After winning hearts across social media, supporters had launched an effort urging organizers to allow the beloved bird to attend the match alongside his family. In less than two weeks, Merlín went from waddling through the streets of Mexico City during Mexico’s opening victory to visiting the presidential palace. But on Wednesday, his proverbial flight was cut short.

Merlín was granted access to the Azteca Stadium grounds to film a segment with Televisa, one of Latin America’s largest television networks. Under strict security protocols, Merlín traveled comfortably inside a transport crate, accompanied by owner Carla Gómez and her son Cristian, as curious fans gathered to catch a glimpse of the tournament’s most unexpected star. However, he could not remain for the match, as FIFA regulations prohibit animals from entering venues in order to safeguard their well-being.

A FIFA tournament spokesperson confirmed Merlín was permitted to enter the perimeter but not the stadium, and did not offer further comment.

“These last few days have been crazy, we’ll never stop being grateful for what we’ve experienced,” Gómez told The Associated Press. “Everyone is truly amazed by Merlín.”

Since his first appearance, Merlín has grown into a social media phenomenon and an international celebrity. Wearing a green Mexico jersey and proudly accompanying his family as they sell drinks throughout the city, the 2-year-old duck has become a familiar sight in the capital. Along the way, he has participated in interviews, visited television studios, mingled with supporters at the fan fest in Mexico City’s Zócalo, and even paid a visit to Netflix.

“He’s become our unofficial mascot for Mexico and the World Cup,” said Daniel Krauze, a fan outside the stadium who sported a duck hat. “I feel proud to wear Merlín the duck.”

Merlín has also found himself at the center of a trademark dispute, when at least two applications before Gómez’s sought the rights to his name for exclusive commercial use. The registration was ultimately granted to Gómez.

Now, following hundreds of requests from fans, the family will finally be able to watch Mexico’s national team live. Gómez described the occasion as a “very powerful emotion.”

And although the duck darling will not be cheering from the stands, she is convinced that Mexico’s most famous feathered supporter will still be bringing luck to El Tri: “Merlín is a lucky charm, and I know that, with him, the Mexican national team will win again today.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The case is relatively straightforward. On June 17, the Fed didn’t raise interest rates—it held them at 3.5% to 3.75%, as expected—but it signaled that a hike could be coming this year, a reversal from a few months ago, when it expected to cut them instead. In his first meeting as Fed chair, Kevin Warsh made clear he’s serious about getting prices under control, with the Fed’s statement vowing that “the Committee will deliver price stability.” 

Traders, at least initially, took the hint and nudged their bets toward higher rates, knocking stocks lower to roughly 0.5% to 1% on the day amid worries that more expensive borrowing could squeeze the debt-fueled AI build-out. 

But it was the bond market’s reaction that was telling: Short-term rates rose, but the 10-year Treasury yield, the rate that actually drives the cost of the debt, barely moved, and soon drifted lower. Why wouldn’t it drift up on concerns of the national debt?

The government already spends more than $1 trillion a year just on interest, more than it spends on the military, health care, and all the other fast-growing lines in the budget. But a tougher Fed needn’t touch that bill. 

The debt isn’t just one big loan at a fixed rate; it’s a complicated mix, because the government is constantly borrowing new money to pay off old loans, and paying whatever rate the market charges that day. When the Fed pushes rates up, only the short-term, cheaper loans get pricier.

“It’s the very front end,” Eric Winograd, chief U.S. economist at AllianceBernstein and a former New York Fed staffer, told Fortune. Even if the Fed hikes, he said, slightly higher short-term rates for a year “just doesn’t really move the needle.”

What matters more for the debt are the rates the government locks in for 10 or 30 years. And those are falling right now, mostly because oil prices have dropped and inflation is cooling. Buyers keep showing up at the auctions where the government sells new debt. That “debasement trade” that dominated winter’s media headlines, that the world is dumping Treasuries for gold? “More talk than action,” Winograd says.

But there are still two warning signs underneath the calm. 

The first is that investors have slowly started charging more to lend to the government for the long haul, a kind of nervousness premium that’s now the highest it’s been in over a decade, according to a note from David Doyle, the head of economics at investment bank Macquarie. The second is the deficit. The government is borrowing about 6% of the entire economy a year even though unemployment is low and the economy is healthy; a combination that’s historically bizarre. Normally, it would only borrow this heavily in a recession.

Secondly, the official forecasts may be too rosy. The government pays an average of about 3.35% on its debt today, and budget forecasters assume that creeps up to only 3.9%. If it climbs to 5% or 6% instead, Macquarie warns, then the interest bill balloons and the deficit could top 10% of the economy, leading to a negative feedback loop where more debt feeds wider deficits feeds still more borrowing.

There’s a darker possibility as well, that the calm in long-term rates may be partly manufactured, argues Erik Norland, chief economist at CME Group in a note. The government has been borrowing more short-term and less long-term, while the Fed has slowed the sale of its own bond holdings; both of which hold long-term rates down artificially. You can see what happens without that cushion overseas, where the same money troubles have sent long-term rates soaring in Japan, the U.K., and France.

