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NANTERRE, France — No one can match America’s depth at the pool.  

That said, claiming the top step on the Olympic medal podium is no longer a given for U.S. swimmers.  

Nine days of thrilling competition at La Defense Arena wrapped up Sunday night with the Americans barely pulling out the lead in the gold medal standings thanks to a victory in the last race.  

The U.S. finished with eight golds, its fewest since the 1988 Seoul Games and one ahead of its biggest rival, Australia.  

“It’s one of the worst performances in history as a U.S. team,” Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian ever and part of the NBC broadcast team in Paris, said Monday. “Something’s got to happen before 2028 because if you have a repeat like this, it’s gonna be even more embarrassing.”  

Notably, the rest of the world totaled more victories (20) than the United States and Australia combined, the first time that’s happened since the 1996 Atlanta Games.  

The Americans will certainly be intent on improving their performance heading into the home games at Los Angeles in 2028, when swimming will have in its largest, most spectacular setting yet — a temporary pool inside SoFi Stadium with a capacity for some 38,000 fans.  

Still, with more and more international swimmers getting their training in the U.S. — and prominent American coaches such as Bob Bowman spreading their knowledge to other countries — a more diverse list of gold medalists is likely to be the norm going forward.  

“This sport is growing and I can’t help but feel like we’ve been a part of that,” American gold medalist Bobby Finke said. “It’s something we should take home and be proud of.”  

Two of the biggest swimming stars in Paris, France’s Léon Marchand and Canada’s Summer McIntosh, train in the U.S. but won a bevy of medals for their home countries.  

Marchand, who captured four individual golds as well as a relay bronze, is coached by Bowman, best known as the guy who guided Michael Phelps throughout his record-setting career. It was a bit strange to see Bowman in a France shirt, working on the coaching staff of Marchand’s nation.  

After a break to savor his Olympic triumph, Marchand will return to the U.S. to continue his work with Bowman, who now heads the swimming program at the University of Texas.  

“Look at Bob Bowman. He doesn’t care if you’re from the USA or whatever,” said Shane Ryan, an American-born swimmer who competes for Ireland. “He just wants to coach the fastest swimmers at all times.”  

McIntosh trains with a team in Sarasota, Florida, where she honed the form that produced three individual gold medals — the most ever by a Canadian athlete — and a silver.  

“I think competition is great,” said longtime American stalwart Ryan Murphy, who trains with several international athletes at Cal-Berkeley including Spain’s Hugo González. “He’s pushed me a lot. There’s plenty of days where he’s right next to me and helping me get better.”  

Murphy said it’s only natural in today’s information-driven world that more nations are rising up to challenge the U.S.   

“People will take a video of what they’re doing in practice and put it up on social media right away,” he said. “The learning curve is so quick around the world. That’s a big reason why there’s so many talented athletes across the world now.”  

The U.S. certainly has its shining moments in Paris.  

Katie Ledecky won two more golds, moving her into a tie for second place among all athletes on the career list with nine. She also joined Phelps as the only swimmers to win the same event at four straight Summer Games with her victory in the 800-meter freestyle.  

The women’s team produced several more stars, including Torri Huske (three golds, two silvers), Gretchen Walsh (two golds, two silvers) and Regan Smith (two golds, three silvers).  

But there were plenty of disappointments, particular on the men’s side.  

Caeleb Dressel, a big star at the Tokyo Games with five gold medals, finished sixth in the 50 freestyle and didn’t even qualify for the final of the 100 butterfly.  

Murphy settled for a bronze in the 100 backstroke and, like Dressel, failed to qualify for the final of his other individual event, the 200 back.  

In all, the American men produced only two gold medals, and they didn’t pick up an individual victory until Finke’s world record in the 1,500 freestyle on the final night.   

“You always want to be better,” said Anthony Nesty, head coach of the men’s team. “Yes, we want our athletes to win gold medals, but the other teams have great athletes as well. We have to go back, all the coaches in the U.S., get back on it and hopefully four years from now we have a better result. From the men, for sure.”  

The depth of the American team remains its biggest strength. Even with four of its most prominent stars — Dressel, Murphy, Lilly King and Simone Manuel — managing only one individual medal (Murphy’s bronze in the 100 back), the U.S. easily led the overall medals table with 28.  

