Nintendo is pushing back preorders for its upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 while it figures out the implications of President Donald Trump’s aggressive global tariffs.
It’s unclear when preorders will actually begin. They were supposed to start Wednesday, ahead of a June 5 launch date.
“Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions,” a spokesperson for the Japan-based company tells Fast Company. “Nintendo will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged.”
The BBC reported that the announcement will only apply to the U.S. market.
Nintendo revealed its highly anticipated Switch 2 on Wednesday with a price tag of $449.99. But the announcement coincided with Trump’s most sweeping tariffs to date. Many economists expect the move to cause a spike in inflation, with some warning of an impeding recession.
Nintendo hasn’t announced where its Switch 2 will be produced, but the original console was made in China and Vietnam, which now have new, steep tariffs in place. Companies either must swallow those costs or pass them onto consumers. It’s unclear whether Nintendo will raise that price tag or not.
I teach history in Connecticut, but I grew up in Oklahoma and Kansas, where my interest in the subject was sparked by visits to local museums.
I fondly remember trips to the Fellow-Reeves Museum in Wichita, Kansas, and the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City. A 1908 photograph of my great-grandparents picking cotton has been used as a poster by the Oklahoma Historical Society.
This love of learning history continued into my years as a graduate student of history, when I would spend hours at the Smithsonian Institutions National Air and Space Museum learning about the history of human flight and ballooning. As a professor, Ive integrated the institutions exhibits into my history courses.
The Trump administration, however, is not happy with the way the Smithsonian Institution and other U.S. museums are portraying history.
On March 27, 2025, the president issued an executive order, Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, which asserted, Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nations history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth. Under this historical revision, our Nations unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.
Trump singled out a few museums, including the Smithsonian, dedicating a whole section of the order on saving the institution from divisive, race-centered ideology.
Of course, history is contested. There will always be a variety of views about what should be included and excluded from Americas story. For example, in my own research, I found that Prohibition-era school boards in the 1920s argued over whether it was appropriate for history textbooks to include pictures of soldiers drinking to illustrate the 1791 Whiskey Rebellion.
But most recent debates center on how much attention should be given to the history of the nations accomplishments over its darker chapters. The Smithsonian, as a national institution that receives most of its funds from the federal government, has sometimes found itself in the crosshairs.
Americas historical repository
The Smithsonian Institution was founded in 1846 thanks to its namesake, British chemist James Smithson.
Smithson willed his estate to his nephew and stated that if his nephew died without an heir, the moneyroughly US$15 million in todays dollarswould be donated to the U.S. to found an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.
An 1816 portrait of British chemist James Smithson by Henri-Joseph Johns. [Image: Wiki Commons]
The idea of a national institution dedicated to history, science and learning was contentious from the start.
In her book The Stranger and the Statesman, historian Nina Burleigh shows how Smithsons bequest was nearly lost due to battles between competing interests.
Southern plantation owners and western frontiersmen, including President Andrew Jackson, saw the establishment of a national museum as an unnecessary assertion of federal power. They also challenged the very idea of accepting a gift from a non-American and thought that it was beneath the dignity of the government to confer immortality on someone simply because of a large donation.
In the end, a group led by congressman and former president John Quincy Adams ensured Smithsons vision was realized. Adams felt that the country was failing to live up to its early promise. He thought a national museum was an important way to burnish the ideals of the young republic and educate the public.
Today, the Smithsonian runs 14 education and research centers, the National Zoo and 21 museums, including the National Portrait Gallery and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which was created with bipartisan support during President George W. Bushs administration.
In the introduction to his book Smithsonians History of America in 101 Objects, cultural anthropologist Richard Kurin talks about how the institution has also supported hundreds of small and large institutions outside of the nations capital.
In 2024, the Smithsonian sent over 2 million artifacts on loan to museums in 52 U.S. states and territories and 33 foreign countries. It also partners with over 200 affiliate museums. YouGov has periodically tracked Americans approval of the Smithsonian, which has held steady at roughly 68% approval and 2% disapproval since 2020.
Smithsonian in the crosshairs
Precursors to the Trump administrations efforts to reshape the Smithsonian took place in the 1990s.
In 1991, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, which was then known as the National Museum of American Art, created an exhibition titled The West as America, Reinterpreting Images of the Frontier, 1820-1920. Conservatives complained that th museum portrayed western expansion as a tale of conquest and destruction, rather than one of progress and nation-building. The Wall Street Journal editorialized that the exhibit represented an entirely hostile ideological assault on the nations founding and history.
The exhibition proved popular: Attendance to the National Museum of American Art was 60% higher than it had been during the same period the year prior. But the debate raised questions about whether public museums were able to express ideas that are critical of the U.S. without risk of censorship.
In 1994, controversy again erupted, this time at the National Air and Space Museum over a forthcoming exhibition centered on the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima 50 years prior.
Should the exhibition explore the loss of Japanese lives? Or emphasize the U.S. war victory?
Veterans groups insisted that the atomic bomb ended the war and saved 1 million American lives, and demanded the removal of photographs of the destruction and a melted Japanese school lunch box from the exhibit. Meanwhile, other activists protested the exhibition by arguing that a symbol of human destruction shouldnt be commemorated at an institution thats supposed to celebrate human achievement.
