the country. Many customers will be able to transfer to other Humana plans, but company leaders still anticipate losing a few hundred thousand customers.

CVS Health’s Aetna projects a similar loss, and other big insurers have said they are leaving several states.

Insurers say rising costs and care use, along with reimbursement cuts from the government, are forcing them to pull back.

Some people can expect a tough search

When insurers leave Medicare Advantage markets, they tend to stop selling plans that have lower quality ratings and those with a higher proportion of Black buyers, said Dr. Amal Trivedi, a Brown University public health researcher.

He noted that market exits can be particularly hard on people with several doctors and on patients with cognitive trouble like dementia.

Most markets will still have dozens of plan choices. But finding a new option involves understanding out-of-pocket costs for each choice, plus figuring out how physicians and regular prescriptions are covered.

“People don’t like change when it comes to health insurance because you don’t know what’s on the other side of the fence,” said Tricia Neuman, a Medicare expert at KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care.

Plans that don’t leave markets may raise deductibles and trim perks like cards used to pay for utilities or food.

Those proved popular in recent years as inflation rose, said Danielle Roberts, co-founder of the Fort Worth, Texas, insurance agency Boomer Benefits.

“It’s really difficult for a person on a fixed income to choose a health plan for the right reasons … when $900 on a flex card in free groceries sounds pretty good,” she said.

Don’t “sleep” on picking a Medicare plan

Prices also could rise for some so-called standalone Part D prescription drug plans, which people pair with traditional Medicare coverage. KFF says that population includes more than 13 million people.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said Friday that premiums for these plans will decrease about 4% on average to $40 next year.

But brokers and agents say premiums can vary widely, and they still expect some increases. They also expect fewer plan choices and changes to formularies, or lists of covered drugs. Roberts said she has already seen premium hikes of $30 or more from some plans for next year.

Any price shift will hit a customer base known to switch plans for premium changes as small as $1, said Fran Soistman, CEO of the online insurance marketplace eHealth.

The changes come as a congressional-approved coverage overhaul takes hold. Most notably, out-of-pocket drug costs will be capped at $2,000 for those on Medicare, an effort championed by Democrats and President Joe Biden in 2022.

In the long run, these changes will lead to a “much richer benefit,” Whorley said.

KFF’s Neuman noted that the cap on drug costs will be especially helpful to cancer patients and others with expensive prescriptions. She estimates about 1.5 million people will benefit.

To ward off big premium spikes because of the changes, the Biden administration will pull billions of dollars from the Medicare trust fund to pay insurers to keep premium prices down, a move some Republicans have criticized. Insurers will not be allowed to raise premium prices beyond $35 next year.

People will be able to sign up for 2025 coverage between Oct. 15 and Dec. 7. Experts say all the potential changes make it important for shoppers to study closely any new choices or coverage they expect to renew.

“This is not a year to sleep on it, just re-enroll in the status quo,” said Whorley, the health care analyst.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

—Tom Murphy Amanda Seitz, Associated Press

More than 90,000 residents east of Atlanta were told to keep sheltering in place Monday a day after a chemical plant fire sent a massive plume of dark smoke high into the sky that could been seen for miles.

The haze and chemical smell had spread to Atlanta by Monday morning, prompting firefighters to use detectors to check the quality of air in various parts of the city, Mayor Andre Dickens said.

Closer to the source of the fire, officials said chlorine, a harmful irritant, had been detected in the air from the fire at the BioLab plant in Conyers, Georgia, the Rockdale County government said in statement early Monday. The plant is about 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of downtown Atlanta.

“For everyone sheltering in place, the best practice is to turn the air conditioning off and keep windows and doors shut,” the statement said.

In Atlanta, officials said they believe the hazy conditions and chemical smell is “related to the BioLab fire, but why we are seeing the change in conditions is what we are attempting to figure out.”

“Latest plume modeling indicates it moving to the northeast, which it is clearly not,” the Atlanta-Fulton County Emergency Management Agency said in a statement.

Emergency management officials in Fulton County, which encompasses much of Atlanta, said people with concerns about the haze or smell should stay indoors, close their windows and doors and turn off the air conditioning.

The fire was brought under control around 4 p.m. Sunday, officials said.

Interstate 20, which was shut down in both directions in the area Sunday, was reopened Monday morning, officials said. Some other roads in the county and county government offices were closed.

People in the northern part of Rockdale County, north of Interstate 20, were ordered to evacuate on Sunday, and others were told to shelter in place.

Sheriff’s office spokesperson Christine Nesbitt did not know the number of people evacuated, although it covered a large portion of the community of Conyers. Media reports said the number was 17,000.

The fire ignited when a sprinkler head malfunctioned around 5 a.m. Sunday at the BioLab plant in Conyers, Rockdale County Fire Chief Marian McDaniel told reporters. The malfunction caused water to mix with a water-reactive chemical, producing a plume of chemicals.

McDaniel said there were employees inside the plant, but no injuries have been reported, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

BioLab’s website says it is the swimming pool and spa water care division of Lawrenceville, Georgia-based KIK Consumer Products.

The company also said that no injuries were reported.

“Our top priority is ensuring the community’s safety, and our teams are working around-the-clock to respond to the ongoing situation at our facility in Conyers, Georgia,” a spokesperson said in a statement Monday. “We continue to work collaboratively with first responders and local authorities and have deployed specialized teams from out of state to the site to bolster and support their efforts. We are all focused on remediating the situation as rapidly as possible.”

A small fire on the plant’s roof was initially contained but reignited Sunday afternoon, authorities said.

DirecTV has today announced that it will acquire Dish for just $1.

Or, more accurately, $1 plus a mountainous backlog of debt. Since the mid-2010s, both pay-TV services have been rapidly shedding subscribers in the midst of the streaming wars as people turn to services like Netflix and Amazon Prime for their television fix.

Through the new merger, DirecTV will take responsibility for Dish’s approximately $9.75 billion in debt to create the biggest pay-TV merger in the United States—a scale-based play intended to entice consumers back to pay-TV through lowered prices. 

“DirecTV operates in a highly competitive video distribution industry,” said the company’s CEO, Bill Morrow, in a press release. “With greater scale, we expect a combined DirecTV and Dish will be better able to work with programmers to realize our vision for the future of TV, which is to aggregate, curate, and distribute content tailored to customers’ interests, and to be better positioned to realize operating efficiencies while creating value for customers through additional investment.”

Why does this feel like a rerun?

This isn’t actually the first time that a DirecTV and Dish merger was proposed. Back in 2002, the parent companies of the two pay-TV services tried to advance a $19 billion deal to join forces.

At the time, though, traditional cable and satellite pay television still ruled the industry, and the deal was considered anticompetitive. Both the Justice Department’s antitrust division and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled against the merger, ultimately stalling it in its tracks and forcing EchoStar, Dish’s parent company, to pay a $600 million breakup fee.

Now, over two decades later, business looks a bit different for DirecTV and Dish. Since the mid-2010s, the practice of cord-cutting—or abandoning pay-TV for streaming services—has taken a major chunk out of their subscriber bases, leaving both companies struggling to compete.

According to today’s press release, DirecTV and Dish have collectively lost 63% of their satellite customers since 2016, and traditional pay-TV saturation in U.S. households is now less than 50%.