Three of the four world records set at the meet came from the Americans, two of them in relays.  

“Whether our athletes won a gold medal or failed to make a semifinal or whatever it might be,” said U.S. women’s coach Todd DeSorbo, “you’ve got to learn from it, go back home and be better.” 
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washington — White House senior adviser Gene Sperling is leaving his administration position to work with Vice President Kamala Harris’ election campaign as the Democrats step up efforts to challenge Donald Trump on policy issues in November’s election.

Sperling will be a senior economic adviser to Harris’ policy team. The shift was revealed by White House officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

Sperling served both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama as director of the White House National Economic Council. President Joe Biden tasked Sperling with managing his $1.9 trillion pandemic aid package, a role in which Sperling implemented the temporary expansion of the child tax credit. He was also the White House liaison to the union and car companies during the auto strikes.

“Under Gene’s leadership, the American Rescue Plan has delivered economic relief to cities and counties across the country, protected millions of union pensions, made the largest-ever federal investment in public safety, and kept thousands of small businesses afloat,” Biden said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press.

Sperling first worked with Harris when she was California attorney general during his time in the Obama administration. He frequently consulted with her as an outside adviser when she was in the Senate. The two partnered during the Biden presidency on promoting the monthly payments for the child tax credit, among other policies.

The pandemic programs halved child poverty with tax credits that went to 40 million families and provided rental assistance to 8 million.

But Republican critics blame the pandemic aid for sparking higher inflation, an issue that has hounded the Biden administration as many voters say that groceries, housing and gasoline have become less affordable. Financial markets opened Monday with a selloff as a weaker than expected jobs report last week has raised concerns about the U.S. economy’s resilience.

The White House has maintained that the inflation was global in nature, with chief of staff Jeff Zients saying that the efforts coordinated by Sperling “produced the strongest economy in the world.”

North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, described the work that Sperling spearheaded as “generational investments” and credited him working with states to get the programs right.
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3 серпня жителі міста Ковель влаштували акцію протесту через нібито незаконне затримання трьох чоловіків, які їхали на авто
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«Врахувавши щире каяття обвинуваченого і те, що він повністю відшкодував завдані державі збитки, суд призначив йому штраф у розмірі 221 тисяч гривень»
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TAMPA, FLORIDA — The center of Hurricane Debby is expected to reach the Big Bend coast of Florida early Monday bringing potential record-setting rains, catastrophic flooding and life-threatening storm surge as it moves slowly across the northern part of the state before stalling over the coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina.

Debby was located about 40 miles (70 kilometers) west of Cedar Key, Florida, with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph). The storm was moving north at 12 mph (19 kph), the National Hurricane Center in Miami said early Monday.

Debby is the fourth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season after Tropical Storm Alberto, Hurricane Beryl and Tropical Storm Chris, all of which formed in June.

Forecasters warned heavy amounts of rain from Debby could spawn catastrophic flooding in Florida, South Carolina and Georgia.

The storm was expected to make landfall around midday Monday in the Big Bend area of Florida, north of Tampa, the hurricane center said. A tornado watch also was in effect for parts of Florida and Georgia until 6 a.m. Monday.

“Right now, we are trying secure everything from floating away,” said Sheryl Horne, whose family owns the Shell Island Fish Camp along the Wakulla River in St. Marks, Florida, where some customers moved their boats inland. The sparsely populated Big Bend region in the Florida Panhandle was hit last year by Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall as a Category 3 hurricane.

“I am used to storms and I’m used to cleaning up after storms,” Horne said.

Debby was expected to move eastward over northern Florida and then stall over the coastal regions of Georgia and South Carolina, thrashing the region with potential record-setting rains totaling up to 76 centimeter) beginning Tuesday. Officials also warned of life-threatening storm surge along Florida’s Gulf Coast, with 1.8 to 3 meters of inundation expected Monday between the Ochlockonee and Suwannee rivers.

“There’s some really amazing rainfall totals being forecast and amazing in a bad way,” Michael Brennan, director of the hurricane center, said at a briefing. “That would be record-breaking rainfall associated with a tropical cyclone for both the states of Georgia and South Carolina if we got up to the 30-inch level.”