Republicans won the House in 1994 and threatened cuts to the Smithsonians budget over the Enola Gay exhibition, compelling curators to walk a tightrope. In the end, the fuselage of the Enola Gay was displayed in the Smithsonians National Air and Space Museum. But the exhibit would not tell the full story of the planes role in the war from a myriad of perspectives.
Trump enters the fray
In 2019, The New York Times launched the 1619 project, which aimed to reframe the countrys history by placing slavery and its consequences at its very center. The first Trump administration quickly responded by forming its 1776 commission. In January 2021, it produced a report critiquing the 1619 project, claiming that an emphasis on the countrys history of racism and slavery was counterproductive to promoting patriotic education.
That same year, Trump pledged to build a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans to ever live, with 250 statues to mark the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
President Joe Biden rescinded the order in 2021. Trump reissued it after retaking the White House, and pointed to figures hed like to see included, such as Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Betsy Ross, Sitting Bull, Bob Hope, Thurgood Marshall and Whitney Houston.
I dont think there is anything wrong with honoring Americans, though I think a focus on celebrities and major figures clouds the fascinating histories of ordinary Americans. I also find it troubling that there seems to be such a concerted effort to so forcefully shape the teaching and understanding of history via threats and bullying. Yale historian Jason Stanley has written about how aspiring authoritarian governments seek to control historical narratives and discourage an exploration of the complexities of the past.
Historical scholarship requires an openness to debate and a willingness to embrace new findings and perspectives. It also involves the humility to accept that no oneleast of all the governmenthas a monopoly on the truth.
In his executive order, Trump noted that Museums in our Nations capital should be places where individuals go to learn. I share that view. Doing so, however, means not dismantling history, but instead complicating the storyin all its messy glory.
The Conversation U.S. receives funding from the Smithsonian Institution.
Jennifer Tucker is a professor of history at Wesleyan University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, issued an urgent alert about dengue fever, a painful and sometimes deadly mosquito-borne illness common in tropical and subtropical parts of the world. Some 3,500 travelers from the United States contracted dengue abroad in 2024, according to the CDC, an 84% increase over 2023. This trend is expected to continue, the agency said, noting that Florida, California, and New York, in that order, are likely to see the biggest surges this year.
On Thursday, the United Kingdom Health Security Agency put out a similar warning, noting that there were 900 cases of travel-related dengue in the U.K. in 2024, almost 300 more infections than the preceding year. The two reports relayed a similar array of statistics about dengue, its symptoms, and rising caseloads. But the U.K. Health Security Agency included a crucial piece of information that the CDC omitted: It noted why cases are breaking records. The rise is driven by climate change, rising temperatures, and flooding, it said.
In the past, the CDC has readily acknowledged the role climate change plays in the transmission of dengue feverbut the political conditions that influence scientific research and federal public health communications in the U.S. have undergone seismic shifts in the months since President Donald Trump took office. The new administration has purged federal agency websites of mentions of equity and climate change and sought to dismantle the scientific infrastructure that agencies like the CDC use to understand and respond to a range of health risksincluding those posed by global warming.
Last week, ProPublica reported that the National Institutes of Health, or NIHthe largest source of funding for medical research in the worldwill shut down all future funding opportunities for climate and health research. It remains to be seen whether ongoing grants for research at this intersection will be allowed to continue. A few days later, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his agency plans to cull 10,000 people from its workforce, including new cuts at CDC, an agency that was established in 1946 in order to prevent a different mosquito-borne illness, malaria, from spreading across the U.S.
Taken together, the suite of directives will prevent the U.S. and other nations whose scientists rely on NIH funding from preparing for and responding to dengue fever at the exact moment when climate change is causing cases of the disease to skyrocket. The abrupt subversion of the personnel and institutions tasked with responding to a threat like dengue bodes poorly for future health crises as climate change causes carriers of disease like mosquitoes, fungi, and ticks to expand their historical ranges and infiltrate new zones.
The disease pressure in the last couple of years is very dramatic and its going in one directionup, said Scott ONeill, founder of the World Mosquito Program, a nonprofit organization that infects mosquitoes with a naturally occurring bacteria to fight disease in 14 countries. For example, Brazilthe country that consistently registers the highest number of dengue casesrecorded a historic 10 million cases last year. The country reported 1.7 million cases in 2023.
The two types of mosquitoes that most often infect humans with dengue, Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus, thrive in the warm, moist conditions made more prevalent by rising atmospheric temperatures caused by fossil fuel combustion. The vast majority of annual dengue cases are asymptomatic, but about 25% of people infected, depending on the population, develop symptoms like fever, headache, and joint pain. A small percentage of those cases result in severe sickness, hospitalization, and even death.
The number of severe dengue infections corresponds roughly to the size of the pool of people infected every year. In 2023, when there were 6 million total dengue infections, 6,000 people died. In 2024, a year when there were more than 13 million cases registered globally, over 8,000 people died.
There is no cure for dengue. Patients in wealthier countries generally fare better than patients in developing regions with limited access to medical interventions like blood transfusions and places where waves of dengue patients overwhelm already-strained healthcare systems. Two dengue vaccines are available in some countries, but both have serious limitations in terms of efficacy and how long they confer immunity.