But even with all that, there’s no crisis yet. There’s “no magic number” where the debt suddenly becomes unsustainable, Winograd says; it “will be sustained as long as there are lenders willing to sustain it. And so far, there have been.” If that ever changes, he adds, it’ll be a political decision by big foreign lenders—mostly Asian central banks—not an economic problem.

As for the tough talk that started all this, Winograd shrugs it off. “I don’t read too much into the hawkishness,” he says. “He’s been the Fed chair for one meeting.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

But the special relationship between the president and the country’s fossil fuel industry has been frosty as of late. After months of increased gas prices and concerns over inflation and affordability, Trump has started pointing fingers at some of his closest industry backers, who courted him just years earlier. Writing in a Truth Social post Wednesday morning, Trump seemed to blame the industry for the sky-high gas prices Americans are feeling at the pump. 

“The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil,” he wrote. “In other words, customers are being ‘gouged,’” he continued, adding he had instructed the Justice Department to investigate the issue, although offered no details on a timeline.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Trump explicitly accused Chevron, ExxonMobil, BP, and Shell of not cutting gasoline prices despite oil costs having fallen in recent weeks. Less expensive oil does generally translate to lower prices at the pump, but that process can take weeks to months, given the various additional costs that go into determining the final price consumers pay.

For months, the economy has been saddled with sticky gasoline prices stemming from the conflict in the Middle East and resulting energy shock. The situation benefited energy companies for a time, as the six largest oil and gas firms saw their market capitalization soar $130 billion in the first two weeks of the war alone, according to the Guardian. Now with midterm elections looming, high gas prices risk turning into a political drag for a Republican Party that has slender majorities to protect in both chambers of Congress. In the first month of the war alone, Americans paid $8.4 billion extra in gas costs, according to research from the Joint Economic Committee’s Democratic minority. 

Prices have only lightly declined since then, and Trump is starting to point fingers. His latest target: the oil and gas industry that helped him return to office less than two years ago. Trump has accused major oil and gas companies of artificially inflating their prices as a result of the war.

In a statement to Fortune, a Justice Department spokesperson did not comment on the proposed investigations, but said rising gasoline costs—now sitting at an average of $3.91 a gallon, up from $3.22 a year ago—were a challenge for the administration.  

“The price of fuel is not only a national security issue, it impacts the wallet of every American. We will always commit to ensuring affordability in this nation,” the spokesperson said.

A White House spokesperson similarly did not comment directly on the potential investigation, though reiterated the administration’s position that oil and gas prices would decline “as soon as the Iran situation is resolved.”

“President Trump has a proven track record of bringing gas prices to historic lows, and the administration continues to be laser-focused on delivering economic relief for the American people,” the spokesperson said. 

Fortune has contacted representatives from each of the energy companies named by Trump. A Shell spokesperson declined to comment. On Thursday, Eimear Bonner, Chevron’s chief financial officer, told CNBC oil and gas firms were “doing everything we can” to bring gas prices down, though any significant changes are unlikely to happen immediately.

“It’s going to take time,” Bonner said. “There is a lag between, you know, oil prices and reductions in oil prices and when that shows up at the pump, but we expect that prices will come down as things continue to normalize.”

A falling out with Big Oil

It’s a sharp reversal from the way Trump closely courted the industry in the run-up to the 2024 election. During his campaign, Trump advocated for extensive rollbacks to Biden’s green energy agenda, and championed scrapping several anti-pollution regulations. At a private campaign event in April, the then-candidate requested $1 billion in donations from oil executives to help him return to the White House, a sum Trump reportedly called a “deal,” given the tax and regulatory breaks energy companies would enjoy should he regain the presidency. Representatives from Chevron, Continental Resources, Exxon Mobil, and Occidental Petroleum were present at the event, according to the Washington Post.

Trump may have fallen short of that lofty goal, but still ended up with a respectable war chest. Between January 2023 and November 2024, oil companies such as Continental and Occidental funneled $96 million directly into Trump’s reelection campaign, according to a 2025 report from Climate Power, an advocacy group. The largest oil majors primarily donate through corporate PACs, although these also tended to benefit Republicans during the last election cycle. Chevron, for example, donated around $10 million during the 2024 elections, almost all of which went to conservative organizations or affiliates, according to OpenSecrets.

Taking into account spending on advertising, donations to downballot Republicans, and congressional lobbying efforts, large oil and gas companies invested $445 million during the 2024 election cycle, the Climate Power report found.

The bet has turned out well for fossil fuel companies. Trump’s deregulatory campaign has fattened energy firms’ margins, while the industry has also benefited from the sweeping tax breaks included in Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act legislation package passed last year. In addition to rolling back clean energy incentives, the bill led to around $18 billion in tax breaks specifically designed to benefit oil and gas companies, according to a report by the Joint Committee on Taxation.

