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Were on the other side of Taylor Swifts Eras Tour now, but the landmark 149 show world tours rollout was plagued by bots, resellers, and spiking ticket prices that left many unhappy fans empty-handed. Now, we know a little more about how all of that went down. The Eras Tour was big money, no matter how you slice it. The tour inspired expensive geopolitical maneuvering in Southeast Asia, gave some sluggish American local economies a shot in the arm, and drove $261 million in box office sales after the fact. For unscrupulous resellers, it was a massive payday. According to a new lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission filed on Monday, one elaborate ticket reselling scheme flooded Ticketmaster with an army of fake accounts, buying up sought-after tickets for live shows like Swifts Eras Tour. The lawsuit alleges that Key Investment Group, a ticket broker based in Maryland, used fake accounts to bypass Ticketmasters security measures and the companys limits on ticket purchases. The FTC believes that the reseller operated thousands of Ticketmaster accounts, many that it paid to purchase, and relied on a combination of virtual credit card numbers, IP spoofing and SIM card fraud to execute the purchases. Buying up thousands of tickets According to the complaint, the group was able to buy at least 379,776 tickets over the course of a single year, paying almost $57 million for the trove. By reselling the tickets on secondary markets for heavy markups, the scheme netted at least $64 million in sales. For a single Eras Tour show at Nevadas Allegiant Stadium, the reselling group bought 273 tickets using 49 different accounts, selling them for a total of $119,227, the FTC alleges. Swifts tour enforced a strict six-ticket limit in place for each show. The company allegedly purchased at least 10 tickets to each Taylor Swift concert from March to August 2023, making $1.2 million in profit from reselling the 2,280 tickets. Sketchy ticket flipping practices like the ones in the new FTC complaint run afoul the Better Online Ticket Sales (BOTS) Act, a 2016 law enacted to prevent ticket resellers from buying up tickets and manipulating prices. While Swifts concerts likely proved the most lucrative, the reselling scheme cast a wide net that included buying up more than 1500 tickets to a Bruce Springsteen show at MetLife Stadium. Todays action puts brokers on notice that the Trump-Vance FTC will police operations that unlawfully circumvent ticket sellers purchase limits, ensuring that consumers have an opportunity to buy tickets at fair prices, FTC Chairman Andrew N. Ferguson said. Swift hype builds again News of the ticket reselling crackdown comes a week after Swift announced a new album, The Life of a Showgirl, expected in October. The pop superstar announced her new music on New Heights, a podcast hosted by Swifts boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, and his brother. The album will be the first in a true new era for Swift. In May, she successfully purchased the master recordings of her first six albums, a struggle that took years to pull off. Swift bought the original recordings from Shamrock Capital, a private equity firm that winded up with them after music manager Scooter Braun offloaded the recordings for at least $300 million. Ive been bursting into tears of joy at random intervals ever since I found out that this is really happening, Swift said at the time. I really get to say these words: All of the music Ive ever made… now belongs to me. Swifts new album will be the first since her 2024 release, The Tortured Poets Department, which smashed streaming records and set a new high bar for the most vinyl albums ever sold within a single week.
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Earlier this summer, Dajiah Blackshear-Calloway, 34, started to notice that her regular clients weren’t visiting her hair salon as often as they used to. The salon, in Smyrna, Georgia, houses two stylists and offers dozens of services that range from $50 natural hairstyles to $745 tape-in weave extensions. Her most popular services are $254 sew-ins, where human hair extensions are woven into braids, and $125 quick weaves, where human or synthetic hair is styled and then glued to a stocking cap. But the prices of hair extensions and hair glues used to create wigs and weaves have gone up exponentially after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed a series of different tariffs on China and Vietnam, where the majority of Black beauty products are made. The price of a package of hair imported from Vietnam has gone up to $290 from $190 since May. A bottle of hair glue, imported from China, has gone up from $8 a bottle to $14.99 at her local beauty supply store. Were being impacted at every level, Blackshear-Calloway said. Im either having to eat that cost or pass that expense along to my clients, which affects their budgets and their pockets as well. To avoid passing on rising costs, Blackshear-Calloway is asking her clients to bring their own hair to their appointments. Now her salon is offering a quick weave service without hair for $140, but with hair the price is $400, according to her booking website. She’s also struggling to get products since her wholesaler is delaying shipments as tariff rates fluctuate. Kadidja Dosso, 30, owner of Dosso Beauty, which sells hypoallergenic braiding hair, as well as The Dosso Hair Salon in Philadelphia, has also faced delayed shipments on imports from China. She waited over a month to get $50,000 worth of China-made braiding hair via air freight at John F. Kennedy Airport in June, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced 145% tariffs on the country over confusion over what tariff should apply. “We have to provide more specifics of the products – exact materials, the product use – for it to clear customs,” Dosso said. “Part of the issue was that the same language that we’ve been using for years wasn’t