Flooding impacts could last through Friday and are expected to be especially severe in low-lying areas near the coast, including Savannah, Georgia; Hilton Head, South Carolina; and Charleston, South Carolina. North Carolina officials were monitoring the storm’s progress.

Officials in Savannah said the area could see a month’s worth of rain in four days if the system stalls over the region.

“This is going to a significant storm. The word historic cannot be underscored here,” Savannah Mayor Van. R. Johnson said during a press conference.

The hurricane center said at 11 p.m. that Debby was located about 161 kilometers west of Tampa, Florida, with maximum sustained winds of 120 kph. The storm was moving north at 19 kph.

Debby’s outer bands grazed the west coast of Florida, flooding streets and bringing power outages. Sarasota County officials said most roadways on Siesta Key, a barrier island off the coast of Sarasota, were under water. The hurricane center had predicted the system would strengthen as it curved off the southwest Florida coast, where the water has been extremely warm.

At a briefing Sunday afternoon, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned the storm could lead to “really, really significant flooding that will happen in North Central Florida.”

The storm would follow a similar track to Hurricane Idalia but would “be much wetter. We are going to see much more inundation,” he said.

A hurricane warning was issued for parts of the Big Bend and Florida Panhandle areas, while tropical storm warnings were posted for Florida’s West Coast, the southern Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas. A tropical storm watch extended farther west into the Panhandle.

Tropical storms and hurricanes can trigger river flooding and overwhelm drainage systems and canals. Forecasters warned of 15 centimeters to 30 centimeters of rain and up to 46 centimeters in isolated areas of Florida.

Storm surge expected to hit Gulf Coast, including Tampa Bay

Flat Florida is prone to flooding even on sunny days and the storm was predicted to bring a surge of 0.6 to 1.2 meters along most of the Gulf Coast, including Tampa Bay, with a storm tide of up to 2.1 meters north of there in the Big Bend region.

Forecasters warned of “a danger of life-threatening storm surge inundation” in a region that includes Hernando Beach, Crystal River, Steinhatchee and Cedar Key. Officials in Citrus and Levy counties ordered a mandatory evacuation of coastal areas, while those in Hernando, Manatee, Pasco and Taylor counties called for voluntary evacuations. Shelters opened in those and some other counties.

Citrus County Sheriff Mike Prendergast estimated 21,000 people live in his county’s evacuation zone.

Residents, businesses prepare for flooding

Residents in Steinhatchee, Florida, which flooded during Hurricane Idalia, spent Sunday moving items to higher ground.

“I’ve been here 29 years. This isn’t the first time I’ve done it. Do you get used to it? No,” Mark Reblin said as he moved items out of the liquor store he owns.

Employees of Savannah Canoe and Kayak in Georgia said they were busy tying down their watercraft, laying sandbags, and raising equipment off the ground. Mayme Bouy, the store manager, said she wasn’t too concerned about the forecast calling for a potential historic rain event.

“But we do have some high tides this week so if the rain is happening around then, that could be bad,” Bouy added. “I’d rather play it safe than sorry.”

Governors declare emergencies ahead of landfall

DeSantis declared a state of emergency for 61 of Florida’s 67 counties, with the National Guard activating 3,000 guard members. Utility crews from in and out of state were ready to restore power after the storm, he said in a post on X. Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster made their own emergency declarations.

In Tampa alone, officials gave out more than 30,000 sandbags to barricade against flooding.

“We’ve got our stormwater drains cleared out. We’ve got our generators all checked and full. We’re doing everything that we need to be prepared to face a tropical storm,” Tampa Mayor Jane Castor said.

Northeast coast also preparing for storm conditions

Emergency managers in New England and New York were already monitoring the path of the storm for the possibility of remnants striking their states. States including New York and Vermont have been hit by heavy rain and thunderstorms in recent weeks and were still coping with flooding and saturated ground.
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CHICO, California — Fire crews battling California’s largest wildfire this year have corralled a third of the blaze aided in part by cooler weather, but a return of triple-digit temperatures could allow it to grow, fire officials said Sunday.

