Want to switch to Apple Music because you can’t find your favorite indie band on Spotify? Or maybe you’re on Amazon Music but saw a new subscriber offer on Tidal that’s too good to pass up.
There are a variety of reasons to change music providers. But if you’re thinking about it, and you’re worried about losing your library of saved songs and personalized playlists, fear not: there are ways to bring all of it with you.
Many music streaming services dont make it obvious often burying instructions deep in FAQs and making the process arduous but they do offer options to help migrate your collection.
Apple made it easier last month when it quietly rolled out a new feature allowing users to import libraries from rival sites. Having Apple officially incorporate the feature might give reluctant users the confidence to move.
Some pointers to help you along with your musical migration.
Importing into Apple Music
The iPhone maker recently published a help page to walk users through the process of importing libraries into Apple Music.
The feature, buried in your settings, is provided by a third-party service called Songshift. It’s currently available to users in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
To use it, you’ll need an Apple Music account and the latest version of iOS or the Android Apple Music app.
On iPhone, go to Settings, then Apps, then Music. Tap Transfer Music from Other Music Services to pop up a list of various streaming services. Android users can follow a similar process. Transfers can also be done through a web browser at music.apple.com.
After choosing a service, another screen appears, prompting you to log into the target account.
Now you get a menu with options to import All Songs and Albums” as well as All Playlists.” If you don’t want all your playlists, you can untick the ones you don’t want. However, you can’t pick individual songs and albums.
Apple Music will then replicate your library based on your choices.
Importing my Spotify library, with about 150 playlists, went fairly smoothly, although the process took about half an hour because the service also downloaded around 1,230 songs and albums to my iPhone.
I had assumed that ticking All Songs and Albums meant that Apple Music would mirror the handful of music I had downloaded to my Spotify app, but it also downloaded all 63 albums in my Spotify library and the 440 songs on my Liked Songs list, which I normally listen to via streaming. If you dont want to download everything, unselect that option before you start.
Also note that Apple says playlists “created by the music service can’t be transferred, so I couldn’t bring Spotify-curated lists like This is Taylor Swift or Alternative 80s with me.
It also meant that my Liked Songs list, which Spotify generates for every user and a list I’ve been adding to over the years couldn’t be replicated. Any downloaded songs were just dumped into Apple Music’s library.
After this story was first published, reader Linda Feaster wrote in with a workaround: create your own playlist and then add all the tracks from the Spotify playlist. It could be tedious if there are hundreds of songs but should do the trick.
If you’re tempted to try out the tool, note that it probably won’t work the same way with every service. Apple warns that what can be transferred is up to the source platform. Playlists made by others, such as BBC Musics The Sounds of 1994, for example, did make it over.
After the move is done, you’ll have 30 days to review songs that aren’t available or don’t have an exact match in Apple’s catalog, and choose from any alternate versions.
Working with other music platforms
Most of the other big music streaming platforms offer ways to transfer your library to their site. They mostly rely on standalone third-party services that have been around for a while, are free to use, and don’t need app integration to work.
Tidal and Deezer both direct users on their websites to one such service, Tune My Music, which works with popular platforms like Spotify as well as a host of lesser known sites.
Amazon Music’s webpage has dedicated buttons for Tune My Music and two similar services, Songshift and Soundiiz.
Google also advises third-party services for YouTube Music users who want to import or export playlists, albums, artists and tracks. However, for Apple Music users who want to move to YouTube Music, the process is different. You’ll have to sign in to Apple Music and request a transfer a copy of your data, then export it directly to YouTube Music.
The transfer process may take several hours if you have many playlists,” Google warns on its support page.
Spotify says it’s currently testing a way for users to transfer their libraries and expects to provide more details soon.
Using a third-party service to migrate between platforms
It was super easy to move my Spotify library to Deezer using Tune My Music.
I clicked a button on the Deezer website that got the process started by prompting me to log in to my Spotify account. Then a menu came up with pre-ticked options on what I could migrate: my entire library, favorite songs, favorite albums, favorite artists and any or all of my 150 playlists.
