The deadly Los Angeles wildfires had just begun when Comic Relief U.S.’s new CEO took the helm at the charity that uses entertainment to combat poverty.
Michele Ganeless noticed Hollywood’s response all the way from New York. She saw late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel turn his show’s backlot into a donation center. The Largo, an intimate nightclub featuring A-list comedians, hosted benefit performances. Inspired, Ganeless saw an opportunity to help out from the nations other cultural hub through Stand-Up for LA.
The goal was to help the New York comedy community give back,” Ganeless said of the March 3 comedy event including Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Ramy Youssef and Hannah Berner at The Town Hall in Manhattan.
Everybody has their own special connection,” she added. But, obviously, in the entertainment community and the comedy community, there is a New York-LA connection.
Disasters tend to elicit widespread support for those impacted and researchers say meaningful relationships drive charitable donations. The six weeks since Los Angeles’ most destructive wildfires have proven no different. FireAid raised an estimated $100 million with performances from dozens of popular musical acts. But the unique relationship between the United States’ two largest cities has been evident in the fundraisers organized by New York’s entertainment, creative and hospitality industries motivated by their professions’ bicoastal ties.
Comic Relief US’ grantees on the ground including actress Taraji P. Henson’s foundation dedicated to marginalized communities’ mental health, youth homelessness nonprofit Covenant House and The Boys & Girls Club are helping the nonprofit determine the areas of greatest need. Berner, a former reality show cast member who has become a fixture of internet comedy, promised a fun night at Stand-Up for LA and called it a joy to also fundraise for families.
I was born and raised in New York and have seen others rally for us when we needed it, Berner said in a statement. And now its our turn to show up for L.A. during their difficult time.
TV personality Andy Cohen is offering fans the chance to be guests at a New York taping of Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live.”
With a donation of at least $10 until April 6, entrants could win a behind-the-scenes experience, airfare and lodging. The beneficiary is the SoCal Fire Fund, which works with vulnerable students, school employees and families recovering from the blazes.
As completely different as they are, New York and Los Angeles are inexorably connected; when a calamity happens on either coast its just instinctual that we support each other,” Cohen said in a statement to The Associated Press.
It isn’t just celebrities getting involved. Over 170 people bought tickets for a benefit show on a recent Friday night in Brooklyn. The organizers, artist manager Heather de Armas and music publicist Ava Tunnicliffe, donated the $3,275 in proceeds to Mutual Aid LA.
The wildfires felt more present as the two watched the devastation unfold through social media posts. The majority of Tunnicliffe’s clients and coworkers are based in the Los Angeles area. Alt-pop vocalist B.Miles told the crowd “this is a very special thing to be a part of because the Pasadena native still has family there.
It was easy to get people on board to help out what I would call our sister city, Tunnicliffe said. And I think they would do the same for us.
Carlos Quirarte, co-founder of Ray’s Bar, wasn’t sure anyone would pitch in for a clothing drive he organized at his locations in Greenpoint and the Lower East Side. But people overwhelmed their tiny, little spaces, he said, and local movers Piece of Cake dropped off 300 boxes for shipping. Skateboarder Mark Gonzales, a longtime Supreme collaborator, donated six boxes of the streetwear brand’s merchandise.
Customers again showed up for a Jan. 18 fundraiser. Guests’ $20 entry fees and $1 of every drink purchase went to World Central Kitchen. Quirarte said the event, co-sponsored by dating app Bumble, garnered more than $20,000.
It wasn’t the first time that he and his business partner have rallied their clientele around communities impacted by disasters. A 2012 power-on party after Hurricane Sandy stands out as the craziest example, he said. But he’s still blown away by the response.
We just have so many regulars at both locations that are transplants. So, you were hearing stories at the bar,” Quirarte said. Aside from that, and aside from having a mass bunch of friends from the area, you couldnt help but feel. And its here. Its at home.
A seven-hour fundraiser bridging coasts brought together runners, cooks, artists, musicians and yogis on January 25. Gina Bruno, a classically trained chef from New York who runs a food-focused event space, said the idea began as just a bake sale. But the concept snowballed into something more ambitious after she texted Luke Haverty, the founder of a creative studio called A Supper Series.