descriptive enough.” She wants to avoid raising prices on her $13 packets of hair, which customers typically buy at least five at a time to complete one hairstyle. Higher costs Tariffs are disproportionately impacting Black business owners like Blackshear-Calloway and Dosso, said Andre Perry, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Many Black entrepreneurs started off with less wealth, Perry said. He said that the wealth gap puts Black entrepreneurs, especially those in low-margin businesses like consumer goods or hair care services, into precarious financial positions as tariffs eat into their bottom lines. Sina Golara, an assistant professor of supply chain and operations management at Georgia State University, said rising costs due to tariffs are “like a tax that you’re imposing on business.” In some cases, it could be borne by the foreign manufacturer, but in most cases, it will also have quite a substantial impact on the domestic buyers and consumers,” Golara said. Diann Valentine, 55, founder of Slayyy Hair, first felt the impact of tariffs shortly after the initial 145% tariff was imposed on China and she faced a $300,000 bill to get 26,000 units of braiding hair out of the Los Angeles port in May. “To lose that kind of money at this stage has been devastating,” Valentine said. Since then she has raised the price of her braiding hair and drawstring ponytail extensions by 20%. She also laid off four employees and is working 16-hour days to compensate in her two Glow+Flow beauty supply stores in Inglewood and Hawthorne, California. Slayyy Hair supplies $8.49 nontoxic braiding hair and $35.99 synthetic drawstring ponytails to TJ Maxx and Marshalls, which have resisted renegotiating prices or delivery deadlines to compensate. “So essentially, we paid more for our ponytails than TJ Maxx and Marshalls paid for them,” Valentine said. She is also trying to renegotiate price increases with Target, where she sells in at least 70 stores in California, Nevada and Colorado, she said. TJ Maxx and Marshalls declined a Reuters request for comment. Fifty percent of the merchandise comes from China, Valentine said, and prices for synthetic wigs, human-hair weaves, plastic hair rollers, rubber bands, combs and brushes that stock her shelves are trending up at her beauty supply locations. “I thought maybe we would see an increase in foot traffic because there would be more DIY hairstyles – more women doing their hair at home,” she said. “But for right now, we’ve only seen decreased foot traffic and also a decrease in frequency of visits from our existing customers.” Struggling salons While beauty product sales are typically resilient during economic downturns, beauty services are seen as discretionary, said Marley Brocker, senior analyst at market research firm IBISWorld. “Tariffs on those imports are going to directly lead to higher costs for those service providers, whether they’re buying directly from overseas manufacturers or buying from wholesalers within the U.S.,” she said. Black U.S. consumers spent approximately $2.29 billion on hair care products in 2022, according to a NielsenIQ study from that year. But higher prices are causing some Black women to visit the salon less frequently. Deiara Frye, 27, of Raleigh, North Carolina, usually schedules hair appointments at least five times a year, but so far this year she’s only gone once. “Due to the cost of everything rising over the years, I tend to get braids a little more often now than sew-ins, or try to maintain my natural hair,” she said. She’s also seeing prices for her natural hair products like Unilever’s Shea Moisture and Procter & Gamble’s Pantene go up. Fewer visits are impacting salons and beauty supply stores. Until earlier this year, Dionne Maxwell was selling wigs, braiding hair, shampoos, and conditioners out of her mini beauty supply store in Dallas, Georgia, located 33 miles outside of Atlanta, but she shut it down after she started losing foot traffic in May and moved operations into her home. Now she’s relying on orders placed through Uber Eats, TikTok Shop and Walmart.com to sustain her business, but even those sales have slowed significantly, she said. We don’t have the money for advertising, because enough revenue is not coming in to advertise with,” Maxwell said. Tariffs have raised Maxwells wholesale price for China-made braiding hair by 50 cents per pack, she said, and she is now required to buy more hair in her wholesale orders. She said shes struggled to negotiate better prices with her hair wholesalers, who are requiring her to order ore units of merchandise at higher costs. Her wholesaler is asking her to purchase 110 packs of hair per order, when she was previously able to buy 30 packs at a time, she said. For the past two months, we have been basically paying our bills out of pocket because we really have had nothing coming in, Maxwell said. Arriana McLymore, Jayla Whitfield-Anderson, and Julio-Cesar Chavez
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As wildfire crews battled the Dragon Bravo Fire on the Grand Canyons North Rim in July 2025, the air turned toxic. A chlorine gas leak had erupted from the parks water treatment facility as the building burned, forcing firefighters to pull back. The water treatment facility is part of a system that draws water from a fragile spring. Its the only water source and system for the park facilities on both rims, including visitor lodging and park service housing. The fire also damaged some of the areas water pipes and equipment, leaving fire crews to rely on a fleet of large water trucks to haul in water and raising concerns about contamination risks to the water system itself. By mid-August, Dragon Bravo was a megafire, having burned over 140,000 acres, and was one of the largest fires in Arizona history. It had destroyed more than 70 structures, including the iconic Grand Canyon Lodge, and sent smoke across the region. Wildfires like this are increasingly affecting water supplies across the