I decided to move it all over, which amounted to more than 16,359 items. It took about five minutes. Unlike Apple Music, Deezer didn’t download any files, it just copied lists.
A few dozen songs went missing, Tune My Music said.
It usually happens because the song doesn’t exist on the new platform, or it’s named a bit differently and couldn’t be matched, it said, but added that I could download a list of missing tracks to look for them on the new platform.
After you finish transferring your music library, don’t forget that it’s still on the original platform and hasn’t been deleted.
Most third-party transfer services are free, but also offer premium levels with more features, such as instant syncing of libraries between multiple streaming sites.
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Is there a tech topic that you think needs explaining? Write to us at onetechtip@ap.org with your suggestions for future editions of One Tech Tip.
Kelvin Chan, AP business writer
AP Business Writer James Pollard contributed to this report.
If you think Jimmy Kimmels return to late-night television this week spells the end of that whole saga, well, think again: A group of investors is demanding that the Walt Disney Co. share information about why he was suspended in the first place.
Lawyers representing the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Reporters Without Borders, and other groups of Disney shareholders sent a letter to the entertainment giant on Wednesday requesting internal documents and communications related to the decision to remove Kimmel from the air. Kimmel was suspended by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) indefinitely last week for comments he made about the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The group of shareholders is seeking to learn whether the decision to yank Kimmel was driven by politically fueled threats from federal regulators and broadcast affiliates, and if Disneys board and executives didnt live up to their fiduciary dutiesto act in the best interest of shareholders.
The group said that, given the Trump administrations threats to free speech, it was writing to seek transparency about the initial decision to suspend Kimmel and his show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!
There is a credible basis to suspect that the board and executives may have breached their fiduciary duties of loyalty, care, and good faith by placing improper political or affiliate considerations above the best interests of the company and its stockholders, the letter said.
DISNEYS SELL-OFF
The group of shareholders is requesting a broad range of information from Disneyfrom financial information to estimate the effect of Kimmels suspension on Disneys revenue to any communications that board members, including CEO Bob Iger, had with political organizations and federal regulators.
Though Kimmel returned to the air Tuesday night and his opening monologue has racked up 20 million views on YouTube, Disney shares have yet to recover from last weeks suspension. Whats more, his show still isnt being aired to about one-quarter of U.S. households served by Nexstar Media Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group stations.
Disney shares fell 3.3% during the time when Kimmel was suspended, and the move triggered a consumer boycott of Disney-owned streaming services, including Hulu, Disney+, and ESPN.
QUESTIONS REGARDING ROLE OF FCC
The group of investors linked Kimmels suspension with threats from Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. The sell-off in the stock illustrates fears of brand damage and concerns that Disney was complicit in succumbing to the government overreach and media censorship, the group said, while negative repercussions on Disney and its shareholders remain, given President Donald Trumps continued threats to ABC.
Nexstar currently requires the approval of the FCC for its planned $6.2 billion merger with Tegna.
Disney shareholders deserve the truth about exactly what went down inside the company after Brendan Carr’s threat to punish ABC unless action was taken against Jimmy Kimmel, AFT president Randi Weingarten said in a statement from Democracy Defenders Fund, a nonprofit watchdog group that helped organize the shareholder letter.
The Disney board has a legal responsibility to act in the best interests of its shareholdersand we are seeking answers to discover if that bond was broken to kowtow to the Trump administration, Weingarten said.
A newly released report from Senate Democrats alleges the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has “copied Americans sensitive Social Security and employment data into a cloud database without any verified security controls,” and is “operating outside federal law, with unchecked access to Americans personal data” at the Social Security Administration (SSA), the General Services Administration (GSA), and the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). DOGE was initially led by tech billionaire Elon Musk.
The report, released on Thursday by U.S. Senator Gary Peters (D-MI)a ranking member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committeefound DOGE is “working without any accountability” to agency leadership, Congressional oversight, or the public.