The bake-off continued with participants including lifestyle photographer Chloé Crane-Leroux and James Beard Award winner Sophia Roe who have a combined 1.8 million Instagram followers as well as viral spots L’Appartement 4F and Leon’s Bagels. A 5K run took participants across the Williamsburg Bridge. There was live music, a bouquet workshop and yoga classes.
For LA raised $52,000 for California Community Foundation and World Central Kitchen, according to Haverty. A silent auction supported a GoFundMe for Los Angeles artists.
Haverty said they felt a responsibility to provide as many ways as possible for people to put their individual talents toward something bigger than one small donation.
Once there was a platform for people to be able to invest into, that ultimately is what connected the coast, he said.
You kind of put your hands up in the air until there’s something to dump your time and your energy into, Bruno added. I needed to do something because I was able to do something.
Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of APs philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
James Pollard, Associated Press
Prada opened its runway show during Milan Fashion Week on Thursday with its take on the little black dress, reflecting what Miuccia Prada called a very black moment in world affairs.
To work in this difficult moment is really tough, Prada said backstage. Sidestepping overtly political discussion, she added: What we try to do are clothes that make sense for women today.”
Liberating women
Prada’s Fall-Winter 2025-26 collection is aimed to liberate women from strictly feminine forms. In that way the little black dress series and other runway looks were loosely constructed, not body-hugging.
Co-creative director Raf Simons said liberation was in itself an act of resistance.
You cannot be liberated if you don’t take a risk. There needs to be more resistance, he said.
The black numbers gave way to girlish knit dresses in Alice-in-Wonderland oversized proportions, layered over trousers for winter days on the playground. Pajamas made a now-familiar shift to daywear, with button tops tucked into sleeper skirts.
Raw seams were intentionally revealed on garments. Waistlines were gathered as if by basting, and could be moved from the waist for a midi-skirt or over the bust for a minidress.
I would also say that we have rejected a lot of construction,” Simons said, specifically construction that restricts movement.
Gestures of glamour
Its a mix-and-match world at Prada and just about any of the pieces work as separates: Short-sleeve and tube knitwear tops were bedecked with baubles, like found treasures. Mens shirts scrunched messily at the waist, as if they came untucked.
Staples were glammed up with faux fur stoles and fur lapels on coats, blazers and a striking lime green poncho.
Prada VIPs
American actress Hunter Schafer was among the front-row guests, invited in a show of support, the designers said. The trans actress posted recently that her new passport had been issued with a male gender marker.
As usual, crowds of fans waited opposite the Fondazione Prada show space to shower adoration on VIPs. Other front-row stars included actresses Juliette Binoche, Gal Gadot, Maya Hawke and Chen Haoyu, along with Japanese singers Jo and Harua and Korean singer Karina.
Is Prada shopping?
Milan is abuzz with speculation over whether an Italian company might step forward to buy the rival fashion house Versace. Market speculation has focused on the Prada Group, which besides its namesake brand owns Miu Miu, the footwear brands Church’s and Car Shoe, and Marchesi 1824 pastry shops.
“I think it is on everybodys table,” Prada said with a chuckle when asked about the Prada Group’s interest.
Colleen Barry, AP fashion writer
Stripe on Thursday announced a tender offer for employees and shareholders that valued the company at $91.5 billion, nearly 41% higher than its valuation a year ago, potentially delaying the fintech firm’s ambitions of going public.
The deal signals the strong recovery of the global venture capital sector, as central banks have started to cut interest rates amid subdued inflation and strong economic data.
“Stripe was profitable in 2024, and we expect to be so in 2025 and beyond,” co-founders John Collison and Patrick Collison said in their annual letter published on Thursday.
The payments processing company was valued at $65 billion in a deal last year, which allowed employees to cash out their stock.
At its peak, Stripe was valued at $95 billion in 2021.
The company serves a variety of high-profile customers, including Elon Musk-led social media platform X, Amazon, car rental firm Hertz Global and grocery delivery app Instacart.
Stripe, which has headquarters in San Francisco and Dublin, allows companies to accept payments, send payouts and automate financial processes.
Pritam Biswas and Jaiveer Shekhawat, Reuters
FBI Director Kash Patel is considering bringing in trainers from the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to beef up agents’ martial arts and self-defense skills, according to four people familiar with the plan laid out on a call this week with FBI field offices.