Cooler temperatures and increased humidity gave firefighters “a great opportunity to make some good advances” on the fire in the Sierra Nevada foothills, said Chris Vestal, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The Park Fire has scorched 1,623 square kilometers since igniting July 24 when authorities said a man pushed a burning car into a gully in Chico and then fled. The blaze was 30% contained as of Sunday.

The massive fire has scorched an area bigger than the city of Los Angeles, which covers about 1,302 square kilometers. It continues to burn through rugged, inaccessible, and steep terrain with dense vegetation.

The fire’s push northward has brought it toward the rugged lava rock landscape surrounding Lassen Volcanic National Park, which has been closed because of the threat. The inhospitable terrain remains one of the biggest challenges for firefighters.

“The challenge with that is we can’t use our heavy machinery like bulldozers to go through and cut a line right through it,” Vestal said.

“On top of that, we have to put human beings, our hand crews, in to remove those fuels and some of that terrain is not really the greatest for people that are hiking so it takes a long time and extremely hard work,” he added.

The fire has destroyed at least 572 structures and damaged 52 others. At least 2,700 people in Butte and Tehama Counties remain under evacuation orders, Veal said.

After days of smoky skies, clear skies Sunday allowed firefighters to deploy helicopters and other aircraft to aid in the fight against the blaze as temperatures reached above 38 degrees Celsius.

“The fire is in a good place from the weather conditions we had the last couple of days but we still have to worry about the weather that we have and the conditions that are going to be present now for about the next five or six days,” Veal said.

The fire in Northern California is one of 85 large blazes burning across the West.

In Colorado, firefighters were making progress Sunday against three major fires burning near heavily populated areas north and south of Denver. Many residents evacuated by the fires have been allowed to go back home.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a blaze threatening hundreds of homes near the Colorado city of Littleton as arson.

About 50 structures were damaged or destroyed, about half of them homes, by a fire near Loveland. And one person was found dead in a home burned by a fire west of the town of Lyons.

Scientists say extreme wildfires are becoming more common and destructive in the U.S. West and other parts of the world as climate change warms the planet and droughts become more severe.

In Canada, a 24-year-old firefighter battling a blaze in Jasper National Park was killed Saturday by a falling tree, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said.

The firefighter from Calgary, whose name was not released, was battling a fire north of Jasper, a town in Alberta Province that was half destroyed last month by a fast-moving fire.
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WASHINGTON — The U.S. Commerce Department is expected to propose barring Chinese software in autonomous and connected vehicles in the coming weeks, according to sources briefed on the matter.

The Biden administration plans to issue a proposed rule that would bar Chinese software in vehicles in the United States with Level 3 automation and above, which would have the effect of also banning testing on U.S. roads of autonomous vehicles produced by Chinese companies.

The administration, in a previously unreported decision, also plans to propose barring vehicles with Chinese-developed advanced wireless communications abilities modules from U.S. roads, the sources added.

Under the proposal, automakers and suppliers would need to verify that none of their connected vehicle or advanced autonomous vehicle software was developed in a “foreign entity of concern” like China, the sources said.

The Commerce Department said last month it planned to issue proposed rules on connected vehicles in August and expected to impose limits on some software made in China and other countries deemed adversaries.

Asked for comment, a Commerce Department spokesperson said on Sunday that the department “is concerned about the national security risks associated with connected technologies in connected vehicles.”

The department’s Bureau of Industry and Security will issue a proposed rule that “will focus on specific systems of concern within the vehicle. Industry will also have a chance to review that proposed rule and submit comments.”

The Chinese Embassy in Washington did not immediately comment but the Chinese foreign ministry has previously urged the United States “to respect the laws of the market economy and principles of fair competition.” It argues Chinese cars are popular globally because they had emerged out of fierce market competition and are technologically innovative.

On Wednesday, the White House and State Department hosted a meeting with allies and industry leaders to “jointly address the national security risks associated with connected vehicles,” the department said. Sources said officials disclosed details of the administration’s planned rule.

The meeting included officials from the United States, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Germany, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Spain, and the United Kingdom who “exchanged views on the data and cybersecurity risks associated with connected vehicles and certain components.”