The NIH began taking climate change and health research seriously in 2021, and the institutes have funded dozens of studies that probe every aspect of the climate-dengue connection since. NIH-funded researchers have sought to understand how warmer temperatures shift the geographic ranges of Aedes mosquitoes, which factors predict dengue outbreaks, and how communities can protect themselves from dengue following extreme weather events.
These studies have taken place in the southeastern U.S., where dengue is becoming more prevalent, and internationally, in countries like Peru and Brazil, where dengue is a near-constant threat. The NIH has also funded studies that bring the world closer to finding medical and technological interventions: more effective vaccines and genetically engineered mosquitoes that cant develop dengue, among other solutions.
Disease doesnt have national borders, said an American vector biologist who has received funding from the NIH in the past. She askednot to have her name or affiliated academic institution mentioned in this story out of fear of reprisal from the Trump administration. Im worried that if were not studying it, were just going to watch it continue to happen and we wont be prepared.
Americans arent just bringing cases of dengue fever home with them from trips abroad; the disease is also spreading locally with more intensity in warmer regions of the country and its territories. Last March, Puerto Rico declared a public health emergency amid an explosion of cases on the island. By the end of 2024, Puerto Rico registered over 6,000 casespassing the threshold at which an outbreak officially becomes an epidemic. More than half of the known infections led to hospitalization. Close to 1,000 cases have been reported there so far this year, a 113% increase over the same period in 2024. California and Florida reported 18 and 91 locally-acquired cases of dengue, respectively, last year. California registered its first-ever locally-acquired case of dengue in 2023.
Dengue is already found in many places in the U.S. that have never seen this disease before, said Renzo Guinto, a physician and head of the Planetary Health Initiative at the Duke-NUS medical school in Singapore. To combat this emerging climate-related health threat, U.S. scientists must collaborate with others working in dengue overseas. With no resources and capacity, how can such collaboration occur?
There are limited non-government sources of funding for climate and health research. The money that is available to American researchers is primarily offered by private foundations like the Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. The grants these philanthropies offer annually pale in comparison to the $40 million Congress made available annually through the NIH for climate and health research in the two years before Trump took office. Researchers will be forced to compete for a small pool of funding in the coming years, which will likely lead to fewer studies and less innovation in the years to come. The end result will be that much less of this work would be donewe would all tell you to the detriment of Americans long term, said the vector biologist.
As dengue spreads with more intensity in the countries where it is already common and slips across borders into zones like North America where the disease is still comparatively rare, its clear countries need to expand their arsenals of disease-fighting weapons. But the U.S. appears to be leading a charge in the opposite direction, with thousands of lives at stake.
Were at a time when we need acceleration of innovation and solutions to very pressing global problems, said ONeill, whose organization receives funding from governments around the world, including the U.S. Its not the time to let ideology drive science rather than let science drive itself.
This article originally appeared in Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here.
Most of us know the general (albeit simplified) story: Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov used a stimuluslike a metronomearound the dogs he was studying, and soon, the hounds would start to salivate.
They had learned that the sound meant food was coming. The phenomenon, now known as classical conditioning, became one of modern psychologys foundational discoveries. It’s an unconscious process where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a naturally occurring stimulus, eventually leading to a connection between the two. The dogs, seeing the researcher who often brings them food or hearing the noise of the cart on its way, would immediately know they were about to have a meal.
Flash forward 120 years: my dog and I are riding through San Francisco in a self-driving car. Ive taken Waymos autonomous vehicles dozens of times, often with my 9-year-old chiweenie, Poppy, nestled on my lap. She usually naps peacefully, facing inward, oblivious to the world outside.
Near the end of each ride, the car makes a familiar ding-dong chime, followed by a womans voice reminding me to take my phone, keys, and wallet. Poppy, unfazed, would remain in a deep sleep until the car stopped, I unbuckled my seatbelt, and picked her up to get out. Back to the world of smells and fresh air!
Lately, Ive noticed something strange: As soon as the ding sounds, Poppy wakes up, turns around, and readies herself at the door without my helpevery single time.
Is this . . . Pavlovs Waymo?
As a serious journalist in pursuit of all the hard-hitting truths, I emailed the veterinary team at Bond Vet. The short answer to my not-so-serious question? Yes.
“In practical terms, the sound acts as a cue, prompting her anticipation to leave. This behavior develops because the sound repeatedly coincides with the end of the ride, and the reward of getting out reinforces her response,” Dr. Lisa Lippman, director of virtual medicine at Bond Vet, said in an email. “Dogs are incredibly perceptive and often pick up on routines and environmental cues like this, its a great example of how they learn and adapt!”
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, found in 2021 that common household noises, like a microwave beep or the chirp of a smoke detector, can cause a dog anxiety. Thankfully, Poppy doesn’t seem very anxious about the car’s noise (although humans are notoriously bad at sensing a dog’s stress or real emotions). But it made me think of the constant notifications and dings of our world.
At the same time as our pets, we as humans are being classically conditioned. The microwave beep alerts us that we’re about to be rewarded with food, the “tudum” sound when you open the Netflix app prepares us for entertainment, the Waymo chime let’s us know it’s almost time to get out. Brands especially have utilized classical conditioning to associate their product with an emotion.