The newly appointed director discussed the idea during his first video conference call with the bureau’s 55 field office supervisors on Wednesday, said the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss the call’s contents because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Two people briefed on the matter said current FBI agents described the idea as “surreal” and “wacky.”
The FBI declined to comment, and a spokesperson for UFC did not have an immediate comment.
President Donald Trump is a fan of the sport, mixed martial arts bouts that pit two competitors against each other in a cage, and notably attended a UFC event in New York days after his November election victory, sitting with UFC President Dana White, who he counts as a close friend.
During the call, Patel said that Dan Bongino, a far-right podcaster whom Trump tapped to be the FBI’s deputy director, is a huge UFC fan and that he inspired Patel to try the training, one of the people briefed on the call said. Patel added that he thinks it is great, and is exploring a partnership between the FBI and the UFC.
“There is training the FBI receives in physical altercations. If Kash Patel believed that should be beefed up, the answer is not to go to Donald Trump’s best friend who runs the UFC,” a former Justice Department official said, when asked about Patel’s proposal.
“It’s clearly motivated by the glitz and glamour show, and Trump’s friend,” said the official, who was granted anonymity out of concern about possible retribution.
It was not immediately clear how any partnership would work.
Patel has rattled the bureau since he was sworn in last week. One of his first acts was to call for some 1,500 FBI employees to be transferred from Washington to field offices around the country and an FBI office in Huntsville, Alabama.
Patel telegraphed his plans to shake up the FBI’s operations in his book “Government Gangsters,” in which he called for moving headquarters out of Washington, D.C., and curbing the historical practice of requiring FBI agents who wish to serve in supervisory roles from doing 18-month stints at headquarters to gain experience.
During Wednesday’s nationwide call with field offices, Patel reiterated his commitment to scaling back staffing at headquarters and re-distributing people into the field, two people familiar with the call said.
He also said Bongino will begin visiting field offices immediately after he starts his new job in mid-March, one of the people added.
Sarah N. Lynch, Reuters
A spike in demand for electricity from tech companies competing in the artificial intelligence race is upending forecasts for natural gas-fired power in the U.S., as utilities reconsider it as a major new power source.
That is not what many scientists and climate activists envisioned in the fight against climate change. And it is endangering progress on the greenhouse gas-reduction goals that scientists say are necessary to manage the damage from burning fossil fuels that warms the planet.
Across the nation, tech companies are snapping up real estate and seeking new power projects to feed their energy-hungry operations.
In some cases, Big Tech is building climate-friendlier projects like solar, wind, geothermal or battery storage.
But industry decision-makers are also turning to natural gas for what they say is a cheap and reliable source of power, raising the prospect that gas-fired power will play a bigger role and for a longer period of time than even they had anticipated.
Gas is growing faster now and in the medium term than ever before, said Corianna Mah, a power and renewables analyst at data analytics firm Enverus.
Before the spike in electricity demand last year, many in the industry had assumed that there would be few new gas plants and that the nation’s fleet would gradually retire in favor of a grid powered by wind, solar, geothermal, batteries and possibly the next generation of nuclear power sources that don’t emit the planet-warming greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
For many countries, that ramp down is happening as they work toward the goal of slashing their emissions to zero or at least, net zero by 2050, which scientists say could help the world avoid the worst effects of climate change.
In the U.S., the electric power sector is the second-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, according to government figures. And the construction of every new natural gas plant built to last for decades is a setback for climate goals, said John Quigley, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Kleinman Center for Energy Policy.
At a top level, we will not get to net zero by 2050 if we are building new gas plants. Period, Quigley said.
Burning natural gas emits carbon dioxide, and before that, when it escapes from wellheads or pipelines in its unburned form, it’s an even more potent greenhouse gas called methane.
Quigley and others say there is enough solar, wind and battery storage projects on the drawing board to satisfy growing electricity demand. But, they say, utilities and grid operators lack the will to abandon natural gas.
Enverus now projects the next five years will bring roughly 46 gigawatts of gas-fired power online. That compares to 39 gigawatts in the past five years, it said.