The conflict in the Middle East has also proved a boon to energy interests. When the U.S. and Israel first began their coordinated attack on Iran in February, the Revolutionary Guard quickly responded by threatening most oil and gas tankers that dared to cross the critical Strait of Hormuz, sending energy prices soaring. 

Trump’s impossible choice

But while periods of high oil prices can be good for suppliers, it’s pain for everyday consumers. National gasoline prices have hovered around the $4 per gallon mark for months, and Americans have had to adjust their habits accordingly, often driving less or budgeting more tightly. A Gallup poll published Thursday found two-thirds of Americans surveyed earlier this month say their household has experienced financial hardship owing to fuel costs.

With Republicans hoping to preserve narrow majorities in both chambers of Congress later this year, high prices at the pump threaten to act as political spoiler. Incumbent parties tend to be more vulnerable in midterm elections, a risk magnified by high gasoline prices. Trump has campaigned hard on the energy front, declaring at a rally in Pennsylvania this week: “Oil is going to come charging down. And with oil comes everything else.”

Oil prices have indeed dipped significantly since their April peak, with Brent crude—a global pricing benchmark—recently returning to prewar levels. Gasoline prices can take longer to normalize. While crude oil is a globally traded commodity, a long list of factors influence the price drivers ultimately pay at the pump, including any supply-chain lags, refinery costs, and local inventory levels. The gasoline price paid on any given day is usually tied to crude purchased six weeks earlier, if not longer.

Even the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s primary trade association, reiterated the disconnect between crude oil and regular gas costs: “Gasoline prices don’t move in lockstep with crude oil, especially during a major global disruption that is still affecting supply, refining, and inventories,” Bethany Williams, a spokesperson for the organization, told Fortune. 

“Our industry shares the goal of delivering relief at the pump and restoring stability to global energy markets,” she said. “Our focus remains on supporting market stability and delivering the energy consumers need.”

Trump will hope gasoline prices might normalize long before elections, but whether oil and gas giants are taking advantage of drivers or not, the economics of gasoline pricing might work against the Republican Party this midterm season.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

In its midyear outlook, the firm points to a broadening capital expenditure cycle anchoring growth expectations. At the center is the “AI upstream” build-out—data centers, chips, and supporting infrastructure—still heavily concentrated in the U.S., which commands about 85% of AI and machine learning venture capital. Spillover benefits are expected in China, South Korea, and Taiwan, given their roles in semiconductor supply chains.

JPMorgan now estimates total global AI-related capital expenditures will reach $5.5 trillion through 2030, up from $5.1 trillion. The increase reflects higher capacity expansion and a shift in financing. The bank raised its estimate for debt financing tied to the AI build-out to $4.1 trillion, citing higher loan-to-cost ratios.

But the scale of spending raises questions about whether AI demand will grow quickly enough to justify the capacity being built. While cloud providers such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft report rising AI revenue, investors still remain divided on how long it will take for returns to match investment levels.

Regarding financing conditions, loan-to-cost ratios average above 85%, with some exceeding 90%, reflecting both favorable credit conditions and perceived value creation. In some cases, investors are assigning outsize equity value to expansion—for example, a $15-million-per-megawatt investment translating into a $25 million increase in market capitalization.

Hyperscalers—the primary drivers of AI infrastructure spending—appear to be entering this phase from a position of strength. JPMorgan expects their capital expenditures to reach $650 billion in 2026 and exceed $1.1 trillion in 2027. Profitability remains intact, with operating cash flow projected to surpass $900 billion by 2027.

Still, the investment cycle remains concentrated among a small group of technology companies, meaning any slowdown could have an outsize impact on industry growth.

Recent equity issuance is reinforcing balance sheets. Analysts suggest elevated leverage reflects a strategic choice: Companies are financing projects with debt while conditions are favorable, preserving flexibility to deleverage later.

Credit markets will play a pivotal role. JPMorgan forecasts high-grade corporate debt will account for more than $2.1 trillion in data center financing over five years. In 2026, the bank anticipates $150 billion in U.S. hyperscaler issuance and another $100 billion equivalent abroad.

Additional financing—about $170 billion—is expected from data center and chip issuers outside the core high-grade market, though alternative channels will remain relatively small.

For JPMorgan, the conclusion is clear: AI-driven capital spending is scaling rapidly, and the economics are holding, for now. It will still be closely watched whether adoption will keep pace with the trillions being invested.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The battle, one of the most famous and symbolically charged events in American history, marked its anniversary Thursday. Allied tribes came together on that hot day near the banks of the Little Bighorn River in present-day Montana to hand the U.S. Army a rare defeat as they fought to preserve their way of life in the face of westward expansion. Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and more than 200 his troops were killed.

Reenactments will illustrate the battle. Horse riders from the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota and elsewhere are traveling hundreds of miles to the Crow Agency area in Montana to mark the occasion. Families are being encouraged to share their oral histories. At the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota, horse races and traditional songs and dances are planned.