Also known as conditional driving automation, Level 3 involves technology that allows drivers to engage in activities behind the wheel, such as watching movies or using smartphones, but only under some limited conditions.

In November, a group of U.S. lawmakers raised alarm about Chinese companies collecting and handling sensitive data while testing autonomous vehicles in the United States and asked questions of 10 major companies including Baidu, Nio, WeRide, Didi Chuxing, Xpeng, Inceptio, Pony.ai, AutoX, Deeproute.ai and Qcraft.

The letters said in the 12 months ended November 2022 that Chinese AV companies test drove more than 450,000 miles in California. In July 2023, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said his department had national security concerns about Chinese autonomous vehicle companies in the United States.

The administration is worried about connected vehicles using the driver monitoring system to listen or record occupants or take control of the vehicle itself.

“The national security risks are quite significant,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said in May. “We decided to take action because this is really serious stuff.”
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Історичні медалі для України в легкій атлетиці та шанси на бокс
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Washington — Ordinary Americans are “getting whacked” by too many laws and regulations, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch says in a new book that underscores his skepticism of federal agencies and the power they wield.

“Too little law and we’re not safe, and our liberties aren’t protected,” Gorsuch told The Associated Press in an interview in his Supreme Court office. “But too much law and you actually impair those same things.”

“Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law” is being published Tuesday by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Gorsuch has received a $500,000 advance for the book, according to his annual financial disclosure reports.

In the interview, Gorsuch refused to be drawn into discussions about term limits or an enforceable code of ethics for the justices, both recently proposed by President Joe Biden at a time of diminished public trust in the court. Justice Elena Kagan, speaking a couple of days before Biden, separately said the court’s ethics code, adopted by the justices last November, should have a means of enforcement.

But Gorsuch did talk about the importance of judicial independence. “I’m not saying that there aren’t ways to improve what we have. I’m simply saying that we’ve been given something very special. It’s the envy of the world, the United States judiciary,” he said.

The 56-year-old justice was the first of three Supreme Court nominees of then-President Donald Trump, and they have combined to entrench a conservative majority that has overturned Roe v. Wade, ended affirmative action in college admissions, expanded gun rights and clipped environmental regulations aimed at climate change, as well as air and water pollution more generally.

A month ago, the Supreme Court completed a term in which Gorsuch and the court’s five other conservative justices delivered sharp rebukes to the administrative state in three major cases, including the decision that overturned the 40-year-old Chevron decision that had made it more likely that courts would sustain regulations. The court’s three liberal justices dissented each time.

Gorsuch also was in the majority in ruling that former presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution in a decision that indefinitely delayed the election interference case against Trump. What’s more, the justices made it harder to use a federal obstruction charge against people who were part of the mob that violently attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to overturn Trump’s defeat by Biden in the 2020 election.

Gorsuch defended the immunity ruling as necessary to prevent presidents from being hampered while in office by threats of prosecution once they leave.

The court had to wrestle with an unprecedented situation, he said. “Here we have, for the first time in our history, one presidential administration bringing criminal charges against a prior president. It’s a grave question, right? Grave implications,” Gorsuch said.

But in the book, co-authored by a former law clerk, Janie Nitze, Gorsuch largely sets those big issues aside and turns his focus to a fisherman, a magician, Amish farmers, immigrants, a hair braider and others who risked jail time, large fines, deportation and other hardships over unyielding rules.

In 18 years as a judge, including the past seven on the Supreme Court, Gorsuch said, “There were just so many cases that came to me in which I saw ordinary Americans, just everyday, regular people trying to go about their lives, not trying to hurt anybody or do anything wrong and just getting whacked, unexpectedly, by some legal rule they didn’t know about.”

The problem, he said, is that there has been an explosion of laws and regulations, at both the federal and state levels. The sheer volume of Congress’ output for the past decade is overwhelming, he said, averaging 344 pieces of legislation totaling 2 million to 3 million words a year.

One vignette involves John Yates, a Florida fisherman who was convicted of getting rid of some undersized grouper under a federal law originally aimed at the accounting industry and the destruction of evidence in the Enron scandal. Yates’ case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where he won by a single vote.

“I wanted to tell the story of people whose lives were affected,” Gorsuch said.