Announcements last year alone include:
two 705-megawatt plants by Evergy in Kansas;
Entergy’s 2,300-megawatt plant to serve Metas $10 billion AI data center in northern Louisiana, a pair of new plants in Texas and another in Mississippi;
a 1,450-megawatt plant by the Tennessee Valley Authority;
a 1,400 megawatt Duke Energy project in North Carolina;
and Georgia Power’s plans for three oil or gas units with a capacity of up to 1,300 megawatts.
And thats not all.
Calpine said it’s exploring new gas-fired capacity in the congested mid-Atlantic region, especially Pennsylvania and Ohio, where analysts say the grid operator is trying to fast-track new gas-fired power plants into service.
In Pennsylvania, the former Homer City coal-fired power plant is being transformed into a massive gas-fired station that’s expected to supply a data center and got a $5 million state grant to do it.
On top of the artificial intelligence boom, the frenzy for new electricity is fueled by cryptomining, the broader electrification of society and a bipartisan push to bring manufacturing back to the U.S.
It is coinciding with the closure of coal plants and aging nuclear plants, unable to compete with cheaper gas, solar and wind.
Across the U.S., gas pipeline operators are exuberant about the new demand and are reporting strong interest in extending their lines.
Chris Kalnin, the CEO of BKV, the largest natural-gas producer in the Barnett Shale gas reservoir in Texas, said the trend there is toward gas plants being built next to data centers in a booming data center corridor in metropolitan Dallas.
Data center developers there are in an arms race to secure power, Kalnin said.
Data center guys are trying to source power and trying to get to market with their data centers as fast as possible,” Kalnin said. The key to signing up cloud-computing customers “is getting your facility online quickly and getting your facility online quickly requires you to have power and dependable power and a cost-efficient power source.
Rob Jennings of the American Petroleum Institute, said the sudden growth in actual and forecast electricity demand has put a premium on power sources that can be built fast and cheaply and are reliable.
That means natural gas is once again attractive to investors over solar and wind, he said.
In the near term, the reality has dawned on most that it has to be gas, Jennings said.
Industry officials say they strive to deliver electricity that is clean, reliable and affordable.
For instance, some new gas plants are replacing higher-pollution coal-fired plants, some are designed to run only at times of high demand, some are paired with battery storage or a wind farm nearby and some are designed with carbon-capture technology or to run on a hydrogen blend, said Alex Bond of the Edison Electric Institute, which represents U.S. investor-owned electric companies.
At the very least, building gas-fired capacity will have high-level political support.
In his remarks to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last month, President Donald Trump declared that he’d issue emergency declarations to get coal – and gas-plants built to make the U.S. a superpower of manufacturing, cryptomining and artificial intelligence.
But Amanda Levin of the Natural Resources Defense Council said the U.S. must take big steps by 2035 to reduce its reliance on gas.
That means slashing a fleet of roughly 1,500 gas plants down to about 100 if the U.S. is to meet strong climate commitments and preserve a chance of addressing climate change, she said.
Still, she said there are reasons to be optimistic that gas plant projects on the drawing board wont get built.
In recent weeks, Chinese tech startup Deepseek released a new AI model that it boasted was on par with similar models fro U.S. companies and at a fraction of the cost calling into question the need for a massive expansion of energy-hungry data centers.
And some analysts believe utilities overestimate the electricity theyll need, essentially by double- or triple-counting data center proposals when firms express interest in multiple locations but only build in one.
Besides, Levin said, data center operators are getting better at energy efficiency, particularly in how they cool their servers.
Even if all the gas plants are built, they may not get used, she said.
There are a lot of reasons, Levin said, “for why we might not actually see all of this (demand) materialize.
Marc Levy, Associated Press
The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
On Valentines Day 2025, heavy rains started to fall in parts of rural Appalachia. Over the course of a few days, residents in eastern Kentucky watched as river levels rose and surpassed flood levels. Emergency teams conducted over 1,000 water rescues. Hundreds, if not thousands of people were displaced from homes, and entire business districts filled with mud.
For some, it was the third time in just four years that their homes had flooded, and the process of disposing of destroyed furniture, cleaning out the muck and starting anew is beginning again.
Historic floods wiped out businesses and homes in eastern Kentucky in February 2021, July 2022 and now February 2025. An even greater scale of destruction hit eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina in September 2024, when Hurricane Helenes rainfall and flooding decimated towns and washed out parts of major highways.