Gathering at the battlefield area in Montana means “we’re still here,” said William Good Bird, a traditional singer from the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation in North Dakota who woke up the camp where hundreds of people were gathered from numerous tribes with a song and drumming.

“Today I am celebrating the victory of our people, celebrating my life as a human being and my spot on this earth,” he said.

Native warriors overpowered divided U.S. Army forces

The discovery of gold in the Black Hills in what is now South Dakota by a Custer expedition just years earlier spurred a military campaign against Great Plains tribes that aimed to push them onto reservations, or what were known then as agencies, said historian Dakota Goodhouse.

There were bigger, longer battles and other Native victories between March 1876 and June 1877, but Goodhouse said only the Battle of Greasy Grass — named by Native Americans for the slick grass along the river — gained national recognition because the commanding officer was killed.

At the time, the Lakota were one of the largest and most powerful tribal nations, with strong leaders in Sitting Bull and warriors like Crazy Horse. Native warriors quickly overwhelmed Custer’s men as the U.S. forces were spread miles apart over the hilly area.

News of Custer’s defeat stunned Americans, who were celebrating their country’s centennial.

The federal government accelerated efforts to subdue resistance, bringing years of hardship and upheaval for Native Americans. Crazy Horse was killed in 1877, and starvation brought about the surrender of others in 1881.

Sitting Bull didn’t surrender as history books tell it, said Jon Eagle Sr., a former Standing Rock tribal historic preservation officer from the Hunkpapa band of the Oceti Sakowin.

“Our people say that he looked at his son Crow Foot and said, ‘My boy, if you live, you can never be a man in this world because you can never own a gun or a pony,’” Eagle said. “I think that he understood that things were going to change for his children, his grandchildren and those not yet born.”

Sitting Bull was killed with about a dozen other people when agency police attempted to arrest him in 1890.

Custer is remembered as a polarizing figure

Biographer T.J. Stiles described Custer as one of the most distinguished combat officers in the Army at the end of the Civil War. But he said the “Boy General” with his long hair and flamboyant battlefield wardrobe often bristled at the chain of command and did not take to the management side of leadership.

“Custer was someone who whenever he got into the frying pan, he immediately started looking for the fire,” he said.

In 1873, Custer was assigned to lead the Seventh Cavalry at Fort Abraham Lincoln, near present-day Bismarck, North Dakota. From there, he led military expeditions, including one that confirmed the gold in the Black Hills, a sacred place to the Lakota.

Seen in the U.S. as a tragic hero and memorialized for his military feats, Custer could also be considered progressive even as the federal government sought to displace Native Americans and stamp out Native languages through boarding schools, Goodhouse said. He learned to speak Arikara and Lakota and became fluent in sign language used by tribes in the region.

Still, as many Americans are celebrating the 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, for many Native Americans it’s not a reason to rejoice.

“It’s just a mark to me of 250 years of injustice to the Native people,” Crow tribal member and reenactment coordinator Jim Real Bird said.

Eagle agreed: “That’s one of the things that we always tell our people when we come together, is they failed at their attempts to rub us out. We’re still here as ancient people deeply connected to our environment.”

Commemoration keeps history alive for future generations

For more than 30 years, reenactments featuring hundreds of warriors have marked the anniversary near the battlefield. The choreography is based on Northern Cheyenne oral history and highlights horsemanship and language preservation.

“All the other things that are Native American don’t mean nothing if you don’t know your language,” said Real Bird.

The atmosphere at the battlefield area was celebratory as hundreds of people from numerous tribes had gathered. Several hundred horse riders charged up a hill and circled at the top as they whooped and yelled. The sun shined on the battlefield area, a wide-open grassland with few trees, mountains in the distance.

Elders wore headdresses. People sang and played drums as flags flew from various tribal nations. The camp with dozens of tepees stood along the Little Bighorn River, with people there from tribes in the Dakotas and as far away as Washington state.

“This is our fuel for the year. We come here and this is a renewal for us, too, you know, personally,” said Theresa Long Turkey, of the Lower Brule Sioux Tribe in South Dakota.

At Standing Rock, Eagle said the races honor the horse nation that carried their ancestors to victory 150 years ago. The commemoration also includes oskáte, a traditional celebration of oral histories, victory songs and tribal dancing.

“It’s just an opportunity for us to share with the generations coming behind us that they’re descendants of a very powerful nation and ancient people that are still here despite everything that was done to us,” said Eagle, whose great-great-grandfather, Sunka, fought that day. His father, Charging Thunder, also was there.

Goodhouse recalled stories his grandfather would tell him of their ancestors who were in the Hunkpapa camp when troops attacked. His grandfather’s great-grandfather, Striped Face, was shot but mounted his horse and joined the fight.

“There’s this kind of energy there that still lives on because we have this direct narrative that was handed down,” he said.

___

Dura reported from Bismarck, North Dakota.