“Content that was historically the mainstay of traditional pay-TV—news, sports, and entertainment—is now available exclusively or first-run on direct-to-consumer streaming services,” the release adds. 

Through this new merger, DirecTV hopes to be able to offer “smaller packages at lower price points” and to “bring together multiple content sources in one easily accessible place”—essentially mimicking what people like about streaming competitors.

According to the companies, the deal is expected to officially close in late 2025 and thereafter “generate cost synergies of at least $1 billion per annum.” The merger is still subject to regulatory approval and various other closing conditions.

When Beyoncé dropped her hit Cowboy Carter album in March, no one could’ve been happier than the folks at Levi’s. Having the 17th track, “Levii’s Jeans,” one extra vowel away from its signature product would be any marketer’s dream. Now the brand has dropped the first installment of an official collab campaign, with Beyoncé starring in a remake of its classic 1985 “Launderette” commercial.

In what Levi’s calls “a series of chapters,” the new campaign created with agency TBWA/Chiat/DAY LA puts a modern spin on the most iconic ads for Levi’s. In a statement, Beyoncé said that so much of denim iconography has historically been seen through a male lens: “So this reimagining campaign, which celebrates the iconic female perspective, is important to me. I look forward to exploring innovative ways for our visions to align in empowering women and honoring their strength.”

Throughout the ’80s, Levi’s ads were often the perfect mix of sexy, fun, and stylish, with a clear sense of humor. From “Launderette” up to the end of that decade, the spots all played off of similar elements. There’s the desert locales providing a hot, sweaty backdrop to some hunky dude who stares into the eyes of a lucky lady. Stylish? Yes. But cliché? Totally.

Seeing how Beyoncé takes on the male role in “Launderette,” there are a few specific spots that would be compelling to see her reimagine.

For Levi’s, this is also a dream scenario. One of the planet’s biggest stars is not only starring in a campaign, but reimagining old work in a way that confirms its pop cultural legacy while continuing to build on it.

“Parting” (1987)

A young man is going off to war. Or at least leaving his girl at home. As he’s jumping on the bus (to the tune of Percy Sledge’s classic “When A Man Loves A Woman”), he hands her a package. It’s, uh, his used pair of jeans. But! There’s a letter in the back pocket, and I’m pretty sure it’s not the laundry instructions.

It’s a stereotypical setup, but has enough intrigue built into it (what’s in the package?), that a remake could certainly tap into.

“Refrigerator” (1988)

Once again, it’s a hot, sweaty day, and an old man wanders into a gas station diner. He settles at the counter, just as a young man comes down the stairs with no pants on. Dude tosses his boots on the counter, then moves to the fridge.

The tone, pace, and emphasis on the white brief are so similar to “Launderette” that Beyoncé could definitely jump in here for a cool pair of her own.

“Pick-Up” (1989)

We’re in the desert, surprise, surprise. A young couple’s car breaks down and they’re stranded until a young denim-clad man pulls over in his truck. As The Ronettes’s 1963 hit “Be May Baby” plays, dude MacGyver’s a tow chain out of his 501s and invites the lady to sit up in the cab with him. As they’re riding up the hill, the truck’s bumper gives out before the jeans do, but no one seems to mind except the suit hurdling backwards downhill away from his girlfriend.

Again we have a perfect situation for Beyoncé to remix as the hero character. What kind of truck would she drive? And who would she save? Exactly.

Bonus: “Tainted Love” (1996)

This is obviously the longest shot out of any, but I’d be negligent not to mention it as a classic Levi’s spot that deserves a mention. Directed by Spike Jonze, the ad was controversial at the time for making light of an incredibly serious situation. Still, can’t help but smile at the heart rate monitor providing the beat to Soft Cell’s 1981 hit.

On a hot summer evening, Miles Villalon lined up outside the New Beverly Cinema, hours before showtime.

The 36-year-old already had tickets to the Watergate-themed double feature of 1976’s “All the President’s Men” and 1999’s “Dick.” But Villalon braved Los Angeles’ infamous rush-hour traffic to snag front-row seats at Quentin Tarantino‘s historic theater.

This level of dedication is routine for the Starbucks barista and aspiring filmmaker, who typically sees up to six movies a week in theaters, and almost exclusively in independently owned theaters in and around Los Angeles.

“I always say it feels like church,” he said. “When I go to AMC, I just sit there. And I can’t really experience that communal thing that we have here, where we’re all just worshipping at the altar of celluloid.”

Streaming — and a pandemic — have radically transformed cinema consumption, but Villalon is part of a growing number of mostly younger people contributing to a renaissance of LA’s independent theater scene. The city’s enduring, if diminished, role as a mecca of the film industry still shapes its residents and their entertainment preferences, often with renewed appreciation after the pandemic.

A revival in the City of Angels

Part of what makes the city unique is its abundance of historic theaters, salvaged amid looming closures or resurrected in recent years by those with ties to the film industry. Experts see a pattern of success for a certain kind of theater experience in Los Angeles.

Kate Markham, the managing director at Art House Convergence, a coalition of independent cinema exhibitors, said a key factor is the people who run these theaters.

“They know their audiences or their potential audiences, and they are curating programs and an environment for them to have an exceptional experience,” she wrote in an email.

Tarantino pioneered the trend when he purchased the New Beverly in 2007. After Netflix bought and restored the nearby Egyptian Theater, which first opened in 1922 as a silent movie house, the company reopened it to the public in November in partnership with the nonprofit American Cinematheque. It’s now a bustling hub, regularly welcoming A-list celebrities premiering their projects as well as film buffs willing to stick around for hourslong marathons, like a recent screening of four Paul Thomas Anderson movies.

Further east is Vidiots. Previously existing as a Santa Monica video store before it closed in 2017, Vidiots reopened across town five years later with the addition of a 271-seat theater, bar and new crop of devotees.

“It’s literally my favorite place to be outside of my own snuggly home,” said filmmaker and actor Mark Duplass, a financial backer of Vidiots alongside dozens of other high-profile names, including Aubrey Plaza and Lily Collins.

What’s bringing people in?

What draws people to independent theaters can vary, from older programming to elevated food-and-drink offerings to lower prices. But many agree, above all, there is a communal aspect chains can’t match.

“The bigger places obviously have premium formats and stuff like that. But I think there’s a lot less communal connection” said Dr. Michael Hook, who attended a matinee of “Seven Samurai” at Vidiots with a Children’s Hospital Los Angeles co-worker. “You’re not just milling around with people who also have selected to go to a three-hour-long 1950s Japanese movie.”

Although the pandemic was a blow from which the box office has yet to recover, it also served as a pruning that made the movie theater landscape more sustainable for the streaming era, according to Janice O’Bryan, Comscore’s senior vice president.

“COVID weeded out some of the stuff that needed to close anyway,” O’Bryan said of the more than 500 theaters that closed nationwide. “I think that it made everything healthier.”

The theaters that survived have found niches, sometimes purposefully eschewing the chains’ 4DX, reclining seats and dining services.

“For the types of films that we show, I definitely don’t want waiters walking around, bringing stuff to people and hearing the scraping of cutlery on plates,” laughed Greg Laemmle, who co-runs the Laemmle Theaters, a fixture of independent cinema in Los Angeles for nearly a century.