U.S. and creating a compounding crisis that experts in water, utilities and emergency management are only beginning to wrestle with. A pattern across the West Before 2017, when the Tubbs Fire burned through neighborhoods on the edge of Santa Rosa, California, most research on the nexus of wildfire and water had focused on issues such as drought and how climate change effects ecosystems. The Tubbs Fire destroyed thousands of buildings and also melted plastic water pipes. After the fire, a residents complaint about the taste and odor of tap water led to the discovery that the fires damage had introduced contaminants including benzene, a carcinogen, into parts of the public water system. It quickly became obvious that the damage discovered at the Tubbs Fire was not unique. Similar damage and pollutants were discovered in another California water system after the 2018 Camp Fire destroyed much of Paradise, a town of over 25,000 people. The list of incidents goes on. In southern Oregon, the 2020 Almeda Fire damaged water pipes in buildings, leaving water to flow freely. That contributed to low system pressure just when people fighting the fire needed the water. In Colorado, the 2021 Marshall Fire burned through urban water lines, damaging six public drinking-water systems along with more than 1,000 structures in the Boulder suburbs. All six systems lost power, which in some cases led to a loss of water pressure, hampering firefighting. As firefighters worked on the Marshall Fire, water system operators raced to keep water flowing and contaminants from being transported into the water systems. But tests still detected chemical contamination, including benzene, in parts of the systems a few weeks later. Then, in January 2025, the Los Angeles fires supercharged concerns about water and wildfire. As firefighters raced to put out multiple fires, hydrants ran dry in some parts of the region, while others at higher elevations depressurized. Ultimately, over 16,000 structures were damaged, leading to insured losses estimated to be as high as US$45 billion. Water infrastructure is not merely collateral damage during wildfiresit is now a central concern. It also raises the question: What can residents, first responders and decision-makers reasonably expect from water systems that werent designed with todays disasters in mind? Addressing the growing fire and water challenge While no two water systems or fires are the same, nearly every water system component, ranging from storage tanks to pipelines to treatment plants, is susceptible to damage. The Grand Canyons Roaring Springs system exemplifies the complexity and fragility of older systems. It supplies water to both rims of the park through a decades-old network of gravity-fed pipes and tunnels and includes the water treatment facility where firefighters were forced to retreat because of the chlorine leak. Many water systems have vulnerable points within or near flammable wildlands, such as exposed pump houses that are crucial for pulling water from lower elevations to where it is needed. In addition, hazardous materials such as chlorine or ammonia may be stored on-site and require special considerations in high fire risk areas. Staff capacity is often limited; some small utilities depend on a single operator, and budgets may be too constrained to modernize aging infrastructure or implement fire mitigation measures. As climate change intensifies wildfire seasons, these vulnerabilities can become disaster risks that require making water infrastructure a more integral part of fighting and preparing for wildfires. Ways to help everyone prepare As a researcher with Arizona State Universitys Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory, I have been working with colleagues and fire and water systems experts on strategies to help communities and fire and water managers prepare. Here are a few important lessons: Prioritizing fire-resistant construction, better shielding of chemicals and, in some cass, decentralizing water systems can help protect critical facilities, particularly in high-risk zones. Having backup power supplies, mobile treatment systems and alternate water sources are essential to provide more security in the face of a wildfire. Emergency command protocols and interagency coordination are most effective when they include water utilities as essential partners in all phases of emergency response, from planning to response to recovery. Fire crews and water operators can also benefit from joint training in emergency response, especially when system failure could hinder firefighting itself. Longer term, protecting upstream watersheds from severe fire by thinning forests and using controlled burns, along with erosion control measures, can help maintain water quality and reduce water pollution in the aftermath of fires. Smaller and more isolated systems, particularly in tribal or low-income communities, often need assistance to plan or implement new measures. These systems may require technical assistance, and regional support hubs could support communities with additional resources, including personnel and equipment, so they can respond quickly when crises strike. Looking ahead The Dragon Bravo Fire isnt just a wildfire story, its also a water story, and it signals a larger, emerging challenge across the West. As fire seasons expand in size and complexity, the overlap between fire and water will only grow. The Grand Canyon fire offers a stark illustration of how wildfire can escalate into a multifaceted infrastructure crisis: Fire can damage water infrastructure, which in turn limits firefighting capabilities and stresses water supplies. The question is not whether this will happen again. Its how prepared communities will be when it does. Faith Kearns is a scientist and director of research communication for the Arizona Water Innovation Initiative at Arizona State University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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