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This story is published through the Global Indigenous Reporting Network at The Associated Press.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The proposed class action lawsuit, filed Monday, accuses gas station giants including Marathon and Circle K of violating California’s antitrust law through Kalibrate, a fuel-pricing software system used across the world. The plaintiffs describe Kalibrate as the “central nervous system for a conspiracy to extinguish retail price competition among gas stations.”

According to the lawsuit, Kalibrate helps “coordinate high prices” and even discourages its users from pricing their gas lower than competitors, saying that doing so would trigger a “downward spiral.”

“Kalibrate promises that if gas stations surrender their pricing decisions and competitively sensitive cost and volume data to Kalibrate Fuel Pricing, the software will enable them to avoid competing with other area stations and to charge higher prices to consumers,” the lawsuit said.

Californians already pay some of the highest gas prices in the nation, and prices have surged across the globe since the start of the Iran war.

The lawsuit is the latest to accuse software companies of driving up the cost of living for millions in the U.S. Other examples include the Department of Justice’s lawsuit against RealPage, which has been accused of helping landlords drive up rent prices, and the DOJ’s lawsuit against Agri Stats, a data-sharing company accused of helping the meatpacking industry inflate grocery prices. The DOJ has settled both of those lawsuits in the past year, though various state attorneys general are still pursuing lawsuits against RealPage and numerous property management companies.

Concern over algorithmic pricing prompted Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom last year to sign a bill saying that state antitrust law applies to pricing algorithms, helping to pave the way for this week’s lawsuit.

Kalibrate is headquartered in Manchester, England, and operates in more than 70 countries. It did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

The lawsuit accuses Kalibrate of facilitating cartel-like collusion. Only this time, instead of competitors making a secret deal “over cigars in a smoky back room,” the price-fixing is done through AI, according to the lawsuit.

“As technology has advanced, so too have the mechanisms available to competitors to fix prices without the cigars, the smoke, or even the room,” the lawsuit says.

Among the examples the lawsuit lists is a “restoration” tool that helps “nearly all gas stations in an area raise their prices contemporaneously and by a large amount.”

According to the lawsuit, research into algorithmic fuel-pricing software found average price increases of about 6 cents per gallon, rising to as much as 30 cents per gallon in markets where many stations use the technology.

“Because of the volume of fuel sold across California, a single cent increase at the pump will drain a whopping $134 million from California drivers’ wallets every year across the state,” the lawsuit says.

The defendants in the lawsuit — which also include BP, Speedway, EG America, Walmart and Albertsons — collectively operate more than 1,700 gas stations in California, according to the lawsuit. None of them immediately responded to a request for comment.

The lawsuit seeks to represent California drivers who bought gas at stations using Kalibrate software since June 2022.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Critics warn of doomsday scenarios out of a sci-fi thriller, while backers say AI will generate so much new wealth that no one should worry too much about millions of layoffs.

A new bipartisan nonprofit hopes to ensure that America can realize the economic gains promised by AI without its workers suffering.

RAISE US is starting with more than $500 million to deploy on new forms of education and training, putting a focus on partnering with states and major employers rather than the federal government.

Founded by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, a Democrat, and former Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican, the group aims to pilot programs and incentives to help American workers pivot to new careers in an economy that will increasingly be automated by artificial intelligence.

“We’re talking about a certain level of unemployment that could destabilize our country and our democracy,” Raimondo said in an interview. “If you want to lead the world in AI, you have to take action to make sure our democracy doesn’t crumble.”

The programs will first start in Arkansas, Maryland, Utah and Connecticut

The nonprofit is initially partnering with officials in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland and Utah, along with several of America’s largest companies and charitable organizations. The group intends to develop policies that connect schools more closely to employers, so that layoffs can be replaced by the potential for new jobs with higher incomes. They also are exploring changes to corporate taxes and other incentives with the goal of keeping people working.

“Good things tend to happen when you convert have-nots into haves,” Holcomb said.

Among the companies serving as anchor partners with RAISE US are Amazon, Microsoft, Anthropic, the OpenAI Foundation and Bank of America. Other employers involved in the project include UPS, General Motors, Eli Lilly, Mastercard, chipmaker AMD, Cisco and IBM.

Raimondo, the former Democratic governor of Rhode Island who played a formative role in setting AI policy as the Biden administration’s commerce secretary, will be the nonprofit’s CEO.

The advisory board includes former Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, billionaire investment manager Stephen Schwarzman, AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and the economists David Autor, Erik Brynjolfsson and Raj Chetty.

AI has the potential to displace human workers from factories to offices

An April analysis by the Boston Consulting Group estimated that roughly half of U.S. jobs will be reshaped by AI over the next few years. The analysis said that as many as 25 million jobs could be eliminated in the U.S. over the next five years. Goldman Sachs, in March, separately released an estimate that a quarter of U.S. work hours could be automated by AI.

More than just a glorified search engine or a generator of video clips and novelty images, AI could fill roads with driverless trucks, create factories staffed by robots and supplant office workers, lawyers and doctors.