The book expands on a theme that has run through Gorsuch’s opinions over the years, from his criticism of the Chevron decision back when he served on a federal appeals court in Denver to his statement in May 2023 in which he called emergency measures taken during the COVID-19 crisis that killed more than 1 million Americans perhaps “the greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country.”

While Gorsuch has voted with the other conservative justices in most of the court’s momentous cases, he also has joined with the liberals in notable cases, including those in which he wrote the opinion in 2020 that expanded protections against workplace discrimination to LGBTQ people. Gorsuch also has sided with the liberal justices in all the court’s cases involving Native Americans since he joined the court.

Immigration, especially when people fighting deportation have complained they were given inadequate notice about hearings, is another area where he has typically broken with his conservative colleagues.

Gorsuch recently returned from a summer teaching gig in Porto, Portugal, for the George Mason University law school. Last year, he spent two weeks in Lisbon, Portugal, with the same program for which he was paid nearly $30,000, plus meals, lodging and travel.

He will travel to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California, later this week to talk about the new book.

The day he met with AP, he said, was the first time in weeks that he put on a tie. He wore a dark blue suit, cowboy boots and a Western-style belt.

He seemed at ease, offering chocolate chip cookies and coffee to visitors and joking with a reporter who talked about an upcoming trip to the New Jersey shore. “Go fly some flags up there,” Gorsuch said, a reference to the controversy over flags, similar to those carried by Jan. 6 rioters, that were flown at homes owned by Justice Samuel Alito and his wife.

Gorsuch is not the only justice rolling out a book this summer. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s memoir, “Lovely One,” will be published next month.
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Ярослава Магучіх – новоспечена світова рекордсменка у стрибках у висоту, чемпіонка світу та Європи – стала ще й олімпійською чемпіонкою
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Mexico City — The Biden administration will expand areas where migrants can apply online for appointments to enter the United States to a large swath of southern Mexico, officials said Saturday, potentially easing strains on the Mexican government and lessening dangers for people trying to reach the U.S. border to claim asylum.

Migrants will be able to schedule appointments on the CBP One app from the states of Chiapas and Tabasco, extending the zone from northern and central Mexico, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said. The move satisfies a request of Mexico, an increasingly close partner of the U.S. in efforts to control extraordinary migration flows.

The change will spare migrants from traveling north through Mexico to get one of 1,450 appointments made available daily, CBP said. The agency said it will happen soon but did not give a date.

“We consistently engage with our partners in the Government of Mexico and work together to adjust policies and practices in response to the latest migration trends and security needs,” CBP said in a statement.

The statement confirmed remarks a day earlier by Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Secretary Alicia Bárcena, who said closer relations with the United States cut migration sharply from late last year.

U.S. officials have said increased Mexican enforcement is largely responsible for a sharp drop in U.S. arrests for illegal border crossings during the first half of this year. Mexican officials have stepped up their presence at highway checkpoints and on railroads leading to the U.S. border, returning most to southern Mexico.

In June, the U.S. temporarily suspended asylum processing for those who enter the country illegally, making CBP One of the only avenues for migrants to enter the U.S. to seek asylum and further driving down illegal entries. U.S. officials said arrests for illegal crossings plunged 30% in July from the previous month to the lowest level of Joe Biden’s presidency and the lowest since September 2020.

“We have managed to decompress our [northern] border in a very meaningful way and that has helped … our relationship with the United States be very, very dynamic and very positive,” Bárcena said Friday.

More than 680,000 people scheduled CBP One appointments at eight Mexican land crossings with the U.S. from its introduction in January 2023 through June. The top nationalities are Venezuelan, Cuban and Haitian. U.S. authorities recently limited slots for Mexicans due to the high number of applicants from the country.

The perils of traveling through Mexico to be kidnapped or robbed has prompted many migrants to fly to northern border cities like Tijuana for their CBP One appointments once they reach the southernmost point from which they can apply — until now, Mexico City.

Migrants generally enter Mexico in Chiapas or Tabasco from Guatemala. Mexico City may offer more job opportunities and relative safety but the cost of living is higher, prompting some to live in informal camps in the nation’s capital.
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New York — Economic fears are roiling Wall Street, as worries grow that the Federal Reserve may have left interest rates elevated for too long, allowing them to hurt U.S. growth.

