With the 2025 hurricane season underway in the eastern Pacific, Hurricane Erick is picking up speed as it heads toward southern Mexico, strengthening to a Category 2 hurricane on Wednesday afternoon, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Hurricane Center.
Erick is currently located in the eastern Pacific Ocean, about 105 miles south of Puerto Ángel.
NOAA’s National Hurricane Center forecast that Erick would rapidly intensify, strengthen throughout Wednesday, and reach “major hurricane strength” Wednesday night or early Thursday as it approaches the coast of southern Mexico.
The storm is expected to bring damaging winds and “life-threatening flash floods,” with 8 to 16 inches of rain (20 inches maximum), across the states of Oaxaca and Guerrero, which could lead to mudslides. It could also bring 2 to 4 inches (6 inches maximum) across Chiapas, Michoacán, Colima, Jalisco, and Mexico Cityand to Guatemala.
Erick is expected to move inland or be near the coast on Thursday, prompting a hurricane warning from Acapulco to Puerto Ángel and a hurricane watch for west of Acapulco to Tecpán de Galeana.
The storm will produce heavy rainfall across portions of Central America and southwest Mexico throughout the week, and a dangerous storm surge is expected to produce coastal flooding.
How to track Hurricane Erick’s path in real time
Erick, the fifth named storm for the current eastern Pacific hurricane season, is currently traveling northeast with sustained winds of about 85 mph (100 mph maximum), with higher gusts and hurricane-force winds extending 15 miles out from its center. It is expected to turn northwest later on Wednesday.
Hurricanes can change paths quickly, which is why tracking the storm is so important. For updated information, advisories, and maps showing projected and traveled paths, check out these resources below:
Esris Hurricane Aware
National Hurricane Center
A major new study published in Nature examines how rising temperatures will impact global food systems, and the results offer a dire warning for wealthy countries.
As the planet warms, the environments that grow the most-consumed crops around the globe are changing, but theres been a lot of disagreement about what those changes will look like. Counter to some more optimistic previous findings, the new study finds that every degree Celsius that the planet warms could result in 120 calories worth of food production lost per person, per day.
The new analysis is the result of almost a decade of work by the Climate Impact Lab, a consortium of climate, agriculture and policy experts. The research brings together data from more than 12,000 regions in 55 countries, with a focus on wheat, corn, soybeans, rice, barley and cassava the core crops that account for two-thirds of calories consumed globally.
When global production falls, consumers are hurt because prices go up and it gets harder to access food and feed our families, Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability Professor Solomon Hsiang, a senior author on the study, said in an announcement paired with the new paper. If the climate warms by 3 degrees, thats basically like everyone on the planet giving up breakfast.
Adaptation wont offset farming losses
Some previous research has hinted that global food production could actually go up in a warming planet by lengthening growing seasons and widening the viable regions where some crops can grow. In Western American states like Washington and California, growing seasons are already substantially longer than they once were, adding an average of 2.2 days per decade since 1895.
The new study criticizes previous research for failing to realistically estimate how farmers will adapt to a changing climate. While prior studies rely on an all-or-nothing model for agricultural climate adaptation where farmers either adapted flawlessly or didnt adapt at all, the new paper in Nature systematically measure[s] how much farmers adjust to changing conditions, a first according to the research group.
That analysis found that farmers who do adapt by switching to new crops or changing long-standing planting and harvesting practices could lessen a third of climate-caused losses in crop yields by 2100. But even in a best-case scenario of climate adaptation, food production is on track to take a major hit.
Any level of warming, even when accounting for adaptation, results in global output losses from agriculture, lead author and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Assistant Professor of agricultural and consumer economics Andrew Hultgren said.
The richest countries have the most to lose
While wealthy countries are insulated from some of the deadliest ravages of the climate crisis, the new analysis reveals a U.S. food supply that is particularly vulnerable. Researchers found that the modern breadbaskets that havent yet explored climate adaptations will fare worse than parts of the world where extreme heat and changing weather has already forced farmers to adapt.