DOGE isnt making government more efficientthey are bypassing cybersecurity protections, evading oversight, and putting Americans personal data at risk, Senator Peters said in a statement. We cannot allow this shadow operation to continue operating unchecked while millions of people face the threat of identity theft, economic disruption, and permanent harm.”
The 44-page “Peters report” is based on staff investigations and information from multiple whistleblowers, including Chuck Borges, former chief data officer at the Social Security Administration, who said DOGE employees at SSA had access to personal data on all Americansincluding Social Security numbersin an insecure cloud environment.
Additionally, the report alleges it’s very likely that foreign adversaries, such as Russia, China, and Iran, are already aware of this new DOGE cloud environment. The report cited an internal SSA risk assessment that determined the likelihood of a data breach with catastrophic adverse effect is between 35% and 65%.
The database reportedly includes not just Social Security numbers (SSNs) but also people’s date of birth, city, work permit status, and parents names, according to The Verge.
DOGE report conclusions
The report concludes that the loss of Social Security numbers (SSNs) could allegedly trigger widespread identity theft, delay access to benefits, and destabilize core systems Americans rely on.
Peters is calling for Trump administration agencies to immediately halt DOGE operations and access to information systems, given the report’s findings about the catastrophic risk of a serious data breach.
According to the risk assessment, in a worst-case scenario, one whistleblower disclosed the possibility that such a breach could require re-issuing Social Security numbers for every Americana process that would disrupt access to banking, employment, health care, and housing.
Accenture beat fourth-quarter revenue estimates and unveiled a sixmonth, $865 million restructuring to realign its workforce and operations for rising demand in digital and AI services.
The restructuring program highlights the broader trend of companies adapting their workforce and operations to meet growing demand for digital and AI services, while using restructuring to cut costs and funnel savings into training and operational efficiency.
The plan includes severance and selected divestitures, with savings redirected to staff training and operational efficiency.
The Dublin-based company expects about $250 million in charges in the November quarter, on top of $615 million recorded in the fourth quarter, for a total of $865 million.
Accentures restructuring signals strong demand and includes plans to expand its workforce in 2026, CFRA analyst Brooks Idlet said. Accenture has a strong reskilling operation internally, Idlet added, noting the company is focusing resources on higherdemand areas.
Accenture said it is continuing to hire while rolling out a new talent strategy that emphasizes upskilling, phasing out roles with nonviable skills, and using AI to improve productivity.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump announced a $100,000 one-time fee for H-1B visas, part of his immigration crackdown, a move that has raised concerns about higher labor costs and limited access to skilled workers, especially for IT and consulting firms such as Accenture.
Accenture secured approval for 1,568 H-1B visa beneficiaries in the first half of the year, U.S. immigration data shows, placing it among the top 25 U.S. employers using the program.
Changes to H-1B visa policy are not likely to have a significant impact on Accenture’s business, CEO Julie Sweet said, noting that only about 5% of its U.S. employees are employed on such visas.
U.S. federal contract delays and cancellations, which represented 8% of revenue in 2024, reduced this years growth by roughly 20 basis points, company executives said in a post-earnings call.
New bookings, a closely watched metric that measures future revenue based on contracts, were $21.3 billion for the quarter.
Accenture sees full-year 2026 revenue growth between 2% and 5%, slightly below estimates of 5.3%, according to data compiled by LSEG.
The company posted fourth-quarter revenue of $17.6 billion, beating analysts’ average estimate of $17.36 billion.
Kritika Lamba, Reuters
An uptick in consumer spending helped the U.S. economy expand at a surprising 3.8% from April through June, the government reported in a dramatic upgrade of its previous estimate of second-quarter growth.
U.S. gross domestic product the nations output of goods and services rebounded in the spring from a 0.6% first-quarter drop caused by fallout from President Donald Trumps trade wars, the Commerce Department said Thursday. The department had previously estimated second-quarter growth at 3.3%, and forecasters had expected a repeat of that figure.
The first-quarter GDP drop, the first retreat of the U.S. economy in three years, was mainly caused by a surge in imports which are subtracted from GDP as businesses hurried to bring in foreign goods before Trump could impose sweeping taxes on them. That trend reversed as expected in the second quarter: Imports fell at a 29.3% pace, boosting April-June growth by more than 5 percentage points.