Each of these events was considered to be a thousand-year flood, with a 1-in-1,000 chance of happening in a given year. Yet theyre happening more often.
The floods have highlighted the resilience of local people to work together for collective survival in rural Appalachia. But they have also exposed the deep vulnerability of communities, many of which are located along creeks at the base of hills and mountains with poor emergency warning systems. As short-term cleanup leads to long-term recovery efforts, residents can face daunting barriers that leave many facing the same flood risks over and over again.
Exposing a housing crisis
For the past nine years, I have been conducting research on rural health and poverty in Appalachia. Its a complex region often painted in broad brushstrokes that miss the geographic, socioeconomic and ideological diversity it holds.
Appalachia is home to a vibrant culture, a fierce sense of pride and a strong sense of love. But it is also marked by the omnipresent backdrop of a declining coal industry.
There is considerable local inequality that is often overlooked in a region portrayed as one-dimensional. Poverty levels are indeed high. In Perry County, Kentucky, where one of eastern Kentuckys larger cities, Hazard, is located, nearly 30% of the population lives under the federal poverty line. But the average income of the top 1% of workers in Perry County is nearly US$470,000 17 times more than the average income of the remaining 99%.
This income and wealth inequality translates to unequal land ownership much of eastern Kentuckys most desirable land remains in the hands of corporations and families with great generational wealth.
When I first moved to eastern Kentucky in 2016, I was struck by the grave lack of affordable, quality housing. I met families paying $200-$300 a month for a small plot to put a mobile home. Others lived in found housing often-distressed properties owned by family members. They had no lease, no equity and no insurance. They had a place to lay ones head but lacked long-term stability in the event of disagreement or disaster. This reality was rarely acknowledged by local and state governments.
Eastern Kentuckys 2021 and 2022 floods turned this into a full-blown housing crisis, with 9,000 homes damaged or destroyed in the 2022 flood alone.
There was no empty housing or empty places for housing, one resident involved in local flood recovery efforts told me. It just was complete disaster because people just didnt have a place to go.
Most homeowners did not have flood insurance to assist with rebuilding costs. While many applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance, the amounts they received often did not go far. The maximum aid for temporary housing assistance and repairs is $42,500, plus up to an additional $42,500 for other needs related to the disaster.
The federal government often provides more aid for rebuilding through block grants directed to local and state governments, but that money requires congressional approval and can take months to years to arrive. Local community coalitions and organizations stepped in to fill these gaps, but they did not necessarily have sufficient donations or resources to help such large numbers of displaced people.
With a dearth of affordable rentals pre-flood, renters who lost their homes had no place to go. And those living in found housing that was destroyed were not eligible for federal support or rebuilding.
The sheer level of devastation also posed challenges. One health care professional told me: In Appalachia, the way it usually works is if you lose your house or something happens, then you go stay with your brother or your mom or your cousin. But everybodys mom and brother and cousin also lost their house. There was nowhere to stay. From her point of view, our homelessness just skyrocketed.
The cost of land social and economic
After the 2022 flood, the Kentucky Department for Local Government earmarked almost $300 million of federal funding to build new, flood-resilient homes in eastern Kentucky. Yet the question of where to build remained. As another resident involved in local flood recovery efforts told me, You can give us all the money you want; we dont have any place to build the house.
It has always been costly and time-intensive to develop land in Appalachia. Available higher ground tends to be located on former strip mines, and these reclaimed lands require careful geotechnical surveying and sometimes structural reinforcements.
If these areas are remote, the costs of running electric, water and other infrastructure services can also be prohibitive. For this reason, for-profit developers have largely avoided many counties in the region. The head of a nonprofit agency explained to me that, because of this, The markets have broken. We have no [housing] market.
There is also some risk involved in attempting to build homes on new land that has not previously been developed. A local government could pay for undeveloped land to be surveyed and prepared for development, with the prospect of reimbursement by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development if housing is successfully built. But if, after the work to prepare the land, it is still too cost-prohibitive to build a profitable house there, the local government would not receive any reimbursement.
Some counties have found success clearing land for large developments on former strip mine sites. But these former coal mining areas can be considerable distances from towns. Without robust public transportation systems, these distances are especially prohibitive for residents who lack reliable personal transportation.