“When we play sound feedback for Waymo riders, our guiding philosophy is to be friendly and helpful,” Waymo’s Head of Design and Customer Research Ryan Powell said over email. “That means playing sounds that feel connected and familiar, but not intrusive. We want to be thoughtful about how and when we play sound, so that riders can rely on these signals for their safety and comfort. Sometimes we’ll play sound followed by a voice explanation for more detail.”
A crackdown on foreign students is alarming colleges, who say the Trump administration is using new tactics and vague justifications to push some students out of the country.College officials worry the new approach will keep foreigners from wanting to study in the U.S.Students stripped of their entry visas are receiving orders from the Department of Homeland Security to leave the country immediatelya break from past practice that often permitted them to stay and complete their studies.Some students have been targeted over pro-Palestinian activism or criminal infractionsor even traffic violations. Others have been left wondering how they ran afoul of the government.At Minnesota State University in Mankato, President Edward Inch told the campus Wednesday that visas had been revoked for five international students for unclear reasons.He said school officials learned about the revocations when they ran a status check in a database of international students after the detention of a Turkish student at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. The State Department said the detention was related to a drunken driving conviction.“These are troubling times, and this situation is unlike any we have navigated before,” Inch wrote in a letter to campus.President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to deport foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian protests, and federal agents started by detaining Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a green-card-holder and Palestinian activist who was prominent in protests at Columbia last year. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last week students are being targeted for involvement in protests along with others tied to “potential criminal activity.”In the past two weeks, the government apparently has widened its crackdown. Officials from colleges around the country have discovered international students have had their entry visas revoked and, in many cases, their legal residency status terminated by authorities without noticeincluding students at Arizona State, Cornell, North Carolina State, the University of Oregon, the University of Texas, and the University of Colorado.Some of the students are working to leave the country on their own, but students at Tufts and the University of Alabama have been detained by immigration authoritiesin the Tufts case, even before the university knew the student’s legal status had changed.
Feds bypass colleges to move against students
In this new wave of enforcement, school officials say the federal government is quietly deleting foreigners’ student records instead of going through colleges, as was done in the past.Students are being ordered to leave the country with a suddenness that universities have rarely seen, said Miriam Feldblum, president and CEO of the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.In the past, when international students have had entry visas revoked, they generally have been allowed to keep legal residency status. They could stay in the country to study, but would need to renew their visa if they left the U.S. and wanted to return. Now, increasing numbers of students are having their legal status terminated, exposing them to the risk of being arrested.“None of this is regular practice,” Feldblum said.At North Carolina State University, two students from Saudi Arabia left the U.S. after learning their legal status as students was terminated, the university said. N.C. State said it will work with the students to complete their semester from outside the country.Philip Vasto, who lived with one of the students, said his roommate, in graduate school for engineering management, was apolitical and did not attend protests against the war in Gaza. When the government told his roommate his student status had been terminated, it did not give a reason, Vasto said.Since returning to Saudi Arabia, Vasto said his former roommate’s top concern is getting into another university.“He’s made his peace with it,” he said. “He doesn’t want to allow it to steal his peace any further.”
Database checks turn up students in jeopardy
At the University of Texas at Austin, staff checking a federal database discovered two people on student visas had their permission to be in the U.S. terminated, a person familiar with the situation said. The person declined to be identified for fear of retaliation.One of the people, from India, had their legal status terminated April 3. The federal system indicated the person had been identified in a criminal records check “and/or has had their visa revoked.” The other person, from Lebanon, had their legal status terminated March 28 due to a criminal records check, according to the federal database.Both people were graduates remaining in the U.S. on student visas, using an option allowing people to gain professional experience after completing coursework. Both were employed full time and apparently had not violated requirements for pursuing work experience, the person familiar with the situation said.Some students have had visas revoked by the State Department under an obscure law barring noncitizens whose presence could have “serious adverse foreign policy consequences.” Trump invoked the law in a January order demanding action against campus anti-Semitism.But some students targeted in recent weeks have had no clear link to political activism. Some have been ordered to leave over misdemeanor crimes or traffic infractions, Feldblum said. In some cases, students were targeted for infractions that had been previously reported to the government.Some of the alleged infractions would not have drawn scrutiny in the past and will likely be a test of students’ First Amendment rights as cases work their way through court, said Michelle Mittelstadt, director of public affairs at the Migration Policy Institute.“In some ways, what the administration is doing is really retroactive,” she said. “Rather than saying, ‘This is going to be the standard that we’re applying going forward,’ they’re going back and vetting students based on past expressions or past behavior.”The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities is requesting a meeting with the State Department over the issue. It’s unclear whether more visas are being revoked than usual, but officials fear a chilling effect on international exchange.Many of the association’s members have recently seen at least one student have their visas revoked, said Bernie Burrola, a vice president at the group. With little information from the government, colleges have been interviewing students or searching social media for a connection to political activism.“The universities can’t seem to find anything that seems to be related to Gaza or social media posts or protests,” Burrola said. “Some of these are sponsored students by foreign governments, where they specifically are very hesitant to get involved in protests.”There’s no clear thread indicating which students are being targeted, but some have been from the Middle East and China, he said.America’s universities have long been seen as a top destination for the orld’s brightest mindsand they’ve brought important tuition revenue and research breakthroughs to U.S. colleges. But international students also have other options, said Fanta Aw, CEO of NAFSA, an association of international educators.“We should not take for granted that that’s just the way things are and will always be,” she said.