President Donald Trump has expressed little anxiety about the possibility of AI displacing human workers.

Asked on Tuesday ahead of touring a Mack Trucks factory in Pennsylvania if AI could cause truckers to lose their jobs, Trump told a reporter, “Right now, they’re not.”

The president has been banking on the buildout of AI data centers and power plants to drive hiring and overall economic growth. While AI-related investments have helped the economy, manufacturing has shed 68,000 jobs and the trucking transportation sector has cut 28,300 jobs since the start of Trump’s second term, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We have, right now, so many jobs that are going to be available and the biggest problem we have is getting the people,” Trump said. “So we’re really doing spectacular.”

Experts say education systems and labor policies aren’t built for an AI economy

AI experts have warned of gaps between the transformations that AI could create and a 20th century social safety net of unemployment insurance and four-year college that seems ill-prepared for the scope, scale and speed of the change.

“AI is now disrupting multiple sectors simultaneously, faster than any institution can respond,” said Vivienne Ming, a neuroscientist who has written the book, “Robot-Proof: When Machines Have all the Answers, Build Better People.”

Ming said that she agrees with an argument by economists that the wealth generated by AI could create demand for more workers that could offset any job losses. But she said the skills that matter in an AI economy go beyond professions such as plumbing or construction and involve curiosity and intellectual flexibility.

“Neither our education system nor our labor policies are building the foundational human capital that AI-era work actually requires,” she said.

Raimondo said the new nonprofit wants to use states as a vehicle for testing ideas that Congress can later embrace as policies, paving the way for the possibility of more profound changes to both the tax code and the educational system.

“I don’t have a lot of hope for bold action by Congress in the next few years on this issue, and I don’t think we can wait a few years,” she said. “I also think there are many examples in history that when the federal government does take action, they will look around at what has been working in states. I feel pretty confident that they will look at the work that we’ve done.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

How do we know this? Researchers tickled 13 captive apes — including gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and bonobos — and recorded the results. The new research reexamined those decades-old recordings and compared them with the newly captured giggles of four young children while they were being tickled and playing at home.

It turns out that the chuckles of humans and great apes follow similar rhythms, with regular timing between their laughs, a uniting thread that likely reflects their ties to a common ancestor, researchers said.

“In a way, we are very similar to other great apes because we’ve been laughing in a similar way for 15 million years,” said study author Chiara De Gregorio, a primatologist at the University of Warwick in England.

Laughter communicates a playful, happy feeling without using words. Many animals can laugh too, but the giggles don’t follow human patterns as closely. When researchers tickle rats, for example, they respond with ultrasonic squeaks.

Scientists trying to uncover how laughter evolved have picked apart animals’ facial expressions, but less work has been done on how laughs sound. And compared with apes, human laughter has become faster and more complex. For one, our laughs sound different based on context — from a polite chuckle among colleagues to a full-bodied guffaw with close friends.

“We are like the masters of laughter, I would say,” said De Gregorio, whose findings were published Thursday in the journal Communications Biology.

These giggles evolved to best suit animals’ different social lives, said Brittany Florkiewicz, who studies animal communication at Lyon College and had no role in the new research. She said the study’s findings make sense, and point to a need for more investigation.

Florkiewicz said she’d like to hear comparable recordings of other animals with playful facial expressions, like dogs, horses and cats. That could tell us more about how laughter evolved, so we can “understand what makes us uniquely human, but also what is similar between humans and other animals.”

Studying the origins of laughter may seem corny, but it’s one aspect of human communication that can help us understand others — including how we learned to speak. Because sounds don’t fossilize, scientists are using the evidence we do have to trace things back, one chuckle at a time.

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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

The White House supported the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, but on Wednesday Trump canceled the signing ceremony for the bill, saying he would not sign the measure until Congress passes legislation that would require proof of citizenship for all voters.

Here’s what to know.

How significant is this housing legislation?

The measure is the culmination of months of negotiations by lawmakers who combined dozens of bills meant to address how housing affordability for both renters and aspiring homeowners in the U.S. has grown increasingly out of reach for many Americans.

The bill would reduce federal regulations, streamline environmental reviews, speed up the construction process and curb the influence of corporate landlords by limiting their ability to purchase single-family homes.

Still, it’s not a silver bullet for all the factors that contribute to reduced housing affordability, including lack of construction labor, rising insurance costs and years of subdued wage growth relative to sharply rising rents and home prices.

Even so, the bill has drawn broad support from the real estate industry, including organizations representing homebuilders and apartment complex owners, as well as housing advocates.

“We need more homes built, and legislation that removes construction barriers is exactly what the market needs right now,” said Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin. “Homebuyers who were hoping for relief may have to wait even longer, and in a market already starved for inventory, that’s a tough pill to swallow.”

What led lawmakers to pass the first major housing legislation in decades?

Housing has grown into a hot-button issue among voters in recent years as homeownership and rents in many areas have become less affordable for many Americans.