Another barrier is the high prices that both individual and corporate landowners are asking for properties on higher ground.
The scarcity of desirable land available for sale, combined with increasingly urgent demand, has led to prices unaffordable for most. Another resident involved in local flood recovery efforts explained: If you paid $5,000 for 30 acres 40 years ago, why wont you sell that for $100,000? Nope, [they want] $1 million. That makes it increasingly difficult for both individuals and housing developers to purchase land and build.
One reason for this scarcity is the amount of land that is still owned by outside corporate interests. For example, Kentucky River Properties, formerly Kentucky River Coal Corporation, owns over 270,000 acres across seven counties in the region. While this landholding company leases land to coal, timber and gas companies, it and others like it rarely permit residential development.
But not all unused land is owned by corporations. Some of this land is owned by families with deep roots in the region. Peoples attachment to a place often makes them want to stay in their communities, even after disasters. But it can also limit the amount of land available for rebuilding. People are often hesitant to sell land that holds deep significance for their families, even if they are not living there themselves.
One health care professional expressed feeling torn between selling or keeping their own family property after the 2022 flood: We have a significant amount of property on top of a mountain. I wouldnt want to sell it because my papa came from nothing. His generation thought owning land was the greatest thing. And for him to provide his children and his grandchildren and their great-grandchildren a plot of land that he worked and sweat and ultimately died to give us people want to hold onto that.
She recognized that land was in great demand but couldnt bring herself to sell what she owned. In cases like hers, higher grounds are owned locally but still remain unused.
Moving toward higher ground, slowly
Two years after the 2022 flood, major government funding for rebuilding still has not resulted in a significant number of homes. The state has planned seven communities on higher ground in eastern Kentucky that aim to house 665 new homes. As of early 2025, 14 houses had been completed.
Progress on providing housing on higher ground is slow, and the need is great.
In the meantime, when I conducted interviews during the summer and fall of 2024, many of the mobile home communities that were decimated in the 2022 flood had begun to fill back up. These were flood-risk areas, but there was simply no other place to go.
Last week, I watched on Facebook a friends live video footage showing the waters creeping up the sides of the mobile homes in one of those very communities that had flooded in 2022. Another of my friends mused: I dont know who constructed all this, but they did an unjustly favor by not thinking how close these towns was to the river. Cant anyone in Frankfort help us, or has it gone too far?
With hundreds more people now displaced by the most recent flood, the need for homes on higher grounds has only expanded, and the wait continues.
Kristina P. Brant is an assistant professor of rural sociology at Penn State.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Some good news for all the tired parents out there: Having and raising kids may unexpectedly boost your brain and protect your mind from aging over the long run, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The research from Rutgers Health and Yale University found parents developed higher brain-wide functional connectivity as they aged, especially in networks associated with movement and sensation, if they had more children. Those same networks typically show lower functional connectivity associated with greater age, meaning parenthood may protect against “functional brain aging.”
The study findings apply to both moms and dads, which suggests the benefits come from parenthood caregiving, rather than pregnancy alone.
This study looked at data from 37,000 adults including 19,964 females and 17,607 males from the UK Biobank, using the largest population-based neuroimaging data set to date to investigate the link between the number of children a parent had and age of brain function. It sheds new light on how adult human brains develop over the course of a lifespan, and is encouraging news for women who temporarily suffer from “Mommy brain,” or greater forgetfulness and difficulty concentrating during and after pregnancy.
Overall, these results suggest that parenthood may be neuroprotective in later life, and are consistent with preliminary findings of previous studies that show younger-looking brain structures in animal parents.
Check out the full study here.
As Tesla shares continue to decline amid CEO Elon Musk’s controversial behavior and involvement in politics, one of the nations largest labor unions is worried about just how low the stock could go.
On Thursday, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) president Randi Weingarten sent a letter to the CEOs of six major asset management firms, outlining the union’s concerns over Teslas recent stock struggles and urging asset managers to reassess investments in the EV maker.
Weingarten pointed to Teslas stock price dropping to as low as $290.80 from a high of $489, as well as the companys market capitalization falling below $1 trillion. She argued that Teslas latest financial disclosures should raise red flags, citing missed profit margin expectations and rising cost pressures.