Places in the Midwest that are really well suited for present day corn and soybean production just get hammered under a high warming future, Hultgren said. You do start to wonder if the Corn Belt is going to be the Corn Belt in the future.
In a high-emissions model of the future where humans fail to meaningfully slow the march of global warming, corn production would dive by 40% in the U.S. grain belt, with soybeans suffering an even worse 50% decline. Wheat production would decline 30 to 40% in the same scenario.
Because such a large fraction of agricultural production is concentrated in these wealthy-but-low-adaption regions, they dominate projections of global calorie production, generating much of the global food security risk we document, the authors wrote, adding that farming in the U.S. is optimized for high average yields in current climate conditions but is not robust enough to withstand a changing climate.
This is basically like sending our agricultural profits overseas. We will be sending benefits to producers in Canada, Russia, China. Those are the winners, and we in the U.S. are the losers, Hsiang said. The longer we wait to reduce emissions, the more money we lose.
Amazon is gearing up to make as many as 10,000 robotaxis annually at a sprawling plant near Silicon Valley as it prepares to challenge self-driving cab leader Waymo. Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also vying to join the autonomous race.
The 220,000-square-foot (20,440-square-meters) robotaxi factory announced Wednesday heralds a new phase in Amazon’s push into a technological frontier that began taking shape in 2009, when Waymo was launched as a secret project within Google.
Amazon began eyeing the market five years ago when it shelled out $1.2 billion for self-driving startup Zoox, which will be the brand behind a robotaxi service that plans to begin transporting customers in Las Vegas late this year before expanding into San Francisco next year.
Zoox, conceived in 2014, will be trying to catch up to Waymo, which began operating robotaxis in Phoenix nearly five years ago then charging for rides in San Francisco in 2023 before expanding into Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. Waymo says it has already more than 10 million paid rides while other would-be rivals such as Amazon and Tesla are still fine-tuning their self-driving technology while tackling other challenges, such how to ramp up their fleet.
Amazon feels like it has addressed that issue with Zoox’s manufacturing plant that spans across the equivalent of three-and-a-half football fields located in Hayward, California about 17 miles (27 kilometers) north of a factory where Tesla makes some of the electric vehicles that Musk believes will eventually be able to operate without a driver behind the wheel.
Since moving into the former bus manufacturing factory in 2023, Zoox has transformed it into a high-tech facility where its boxy, gondola-like vehicles are put together and tested along a 21-station assembly line. For now, Zoox is only making one robotaxi per day, but by next year hopes to be churning them out at the rate of three vehicles per hour.
By 2027, Zoox hopes to make 10,000 robotaxis annually in Hayward for a fleet that it hopes to take into other major markets, including Miami, Los Angeles and Atlanta. Although Zoox will be assembling its robotaxis in the U.S., about half of the parts are imported from outside the country, according to company officials. Waymo is also planning to expand into Atlanta and Miami and on Wednesday took the first step toward bringing its robotaxis in the most populous U.S. city with the disclosure of an application to begin testing its vehicles in New York.
It’s an exciting time to be heading on this journey, Zoox CEO Aicha Evans said during a Tuesday tour of the robotaxi factory that she co-hosted with Jesse Levinson, the company’s co-founder and chief technology officer.
Although Zoox will be lagging well behind, it believes it can lure passengers with vehicles that look more like carriages than cars with seating for up to four passengers. Waymo, in contrast, builds its self-driving technology on to cars made by other major automakers, making its robotaxi look similar to vehicles steered by humans. Zoox isn’t even bothering to put a steering wheel in its robotaxis.
As it continues to test its robotaxis in Las Vegas, Zoox recently struck a partnership to give rides to guests of Resorts World. It’s also still testing its robotaxis in San Francisco, where Waymo already has turned driverless cars into an everyday site in a city that has been renowned for cable cars since the 1870s. While testing in San Francisco last month, a minor collision between a Zoox robotaxi and a person riding an electric scooter last month prompted the company to issue a voluntary recall to update its self-driving technology. No injuries were reported in the incident.