The Associated Press’ education 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.
Associated Press writers Steve Karnowski in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Angeliki Kastanis in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
Collin Binkley, Annie Ma and Makiya Seminera, Associated Press
On Wednesday, Trump announced a wide ranging series of reciprocal tariffs on imported goods from countries including China and Japan. But near the top of the list was a country you might not have thought about a lot in terms of its status as international power broker: Vietnam.
With a 46% tariff, Vietnam is one of the hardest hit countries on the list. All sorts of goods are made there these days, including furniture and technological hardware. But the most sensitive industry may be apparel and performance footwearwith a special emphasis on footwear. Ninty-nine percent of all footwear sold in the U.S. is imported. And 50% of Nikes shoes are made in Vietnam, specifically. The country produces a significant number of shoes for the entire industry, including Adidas, On, Reebok, Deckers (which includes Hoka, Ugg, and Teva), and Brooks (the number one running brand in the U.S.).
When asked how they planned to respond to this policy, none of these brands opted to comment for this story. Stock prices for Nike, Adidas, On Holdings, and Deckers each dropped approximately 15% following the announcement.
It almost feels intentionally directed at the [performance footwear] industry, says David Swartz, senior equity analyst, consumer research, for Morningstar, who has called the tariffs potentially disastrous to the industry in an investor report published yesterday. (Disclosure: Morningstar and Fast Company share the same owner.) To be clear, Swartz sees no upside to this government decision, noting that the chances that any of this leads to substantial manufacturing of footwear and apparel in the U.S. are practically zero. And its another reason that he, like many others, simply cannot imagine that they will stick.
Why the focus on Vietnam?
Swartz recognizes that targeting Vietnam likely had less to do with the companies or industry being affected than it did the simple balance sheet math that drove Trumps tariffs. Vietnam does not import nearly the amount of goods from the U.S. that we do from them. But by any common sense, that imbalance is to be expected.
The US economy is like 70x that of Vietnam, so it seems pretty obvious to me that Vietnam is going to buy fewer American products than we buy from them, but what do I know? says Swartz. I only have a masters degree in economics from Yale, so I dont know anything.
While senseless on paper, the tariffs could have lasting repercussions on the industry if they stick. And the worlds biggest performance brands would have little recourse if that happened.
The crux of the problem is that, since the 1990s, apparel and footwear has moved abroad. As Swartz explains, performance companies in particular invested billions of dollars into the roads, ports, factories, and rail lines that make up the complex supply chain feeding Vietnamese infrastructure.
Its in everyones interest to keep these factories working. Vietnam relies on the business for their economy. Corporations rely on Vietnam to produce goods. Nike, for instance, doesnt own a single one of its factories globally.
You cant just call a factory in India and say can you make 20 million of shoes for me, they don’t have the capacity, says Swartz. Idle factories dont exist globally. An unused factory is shut down, and its staff is fired. Furthermore, specialized production methods behind modern footwear dont exist everywhere. Sewing is simple. But injection molded foam composites, polymer production, and complex fabric weaving are other topics. A modern sneaker may have as many as 100 parts produced in different factories, and if any one component doesnt arrive in time, everything is slowed down. Building an infrastructure of factories with interdependent specialized production methodsand with workers skilled enough to operate themcan take years.
So what about just shifting production across Asia? The tariffs are high about everywhere, and given the long lead time to set up necessary factories, Swartz doesnt believe it makes sense of any company to attempt to shift manufacturing to save a few percentage points in tariffs. And shifting the entirety of a business like Nike’s could take years.
So what happens now?
Officially, tariffs will begin on any products not on a boat from Vietnam by April 5th, according to the logistics firm Flexport. They expect consumers will see costs rise on goods as soon as April 9th.
In the short term, shoes are going to keep being made. Swartz believes that the costs of these tariffs will be distributed between the factory, the brand, and consumers.
The pain is gonna be spread out. I think certain companies are going to have more negation power than others. Let’s say Nike uses a factory for apparel or footwear, it works with that factory over potentially decades. They can negotiate with them[saying] we need to reduce what we pay you this year while tariffs are goingThe factory is not going to say, we wont work with Nike anymore. They can’t do that. They would go bankrupt.
Smaller companies, and retailers like Macys and Kohls that produce many private label goods in Vietnam, could face less flexible factories. Their prices will either have to go up, or the thin margins of our struggling retailers will grow even thinner. Private label brands offer retailers excellent margins, which is why companies like Walmart and Target invest so much into their own lines of appliances, fashion, and home goods. (And yes, each sources private label goods from Vietnam.)
Long term, no matter how things play out, Swartz sees no reality in which the industry caves and moves manufacturing to the U.S. He lists all sorts of reasons, ranging fro the price of labor (which he ballparks at $400/month for your average factory employee in Vietnama rate no American would take with our cost of living), to our lack of raw materials (90% of the world’s cotton is grown in one region of China), to our pure inability to produce these goods (the U.S. has but a handful of yarn spinning factories needed to produce textiles), to our own discomfort facing the environmental costs of consumerism.