But Laemmle acknowledges the importance of giving audiences options beyond popcorn and soda, especially as an additional revenue source. Embracing food and drinks can sometimes turn the theater into a unique destination.

“When I normally go to a movie theater, I show up two minutes before the movie starts,” Duplass said. “I go to Vidiots like 45 minutes before the movie starts so I can get my chilled Junior Mints, I can have a drink at the bar, see some people. I go and walk around the video store.”

In February, more than 30 filmmakers — including Jason Reitman, Steven Spielberg, Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan — acquired Westwood’s Village Theater in an effort to preserve it. Also coming to the red-carpet premiere favorite? A restaurant, bar and gallery.

Not without challenges

Like the rest of the country, LA movie theaters have had their share of pandemic-inflicted challenges — some exacerbated by last summer’s strikes — including fewer movies to show.

And not all theaters have found their Tarantino or Reitman. The iconic Cinerama Dome’s closure was a blow to the city’s cinephiles. Though owned and operated by the ArcLight Cinemas chain when it closed in April 2021, the Dome was a kind of singularity in Hollywood, a regular premiere spot memorialized in film and a symbol of the city’s place in the industry.

Its fate remains in limbo, with reported delays to the targeting reopening date, despite parent company Decurion Corporation, who couldn’t be reached for comment, being granted a liquor license for the multiplex in July 2022.

The venues that have been preserved often have done so through some form of benefaction or aid, like the $16 billion federal Shuttered Venue Operators Grant program, which Laemmle used during the pandemic. He said the funds were a needed bandage in June 2021. But a full recovery has been slow.

“It provided some stability. How much remains to be seen,” he said. “The waters are still muddy.”

Only in Hollywood?

In some ways, thanks to the city’s history, culture and surfeit of theaters, this renaissance is most apparent in Los Angeles, admits Bryan Braunlich, the executive director of the National Association of Theatre Owners Cinema Foundation.

Tarantino, who declined to be interviewed, is less likely to purchase a dying revival house in Peoria, Illinois. But, Braunlich argued, that doesn’t mean this trend can’t have an impact there.

“Hollywood and filmmakers are saying, ‘Hey, movie theaters matter,'” he said. “There are amazing independent theater owners that are thriving across the country. And I think they get a boost of confidence of like, ‘Yes, this is a great business to be in. This is a great business to invest in. And we’re not alone as film nerds doing this.'”

As Duplass reflected on his own introduction to cinema growing up in the suburbs of New Orleans, he recalled a trip to Vidiots to see “Raising Arizona” with his parents.

“I realized that I was the same age now that they were then when we first saw it in the movie theater together. And I got to hold my dad’s hand as we cried in that last scene,” he said. “We shared that movie, but we shared the passing of time in our favorite church, which is the movie theater.”

—Krysta Fauria, Associated Press

Tens of thousands of Verizon users reported outages for the wireless carrier’s services across the U.S. on Monday, with Chicago and Indianapolis among the hardest-hit cities and some iPhone users stuck in “SOS” mode.

According to tracking website Downdetector.com, the outage began at around 9:30 a.m. ET and there were 66,761 reports as of 12:28 p.m. ET, with regions including Minneapolis, Phoenix, Omaha and Denver among the most reported locations.

Verizon Communications said it was aware of an issue impacting its services. “Our engineers are engaged and we are working quickly to identify and solve the issue.”

Some Verizon users said on social media platform X their phones were stuck in “SOS” mode.

“SOS” appears in the status bars of iPhones if the device is not connected to a cellular network but can still make emergency calls through other carriers, according to Apple’s website.

The outage tracking website also showed 1,111 incident reports by AT&T users as of 12:25 p.m ET, but the carrier said it was not experiencing a nationwide outage and the network was operating normally.

“Downdetector is likely reflecting challenges our customers are having attempting to connect to users on another network,” AT&T said in a post on X.

In February, sector rival AT&T faced nationwide wireless outages that lasted over 12 hours and impacted more than 70,000 customers.

The Federal Communications Commission is investigating the AT&T outage which blocked more than 92 million voice calls and prevented more than 25,000 attempts to reach 911, the agency said.

News of the Verizon outage comes hours after the company announced a deal to give infrastructure firm Vertical Bridge rights to lease, operate and manage 6,339 mobile towers across the U.S. for $3.3 billion.

—Harshita Mary Varghese and Aditya Soni, Reuters

Is another hurricane coming to Florida—or the surrounding Southeast and Gulf Coast? That’s the question on everyone’s mind as Tropical Storm Kirk grows.

Here’s what we know: The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said it expected Tropical Storm Kirk to become a hurricane “by tomorrow,” and it “could become a major hurricane by midweek.” The NHC is busy tracking Kirk and a few other tropical systems.

“The environment around Kirk appears quite favorable for strengthening during the next several days, with warm waters, a moist environment and low shear in forecast,” said a NHC advisory. “Still, almost all the guidance show Kirk becoming quite a large and powerful hurricane.”

On Monday, Tropical Storm Kirk was about 700 miles off the Cabo Verde Islands, moving at 12 mph with sustained winds at 50 mph, according to the NHC. Current models show its path traveling west.

Joyce and Isaac weaken

Forecasters expect that two other tropical systems, now located in the North Atlantic Ocean, will weaken in the coming days. Neither Tropical Storm Isaac nor Tropical Depression Joyce are expected to make their way to the U.S.

Isaac, located several hundred miles off the coast of the Azores, is forecast to become a post-tropical cyclone on Monday. Meanwhile, Tropical Depression Joyce, which is making its way northwest from Cape Verde, is expected to dissipate into the ocean by midweek with no threat of landfall.

Helene’s aftermath

Millions of people are still without power after Hurricane Helene destroyed parts of the Southeast. At least 102 people have died across six states as a result of the Category 4 hurricane, according to CNN. That death toll is likely to climb, with a number of people still unaccounted for or missing.

Residents in Asheville, North Carolina, are calling Helene’s aftermath “apocalyptic” with widespread power outages, massive destruction, flooding, and landslides. North Carolina has suffered the highest death toll: so far as at least 42 people have died.

How to track Tropical Storm Kirk in real time

Hurricanes can change paths quickly, which is why tracking the storm is so important. For updated information, advisories, and maps showing projected and traveled paths, check out these resources below:

Esri’s Hurricane Aware

National Hurricane Center

Days after Hurricane Helene tore through North Carolina, residents are facing immense challenges. Homes and businesses have been left torn apart and officials are struggling to get supplies to people in need. It’s a gargantuan task given roads and highways are still flooded, and some sections of highways going into the city have collapsed altogether.

The death toll from the storm has now reached triple digits across six states, with Asheville, North Carolina, seeing some of the most disastrous impacts. Reports say that as of Sunday, more than 600 people were still missing in Buncombe County, North Carolina. At least 30 in the area have died.

Meanwhile, many residents are without water, supplies, or cell service. And it could take until Friday to restore power to many areas, according to Duke Energy. (“Thousands of line workers are working tirelessly to assess damage and make repairs in response to the historic destruction from Helene,” the company said in a statement. “Due to the severity of damage and ongoing flooding in the western Carolinas, we anticipate a multiday restoration effort.”)

Asheville is a mountain town at least 300 miles from the coast, with an elevation of around 2,100 feet. The disaster there feels unexpected, like a harsh warning that if the vibrant city can end up decimated by a hurricane, then increasingly forceful storms, enabled by climate change, have the potential to submerge towns just about anywhere.