Consumer spending rose at a 2.5% pace, up from 0.6% in the first quarter and well above the 1.6% the government previously estimated. Spending on services advanced at a 2.6% annual pace, more than double the government’s previous estimate of 1.2%.
The U.S. consumer remained a lot stronger than many thought, even in the midst of a stock market sell-off and a lot of trade uncertainty, Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, posted on social media.
A category within the GDP data that measures the economys underlying strength came in stronger than previously reported as well, growing 2.9% from April-June, up from 1.9% in the first quarter and in the government’s previous estimate. This category includes consumer spending and private investment, but excludes volatile items like exports, inventories and government spending.
But private investment fell, including a 5.1% drop in residential investment. Declining business inventories took more than 3.4 percentage points off second-quarter growth.
Spending and investment by the federal government fell at a 5.3% annual pace on top of a 5.6% drop in the first quarter.
Stephen Stanley, chief U.S. economist at Santander, noted that GDP growth averaged 1.6% in the first half of 2025 and consumer spending 1.5% “not great but much better than initially thought.”
Since returning to the White House, Trump has overturned decades of U.S. policy in support of freer trade. Hes slapped double-digit taxes tariffs on imports from almost every country on earth and targeted specific products for tariffs, too, including steel, aluminum and autos.
Trump sees tariffs as a way to protect American industry, lure factories back to the United States and to help pay for the massive tax cuts he signed into law July 4.
But mainstream economists whose views Trump and his advisers reject say that his tariffs will damage the economy, raising costs and making protected U.S. companies less efficient. They note that tariffs are paid by importers in the United States, who try to pass along the cost to their customers via higher prices. Therefore, tariffs can be inflationary though their impact on prices so far has been modest.
The unpredictable way that Trump has imposed the tariffs announcing and suspending them, then coming up with new ones has left businesses bewildered, contributing to a sharp deceleration in hiring.
From 2021 through 2023, the United States added an impressive 400,000 jobs a month as the economy bounded back from COVID-19 lockdowns. Since then, hiring has stalled, partly because of trade policy uncertainty and partly because of the lingering effects of 11 interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserves inflation fighters in 2022 and 2023.
Labor Department revisions earlier this month showed that the economy created 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in the year that ended in March. That meant that employers added an average of fewer than 71,000 new jobs a month over that period, not the 147,000 first reported. Since March, job creation has slowed even more to an average 53,000 a month.
On Oct. 3, the Labor Department is expected to report that employers added just 43,000 jobs in September, though unemployment likely stayed at a low 4.3%, according to forecasters surveyed by the data firm FactSet.
Seeking to bolster the job market, the Fed last week cut its benchmark interest rate for the first time since December and signaled that it expected two more cuts this year. But the surprisingly strong second-quarter GDP growth may give the central bank less reason to cut rates despite intense pressure from Trump to do so. Fed officials will be watching even more closely than unusual when their favorite inflation gauge the Commerce Department’s personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index comes out Friday.
Thursdays GDP report was Commerce Departments third and final look at second-quarter economic growth. It will release its initial estimate of July-September growth on Oct. 30.
Forecasters surveyed by the data firm FactSet currently expect the GDP growth to slow to an annual pace of just 1.5% in the third quarter.
Paul Wiseman, AP economics writer
Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes remained sluggish in August, even as a late-summer slide in mortgage rates brought home loan borrowing costs to a 10-month low.
Existing home sales slipped 0.2% last month from July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. Thats the slowest sales pace since June.
Sales rose 1.8% compared with August last year. The latest sales figure topped the 3.96 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet.
The national median sales price increased 2% in August from a year earlier to $422,600. Thats the 26th consecutive month that home prices have risen on an annual basis and the highest median sales price for any August on data going back to 1999.
The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump since 2022, when mortgage rates began climbing from historic lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes sank last year to their lowest level in nearly 30 years. Through the first eight months of this year, home sales are down 1.2% compared to the same period last year.