These are not isolated incidents but rather a troubling pattern that suggests Teslas pricing power is eroding, leaving it vulnerable to market fluctuations and increased competition, Weingarten wrote.
The letter was sent to Larry Fink of BlackRock, Abigail Johnson of Fidelity, Ronald OHanley of State Street, Thasunda Duckett of TIAA, Robert Sharps of T. Rowe Price, and Salim Ramji of Vanguard. Musk and Teslas board were copied on the letter as well, reported the the New York Times.
Fast Company reached out to Tesla for comment.
Weingarten also detailed Teslas struggles in Europe, noting a 60% decline in sales in GermanyEuropes largest auto market. Additionally, she pointed to growing competition in the EV charging sector, particularly with the launch of IONNA, a rival charging network backed by Mercedes, BMW, General Motors, Stellantis, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, and, most recently, Toyota.
Musk’s Divided Attention
Teslas financial troubles come after the company received shareholder approval for Musks $56 billion pay package, Weingarten noted.
When gathering shareholder approval for the proposal, Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm wrote, Fairness and respect require that we honor the collective commitment we made to Elona commitment that was, and fundamentally still is, about retaining Elons attention and motivating him to focus on achieving astonishing growth for our company.
Following the pay package vote, Musk has since established himself as a close adviser to President Trump and is now moving to slash the size of the federal workforce via his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The Trump administration has also announced a halt to federal funding for the expansion of highway EV charging infrastructure, according to Weingartens letter.
She also pointed to a decline in Teslas brand perception, citing data from the American EV Jobs Alliance. According to the organization, EV swing consumersthose open to purchasing an EV once costs drophold negative views of Musk, further complicating Teslas ability to expand its customer base.
Weingarten ended her letter by calling for asset managers to take action.
Given these mounting concerns and the potential material impact on pension fund portfolios, I would appreciate a response detailing your firms assessment of Teslas current valuation and the steps you are taking to protect AFT members who are your clients and beneficiaries, she wrote.
The AFT represents 1.8 million education, healthcare, and public sector workers. According to a union press release, AFT members deferred wages are invested in pension funds totaling an estimated $4 trillion, with a significant portion tied to Tesla shares.
Additionally, teachers and nurses have billions of dollars in their own savings invested in direct contribution pension plans managed by the asset firms addressed in the letter.
Shares in Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) are down about 23% year to date.
When it comes to stock markets around the world, this year has clearly not been America First.
The U.S. stock market has risen in 2025 and isn’t far from its all-time high set last week. But it’s climbed less than stock indexes in Mexico City, Paris and Hong Kong.
The difference in performance has been so stark that an index of stocks from 22 of 23 developed economies around the world, excluding the United States, has trounced the S&P 500: a 7.5% rise through Monday versus 1.7% for Wall Street’s benchmark.
The split in performance has many causes, and if it continues, it would mark a sharp reversal following years of U.S. exceptionalism. The U.S. stock market has been the clear winner for so long among global markets in large part because the U.S. economy’s growth has been so much stronger and more stable than nearly anywhere else.
But the steep divide means many other stock markets now don’t look as pricey as Wall Street, where critics say prices for many stocks rose too quickly relative to their companies’ admittedly booming profits. And the Big Tech stocks that have accounted for more and more of the U.S. stock market as they kept soaring look particularly expensive to some.
Morgan Stanley strategist Michael Wilson said many of his clients in recent weeks have been asking if they should be focusing more outside the United States. That includes tech stocks from China, where an upstart called DeepSeek rocked the artificial-intelligence industry by saying it had developed a large language model that could compete with big U.S. rivals but at a much lower cost.
Central banks in other countries also seem much more willing to cut interest rates, a move that often tends to boost stock prices there. The European Central Bank eased rates in January, for example. A day later, the Federal Reserve in Washington said it would hold rates steady, and minutes from that meeting indicate U.S. policy makers may not move rates for a while given worries about how President Donald Trump’s tariffs and other policies could keep upward pressure on inflation.
The rise in the U.S. dollar’s value against other currencies has also helped big exporters from other countries. Some big U.S. companies, meanwhile, have already begun cutting their forecasts for upcoming profits in part because of the bite that a stronger dollar will take from their results.