Tesla is still angling to compete against Waymo too, although it remains unclear when Musk will fulfill his long-running promise to build the world’s largest robotaxi service. Musk still hasn’t given up on the goal, though his current ambitions are more modest than they were in 2019. when he predicted Tesla would be running a fleet of 1 million robotaxis by now. He is currently aiming for a limited rollout of Tesla robotaxis in Austin this Sunday, although that date could change because Musk is being super paranoid about safety.
Zoox, in contrast, is planning to operate 500 to 1,000 of its robotaxis in small to medium-sized markets and about 2,000 robotaxis in major cities where it eventually operates, according to Evans. The company thinks each robotaxi produced in its Hayward plan should be on the road for about five years, or about 500,000 miles.
Michael Liedtke, AP technology writer
Federal Reserve officials expect inflation to worsen in the coming months but they still foresee two interest rate cuts by the end of this year, the same as they projected in March.
The Fed kept its key rate unchanged for the fourth straight meeting Wednesday, and said the economy is expanding at a solid pace.” Changes to the Fed’s rate typically though not always influence borrowing costs for mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, and business loans.
The central bank also released its latest quarterly projections for the economy and interest rates. It expects noticeably weaker growth, higher inflation, and slightly higher unemployment by the end of this year than it had forecast in March, before President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs April 2. Most of those duties were then postponed April 9. The Fed also signaled it would cut rates just once in 2026, down from two cuts projected in March.
Fed officials see inflation, according to its preferred measure, rising to 3% by the end of this year, from 2.1% in April. It also projects the unemployment rate will rise to 4.5%, from 4.2% currently. Growth is expected to slow to just 1.4% this year, down from 2.5% last year.
Despite the gloomier outlook, Fed chair Jerome Powell and other officials have underscored that they are holding off from any changes to their key rate because of the uncertainty surrounding the impact of the tariffs and economic outlook. Many of the Fed’s policymakers have expressed particular concern that the duties could boost prices, creating another surge of inflation just a couple of years after the worst inflation spike in four decades.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. APs earlier story follows below.
The inflation-fighters at the Federal Reserve are expected to keep their key interest rate unchanged Wednesday for the fourth straight time. That’s likely to shift attention to how many interest rate cuts they forecast for this year.
It’s widely expected that the 19 Fed officials that participate in the central bank’s interest-rate decisions will project two rate cuts for this year, as they did in December and March. But some economists expect that one or both of those cuts could be pushed back to 2026.
The Fed will almost certainly keep the short-term rate it controls at about 4.3%, economists say, where it has stood since the central bank last cut rates in December. Since then, it has stayed on the sidelines while it evaluates the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs and other policy changes on the economy and prices.
Inflation has been cooling since January, and many economists say that without the higher import taxes, the Fed would likely be cutting its rate further. According to the Fed’s preferred measure, inflation dropped to just 2.1% in April, the lowest since last September. Core inflation which exclude the volatile food and energy categories was 2.5%.
Those figures suggest inflation is largely coming under control, for now. Yet the Fed’s short-term interest rate remains at an elevated level intended to slow growth and inflation. Some economists argue that with inflation cooling, the Fed could resume its rate reductions.
When the Fed reduces its rate, it often though not always leads to lower costs for consumer and business borrowing, including for mortgages, auto loans, and credit cards. Yet financial markets also influence the level of longer-term rates and can keep them elevated even if the Fed reduces the shorter-term rate it controls.
But Fed officials have said they want to see whether Trump’s tariffs boost inflation and for how long. Economists generally believe a tariff hike should at least lead to a one-time increase in prices, as companies seek to offset the cost of higher duties. Many Fed officials, however, are worried that the tariffs could lead to more sustained inflation.