If you’re feeling helpless, here are some actions you can take today to help the residents of North Carolina and the hard-hit city of Asheville.

1. Donate

If you don’t live near enough to provide physical assistance to North Carolina residents, financial contributions are a great way to help. The United Way Helps NC Fund is dedicated to helping residents through this specific disaster. The funds will go directly toward helping individuals in desperate need of food and water get access to them as soon as possible.

Online donations can be made here, or checks can be sent to: United Way of NC, 1130 Kildaire Farm Rd, Suite 100, Cary, NC 27511.

Likewise, the Red Cross is a safe bet to make sure your funds are going directly to those in need. The Red Cross provides food, water, shelter, and recovery planning for those impacted by natural disasters. 

Manna Food Bank, a Western North Carolina food bank dedicated to ending hunger, has been completely destroyed by the hurricane. In order for the nonprofit to get back up and running and serving the most vulnerable populations once again, it’s asking for donations, which can be made here.

2. Foster a pet

If you’re local to North Carolina or close enough to provide physical help, fostering an animal who needs a temporary home is needed now more than ever. Nearby shelters have been working with the Asheville Humane Society to transport animals to other nearby shelters where they will be safe. But if you’ve been thinking about fostering or adopting, now could be the time.

If you aren’t able to provide a home for a dog or cat, you can also donate to the Asheville Humane Society to help with food, supplies, and transportation of the animals during this crisis.

3. Drop off bottled water, socks, diapers, and more

Many North Carolina businesses are accepting items including water, clothing, toiletries, and diapers. Wooden Robot Brewery shared a list of the most-needed supplies, along with a list of drop-off locations, on Instagram here.

“Right now we’re urging for emergency donations—the waters, the baby needs, hydration packets, toiletries, new socks and underwear—the things you notice FIRST when they’re gone. Clothing is a must, but hydration and safety are first!” the brewery wrote in the post.

4. Tell people where to go for meals, or volunteer to deliver them

Given that many people in the hardest-hit areas don’t have internet access, word of mouth is extremely important right now. As organizations work together to provide meals, it’s still a struggle to get the word out. So, post online, or if you have access, spread the word to someone in an affected area.

Hot meals are being served by the Salvation Army. Feeding sites will be updated daily here.

Likewise, some local establishments are providing boxed meals for those in need. Donating to those restaurants and businesses would be massively helpful. If you’re local and can provide help, some places such as Indian Aroma Bistro in Hendersonville are asking for volunteers to help with deliveries.

Is AI going to take your job? Getting replaced by automation may be a common fear for many employees, but perhaps surprisingly, many also see the potential benefits—and they feel it may benefit them in the long run.

That’s a key takeaway from the preprint of a new paper and survey from MIT, which finds that 60% of workers who work with robotics and AI think they’ll see positive career impacts as a result in terms of productivity, satisfaction, and job safety.

The survey included responses from more than 9,200 workers (around 80% of them in office jobs) in nine countries in Europe, as well as the United States and Australia. The survey was designed by MIT’s team, but funded by Amazon and conducted by Ipsos. The paper itself was produced independently by MIT.

“This paper finds that more workers report potential benefits from new technologies like robots and AI for their safety and comfort at work, their pay, and their autonomy on the job than report potential costs,” it reads. “Workers with jobs that ask them to solve complex problems, workers that feel valued by their employers, and workers who are motivated to move up in their careers are all more likely to see new technologies as beneficial.”

Americans are still skeptical about AI benefits

Among the other interesting findings in the paper is that Americans ranked lowest in terms of trusting AI (only 28% say they found it helpful to their everyday lives). At the same time, more than 60% of American workers think that employers should work to upskill their employees with new technology, while 46% of workers overall want employers to adopt tools that can automate mundane tasks.

Note, that is tasks, not occupations.

“Our goal in this study was to understand how workers think about technological change—and what factors might make workers more or less open to using technology to make their jobs better,” said Ben Armstrong, executive director of MIT’s Industrial Performance Center, in a statement provided to Fast Company. 

“What surprised us was how optimistic workers are about the impact of automation on their safety and comfort, as well as their ability to move up in their careers," he added. "A key takeaway from this research is that employees who are happy at work and feel that their employer invests in them—as well as employees who are motivated to learn—are also the employees who see the most potential benefits of automation for their jobs."

The paper provides more evidence that the impact of AI tools in the workplace will be more complex than anticipated. While many workers may (rightfully) expect that employers will try to replace them with automation tools, a good number of workers also evidently feel that they stand to see tangible benefits from the adoption of those tools.

Ultimately, the data suggests that the workers who are prioritizing upward mobility—perhaps by embracing and utilizing AI and related tools to augment their own performances—will reap the most benefits. 

The union representing U.S. dockworkers has signaled that 45,000 members will walk off the job at midnight, kicking off a massive strike likely to shut down ports across the East and Gulf coasts.

The coming work stoppage threatens to significantly snarl the nation’s supply chain, potentially leading to higher prices and delays for households and businesses if it drags on for weeks. That’s because the strike by members of the International Longshoremen’s Association could cause 36 ports — which handle roughly half of the goods shipped into and out of the U.S. — to shutter operations.

ILA confirmed over the weekend that its members would hit the picket lines at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday. In a Monday update, the union continued to blame the United States Maritime Alliance, which represents the ports, for continuing to “to block the path” toward an agreement before the contract deadline.

“The Ocean Carriers represented by USMX want to enjoy rich billion-dollar profits that they are making in 2024, while they offer ILA Longshore Workers an unacceptable wage package that we reject,” ILA said in a prepared statement. “ILA longshore workers deserve to be compensated for the important work they do keeping American commerce moving and growing.”

ILA also accused the shippers of “gouging their customers” with sizeable price increases for containers over recent weeks. The union said that this will result in increased costs for American consumers.

The Associated Press reached out to a USMX spokesperson for comment.

If drawn out, the strike would force businesses to pay shippers for delays and cause some goods to arrive late for peak holiday shopping season — potentially impacting delivery of anything from toys or artificial Christmas trees, to cars, coffee and vegetables. Americans could also face higher prices as retailers feel the supply squeeze.

“If the strikes go ahead, they will cause enormous delays across the supply chain, a ripple effect which will no doubt roll into 2025 and cause chaos across the industry,” noted Jay Dhokia, founder of supply chain management and logistics firm Pro3PL.

Dhokia added that East Coast ports aren’t the only ones at risk for disruption, as concern leading up to the strike has already diverted many shipments out West, adding to route congestion and more pressure on demand. Impacts will also be felt internationally — particularly in places like the United Kingdom, he said, where the U.S. is its largest trading partner.

ILA members are demanding higher wages and a total ban on the automation of cranes, gates and container-moving trucks used in the loading or unloading of freight.

The coming strike by the ILA workers — set to impact ports from Maine to Texas — will be the first by the union since 1977. West Coast dockworkers belong to a different union and aren’t involved in the strike.

If a strike were deemed a danger to U.S. economic health, President Joe Biden could, under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, seek a court order for an 80-day cooling-off period. This would suspend the strike.

All eyes are on what, if any, action the administration might take — particularly just weeks ahead of a tight presidential election. But Biden has signaled that he will not exercise this power.