At Amazon, shifting currency values erased about $900 million of its revenue during the latest quarter, which totaled $187.8 billion, for example. The tech giant said the pain will likely continue, and it forecasted an unusually large, unfavorable impact of approximately $2.1 billion for its revenue in the current quarter from currency shifts.
Professional investors have noticed. It’s still popular among global fund managers to bet on Apple, Nvidia, and the other five Big Tech U.S. stocks that make up the group known as the Magnificent Seven. But the recent outperformance for stocks outside the United States may show a peak in investor conviction of U.S. exceptionalism,” Bank of America strategist Michael Hartnett wrote in a recent BofA Global Research report.
Stan Choe, Associated Press business writer
The nightmare scenario of Atlantic Ocean currents collapsing, with weather running amok and putting Europe in a deep freeze, looks unlikely this century, a new study concludes.
In recent years, studies have raised the alarm about the slowing and potential abrupt shutdown of the Atlantic end of the ocean conveyor belt system. It transports rising warm water north and sinking cool water south and is a key factor in global weather systems. A possible climate change -triggered shutdown of what’s called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC could play havoc with global rain patterns, dramatically cool Europe while warming the rest of the world and goose sea levels on America’s East Coast, scientists predict.
It’s the scenario behind the 2004 fictionalized disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow, which portrays a world where climate change sparks massive storms, flooding and an ice age.
Scientists at the United Kingdom’s Met Office and the University of Exeter used simulations from 34 different computer models of extreme climate change scenarios to see if the AMOC would collapse this century, according to a study in Wednesday’s journal Nature. No simulation showed a total shutdown before 2100, said lead author Jonathan Baker, an oceanographer at the Met Office.
It could happen later, though, he said. The currents have collapsed in the distant past.
Still, the computer simulations should be reassuring” to people, Baker said.
But this is no greenlight for complacency, Baker warned. The AMOC is very likely to weaken this century and that brings its own major climate impacts.
The Atlantic current flows because warm water cools as it reaches the Arctic, forming sea ice. That leaves salt behind, causing the remaining water to become more dense, sinking and pulled southward. But as climate change warms the world and more fresh water flows into the Arctic from the melting Greenland ice sheet, the Arctic engine behind the ocean conveyor belt slows down. Previous studies predict it stopping altogether with one of them saying it could happen within a few decades.
But Baker said the computer models and basic physics predict that a second motor kicks in along the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica. The winds there pull the water back up to the surface, called upwelling, where it warms, Baker said. It’s not as strong, but it will likely keep the current system alive, but weakened, through the year 2100, he said.
Baker’s focus on the pulling up of water from the deep instead of just concentrating on the sinking is new and makes sense, providing a counterpoint to the studies saying collapse is imminent, said Oregon State University climate scientist Andreas Schmittner, who wasn’t part of the research.
Those Southern Ocean winds pulling the deep water up act like a powerful pump keeps the AMOC running even in the extreme climate change scenarios, Baker said.
As the AMOC weakens, a weak Pacific version of it will likely develop to compensate a bit, the computer models predicted.
If the AMOC weakens but not fully collapses, many of the same impacts including crop losses and changes in fish stock likely will still happen, but not the big headline one of Europe going into a deep freeze, Baker said.
Scientists measure the AMOC strength in a unit called Sverdrups. The AMOC is now around 17 Sverdrups, down two from about 2004 with a trend of about 0.8 decline per decade, scientists said.
One of the debates in the scientific world is the definition of an AMOC shutdown. Baker uses zero, but other scientists who have been warning about the shutdown implications, use about 5 Sverdrups. Three of Baker’s 34 computer models went below 5 Sverdrups, but not to zero.
That’s why Levke Caesar and Stefan Rahmstorf, physicists at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Research and authors of an alarming 2018 study about potential shutdown, said this new work doesn’t contradict theirs. It’s more a matter of definitions.
An AMOC collapse does not have to mean 0 (Sverdrups) overturning and even if you would want to follow that definition one has to say that such a strong AMOC weakening comes with a lot (of) impacts, Caesar wrote in an email. The models show a severe AMOC weakening that would come with severe consequences.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Seth Borenstein, AP science writer