While theory might suggest that (the Fed) should look through a one-time increase in prices, I would be uncomfortable staking the Feds reputation and credibility on theory, Jeffrey Schmid, president of the Fed’s Kansas City branch and a voting member of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee, said earlier this month.
The Trump White House has sharply ramped up pressure on Powell to reduce borrowing costs, with Trump himself calling the Fed chair a numbskull last week for not cutting. Other officials, including Vice President JD Vance and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, are also calling for a rate reduction.
The Bank of England has cut its rate twice this year but is expected to keep it unchanged at 4.25% when it meets Thursday.
Christopher Rugaber, AP economics writer
As anti-ICE protests intensify across the country, kids are turning Roblox into a protest ground online.
Last week, thousands took to the streets to protest the Trump administrations immigration policies. Meanwhile, on Roblox, avatars faced off with players dressed in police SWAT gear in the popular Brookhaven roleplay world (based on the real city of Brookhaven, Georgia), as Taylor Lorenz first reported in User Mag.
After her story published, Lorenz shared an update that Roblox protesters are now facing police violence. A screenshot of a text shared with Lorenz (which she then posted on X) reads: I was in a Roblox ice protest but then we all got shot. By the police.
On Monday I reported on anti-ICE protests taking over Roblox. One of the kids I interviewed texted me this morning to share that the Roblox protesters are now facing police violence. https://t.co/bmGLJmKXd0 pic.twitter.com/0qvdZvwGv7— Taylor Lorenz (@TaylorLorenz) June 18, 2025
Players have been sharing updates across TikTok and Discord, posting dates and times for upcoming protests. Some Roblox players are even enacting their own ICE raids. One TikTok video shows a player dressed as an ICE agent, barging into another players Roblox home and violently arresting him.
@riobandzblox Know your rights #iceraids #ice #scared #skit #besafe #robloxskit #dahood i was only temporary – my head is empty
Roblox hosts around 85 million daily active users globally, about 40% of whom are under the age of 12. Brookhaven is Robloxs most-visited experience ever, with over 65 billion visits, and recently won two Roblox Innovation Awards 2024 categories: “Best Roleplay/Life Sim” and “Best Social Hangout.”
A study published earlier this year in Cornell Universitys preprint server arXiv found that in-game roleplay and avatar customization help kids aged eight to 13 explore their identities. As the iPad generation grows up, gaming platforms like Roblox are becoming spaces where they process major world events.
Virtual protests arent new. In 2016, young users took to Club Penguin to protest President Donald Trumps victory in an election they were too young to vote in, declaring not my president and penguins of color matter in the speech bubbles above their penguin avatars. In 2020, gamers staged virtual sit-ins in Habbo and held demonstrations in Toontown during the Black Lives Matter protests amid lockdown restrictions.
These protests may be virtual, but that doesnt make them any less real. Gen Alpha has grown up online, and with many still too young to vote or take their activism to the streets, it makes sense theyre showing up in droves in the spaces they inhabit every day.
As one TikTok user shared, her younger sister couldnt attend the anti-ICE protests in person because of safety concerns. Instead, her sister told her: Its ok I protested on Roblox yesterday.
More Americans are watching TV via streaming platforms than both broadcast and cable combined for the first time ever.
The finding comes from Nielson’s monthly Gauge report, which was launched four years ago to provide insight on what viewers are watching, as well as how they are watching it. The latest report found that streaming accounted for 44.8% of total TV viewership in Maythe largest share on record. Meanwhile, broadcast and cable TV only made up 20.1% and 24.1%, respectively, for a total of 44.2%.
Its fitting that this inflection point coincides with the four year anniversary of Nielsens The Gauge, which has become the gold standard for streaming TV measurement, said Karthik Rao, Nielsen CEO, in the report. Its also a credit to media companies, who have deftly adapted their programming strategies to meet their viewers where they are watching TVwhether its on streaming or linear platforms.