During an exchange with reporters on Sunday, Biden said “no” when asked if he planned to intervene in the potential work stoppage.

“Because it’s collective bargaining, I don’t believe in Taft-Hartley,” Biden said referring to a 1947 law that allows the president to intervene in labor disputes that threaten the nation’s health or safety.

—Tom Krisher and Wyatte Grantham-Philips, Associated Press

AP Writers Mae Anderson and Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

Hurricane Helene’s path of destruction last week is still being felt in a number of states and the long-term impacts of the storm are still being assessed. Over 100 people have been reported dead from the storm so far (a number that’s expected to increase) and an untold number of homes were destroyed. Current estimates of the total damage and economic loss range from $145 billion to $160 billion.

Several industries will be impacted as a result as well, but perhaps none more so than the semiconductor field. Among the many towns devastated by Helene was Spruce Pine, North Carolina, which is a key supplier of a critical material used to make chips.

What does this mean for the industry and consumers? Here’s what to know.

How important is Spruce Pine, North Carolina, to the semiconductor industry?

There are two mines in the city that are the sources of the purest quartz on the planet. That’s a critical ingredient in the chipmaking process, as it’s used to produce silicon wafers, the base for all semiconductors, which power everything from laptops to cell phones, not to mention artificial intelligence systems.

There are no known alternative natural sources of pure quartz.

Ethan Mollick, a professor at Wharton University specializing in artificial intelligence and author of Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI, wrote in March that “the modern economy rests on a single road in Spruce Pine, North Carolina.”

Seaver Wang, codirector of climate and energy, at Breakthrough Institute, a global research center seeking technological solutions to environmental challenges, has echoed that sentiment, writing last August, “It’d be an understatement to say this mine is currently key to the semiconductor [and] solar PV industries.” 

How badly was the area impacted by Hurricane Helene?

Spruce Pine, located Northeast of Asheville along the North Toe River, saw two feet of rain from Tuesday through Saturday. Like much of Western North Carolina, the city saw heavy flooding and a tremendous number of trees, power lines, and more knocked down. Roads were destroyed and cars and houses washed away.

The status of the two mines is currently unknown. SiebelCo, which operates one of the mines, did not reply to requests for comment—and likely were unable to, due to ongoing internet and power outages in the area. The Quartz Corp, which operates the other, told Fast Company, “We are in a phase of assessing the situation, and it is far too early to comment on the impact to high purity quartz production. Our priority now is people and the families being affected by this terrible storm.”

You can find information on how to help victims of the storm here.

Can the industry source quartz elsewhere, if necessary?

Yes, but it’s not an easy process. The quartz used to create silicon wafers needs to be pure—and removing the impurities in quartz found in other parts of the world is a difficult (and expensive) process. Worldwide, there are just 30,000 tons of high-purity quartz produced each year (which is less than the amount of construction sand produced in the U.S. in one hour, according to Wired.)

Synthetic quartz is another option, but that would mean higher prices and the alternative methods would need to be scaled up to meet the ever-growing demand.

How long will this impact the semiconductor industry?

That’s impossible to say right now, since the status of the two plants is still unknown. Fast Company reached out to Nvidia, asking if it was expecting an impact to its operations due to any damage to Spruce Pine. The company declined to comment.

In 2008, a fire in Spruce Pine impacted the semiconductor market. And experts have previously said that if the mines ever suffered catastrophic damage, the impact on the semiconductor industry could last for years. Mollick wrote that if the mines were to stop operating on a long-term basis, “It would likely [be] a few years of major disruption while techniques to generate alternatives were scaled up. But the disruption would be pretty catastrophic.”

What could this mean for consumers?

That, too, is hard to say at this point. If the mines are shut down for a lengthy period, there are concerns that it could mean shortages of certain technologies and perhaps higher prices. The supply chain issues during the pandemic give a small hint at what sort of impact a chip shortage can have, with ripple effects ranging from video game consoles to the auto industry.

Two decades into her work as a unionized bartender in Reno, Nevada, Kristie Strejc has the comfort of job stability, her pick of the best shifts, and, unlike many in the hospitality industry, enough income that she’d actually benefit from plans floated by both U.S. presidential candidates to exempt tips from federal income tax.

But that isn’t influencing a vote she said is solidly for Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate who has the endorsement of Nevada’s powerful Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and in recent polls is leading former President Donald Trump, the Republican challenger, in this battleground state.

“I’m kind of at a point where I could either go on ‘this’ vacation or buy ‘this’ for the house … I could probably do a little more of both if I had that money in my pocket,” she said when asked in an interview last month about the prospect of a tipped-income exemption. “That’d be a bonus, but I’m not going to vote because of one thing.”

Proposals to exempt tipped income from federal taxes have emerged as Harris and Trump use competing economic proposals in areas like tariffs and taxes to vie for the votes of different constituencies, a strategy Trump has since extended to include a tax exemption for overtime pay.

Some of the ideas are expensive. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a non-partisan public policy organization, recently estimated that eliminating taxes on overtime would cut government revenue by $1.7 trillion from 2026 to 2035.

At least in Nevada, however, where the tip-heavy hospitality industry still comprises more than a fifth of jobs, the proposal to exempt tips from taxes has landed with a bit of a shrug.

David Schmidt, chief economist for the Nevada Department of Employment, Training, and Rehabilitation, said the state had about $95 billion in annual wages reported to a Bureau of Labor Statistics quarterly census of wages in 2023. He estimates no more than about 1.5% was from tips.

“It is not nothing, but it is not close to the lion’s share,” he said. “I don’t think you’d see really huge impacts … It is a pretty person-to-person kind of thing.”

Working-class issue

Jeremy Gelman, an associate professor of political science at the University of Nevada, Reno, said he construed Trump’s proposal as an attempt to “sow doubt” among the roughly 60,000 members of the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 and Bartenders Union Local 165, whose well-organized voter mobilization program is “really effective when it’s turned on,” as it has been for Harris.

The fact that both candidates have made the offer blunts the advantage for either of them, particularly when “the economy is going okay … It is not the best, but is not in a recession,” he said.

Ted Pappageorge, the secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Workers Union, said there was little credence given to Trump’s proposal on an issue the union official regards as more complicated than a no-tax-on-tips approach alone can reflect. He sees it tied into broader national issues like the below-minimum wages tipped workers are paid in many states, and how best to help lower-income families that may pay no taxes but need help meeting basic expenses.

“We’ve been fighting about fair taxation on tips for 30 years,” Pappageorge said in an interview last month, noting tips are not the same as a promised wage for an hour of work, but a gift at a customer’s discretion that can cause hourly earnings to vary widely.

While Nevada is one of seven states that don’t allow employers to pay less than the minimum wage to tipped workers, he said the union still regards the issue as part of a larger set of questions that figured into its endorsement of Harris.

“It’s a working-class voter issue,” Pappageorge said. “You could see a package that raised the minimum wage and perhaps didn’t eliminate tax on tips but reduced it or something.”

Limited impact

The Internal Revenue Service has not published detailed estimates of tipped income since 2018, when 6.1 million workers reported $38.3 billion of tipped income for purposes of Social Security payroll taxes.

Recent research from the Budget Lab at Yale, a non-partisan policy research center, estimated as few as 3% of taxpayers nationally would benefit from a tipped-earnings exemption, with many others who collect tips making too little to owe any federal taxes.