Dyeing alone takes giant amounts of water, notes Swartz. You couldnt even get it [here]. If someone said were going to start dyeing in Minnesota and were gonna drain this lake to get the water, Im pretty sure theyd say no.
But in any case, Swartz imagines that, if tariffs dont change, were going to all see significantly higher prices on shoes and companies will ultimately sell less of them, especially in an economy already likely heading toward a recession.
It may not be so easy for Nike to sell Lebron shoes if they have to raise the price from $180 to $240. They will sell less volume ultimately, says Swartz. Its basic supply and demand. Increase price, it reduces demand. Economic laws have not been changed.
Back in the summer of 2024, Boars Head recalled seven million pounds of deli meat that had been linked to a deadly listeria outbreak that spanned numerous U.S. states. That outbreak led to the deaths of multiple people and caused the company to shutter one of its processing facilities, which was located in Virginia.
The recall led to a brand crisis for Boars Head, and by November 2024, when the outbreak was declared over, a total of 10 people had died, and 61 became sick. The event led to class action lawsuits against the company, one of which has now been settled. Heres what to know about the settlement and whether you can claim any compensation.
Class action settlement
Boars Head Provisions Co., Inc. has now agreed to settle a class action lawsuit related to the recall. The case, Pompilio, et al. v. Boars Head Provisions Co., Inc., was filed in the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York.
According to the official settlement website, the class action suit alleged that the recall economically harmed the plaintiffs. Its important to note that as part of the settlement, Boars Head has not admitted to any wrongdoing, as is common with most class action settlements.
As part of the settlement, Boars Head Provisions Co., Inc. has agreed to pay claimants $3.1 million, minus court costs and other fees.
Am I included in the settlement?
You are included in the settlementand can make a claimif you meet the courts Settlement Class Member description.
The court says a Settlement Class Member is All natural persons who purchased in the United States any Covered Products between the earliest date of manufacture of any Covered Product (May 10, 2024) and August 12, 2024 for personal, family or household use, and not for resale, except for any Excluded Persons.
Excluded Persons are defined on the settlement website.
How much can I get from the settlement?
You are eligible to receive a portion of the settlement if you meet one of the following two criteria:
You have proof of purchase for a product covered under the settlement. If you have proof of purchase for a covered product, you are eligible to receive the full purchase price for each unit of Covered Product listed on the Proof of Purchase, subject to adjustment as set forth below.
You do not have proof of purchase for a product covered under the settlement. In this case, you can receive the average retail price for up to two (2) Covered Products claimed per Household, subject to adjustment as set forth below.
The adjustments listed above can be found here in the settlements FAQ.
How can I file a claim?
The easiest way to file a claim is by using the claim form on the settlement website. The FAQ lists additional methods to file a claim.
When do I need to file a claim by?
Claims must be filed by May 16, 2025. That is also the date that class action members have until to exclude themselves from the class action lawsuit or object to it.
The class action settlement is conditional upon the approval of the court. That hearing is expected to take place on August 13, 2025.
Full details of the class action settlement can be found on the settlement website here.
Stellantis NV said on Thursday it was temporarily laying off 900 workers at five U.S. facilities and pausing production at one assembly plant each in Mexico and Canada, after U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs were announced.
Trump broadened the tariffs to a 10% baseline on all imports on Wednesday, with higher rates for some countries. These levies followed 25% duties on all auto imports announced last week, which sent shock waves through the global auto industry.
In a letter sent to employees on Thursday morning, Antonio Filosa, Stellantis’s chief operating officer for the Americas, said the company is “continuing to assess the medium- and long-term effects of these tariffs on our operations, but also have decided to take some immediate actions.”
These included temporarily pausing production at some Canadian and Mexican assembly plants, affecting jobs at several of Stellantis’ U.S. powertrain and stamping facilities, he said.
Shares of Stellantis, which locally makes only half of its U.S.-sold vehicles including Ram trucks and Jeeps, closed 9.3% lower in New York on Thursday. Shares of Ford, General Motors, and Tesla also fell sharply.
Nearly half the cars sold last year in the U.S.the world’s largest importer of carswere brought in from abroad, according to research firm GlobalData.
Stellantis said its Windsor Assembly, where the Chrysler Pacifica and Voyager minivans and Dodge Charger Daytona are made, will be down for two weeks while Toluca Assembly in Mexico, where the Jeep Compass and Jeep Wagoneer S are made, will be down for the month of April.
About 4,500 workers at Windsor will be impacted by the idling. Workers at Toluca will continue to report to work and get paid but will not make vehicles, according to the company.
“A horrifying consequence of Trump’s tariffs,” Democratic U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer said on X, referring to the job cuts. “American workers are paying the price.”
Romaine McKinney III, president of the local union chapter that represents workers at Stellantiss stamping plant in Warren, Michigan, said the tariff-related layoffs were troubling his members, especially as they saw GM adding jobs in the U.S.
Its pure devastation, McKinney said, adding that morale is already low from a year of layoffs and buyouts that resulted from former CEO Carlos Tavaress costcutting strategy.