Previously, the Gauge reported another big milestone for streaming platforms. In July 2022, for the first time, streaming topped cable viewership. At the time, it accounted for 34.8% of viewership while cable made up 34.4%. Broadcast made up 21.6%. However today, the combined total for both cable and broadcast viewing still falls behind the percentage of monthly streamers.
Predictably, streaming usage has steadily been increasing in recent years. Since 2021, viewers streamed their entertainment 71% more than they used other sources. During the same time period, TV viewers watched (and binge-watched) 21% less via broadcast. Likewise, cable viewing plummeted by 39%.
Per the report, free services have been a major part of the uptick in viewers streaming content over the past four years. YouTube, the most-used streaming platform, saw streaming surge by 120% over the time period. Last month, the platform accounted for 12.5% of all TV viewership. Netflix, the leading Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) service, saw an increase in viewership by 27% since 2021.
As viewers keep turning toward streaming platforms, the services are evolving to keep up with demand. In April, Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos explained the platform’s goals for expansion, which included becoming a trillion-dollar company. Sarandos explained that video podcasts could soon be viewable on the platform, saying, the lines are getting blurry between podcasts and talk shows, adding, as the popularity of video podcasts grows, I suspect youll see some of them find their way to Netflix.
Streaming platforms have expanded to include some major events, too, which were once only available on cable or broadcast. In 2021, the Olympics were shown on Peacock, NBCs streaming platform. And this year, even The Super Bowl streamed on Tubi. Likewise, in 2025, the Oscars was viewable on Hulu, making it accessible to those without cable or broadcast TV for the first time.
At first glance, the pairing of Oscar-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson and Colossal Biosciences founder and CEO Ben Lamm is a bit odd. When its onstage at the worlds largest gathering of brands and marketers, it gets even more confusing.
But Jackson has been a major investor in Colossal since last year, and he and Lamm were at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity to talk to Chaka Sobhani, president and global chief creative officer at ad agency DDB Worldwide, for a conversation that aimed to find common ground in the creative challenge between Middle Earth and IRL.
Colossal, of course, made headlines in April for revealing its first de-extinction project, reintroducing the worlds first dire wolf in 10,000 years. After the stage presentation, Jackson told Fast Company that Colossal has significant storytelling potential, particularly in sparking interest and engagement on issues like environmental conservation.
It’s stimulating curiosity, that’s the most important thing, says Jackson. I grew up imagining all sorts of things, imagining flying cars, imagining a woolly mammoth. And the phones, social media, and everything else have the danger of deadening imagination. And so I think that this is an opportunity.
Jackson has had some significant input in how Colossal tells its stories. Lamm says that just before the dire wolf announcement, Jackson had a suggestion: He told me, When you announce this, you need to show the world the dire wolf howls, because it’s the first time in 10,000 years anyone’s ever heard that. That just made it so much better.
Lamm says Jackson is an active investor. The director and his wife Fran Walsh invested $10 million into the company in October 2024. Peter gives us a lot of advice, says Lamm. Peter connects us to a lot of people in the world, including George RR Martin. Even though he didn’t make dire wolves, he made them famous. Peter actually wants to be involved. Its not about writing a check and then move on to the next deal. Theyre true partners.
Jackson believes the real power is in the companys potential impact on conservation. It’s not just de-extinction, which is obviously exciting, but it’s also conservation, says Jackson. It’s saving species that are really endangered now, and using the technology that these guys have developed to create a larger gene pool, for example, the white rhino. There’s only two left.”
The most common criticism Jackson hears about Colossal is that it should be spending its time and research on currently endangered species instead of de-extinction. Well, you can actually do both, he says.
Both Lamm and Jackson say the de-extinction projects are what get people excited and interested in everything else the company does. Come for the dire wolf, stay for the red wolf. In April, Lamm told the Most Innovative Companies podcast that Colossal had cloned four red wolves that will be able to join the 15 left on earth. The red wolf project, to me, is as magical as the dire wolf, he said.