The exact impact, however, would depend on the details of the changes to the tax code and on how workers and employers respond.

Harris has suggested the exemption should have an income limit, a detail that would lessen the effect on the federal deficit but further curb the number of workers who benefit. For whatever tax change was approved, economists would look for evidence of how behavior changed, and whether, for example, guaranteed pay gets reduced by employers if their workers got a “raise” through the tax exemption.

“Both camps see their proposals as a way to improve the economic standing of low-wage workers,” Brookings Institution researchers Ian Berlin and William Gale said in a recent analysis. “We agree that this is an important goal, but there are much better ways to achieve it,” including minimum wage changes or expanded child care or earned income tax credits.

“Exempting tips from taxation does nothing to help most low-income workers, and it may do little for many tipped workers,” they wrote.

‘A little bit more’

Mike Bosma, a Reno-based certified public accountant and Trump supporter, said the tipped earnings exemption represented “pandering for votes” by both candidates when he believes the focus should be on how inflation surged and led to high interest rates that have pressured small business owners in particular.

“It has hurt a lot of people,” he said, adding that he holds Harris and President Joe Biden accountable for not doing more in the moment to try to curb price increases.

In Las Vegas, Rocelia Mendoza gathered with colleagues at the Culinary Union Hall one afternoon last month to prepare for a day of door knocking, despite the stifling heat, to encourage other union members to vote for Harris.

An assistant server at a casino restaurant, she said taxes took “too much” from the just-over $16 an hour she earns, and she’d love to “make a little bit more money for my family.”

But she didn’t trust Trump to deliver.

“My sister, my granddaughter, my husband, all my family is supporting Kamala Harris,” Mendoza said.

—Howard Schneider and Ann Saphir, Reuters

New York City just got a breathtaking new view. Skylift at Top of the Rock is now open, giving visitors a 360-degree view of the city nearly 900 feet in the air. Visitors step into an open-top, revolving platform that’s encased with walls of plexiglass on the building’s 70th floor. The platform is elevated to what would be an additional three stories and rotates to give up to 13 visitors a full view of the city.

Rockefeller Center’s Top of the Rock Observation Deck was already known for its view of the city across three floors, but Tishman Speyer, the building’s developer, has invested in new experiences as part of a five-year modernization effort. It comes as the market for New York City observation decks has grown more crowded with the likes of One World Observatory, Edge at Hudson Yards, and Summit at One Vanderbilt luring sightseers’ attention and dollars.

Late last year 30 Rock opened The Beam, which lets visitors pose on a beam like the workers eating lunch in “Lunch atop a Skyscraper,” the famous 1932 photo taken which was taken at Rockefeller Center; and this summer a Welcome Gallery with a theater show about the history of Rockefeller Center opened to the public. Skylift, though, “is the crown jewel of our revitalization,” as EB Kelly, senior managing director at Tishman Speyer and Head of Rockefeller Center, describes it.

The challenge in building Skylift was creating something that could be taken apart and reassembled at Top of the Rock without needing a crane. It also needed to be able to fit within the existing space at Top of the Rock, and because of the limited space in the area, “transporting and installing large glass panels and machinery required the Skylift components to be transported in small pieces through a single elevator, adding complexity to the process,” Phil Hettema, founder and CEO of the experiential design firm THG Creative, tells Fast Company.

Made from steel and fiberglass, Skylift was designed to fit the art deco style of Rockefeller Center with repeated patterns, decorative lines, and symmetry, and it has 96 LED pixel flutes that can change colors for holidays and special dates and be seen across the city. Eat your heart out, Empire State Building.

General admission to Top of the Rock begins at $34, and visitors can add tickets for Skylift beginning at $35.

When Cindy Taff was a vice president at the giant oil and gas company Shell in Houston, her middle schooler Brianna would sometimes look over her shoulder as she worked from home.

“Why are you still working in oil and gas?” her daughter asked more than once. “Is there a future in it? Why aren’t you moving into something clean?”

The words weighed on Taff.

“As a parent you want to give direction, and was I giving her the right direction?” she recalled.

At Shell, Taff was in charge of drilling wells and bringing them into production. She worked on oil and natural gas that’s called unconventional in the industry, because the oil or natural gas is difficult to get out of the ground — it doesn’t naturally gush out like in movies. It’s a term often used for oily shale rock. Taff was somewhat unconventional for the industry, too. Her coworkers used to tease her for driving an efficient hybrid.

“You’re not helping oil and gas prices by driving a Prius,” they’d say.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part of an occasional series of personal stories from the energy transition — the change away from a fossil-fuel based world that largely causes climate change.

Taff wanted Shell to pursue the energy that comes from the Earth’s natural heat — geothermal. Her team looked into it, but Shell never greenlit any of those projects, saying it would take too much time to recoup the investment.

When Brianna went to college, she was passionate about energy too, but she wanted to work on renewables. After her sophomore year, in the summer of 2020, she got an internship at a geothermal company — one that in fact had just been launched by Taff’s former colleagues at Shell — Sage Geosystems in Houston.

Now it was Taff looking over her daughter’s shoulder and asking question as she worked from home during the pandemic.

And Sage executives were talking to Brianna, too. “We could use your mom here,” they said. “Can you get her to come work for us?” Brianna recalled recently.

That’s how Cindy Taff left her 36-year career at Shell to become chief operating officer at Sage.

“I didn’t understand why Shell wasn’t pursuing it,” she said about applying the company’s drilling expertise to heat energy. “Then I got this great opportunity to pivot from oil and gas and work with these guys that I have the utmost respect for. And also, I wanted to make my daughter proud, quite frankly.”

Brianna Byrd, now 24, is the operations engineer and spokesperson at the company. She’s glad her mother, now CEO, left oil and gas.

“Of course I’m biased, she’s my mom, but I don’t think Sage would be where it is without her,” she said.

The United States is a world leader in electricity made from geothermal energy, but this kind of electricity still accounts for less than half a percent of the nation’s total large-scale generation, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 2023, most geothermal electricity came from California, Nevada, Utah, Hawaii, Oregon, Idaho and New Mexico, where there are reservoirs of steam, or very hot water, close to the surface.

The Energy Department estimates this next generation of geothermal projects, like what Sage is doing, could provide some 90 gigawatts by 2050 — enough to power 65 million homes or more. That hinges on private investment, and on companies like Sage introducing this form of energy to regions where, until now, it’s been thought to be impossible.

How it works

Sage has two main technologies: The first makes electricity out of heat. The company drills wells and fractures hot, dry rock. Then electric pumps push water into those fractures, heating it up, and the hot water gets jettisoned to the surface where it spins a turbine.

But a funny thing happened during testing in Starr County, Texas. In late 2021, the team realized much of their technology could also be used to store energy.
If that works, it could be a big deal. Currently, to store energy at large scale, the United States is adding batteries, mostly lithium-ion type, to solar and wind projects, so they can charge up and send electricity back to the electric grid when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. These batteries typically supply four hours maximum power.

Sage envisions some of its technology placed at solar and wind farms, too. When electricity demand is low, they’ll use extra energy from a solar or wind farm to run electric pumps, pumping water into the underground fractures, leaving it there until demand for electricity increases — storing the energy beneath the Earth’s surface for hours, days or even weeks.