Mortgage rates have been mostly declining since late July ahead of the Federal Reserves widely anticipated decision last week to cut its main interest rate for the first time in a year amid growing concern over the U.S. job market.
But while lower rates give home shoppers more purchasing power, borrowing costs remain too high for many Americans to afford to buy a home following years of skyrocketing home prices. Consider, the U.S. median home sales price is now 52% higher than it was in August 2019, before the housing market superheated during the initial years of the pandemic.
However, mortgage rates are declining and more inventory is coming to the market, which should boost sales in the coming months, said Lawrence Yun, NARs chief economist.
Homes purchased last month likely went under contract in June and July, when the average rate on a 30-year mortgage ranged from 6.85% to 6.72%, according to Freddie Mac. The decline in mortgage rates accelerated in August and this month, dropping the average rate as low as 6.26% last week.
Homebuilders have had success drumming up sales by lowering prices and offering incentives, including paying to lower mortgage rates for home shoppers who may not be able to afford to buy at current rates.
Sales of new single-family U.S. homes jumped 20.5% in August from the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 800,000 units, the U.S. Census Bureau reported Wednesday. Sales were up 15.4% from a year earlier, the strongest pace so far this year, but are still running about 1.4% lower than a year ago.
However, new home sales are a small fraction of the overall housing market, which remains constrained by lack of affordability and a chronic shortage of homes for sale, especially those in the more affordable end of the market.
That trend has weighed especially on first-time homebuyers, who dont have home equity gains to put toward a new home purchase. They accounted for 28% of homes sales last month. Historically, they made up 40% of home sales.
Still, the inventory of homes for sale across the U.S. has increased gradually as the market has slowed and is now at a level where supply and demand are more balanced.
There were 1.53 million unsold homes at the end of last month, down 1.3% from July and up 11.7% from August last year, NAR said. Thats still well below the roughly 2 million homes for sale that was typical before the pandemic.
Augusts month-end inventory translates to a 4.6-month supply at the current sales pace, matching the supply level at the end of July and an increase from 4.2 months in August last year. Traditionally, a 5- to 6-month supply is considered a balanced market between buyers and sellers.
Homes are also taking longer to sell. Properties typically remained on the market for 31 days last month before selling, up from 26 days a year earlier, NAR said.
The longer homes linger on the market, the more pressure it puts on homeowners eager to sell to give buyers a better deal. That’s led to more sellers lowering prices.
A little over 20% of homes on the market in August had their initial listing price lowered, according to Realtor.com.
If mortgage rates continue to ease, that should help bring out more buyers, but economists’ forecasts generally call for the average rate on a 30-year mortgage to remain above 6% this year.
Despite improvement, rates are still not low enough to unlock the vast majority of homeowners, who continue to enjoy sub 6% rates, but it will help those on the margins and may lead to a more active fall home sales season, said Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com.
By Alex Veiga, AP business writer
Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen and other former top economic officials appointed by presidents of both parties urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to preserve the Federal Reserve’s political independence and allow Lisa Cook to remain as a central bank governor for now.
The justices are weighing an emergency appeal from the administration to remove Cook while her lawsuit challenging her firing by Republican President Donald Trump proceeds through the courts.
The White House campaign to unseat Cook marks an unprecedented bid to reshape the Fed board, which was designed to be largely independent from day-to-day politics. No president has fired a sitting Fed governor in the agencys 112-year history.
Earlier in September, a judge determined that Trump’s move to fire Cook probably was illegal. An appeals court rejected an emergency plea to oust Cook before the Fed’s meeting last week when Cook joined in a vote to cut a key interest rate by one-quarter of a percentage point.
A day after that meeting, the administration turned to the Supreme Court and again asked for her prompt removal.
In their filing, lawyers for the former economic officials wrote that immediately ousting Cook would expose the Federal Reserve to political influences, thereby eroding public confidence in the Feds independence and jeopardizing the credibility and efficacy of U.S. monetary policy.