Alarming economic data in recent days have deepened those concerns. U.S. job growth slowed more than expected in July, a Friday report showed, while the unemployment rate increased to 4.3%, heightening fears that a deteriorating labor market could make the economy vulnerable to a recession.

The jobs report exacerbated a selloff in stocks that began on Thursday, when data showing weakness in the labor market and manufacturing sector pushed investors to dump everything from chip stocks to industrials while piling into defensive plays.

Richly valued tech stocks tumbled further on Friday, extending losses in the Nasdaq Composite .IXIC to more than 10% from a record closing high reached in July. The benchmark S&P 500 index .SPX has slid 5.7% from its July peak.

“This is what a growth scare looks like,” said Wasif Latif, president and chief investment officer at Sarmaya Partners. “The market is now realizing that the economy is indeed slowing.”

For months, investors had been heartened by cooling inflation and gradually slowing employment, believing they bolstered the case for the Fed to begin cutting interest rates. That optimism drove big gains in stocks: the S&P 500 remains up 12% this year, despite recent losses; the Nasdaq has gained nearly 12%.

Now that a September rate cut has come into view following a Fed meeting this week, investors are fretting that elevated borrowing costs may already be hurting economic growth. Corporate earnings results, which saw disappointments from companies such as Amazon, Alphabet and Intel, are adding to their concerns.

“We’re witnessing the fallout from the curse of high expectations,” said James St. Aubin, chief investment officer at Ocean Park Asset Management. “So much had been invested around the scenario of a soft landing, that anything that even suggests something different is difficult.”

Next week brings earnings from industrial bellwether Caterpillar CAT.N and media and entertainment giant Walt Disney DIS.N, which will give more insight into the health of the consumer and manufacturing, as well as reports from healthcare heavyweights such as weight-loss drugmaker Eli Lilly LLY.N.

Bets in the futures markets on Friday suggested growing unease about the economy. Fed fund futures reflected traders pricing an over-70% chance of a 50-basis point cut at the central bank’s September meeting, compared to 22% the day before, according to CME FedWatch. Futures priced a total of 116 basis points in rate cuts in 2024, compared to just over 60 basis points priced in on Wednesday.

Broader markets also showed signs of unease. The Cboe Volatility index .VIX – known as Wall Street’s fear gauge – hit its highest since March 2023 on Friday as demand for options protection against a stock market selloff rose.

Meanwhile, investors have rushed into safe haven bonds and other defensive areas of the market. U.S. 10-year yields – which move inversely to bond prices – on Friday dropped as low as 3.79%, the lowest since December.

Sectors that are often popular during times of economic uncertainty are also drawing investors.

Options data for the Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund XLV.P showed the average daily balance between put and call contracts over the last month at its most bullish in about three years, according to a Reuters analysis of Trade Alert data. Trading in the options on Utilities Select Sector SPDR Fund XLU.P also shows a pullback in defensive positioning, highlighting traders’ expectations for strength for the sector.

The healthcare sector .SPXHC is up 4% in the past month, while utilities .SPLRCU are up over 9%. By contrast, the Philadelphia SE Semiconductor index .SOX is down nearly 17% in that period amid sharp losses in investor favorites such as Nvidia NVDA.O and Broadcom AVGO.O.

To be sure, some investors said the data could just be a reason to lock in profits after the market’s overall strong run in 2024.

“This is a good excuse for investors to sell after a huge year to date rally,” said Michael Purves, CEO of Tallbacken Capital Advisors. “Investors should be prepared for some major volatility, particularly in the big tech stocks. But it will probably be short-lived.” 
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NEW YORK — Tucked within the expansive Native American halls of the American Museum of Natural History is a diminutive wooden doll that holds a sacred place among the tribes whose territories once included Manhattan.

For more than six months now, the ceremonial Ohtas, or Doll Being, has been hidden from view after the museum and others nationally took dramatic steps to board up or paper over exhibits in response to new federal rules requiring institutions to return sacred or culturally significant items to tribes — or at least to obtain consent to display or study them.

Museum officials are reviewing more than 1,800 items as they work to comply with the requirements while also eyeing a broader overhaul of the more than half-century-old exhibits.