It’s a novel way to use the technology, said Silviu Livescu, lead author on a report looking at the future of geothermal in Texas. Livescu knows Taff and has followed the company’s progress.

“It’s the right moment for companies like Sage with a purpose, with a mission and with the technology to show that geothermal indeed is the energy source we need to address climate change,” said Livescu, who co-founded a different geothermal startup in Austin, Texas.

These days, Taff is often out in front, talking with politicians and policymakers about the potential of geothermal. She attended the United Nations COP28 climate talks last year to share her vision for this kind of energy.

Sage has raised $30 million so far and is growing.

It’s building a small (3-megawatt), geothermal energy storage system at San Miguel Electric Cooperative, Inc., south of San Antonio this year. It’s working with U.S. military facilities in Texas that see geothermal as a way to power their bases securely. Sage recently announced partnerships for heating communities in Bucharest, Romania; clean electricity from geothermal for Meta’s data centers, and energy storage and geothermal projects in California.

The company is final-testing a proprietary turbine to more efficiently convert heat to electricity.

Because of her oil and gas background, Taff said she knows geothermal will only be adopted widely if the cost comes down. The mantra at Sage is: It’s going to be clean and it’s going to be cheap. She’s excited to be working in a field she feels is on the cusp of playing a big role in cleaning and stabilizing the electrical grid.

“I’ve never looked back,” she said. “I love what I’m doing and I think it’s going to be transformative.”

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

—Jennifer McDermott, Associated Press

In a stretch of Northern California known for scenic shorelines and celebrated vineyards, hundreds of brown-bodied hens waddle around a large barn at Weber Family Farms.

“You provide them a stress-free environment with water, with food, with fresh air at all times, make them free of illness — and they’re going to reward you whether they’re going to give you milk, eggs or meat,” owner Mike Weber said, proudly showing off his business that has hundreds of thousands of chickens.

But some animal rights advocates say such large farms like Weber’s are a problem.

Kristina Garfinkel said she doesn’t believe in confining tens of thousands of chickens in facilities that provide no access to the outdoors, and she argues that these massive operations are actually crowding out small egg and dairy farms and making it hard for them to stay in business.

Garfinkel, lead organizer of the Coalition to End Factory Farming, has been campaigning for a ballot measure aimed at putting an end to large-scale confined animal agriculture in Sonoma County. Proponents say the move is about the humane treatment of animals. But critics contend it is a misguided effort that could harm local egg farming and dairies.

Residents in Sonoma County, which is home to half a million people north of San Francisco, will vote this fall on the measure. The proposal would require the county to phase out what federal authorities call concentrated animal feeding operations, or farms where large numbers of animals are kept in a confined setting.

The measure is supported by animal rights activists. But it has also stoked a tremendous backlash, with residents posting massive numbers of signs along roadways, in front yards and on farmland opposing Measure J.

Weber said California already has strict rules about how animals must be treated, with farmers required to keep records, have annual inspections and provide space for livestock. He believes the measure would put his family’s more than century-old farm — one of a series of county farms that were walloped last year by avian influenza — out of business. His commercial egg farm produces organic and conventional eggs as well as organic fertilizers.

“To come out with a blanket statement that all animal agriculture is bad, therefore it’s our mission to get rid of it, is absolutely unreasonable, and it’s not American at all,” he said.

Garfinkel said 21 large-scale farms would be affected by the measure and would be given time to downsize their operations.

“It just impacts the largest, most destructive farms,” she said of the measure.

In 2018, Californians overwhelmingly voted for a statewide ballot measure requiring that all eggs in the state come from cage-free hens. The nation’s most populous state had already previously voted for another measure to enhance the standards for raising such animals.

Kathy Cullen, who runs a farm animal sanctuary, said she opposes confining animals for any reason. But Cullen said proponents aren’t trying to shut down all farms, but rather asking them to change, and that the measure has helped create more awareness about farm animal welfare.

Farmers feel the measure has created awareness, too, about the challenges they face, said Dayna Ghirardelli, executive director of the Sonoma County Farm Bureau. Many local communities oppose the measure in a county that has a long agricultural history and had more than 3,000 farms in 2022, according to national agricultural statistics.

The county is especially known for wine-grape growing, but it also has dairies and poultry farms, as well as farms that grow vegetables and apples.

“If we can find a silver lining, to a certain degree, it’s bringing the community together,” Ghirardelli said.

—Haven Daley, Associated Press

California Governor Gavin Newsom on Sunday vetoed a hotly contested artificial intelligence safety bill after the tech industry raised objections, saying it could drive AI companies from the state and hinder innovation.

Newsom said the bill “does not take into account whether an AI system is deployed in high-risk environments, involves critical decision-making or the use of sensitive data” and would apply “stringent standards to even the most basic functions — so long as a large system deploys it.”

Newsom said he had asked leading experts on generative AI to help California “develop workable guardrails” that focus “on developing an empirical, science-based trajectory analysis.” He also ordered state agencies to expand their assessment of the risks from potential catastrophic events tied to AI use.

Generative AI – which can create text, photos and videos in response to open-ended prompts – has spurred excitement as well as fears it could make some jobs obsolete, upend elections and potentially overpower humans and have catastrophic effects.

The bill’s author, Democratic State Senator Scott Wiener, said legislation was necessary to protect the public before advances in AI become either unwieldy or uncontrollable. The AI industry is growing fast in California and some leaders questioned the future of these companies in the state if the bill became law.

Wiener said Sunday the veto makes California less safe and means “companies aiming to create an extremely powerful technology face no binding restrictions.” He added “voluntary commitments from industry are not enforceable and rarely work out well for the public.”

“We cannot afford to wait for a major catastrophe to occur before taking action to protect the public,” Newsom said, but added he did not agree “we must settle for a solution that is not informed by an empirical trajectory analysis of AI systems and capabilities.”

Newsom said he will work with the legislature on AI legislation during its next session. It comes as legislation in U.S. Congress to set safeguards has stalled and the Biden administration is advancing regulatory AI oversight proposals.

Newsom said “a California-only approach may well be warranted – especially absent federal action by Congress.”

Chamber of Progress, a tech industry coalition, praised Newsom’s veto saying “the California tech economy has always thrived on competition and openness.”

Among other things, the measure would have mandated safety testing for many of the most advanced AI models that cost more than $100 million to develop or those that require a defined amount of computing power. Developers of AI software operating in the state would have also needed to outline methods for turning off the AI models, effectively a kill switch.

The bill would have established a state entity to oversee the development of so-called “Frontier Models” that exceed the capabilities present in the most advanced existing models.

The bill faced strong opposition from a wide range of groups. Alphabet’s Google, Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Meta Platforms, all of which are developing generative AI models, had expressed their concerns about the proposal.

Some Democrats in U.S. Congress, including Representative Nancy Pelosi, also opposed it. Proponents included Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who also runs an AI firm called xAI. Amazon-backed Anthropic said the benefits to the bill likely outweigh the costs, though it added there were still some aspects that seem concerning or ambiguous.

Newsom separately signed legislation requiring the state to assess potential threats posed by Generative AI to California’s critical infrastructure.

The state is analyzing energy infrastructure risks and previously convened power sector providers and will undertake the same risk assessment with water infrastructure providers in the coming year and later the communications sector, Newsom said.