The five facilities affected by the layoff include Stellantis’s Warren Stamping and Sterling Stamping plants as well as the Indiana Transmission Plant, Kokomo Transmission Plant, and Kokomo Casting Plant, the company said.
While McKinney understands it will take time for Stellantis to shift its output, he does not believe the automakerwhich supplies Canadian plants as well as U.S. oneshas to lay off U.S. workers in the meantime.
Its completely unnecessary. Its a choice the company is making.
The White House declined immediate comment on the Stellantis job cuts.
Trump and his administration have said there would be short-term pain for Americans but have promised long-term economic gains with Trump’s plan. The White House said on Thursday that tariffs would ultimately boost U.S. industries and workers.
“They can expect their wages to go up . . . There’s not going to be any pain for American-owned companies and American workers because their jobs are going to come back home,” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told cable news network NewsNation on Thursday, referring to any impact from Trump’s tariff plan.
NORTH AMERICAN INTERCONNECTIVITY
While goods from Mexico and Canada that comply with a trade agreement between the three countries will largely remain exempt from tariffs under Trump’s order, auto exports and steel and aluminum fall under separate tariff policies.
Automakers are scrambling to figure out how to respond and how much to raise prices, as customers rush to buy cars sitting in lots.
The base U.S. tariff rate for automotive imports is 2.5%. Automakers importing vehicles from Canada or Mexico can deduct the value of U.S. parts from the 25% levy.
In February, Stellantis said it was pausing work on its next-generation Jeep Compass compact SUV including the retooling of Brampton Assembly in Canada, which is designated to build the vehicle.
Lana Payne, president of Unifor, the Canadian union representing Stellantis workers there, said in a Thursday statement: “Unifor warned that U.S. tariffs would hurt auto workers almost immediately and in this case the layoffs were announced before the auto tariff even came into effect. Trump is about to learn how interconnected the North American production system is the hard way, with auto workers paying the price for that lesson.
United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain said in a statement that Stellantis has “got the money, the capacity, the product, and the workforce to employ thousands more UAW members in Michigan, Indiana, and beyond. These layoffs are a completely unnecessary choice that the company is making.”
Kalea Hall, David Shepardson and Nora Eckert, Reuters
Your favorite iPhone could soon become much pricier, thanks to tariffs.
U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a series of sweeping tariffs on countries around the world that could drastically alter the landscape of global trade, and consumer goods like iPhones could be among the hardest hit, analysts said on Thursday, with increases of 30% to 40% if the company were to pass on the cost to consumers.
Most iPhones are still made in China, which was hit with a 54% tariff. If those levies persist, Apple has a tough choice: absorb the extra expense or pass it on to customers.
Shares of the company closed down 9.3% on Thursday, hitting their worst day since March 2020.
Apple sells more than 220 million iPhones a year; its biggest markets include the United States, China and Europe.
The cheapest iPhone 16 model was launched in the U.S. with a sticker price of $799, but could cost as much as $1,142, per calculations based on projections from analysts at Rosenblatt Securities, who say the cost could rise by 43% – if Apple is able to pass that on to consumers.
A more expensive iPhone 16 Pro Max, with a 6.9-inch display and 1 terabyte of storage, which currently retails at $1599, could cost nearly $2300 if a 43% increase were to pass to consumers.
Trump imposed tariffs on a wide range of Chinese imports in his first term as president to pressure U.S. companies to bring manufacturing either back to the United States or to nearby countries such as Mexico, but Apple secured exemptions or waivers for several products. This time, he has not yet granted any exemptions.
“This whole China tariff thing is playing out right now completely contrary to our expectation that American icon Apple would be kid-gloved, like last time,” Barton Crockett, analyst at Rosenblatt Securities, said in a note.
The iPhone 16e, launched in February as a cheaper entry point for Apple’s suite of artificial-intelligence features, costs $599. A 43% price hike could push that cost to $856. Prices of other Apple devices could jump as well.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Many customers pay for their phones over a period of two or three years through contracts with their cellular providers.
However, other analysts noted that iPhone sales have been floundering in the company’s major markets, as Apple Intelligence, a suite of features that helps summarize notifications, rewrite emails and give users access to ChatGPT, has failed to enthuse buyers.
Expert reviews have suggested that the features, while innovative, do not provide enough of a compelling reason to justify upgrading to newer models.
The stagnation in demand could put additional pressure on Apple’s bottom line, especially if costs rise due to tariffs.
Angelo Zino, equity analyst at CFRA Research, said the company will have a tough time passing on more than 5% to 10% of the cost to consumers.
“We expect Apple to hold off on any major increases on phones until this fall when its iPhone 17 is set to launch, as it is typically how it handles planned price hikes.”
Even with some production moving to Vietnam and India, most iPhones are still made in China, and those countries were not spared from tariffs either, with Vietnam getting a 46% levy and India’s coming in at 26%.
Apple would need to raise its prices by at least 30% on average to offset import duties, according to Counterpoint Research co-founder Neil Shah.
A potentially sharp price hike could dampen demand for the smartphone and give South Korea’s Samsung Electronics an edge, as the Asian country faces lower tariffs than China, where all iPhones sold in the U.S. are made.