Greenspan, Bernanke, and Yellen served as successive chairs of the Fed’s seven-member board of governors, spanning six presidential administrations back to 1987. Greenspan and Bernanke were initially appointed by Republican Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, respectively. President Barack Obama, a Democrat, nominated Yellen to the Fed and she was Democratic President Joe Biden’s treasury secretary.
The list of signatories includes other treasury secretaries, heads of the Council of Economic Advisers and former Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, a former chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.
Trump sought to fire Cook on Aug. 25, but a judge ruled that she could remain in her job. Trump has accused Cook of mortgage fraud because she appeared to claim two properties, in Michigan and Georgia, as primary residences in June and July 2021, before she joined the board. Such claims can lead to a lower mortgage rate and a smaller down payment than if one of them was declared as a rental property or second home.
Cook has denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged with a crime. According to documents obtained by The Associated Press, Cook did specify that her Atlanta condo would be a vacation home, according to a loan estimate she obtained in May 2021. In a form seeking a security clearance, she described it as a 2nd home. Both documents appear to undercut the administrations claims of fraud.
The attempt to fire Cook differs from Trump’s dismissal of board members of other independent agencies. Those firings, including at the National Labor Relations Board, Federal Trade Commission and Consumer Product Safety Commission, have been done at will.
In allowing those firings to proceed for now, the Supreme Court cautioned that it viewed the Fed differently. Trump has invoked the provision of the law that set up the Federal Reserve and allowed for governors to be dismissed for cause.
Mark Sherman, Associated Press
In a rural corner of Louisiana, Meta is building one of the world’s largest data centers, a $10 billion behemoth as big as 70 football fields that will consume more power in a day than the entire city of New Orleans at the peak of summer.
While the colossal project is impossible to miss in Richland Parish, a farming community of 20,000 residents, not everything is visible, including how much the social media giant will pay toward the more than $3 billion in new electricity infrastructure needed to power the facility.
Watchdogs have warned that in the rush to capitalize on the AI-driven data center boom, some states are allowing massive tech companies to direct expensive infrastructure projects with limited oversight.
Mississippi lawmakers allowed Amazon to bypass regulatory approval for energy infrastructure to serve two data centers it is spending $10 billion to build. In Indiana, a utility is proposing a data center-focused subsidiary that operates outside normal state regulations. And while Louisiana says it has added consumer safeguards, it lags behind other states in its efforts to insulate regular power consumers from data center-related costs.
Mandy DeRoche, an attorney for the environmental advocacy group Earthjustice, says there is less transparency due to confidentiality agreements and rushed approvals.
“You can’t follow the facts, you can’t follow the benefits or the negative impacts that could come to the service area or to the community,” DeRoche said.
Private deals for public power supply
Under contract with Meta, power company Entergy agreed to build three gas-powered plants that would produce 2,262 megawatts equivalent to a fifth of Entergy’s current power supply in Louisiana. The Public Service Commission approved Meta’s infrastructure plan in August after Entergy agreed to bolster protections to prevent a spike in residential rates.
Nonetheless, nondisclosure agreements conceal how much Meta will pay.
Consumer advocates tried but failed to compel Meta to provide sworn testimony, submit to discovery and face cross-examination during a regulatory review. Regulators reviewed Meta’s contract with Entergy, but were barred from revealing details.
Meta did not address AP’s questions about transparency, while Louisiana’s economic development agency and Entergy say nondisclosure agreements are standard to protect sensitive commercial data.
Davante Lewis the only one of five public service commissioners to vote against the plan said he’s still unclear how much electricity the center will use, if gas-powered plants are the most economical option nor if it will create the promised 500 jobs.
“There’s certain information we should know and need to know but don’t have,” Lewis said.
Additionally, Meta is exempt from paying sales tax under a 2024 Louisiana law that the state acknowledges could lead to “tens of millions of dollars or more each year” in lost revenue.
Meta has agreed to fund about half the cost of building the power plants over 15 years, including cost overruns, but not maintenance and operation, said Logan Burke, executive director of the Alliance for Affordable Energy, a consumer advocacy group.