But some tribal leaders remain skeptical, saying museums have not acted swiftly enough. The new rules, after all, were prompted by years of complaints from tribes that hundreds of thousands of items that should have been returned under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1990 still remain in museum custody.

“If things move slowly, then address that,” said Joe Baker, a Manhattan resident and member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, descendants of the Lenape peoples European traders encountered more than 400 years ago. “The collections, they’re part of our story, part of our family. We need them home. We need them close.”

Sean Decatur, the New York museum’s president, promised tribes will hear from officials soon. He said staff these past few months have been reexamining the displayed objects in order to begin contacting tribal communities.

Museum officials envision a total overhaul of the closed Eastern Woodlands and Great Plains halls — akin to the five-year, $19 million renovation of its Northwest Coast Hall, completed in 2022 in close collaboration with tribes, Decatur added.

“The ultimate aim is to make sure we’re getting the stories right,” he said.

Discussions with tribal representatives over the Ohtas began in 2021 and will continue, museum officials said, even though the doll does actually not fall under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act because it is associated with a tribe outside the U.S., the Munsee-Delaware Nation in Ontario, Canada.

The museum also plans to open a small exhibit in the fall incorporating Native American voices and explaining the history of the closed halls, why changes are being made and what the future holds, he said.

Lance Gumbs, vice chairman of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, a federally recognized tribe in New York’s Hamptons, said he worries about the loss of representation of local tribes in public institutions, with exhibit closures likely stretching into years.

The American Museum of Natural History, he noted, is one of New York’s major tourism draws and also a mainstay for generations of area students learning about the region’s tribes.

He suggests museums use replicas made by Native peoples so that sensitive cultural items aren’t physically on display.

“I don’t think tribes want to have our history written out of museums,” Gumbs said. “There’s got to be a better way than using artifacts that literally were stolen out of gravesites.”

Gordon Yellowman, who heads the department of language and culture for the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, said museums should look to create more digital and virtual exhibits.

He said the tribes, in Oklahoma, will be seeking from the New York museum a sketchbook by the Cheyenne warrior Little Finger Nail that contains his drawings and illustrations from battle.

The book, which is in storage and not on display, was plucked from his body after he and other tribe members were killed by U.S. soldiers in Nebraska in 1879.

“These drawings weren’t just made because they were beautiful,” Yellowman said. “They were made to show the actual history of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people.”

Institutions elsewhere are taking other approaches.

In Chicago, the Field Museum has established a Center for Repatriation after covering up several cases in its halls dedicated to ancient America and the peoples of the coastal Northwest and Arctic.

The museum has completed four repatriations to tribes involving around 40 items over the past six months, with at least three more repatriations pending involving additional items. Those repatriations were through efforts that were underway before the new regulations, according to Field Museum spokesperson Bridgette Russell.

At the Cleveland Museum in Ohio, a case displaying artifacts from the Tlingit people in Alaska has been reopened after their leadership gave consent, according to Todd Mesek, the museum’s spokesperson. But two other displays remain covered up, with one containing funerary objects from the ancient Southwest to be redone with a different topic and materials.

And at Harvard, the Peabody Museum’s North American Indian hall reopened in February after about 15% of its roughly 350 items were removed from displays, university spokesperson Nicole Rura said.

Chuck Hoskin, chief of the Cherokee Nation, said he believes many institutions now understand they can no longer treat Indigenous items as “museum curiosities” from “peoples that no longer exist.”

The leader of the tribe in Oklahoma said he visited the Peabody this year after the university reached out about returning hair clippings collected in the early 1930s from hundreds of Indigenous children, including Cherokees, forced to assimilate in the notorious Indian boarding schools.

“The fact that we’re in a position to sit down with Harvard and have a really meaningful conversation, that’s progress for the country,” he said.

As for Baker, he wants the Ohtas returned to its tribe. He said the ceremonial doll should never have been on display, especially arranged as it was among wooden bowls, spoons and other everyday items.

“It has a spirit. It’s a living being,” Baker said. “So if you think about it being hung on a wall all these years in a static case, suffocating for lack of air, it’s just horrific, really.”
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