“Our quick math on Trump’s tariff Liberation Day suggests this could blow up Apple, potentially costing the company up to $40 billion,” Rosenblatt Securities’ Crockett noted, adding that negotiations between Apple, China and the White House are likely.
“It’s hard for us to imagine Trump blowing up an American iconbut this looks pretty tough.”
Akash Sriram, Reuters
Parts of the Midwest and South faced the possibility of torrential rains and life-threatening flash floods Friday, while many communities were still reeling from tornadoes that destroyed whole neighborhoods and killed at least seven people.Forecasters warned of catastrophic weather on the way, with round after round of heavy rains expected in the central U.S. through Saturday. Satellite imagery showed thunderstorms lined up like freight trains to take the same tracks over communities in Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, according to the national Weather Prediction Center in Maryland.The bull’s-eye centered on a swath along the Mississippi River and included the more than 1.3 million people around Memphis.More than 90 million people were at risk of severe weather from Texas to Minnesota to Maine, according to the Oklahoma-based Storm Prediction Center.Those killed in the initial wave of storms that spawned powerful tornadoes on Wednesday and early Thursday were in Tennessee, Missouri, and Indiana. They included a Tennessee man and his teen daughter whose home was destroyed, and a man whose pickup struck downed power lines in Indiana. In Missouri, Garry Moore, who was chief of the Whitewater Fire Protection District, died while likely trying to help a stranded motorist, according to Highway Patrol spokesperson Sgt. Clark Parrott.Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee said entire neighborhoods in the hard-hit town of Selmer were “completely wiped out” and said it was too early to know whether there were more deaths as searches continued. He warned people across the state to stay vigilant with more severe weather predicted.“Don’t let your guard down,” he said during a Thursday evening news conference. “Don’t stop watching the weather. Don’t stop preparing yourself. Have a plan.”With flattened homes behind him, Dakota Woods described seeing the twister come through Selmer.“I was walking down the street,” Woods said Thursday. “Next thing you know, I look up, the sky is getting black and blacker, and it’s lighting up green lights, and it’s making a formation of a twister or tornado.”
Flash flood threat looms over many states
By late Thursday, extremely heavy rain was falling in parts of southeastern Missouri and western Kentucky and causing “very dangerous/life threatening flash flooding” in some spots, according to the National Weather Service.Heavy rains were expected to continue there and in other parts of the region in the coming days and could produce dangerous flash floods capable of sweeping away cars. The potent storm system will bring “significant, life-threatening flash flooding” each day, the National Weather Service said.Water rescue teams and sandbagging operations were being staged across the region, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency was ready to distribute food, water, cots, and generators.Water rescues were already underway in flooded parts of Nashville, where the rain could persist for days after an unnerving period of tornado warnings that drained the batteries of some city sirens, the fire department said.Western Kentucky prepared for record rain and flooding in places that normally do not get inundated, Gov. Andy Beshear said. At least 25 state highways were swamped, mostly in the west, according to a statement from his office Thursday.Flash flooding is particularly worrisome in rural areas of the state where water can quickly rush off the mountains into the hollows. Less than four years ago, dozens died in flooding across eastern Kentucky.Extreme flooding across the corridor that includes Louisville, Kentucky, and Memphis, which have major cargo hubs, could also lead to shipping and supply chain delays, said Jonathan Porter, chief meteorologist at AccuWeather.Forecasters attributed the violent weather to warm temperatures, an unstable atmosphere, strong wind shear, and abundant moisture streaming from the Gulf.
Tornadoes leave path of damage, and more could be coming
Under darkened skies Thursday morning, the remains of a used car dealership in Selmer stood roofless and gutted, with debris scattered across the car lot and wrapped around mangled trees. Some homes were ripped to their foundations in the Tennessee town, where three tornadoes were suspected of touching down.The Tennessee Highway Patrol released video of lightning illuminating the sky as first responders scoured the ruins of a home, looking for anyone trapped.In neighboring Arkansas, a tornado near Blytheville lofted debris at least 25,000 feet (7.6 kilometers) high, according to weather service meteorologist Chelly Amin. The state’s emergency management office reported damage in 22 counties from tornadoes, wind, hail, and flash flooding.The home where Danny Qualls spent his childhood but no longer lives was flattened by a tornado in northeast Arkansas.“My husband has been extremely tearful and emotional, but he also knows that we have to do the work,” Rhonda Qualls said. “He was in shock last night, cried himself to sleep.”Workers on bulldozers cleared rubble along the highway that crosses through Lake City, where a tornado with winds of 150 mph (241 kph) sheared roofs off homes, collapsed brick walls, and tossed cars into trees.Mississippi’s governor said at least 60 homes were damaged. And in far western Kentucky, four people were injured while taking shelter in a vehicle under a church carport, according to the emergency management office in Ballard County.
Walker IV reported from Selmer, Tennessee, and Seewer from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Jonathan Mattise in Nashville, Tennessee, Seth Borenstein in Washington; Isabella O’Malley in Philadelphia; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; Bruce Schreiner in Louisville, Kentucky; Jeff Martin in Atlanta; Hallie Golden in Seattle; and Ed White in Detroit contributed.
Adrian Sainz, George Walker IV and John Seewer, Associated Press