Public Service Commission Jean-Paul Coussan insists there will be “very little” impact on ratepayers.
But watchdogs warn Meta could pull out of or not renew its contract, leaving the public to pay for the power plants over the rest of their 30-year life span, and all grid users are expected to help pay for the $550 million transmission line serving Meta’s facility.
Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard University’s Electricity Law Initiative, said tech companies should be required to pay “every penny so the public is not left holding the bag.”
How is this tackled in other states?
Elsewhere, tech companies are not being given such leeway. More than a dozen states have taken steps to protect households and business ratepayers from paying for rising electricity costs tied to energy-hungry data centers.
Pennsylvania’s utilities commission is drafting a model rate structure to insulate customers from rising costs related to data centers. New Jersey’s utilities regulators are studying whether data centers cause “unreasonable” cost increases for other users. Oregon passed legislation this year ordering utilities regulators to develop new, and likely higher, power rates for data centers.
And in June, Texas implemented what it calls a ‘kill switch’ law empowering grid operators to order data centers to reduce their electrical load during emergencies.
Locals have mixed feelings
Some Richland Parish residents fear a boom-and-bust cycle once construction ends. Others expect a boost in school and health care funding. Meta said it plans to invest in 1,500 megawatts of renewable energy in Louisiana and $200 million in water and road infrastructure in Richland Parish.
“We don’t come from a wealthy parish and the money is much needed,” said Trae Banks, who runs a drywall business that has tripled in size since Meta arrived.
In the nearby town of Delhi, Mayor Jesse Washington believes the data center will eventually have a positive impact on his community of 2,600.
But for now, the construction traffic frustrates residents and property prices are skyrocketing as developers try to house thousands of construction workers. More than a dozen low-income families were evicted from a trailer park whose owners are building housing for incoming Meta workers, Washington says.
“We have a lot of concerned people they’ve put hardship on a lot of people in certain areas here,” the mayor said. “I just want to see people from Delhi benefit from this.”
Brook reported from New Orleans.
Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.
Jack Brook and Sophie Bates, Associated Press/Report for America
Former President Bill Clinton opened the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative Wednesday with a list of things that worry him.
It would be irresponsible, almost jarring, for us to take off and not acknowledge the traumatic rise in political violence that weve seen in our country, Clinton said about the shooting deaths of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark. Were pulling further and further away from one another.
Clinton said he worried about the dismantling of domestic and foreign assistance programs, the war on science and public health, cuts to education, trade wars, and being at risk of losing our freedom of speech.
Were trying to do everything we can to provide a counterweight to a lot of the negative things that have taken place in the last several months, Clinton said of the two-day conference, which shifted its format to create working groups to tackle many of the issues he outlined.
The conferences biggest announcement on Wednesday was a partnership between the Clinton Health Access Initiative, Dr. Reddys Laboratories, Unitaid, and Wits RHI that will provide Gilead Sciences HIV prevention drug lenacapavir in 120 low- and middle-income countries for $40 a person each year, starting in 2027. The Gates Foundation announced a similar agreement with the Indian manufacturer Hetero Labs.
Clinton said the move was partially in response to foreign aid cuts from President Donald Trumps administration, which he said could lead to more than 6 million more HIV cases and potentially 4 million more deaths in Africa. In July, GOP leaders stopped an additional cut of $400 million to PEPFAR, a program combating HIV/AIDS credited with saving millions of lives since its creation under then-President George W. Bush.
Points of Light Chairman Neil Bush said PEPFAR and the way it has helped so many in Africa has always been a point of family pride. And though he hasnt talked to his brother, former President George W. Bush, about the new program announced at the Clinton Global Initiative, Neil Bush said he sees it as a way philanthropy can help fill in gaps.
It seems like Americas withdrawal from the world is having terrible ramifications, in my personal view, he said, adding that Points of Light hopes to increase the help it provides through its ambitious plan to double the number of volunteers in America in the next 10 years.
Activist and philanthropist Abigail Disney urged Clinton Global Initiative attendees to be more aggressive in their giving and encouraged them to support cultural movements instead of programs.