Though sometimes even Jackson gets nervous.
I was nervous about the woolly mouse, he says. The company spent 2.5 years editing mammoth genes, then applied its work to mice rather than trying to create a creature that has been extinct for thousands of years. It’s an important part of their research on the way to a mammoth, but I was saying, Do you really want to release it to the public? Because it could play to people’s idea of genetic engineering. Its like your Frankenstein. I was nervous about that.
Lamm says the point of the woolly mice was to transparently show the process toward a full woolly mammoth. Its not taking woolly mammoth genes with 200 million years of genetic divergence and ramming it into a mouse. This is part of a gradual road map.
Peter brought his concerns to me, but we just feel that if we’re doing radical things, we still need to be radically transparent, says Lamm. To Peter’s point, while some people could be like, Oh, why are they making woolly mice? We thought it was important to educate the public on this is the process of science, and this is also how we ethically get to a mammoth.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors, a stunning setback to transgender rights.
The justices’ 63 decision in a case from Tennessee effectively protects from legal challenges many efforts by President Donald Trump’s Republican administration and state governments to roll back protections for transgender people. Another 26 states have laws similar to the one in Tennessee.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for a conservative majority that the law does not violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause, which requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same.
This case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field. The voices in these debates raise sincere concerns; the implications for all are profound, Roberts wrote. The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these disagreements. Nor does it afford us license to decide them as we see best.
In a dissent for the court’s three liberal justices that she summarized aloud in the courtroom, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims. In sadness, I dissent.”
Efforts to regulate transgender people’s lives
The decision comes amid other federal and state efforts to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use. In April, Trumps administration sued Maine for not complying with the governments push to ban transgender athletes in girls sports.
The Republican president also has sought to block federal spending on gender-affirming medical care for those under age 19instead promoting talk therapy only to treat young transgender people. And the Supreme Court has allowed him to kick transgender service members out of the military, even as court fights continue. The president signed another order to define the sexes as only male and female.
Trump’s administration has also called for using only therapy, not broader health measures, to treat transgender youths.
Some providers have stopped treatment already
Several of the states where gender-affirming care has not been banned for minors have adopted laws or state executive orders seeking to protect it. But since Trumps executive order calling for blocking federal funding for the treatment for those under 19, some providers have ceased some treatments. For instance, Penn Medicine in Philadelphia announced last month it would not provide surgeries for patients under 19.
The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Dr. Susan Kressly, said in a statement the organization is unwavering in its support of gender-affirming care and stands with pediatricians and families making health care decisions together and free from political interference.
Five years ago, the Supreme Court ruled transgender, gay and lesbian people are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace. That decision is unaffected by Wednesdays ruling.
But the justices Wednesday declined to apply the same sort of analysis the court used in 2020 when it found sex plays an unmistakable role in employers decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate. Roberts joined that opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was part of Wednesday’s majority.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett also fully joined the majority but wrote separately to emphasize that laws classifying people based on transgender status should not receive any special review by courts. Barrett, also writing for justice Clarence Thomas, wrote that courts must give legislatures flexibility to make policy in this area.
A devastating loss’ or a ‘Landmark VICTORY
Chase Strangio, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued the case for transgender minors and their families, said in a statement that the ruling “is a devastating loss for transgender people, our families, and everyone who cares about the Constitution.
Mo Jenkins, a 26-year-old trans woman who began taking hormone therapy at 16, said she was disheartened but not surprised by the ruling. My transition was out of survival, said Jenkins, a Texas native and legislative staffer at the state capitol in Austin.
Texas outlawed puberty blockers and hormone treatment for minors in 2023. The legislature in May also passed a bill that tightly defines a man and a woman by their sex characteristics.
Trans people are not going to disappear, Jenkins said.
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti on social media called the ruling a Landmark VICTORY for Tennessee at SCOTUS in defense of Americas children!