The U.S. housing market has been in a slump since 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes were essentially flat last year, stuck at a 30-year low. While sales accelerated in May to their fastest pace since December, they continue to hover close to a 4 million annual pace, far short of the historic norm that is closer to 5.2 million, limited partly by elevated mortgage rates.

Years of soaring home prices, especially in the early part of this decade when rock-bottom mortgage rates fueled a buying frenzy, have left many would-be homebuyers frozen out of the market. And a chronic shortage of homes for sale nationally, due partly to years of below-average new home construction, has helped prop up home prices even in a multiyear sales slump.

Home prices have increased 54% nationwide since 2020, and last year the median existing single-family sales price was nearly five times the median household income, according to researchers at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies.

Renters, meanwhile, have seen little improvement in affordability. While the median U.S. monthly rent has been declining for nearly three years, it was still 17.2% higher in May than before the pandemic, according to data from Realtor.com.

What if the bill doesn’t become law?

One of the biggest hurdles to homeownership has been an imbalance between supply and demand in many parts of the country.

When there are fewer homes on the market, that helps prop up home prices even during a slowdown. Conversely, during times when mortgage rates are low, buyers end up competing for fewer homes, which drives up prices.

The housing bill would help increase the supply of housing, particularly when it comes to smaller, more affordable starter homes.

It amends existing regulations to boost construction of manufactured homes, which tend to be more affordable than other types of newly built homes, and expand access to government-backed loans to include construction of standalone dwellings a homeowner can rent out.

The bill also provides new dollars for communities to turn abandoned infrastructure into housing, and provides guidelines for communities that want to reform outdated zoning regulations, which often limit larger housing developments.

“It won’t make housing more affordable overnight, but in the coming years we will see more construction of town homes, multifamily housing, and ADUs,” notes Fairweather, saying the additional supply “will relieve the pressure on home prices, and make it easier for homebuyers to break into the market.”

What about renters?

The legislation includes a broad set of provisions, including an expansion of government rental assistance and affordable housing construction programs , and measures aimed at encouraging state and local governments to make it easier to build new homes and apartments, including federal funding to places exceeding the median rate of homebuilding.

In addition, the bill would raise limits on the number of public housing units that can receive financing for renovations and codify a recovery program to help expedite funds to communities rebuilding after disaster.

It also requires new renter protections.

“Families are struggling under the heavy weight of housing costs that have climbed for decades,” said San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria, who is president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. “There’s no time to waste. Without federal action, America’s housing shortfall will continue to grow, falling another 2 million units behind in the next five years.”

What happens if the bill signing is held up for weeks or longer?

While hailed as a significant step, the federal government’s power to dictate things like how many homes are built or rents is limited, given that most of the regulations on construction, such as zoning laws, and other facets of real estate are determined by local and state governments.

So, even if the bill is delayed, it’s not like it would have had an immediate impact on local house prices, for example. But it would set back the clock on new construction projects that might not otherwise get the go-ahead.

“The sooner this bill becomes law, the sooner builders and homebuyers will benefit from its downstream effects,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com. “Even if the president were to sign this bill immediately, many of the provisions will take time to impact builder planning and projects in the pipeline, so there is going to be a delay before consumers feel the impacts of this legislation either way.”

What happens next?

Trump’s decision to not sign the legislation into law Wednesday could end up just temporarily delaying the measure from taking effect.

The House passed the bill in a 358-32 vote on Tuesday and the Senate passed it 85-5 on Monday. That level of support is what’s colloquially called a veto-proof majority.

Still, if Trump were to veto the measure, the Senate and the House would have to vote again to override the veto.

It may not come to that.

Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that he had spoken with Trump earlier in the day and was confident the president would sign the bill.

“The president, when we go through the details of the bill, he’s going to understand that it’s a good product,” Johnson said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Democratic leaders aren’t so sure that’s a good thing.

As progressives cheered across the nation, some of the most powerful Democrats in the country, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, downplayed the impact of Mamdani’s victories on Tuesday, when the 34-year-old democratic socialist mayor’s slate of congressional candidates defeated three establishment favorites — including two incumbents — in primary contests. He had even more victories in state legislative races, where he successfully backed five other candidates.

It was a stunning sweep for Mamdani, just six months into his first term, that will expand his influence in Washington and Albany. The mayor said Wednesday that he hopes to export his policies and politics to other states, while demanding major changes across the Democratic Party.

“Working people are struggling across the country,” Mamdani said. He added that he hopes to help “write a new chapter in our party’s history, where working people are back at the heart of that struggle. And I I believe that will be key in not just the midterms coming up in November, but also in the years to come.”

The mixed reaction from Democratic leaders as they grappled with the fallout from Mamdani’s success exposed the depth of the divide between the party’s progressive and establishment wings, who are at odds over how Democrats should govern — and how to win elections — over the final two years of the Donald Trump presidency.