I dont care where you are on the political spectrum there is mistrust, theres fear and there is anger, and we should all be very alarmed, Disney said. And I hang around big philanthropies these days and I dont see any alarm. I dont think thats because theyre not alarmed. I think thats because theyre afraid. Everybodys afraid.
However, President Clinton said that the Clinton Global Initiative, which launched in 2005, has always looked to create solutions.
If we hold our heads high, keep our eyes and ears open and deal with others with an outstretched hand and not a clenched fist, weve got a chance to keep hope alive, he said. We have the chance to make a meaningful difference in other peoples lives.
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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.
Glen Gamboa, AP business writer
Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start of summer, which means many entrepreneurs minds are turning towards beach getaways, lakeside camping trips, or lazy days at the pool with the kids.
These kinds of water-based activities are a great way to relax and stay cool. But according to fascinating research in neuroscience, swimming isnt just a fun vacation activity. It actually has special brain benefits that other forms of exercise just cant match.
Not just another form of exercise
It will surprise exactly no one that exercise is good for your brain. (If this is news to you, here are some studies for you to get up to speed.) Swimming is, obviously, a form of exercise, so therefore its good for your brain too. And thats the end of it, right?
Not exactly. Swimming is a perfectly excellent way to get the generalized benefits of more movement in your life if thats your preferred way to work out. But psychologists and neuroscientists have uncovered a variety of unique benefits that swimming seems to provide.
1. Swimming reduces stress.
In fact, the benefits of swimming start before you even stick a toe in the water. Psychologists have discovered that even just looking at a beach seems to help us calm down and let go of stress.
Recent experiments show that after just two minutes of viewing water outdoors, blood pressure and heart rate drop. Its more calming to look at a lake, pool, or stream than trees or grass. And wider bodies of water bring more tranquility, explained star psychologist Adam Grant in a recent edition of his newsletter, Granted.
Evolutionary psychologists suggest this may be because marine environments offered our hunter gatherer ancestors a rich source of food and a clear view of incoming predators. Whatever the reason though, the effect is clear. The human brain seems wired to love the beach.
2. Swimming makes your brain work better.
You might spend time by the pool or lake in order to forget the stresses of your working life. But while youre leaving your stresses behind, youre actually also boosting your memory in general.
For one study, neuroscientists forced rats to do daily laps in a mini rat pool and then tested their memories. After just seven days of swim training, researchers saw improvements in both short- and long-term memories, based on a reduction in the errors rats made each day, reports neuroscientist Seena Mathew.
And its not just rats. Studies on whether humans see the same cognitive benefits are ongoing but initial results are promising. One showed kids recalled a list of words much more accurately after swimming, compared to when they colored or did CrossFit-like exercise. Another study of older adults concluded that swimmers had improved mental speed and attention compared with non-swimmers, Mathew says.
3. Swimming boosts mental health.
If your holiday involves swimming outdoors under the sky, you can expect to see additional benefits. A large recent global survey of wild swimmersi.e., those who take their dips in open air pools or natural environmentsfound that mixing swimming and nature delivered a particularly large boost to peoples well-being.
Experiment after experiment shows nature just seems to make humans happier. But the researchers behind the study think something else is driving much of the increase in mental health experienced by wild swimmers.
Our study suggests that the key to this effect lies in experiencing feelings of autonomy and competencefreedom and mastery over the swimmers environmenttwo factors that are strongly linked to well-being, explained Lewis Elliot, one of the researchers behind the findings.
Swimming outdoors makes us feel free and confident. And freedom and confidence make us happier.
Time to hit the beach or pool?
All of which adds up to a simple message for entrepreneurs: If youre daydreaming of the beach, pool, or lake this Memorial Day weekend, maybe you should follow your impulse to plan that trip. You already know swimming is a great way to unwind. New neuroscience reveals it is also apparently a form of exercise with special brain benefits.
Spending some time in the water this summer is likely to make you calmer, smarter, happier, and more confident. So maybe its time to dig out that bathing suit.