There are about 300,000 people between the ages of 13 and 17 and 1.3 million adults who identify as transgender in the United States, according to the Williams Institute, at think tank at the UCLA School of Law that researches sexual orientation and gender identity demographics.
When the case was argued in December, then-President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration and families of transgender adolescents called on the high court to strike down the Tennessee ban as unlawful sex discrimination and protect the constitutional rights of vulnerable Americans.
They argued the law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Tennesses law bans puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors but allows the same drugs to be used for other purposes.
Soon after Trump took office, the Justice Department told the court its position had changed.
A major issue in the case was the appropriate level of scrutiny courts should apply to such laws.
The lowest level is known as rational basis review, and almost every law looked at that way is upheld. Indeed, the federal appeals court in Cincinnati that allowed the Tennessee law to be enforced held that lawmakers acted rationally to regulate medical procedures.
The appeals court reversed a trial court that employed a higher level of review, heightened scrutiny, which applies in cases of sex discrimination. Under this more searching examination, the state must identify an important objective and show the law helps accomplish it.
Roberts’ 24-page majority opinion was devoted almost entirely to explaining why the Tennessee law, called SB1, should be evaluated under the lower standard of review. The law’s restrictions on treating minors for gender dysphoria turn on age and medical use, not sex, Roberts wrote.
Doctors may prescribe puberty blockers and hormone therapy to minors of any sex to treat some disorders, but not those relating to transgender status, he wrote.
But in her courtroom statement, Sotomayor asserted that similar arguments were made to defend the Virginia law prohibiting interracial marriage that the Supreme Court struck down in 1967.
A ban on interracial marriage could be described in the same way as the majority described SB1, she said.
Roberts rejected the comparison.
Mark Sherman, Associated Press
President Donald Trump will sign an executive order this week to extend a deadline for TikTok’s Chinese owner to divest the popular video sharing app, the White House announced Tuesday.
Trump had signed an order in early April to keep TikTok running for an additional 75 days after a potential deal to sell the app to American owners was put on ice.
As he has said many times, President Trump does not want TikTok to go dark, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “This extension will last 90 days, which the Administration will spend working to ensure this deal is closed so that the American people can continue to use TikTok with the assurance that their data is safe and secure.
Trump had told reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew back to Washington early Tuesday from the Group of Seven summit in Canada that he probably would extend the deadline again.
Trump also said he thinks Chinese President Xi Jinping will “ultimately approve a deal to divest TikTok’s business in the United States.
It will be the third time Trump has extended the deadline.
The first one was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when the ban approved by Congressand upheld by the U.S. Supreme Courttook effect.
The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trumps tariff announcement.
It is not clear how many times Trump canor willkeep extending the ban as the government continues to try to negotiate a deal for TikTok, which is owned by Chinas ByteDance. Trump has amassed more than 15 million followers on TikTok since he joined last year, and he has credited the trendsetting platform with helping him gain traction among young voters. He said in January that he has a warm spot for TikTok.
Aamer Madhani, Associated Press
Its been almost 400 years since the leaders of New Amsterdam (now New York City) confronted a growing threat on their streets: people moving too fast. In 1652, the colonial council passed what may be North Americas first speed limit: No wagons, carts or sleighs shall be run, rode or driven at a gallop within this city of New Amsterdam, with Broadway (then a commercial corridor) as the lone exception.
Violators were fined the equivalent of $150 to $200 in todays dollars, and repeat offenders could face corporal punishment. European settlers understood that speed in a dense environment is a recipe for disaster.
In the 1780s, engineer James Watt used spinning flyweights to automatically regulate his steam engines to keep them from running too fast. This low-tech speed limiter became the blueprint for other automotive safety mechanisms.
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In 1901, the British Wilson-Pilcher car came equipped with a mechanical governor, limiting how fast the engine could rev. It was one of the first consumer automobiles to feature speed-limiting technology, and almost a century before modern cruise control.