—David Shepardson, Reuters

CVS plans to lay off 2,900 workers, the company announced this week. The move comes as the pharmacy has been struggling with costs in a tough economy, and is considering breaking the company into two separate businesses, as Reuters reported.

CVS spokesperson Mike DeAngelis told WPRI that the layoffs will not affect “front-line” workers. DeAngelis explained that the cuts will help the chain save $2 billion, and enable the company to invest in technology.

The company already uses artificial intelligence technology, but according to its latest annual report, it will be adding more automated options “to reduce cost and improve the experience for all of its constituents.”

The layoffs, which represent less than 1% of the company’s workforce, are not the first that it has enacted in recent years. In August 2023, the Rhode Island-based chain let go of 5,000 employees in non-customer-facing positions. At the time, CEO Karen Lynch said the goal of the layoffs was to help enable the company to “be at the forefront of a once-in-a-generation transformation in healthcare.”

In 2021, the company announced it would close 900 stores over two years.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported that the company has also been discussing other potential money-saving routes, such as breaking the pharmacy into pieces, separating its retail and insurance units.

“CVS’s management team and Board of Directors are continually exploring ways to create shareholder value,” a spokesperson said per Reuters. “We remain focused on driving performance and delivering high quality healthcare products and services enabled by our unmatched scale and integrated model.”

CVS has faced massive challenges in recent years. It has struggled amid inflation, seeing customers turn to budget shopping chains like Walmart and Dollar General for household staples. It has also faced falling reimbursement rates for the pharmacy on prescription drugs.

DeAngelis told WPRI that employees impacted by the latest round of layoffs will be notified this week. “We are committed to supporting these colleagues, who will receive severance pay and benefits, including access to outplacement services,” DeAngelis said.

The French Broad River winds through the mountains of western North Carolina, fed by dozens of mountain streams, and crosses the city of Asheville. At over 2,000 feet above sea level and more than 250 miles from the coast, it is an unlikely place to prepare for a hurricane.

Yet, the remnants of several hurricanes have swept through this region over the years, sending rivers in the region raging out of their banks.

Hurricane Helene could add to that history. With the huge storm on track to bring heavy rain to parts of North Carolina starting Sept. 26, 2024, Gov. Roy Cooper issued a state of emergency, warning of flash flooding, high winds and landslides, particularly in the western mountains.

Storms like these can be extremely destructive. In September 2004, the remnants of Hurricanes Frances, Ivan and Jeanne all brought excessive rain to western North Carolina in the span of a few weeks, overwhelming the French Broad and other rivers in the Asheville area.

Western North Carolina’s history is just one example of the inland risks from tropical cyclones. Vermont was caught off guard by Tropical Storm Irene in 2011, which swept away hundreds of homes. The remnants of Hurricane Ida in 2021 caused nearly US$84 billion in damage as its heavy rains caused flooding in states from Louisiana to New York. In 1998, Tropical Storm Charley traveled nearly 200 miles up the Rio Grande Valley, quickly flooding the dry Texas landscape, with devastating consequences.

I am a historical geographer who researches flood hazards and how communities both exacerbate the risk and respond. Storms like these are a reminder to mountain communities and other inland regions across the U.S. that they also need to be ready for hurricane season.

Tough lessons from North Carolina’s mountains

Western North Carolina provides an important case study of a hurricane season risk that might seem rare but can be catastrophic. It also shows how some communities are starting to respond.

In July 1916, the Asheville area was deluged by back-to-back tropical storms that tore apart river bridges and roads, washed away businesses and left large parts of the city under water.

The first tropical storm made landfall in Mississippi and meandered into the Southern Appalachians. As it lingered over western North Carolina, 6 to 10 inches of rain fell in the mountains, running off into creeks and then into rivers, including the French Broad.

A week later, a second tropical storm moved ashore, this time in South Carolina and headed for the already saturated ground of the French Broad River basin. It dropped 12 to 15 inches near Brevard. Weather Bureau forecasters wrote that saturated soils allowed 80% to 90% of the new precipitation to run off the mountains into French Broad River tributaries.

At Asheville, the river rose to 23.1 feet—a record more than five feet higher than any crest before or since. The water washed out bridges and damaged most businesses and industries on the floodplain.

Dozens of people died in the flooding, and commerce was disrupted for weeks. The Santee River, which flows seaward from the Blue Ridge Mountains, destroyed some 700,000 acres of crops in South Carolina.

Responses to the 1916 storms weren’t enough

After the storms, there was talk of replacing some devastated structures with flood-proof buildings. However, the importance of rail transport and the limited amount of land for commercial and industrial uses compelled reconstruction near the river. Congress approved a flood control study in 1930, but no structural protections were built. Revised building codes and land use restrictions to reduce flood impacts came much later.

Then, in September 2004, the region was hit with back-to-back tropical storm disasters again.

Hurricane Frances made landfall on Florida and eventually climbed the Blue Ridge Mountains into Western North Carolina. Remnants of the hurricane dumped 8 to 12 inches of rain near Asheville. Black Mountain received 14.6 inches, which flowed into a French Broad River tributary, triggering widespread flooding where the rivers meet. The torrent severed a water main and cut off drinking water to Asheville residents.

Shortly after Frances hit, Hurricane Ivan roared ashore in Alabama and moved inland, bringing 4 to 12 more inches of rain to the French Broad basin over three days. Saturated soils on the mountain slopes lost their grip and caused numerous landslides, and portions of Asheville and Brevard flooded. Remnants of Hurricane Jeanne brought even more rain to western North Carolina a few days later.

Using the past to plan for the future isn’t enough

Traditionally, officials planning for hazards like hurricanes have relied on records of past events to guide their decisions. However, this approach assumes that the climate is stable, and that just isn’t the case.

As the climate warms, the air can hold more moisture, meaning tropical cyclones—as well as inland thunderstorms—can deliver more rain.

This can be particularly troublesome as giant storms move inland and cause streams and rivers to flood. Back-to-back storms can be even more destructive. New development in areas that were once unlikely to flood may be more susceptible as the climate heats up.

Some communities are starting to consider how future risk might worsen.

In the Asheville area, Buncombe County’s hazard mitigation plan now explicitly recognizes hurricane risks and acknowledges that “future occurrences are likely.”

Following the 2004 flood, the county modified its use of a water supply reservoir to include storage of floodwaters, and it now requires new buildings constructed in areas inundated in 2004 to be elevated two feet above the base flood elevation. The city of Brevard, 30 miles south of Asheville, restricted construction in flood-prone areas to limit future losses.

Asheville has created green spaces along the French Broad River and has made efforts to enlarge stormwater retention behind dams on tributaries. But altering stormwater drainage systems is costly when the existing systems were designed to meet historical rainfall levels, rather than the scale of rainfall that will accompany climate change.

Extreme weather events, including mountain and inland flooding, are becoming a frequent problem across the U.S., and I believe they demand greater consideration in disaster planning at all levels. For communities, preparing for these future risks requires learning from past floods but also recognizing that future storms may produce flooding that goes beyond the scale of anything seen before.

This article, originally published May 29, 2024, has been updated with the Hurricane Helene forecast, and to correct the date of Hurricane Ida.

Craig E. Colten is a professor emeritus of geography at Louisiana State University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.