Indeed, Democrats hope to avoid an all-out intraparty civil war ahead of the November midterms, especially with Republicans fighting amongst themselves over Trump’s war in Iran, how to address the affordability crunch and the president’s costly efforts to build a massive White House ballroom.

Democrats aren’t sure which direction to take

The Mamdani resistance from senior Democrats was not subtle.

“The effort to nationalize New York is going to fail,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. “What’s happening in New York will be really irrelevant by the time of the elections in November.”

Rep. Marc Veasey of Texas, a vice chair of the New Democrat Coalition, was similarly dismissive, saying progressives were playing checkers while moderates were playing chess.

“No one in DSA is trying to win in a red-to-blue seat, or in a tough general election matchup,” Veasey said, referring to democratic socialist candidates.

Democrats’ left flank said the party’s latest nominees should be welcomed with open arms.

“What I would like to see, and what I think would be actually productive and beneficial, is a congratulations to these people, a commitment to welcome them in, to understanding the perspectives that they bring,” said Rep. Summer Lee, a 38-year-old progressive from Pennsylvania.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont who campaigned alongside Mamdani and his allies last week, said New York’s results sent a clear message.

“The American people, in New York and increasingly all over the country, are sick and tired of status quo establishment politics,” he said. “I think you’re gonna continue to see it.”

Trump saw an opportunity to stir the pot from the Oval Office, telling reporters that the Democrats were “going radical left” and Mamdani’s choices are “really communist.”

He marveled at the defeat of Rep. Dan Goldman, a former top lawyer during Democrats’ first impeachment of Trump. Goldman was defeated by Brad Lander, an ally of Mamdani.

“When they go more liberal than Dan Goldman, they’re really into Never Neverland,” he said.

‘Voters are just pissed off’

Mamdani backed three anti-establishment congressional challengers in a political gamble that his own team acknowledged was risky. He won them all.

Goldman, a two-term incumbent, was swiftly defeated by Lander, a former city comptroller.

U.S. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, who leads the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, was toppled by Mamdani’s most polarizing pick, Darializa Avila Chevalier, a democratic socialist who once helped organize pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University.

Antonio Reynoso, the handpicked successor of U.S. Rep. Nydia Velazquez, lost to another democratic socialist, Assembly Member Claire Valdez.

The entire Mamdani slate promised to “abolish ICE,” condemned Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza and vowed to “tax the rich.”

“Voters are just pissed off,” Lander said in an interview. “They want people who show who they’re fighting for, and really get out and fight for things that matter in the lives of working people.”

Cheering the extent of Mamdani’s success, progressive leaders called on the Democratic Party’s leadership in Washington — and its next crop of presidential candidates — to adopt meaningful changes in the weeks and months ahead.

Indeed, Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a potential presidential candidate, said it would be “silly” for his party not to draw meaningful conclusions from New York’s results.

“The voters are clearly telling us they want us to be bolder — bolder in the policies we’re proposing and bolder in the tactics we use to fight authoritarians,” he said.

And yet the Mamdani critics within the party were not hard to find.

Jeffries, who is in line to become the next House speaker if Democrats win the House majority this fall, reiterated his opposition to Mamdani’s slate in repeated interviews and media appearances.

“He’s got work to do in terms of the conversations that he’s going to have with members of Congress moving forward,” Jeffries, the No. 1 House Democrat jabbed, even as he said they have a good working relationship.

Republicans are paying attention

Giddy House Republican operatives vowed to weaponize Mamdani and his slate to undercut the Democratic brand in competitive midterm elections across the country, while other Republican officials warned their party to pay attention to this pivotal moment in the nation’s politics.

“Republicans need to wake up. What we saw last night in New York can only be called one thing: a socialist uprising sweeping the Democrat Party,” said Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio. “If Republicans don’t act now, we will lose this country as we know it.”

Meanwhile, Trump seemed to worry more about Mamdani’s growing national profile than his democratic socialist policies.

“Mayor Mamdani pulled through 3 solid Communists, and has received loud and universal applause from the Fake News Media. Congratulations Mr. Mayor!” the Republican president wrote on social media. “I went 16-0 last night, helping to elect wonderful American Patriots, and the Media doesn’t say a word.”

Meanwhile, Mamdani dismissed broader concerns that his success would undermine the Democratic Party’s fight to win control of Congress this fall.

“We’ve heard from Republicans time and again that they’re going to try and make these candidates the face of the Democratic Party. To them, I say that we are ready for that,” he said. “For far too long we have been told that it is not possible to fight for working people and win. These candidates have shown that they can.”

And yet some Democrats were clear-eyed about the work that lies ahead to bring the party together as new divisions flared in the wake of Mamdani’s success.

“We have to respect the voters. They made their decision,” said Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont.

“The challenge that we have,” he continued, “is to build the different points of view together, all in service of helping people who are struggling to pay their bills to get more economic security. The challenge of unity is enormous. But that’s our challenge.”

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Brown reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Steven Sloan contributed to this report.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com