In 1923, Cincinnati nearly became the first U.S. city to require speed governors on all vehicles, but the proposal to cap speeds at 25 MPH failed. Auto industry lobbyists warned that mechanical limiters would reduce car sales and infringe on driver freedom. So-called Motordom still holds to that defensive position, but theyve expanded their propaganda to dismiss speed as a problem, or as you see in many car commercials, embrace speed as something their product delivers.
Drivers are forcing the government to put its foot down
When modern Americans are faced with a conversation about taking a foot off the gas, they tend to react by pressing their hands against their ears and giving a la-la-la-la-la, I cannot hear you, speeding is fine. The problem is, most people dont understand the dangers of driving fast in populated areas like cities and suburbs. Because they dont understand the connection between speed and safety, its only natural that theyll claim speed limiting devices are just another case of an authoritative government, elitist central planning, nanny state overreach, etc.
The comments below followed a March 27, 2025 Washington Post article, and theyre hardly outliers on this topic:
Another step to enslavement.
The nanny state rides yet again.
Big brotherism at its worst.
So anyone late to an appointment has no way to get the car moving a little faster. That sounds like a grim future, particularly since so many speed limits are set pathetically low!
Technology thats used to change driver behavior comes down to this fundamental issue: licensed drivers routinely choose not to govern themselves, demonstrating a need to be governed by an outside force.
I dont like that we find ourselves in a situation where doors are opened for government authorities to force companies how to make a product. But we dont have to invite or even demand action by state and federal agencies if we (anyone who ever drives a motor vehicle) would simply behave better behind the wheel.
Speed ruins far more lives than well ever know
It’s widely known among transportation professionals that police reports focus on issues other than speed even when speed causes a calamity. For example, if someone is driving 40 MPH on a city street, and a driver who was texting says the pedestrian “came out of nowhere,” this is not classified by police as speed being a factor. But speed was a fundamental factor if the driver didn’t see or react in time to stop for the pedestrian.
In the US, about 16 million people smashed their cars into each other last year, sending roughly 40,000 people to the morgue and another 2.5 million to emergency rooms. Speed is a fundamental factor in severe traffic crashes, regardless of what the police report says.
Speed matters because it amplifies mistakes
People will always make mistakes, but the most consequential driving errors are amplified with increased speed. Mistakes like being distracted by a child in the backseat and drifting into another lane quickly elevate the risk to the driver, passengers, and anyone else nearby when going fast. Three important things are much safer on city streets at 25 MPH than 40 MPH:
What you see. Your field of view (what engineers call the cone of vision) shrinks as you accelerate, meaning you no longer clearly see the sidewalks, pedestrians, dogs, drivers about to leave a parked car, someone about to run a red light on a cross-street, etc.
When you react. You dont have as much time to react to any of the events listed above. In one second, you travel about 2 car lengths at 25 MPH, but 4 car lengths at 40 MPH. Thats just one second. Think about how often drivers fiddle with their phone for one Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi.
Where you stop. Even under ideal weather and pavement conditions, the moment you spot a potential danger and hit the brakes, it takes a lot more distance to stop from 40 MPH than 25 MPH. The difference between 165 feet and 85 feet can be the difference between a dead pedestrian and a close call.
Speed matters because it makes crashes more severe
In addition to making crashes more likely to occur, high-speed driving also increases the amount of carnage in crashes. Physics explains: [crash energy = () × (mass) × (speed)].
That squared value is everything. When you double your driving speed, the crash energy quadruples. Even a small speed increase like 5 or 10 MPH greatly magnifies the force of impact. Despite decades of signage and PSAs, people keep driving too fast in the exact places where caution matters most: neighborhoods, school zones, commercial districts, and crosswalks.
Technology exists to govern people who refuse to govern themselves. But Im hoping you dont force the hands of lawmakers. Instead, I hope you (and everyone else operating a motor vehicle) will slow down in populated areas.
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