Larry Summers, president emeritus and professor at Harvard University, during an interview in New York City, Sept. 17, 2025. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers announced on Wednesday that he would resign from his academic and faculty appointments at Harvard University at the end of the academic year.
Summers — who has been on leave from the university since November — also resigned from his role as the co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government, according to a Harvard spokesperson.
The resignation was made “in connection with the ongoing review by the University of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that were recently released by the government,” the spokesperson said.
“I have made the difficult decision to retire from my Harvard professorship at the end of this academic year,” Summers, a former Harvard president, said in a statement. “I will always be grateful to the thousands of students and colleagues I have been privileged to teach and work with since coming to Harvard as a graduate student 50 years ago.”
He added, “Free of formal responsibility, as President Emeritus and a retired professor, I look forward in time to engaging in research, analysis, and commentary on a range of global economic issues.”
The news was first reported by the Harvard Crimson.
Summers announced in November he was stepping back from public life after his apparent conversations with Epstein, the late sex offender who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019, were released by the House Oversight Committee.
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein,” Summers said in a statement at the time.
ABC News previously reported that Summers maintained a relationship with Epstein for many years, particularly during Summers’ term as president of Harvard from 2001 to 2006.
He flew at least four times on Epstein’s aircraft, according to flight records made public during litigation against Epstein and he was the top official at Harvard during a time when the university received millions in gifts from the disgraced financier.
All of those gifts were received prior to Epstein’s guilty plea in Florida in 2008 to charges of solicitation of prostitution with a minor, according to the university’s review of its Epstein connections.
No Epstein survivor has alleged wrongdoing by Summers and there is no public record evidence to suggest Summers was involved in any of Epstein’s crimes.
Summers served as U.S. treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton from 1999 to 2001.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
Stock photo of a child filling a glass of tap water. (Cavan Images/STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Turning on the tap for a glass of water or to wash produce may become significantly less predictable because of climate change.
According to a study published in Communications Earth & Environment, climate change is making access to drinkable water more difficult in the United States.
Hazards intensified by climate change, like drought and flooding, threaten both the quantity and quality of drinking water across the U.S., according to the study.
As a result, water utilities serving 67 million customers across the U.S. are at high risk from climate hazards, roughly a fifth of the entire U.S. population.
Looking at 1,500 municipal water utilities across the country, researchers found that water utilities in every U.S. region are vulnerable to climate hazards. While drought impacts water utilities in the Western states more directly, saltwater from coastal flooding worsens groundwater quality, and extreme cold can wear on pipes. Additionally, water utilities in the upper Midwest and Northeast are particularly vulnerable to climate hazards due to older infrastructure.
“Much of our infrastructure was built many decades ago,” Costa Samaras, professor of civil environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University and co-author of the study, told ABC News. “It was built not for the climate that we’re experiencing now.”
Given the age of existing infrastructure and lack of adaptive capacities, water utilities are less likely to quickly recover from increasingly common climate hazards. According to the study, water utilities are already experiencing higher operating expenses and more revenue lost from hazards.
The study found that some of the largest water utilities in the country are also some of the most vulnerable to climate hazards. In Texas, where the most vulnerable utilities serve a growing number of customers, more investments in water utility infrastructure are key to keeping up with the increasing population.
To make matters worse, most drinking water utilities in the U.S. are not financially planning for future climate risks. As water utility companies try to keep their costs down, short-term emergency fixes are prioritized in order to resume service while investments to prevent more extreme future hazards get put on the back burner.
“When you’re not thinking strategically about asset management and long-term planning, it’s really easy to become stuck in a negative financial loop,” said Zia Lyle, postdoctoral researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and co-author of the study. Intensifying climate risks create larger financial burdens on utility companies to maintain service, limiting investments in future resilient infrastructure.
In addition to poor asset management, the study found that bond disclosures for the municipal water utilities do not typically include information on climate risks.
“The lack of disclosure here indicates a real systematic lack of climate risk assessments,” said Lyle. “When we interviewed drinking water utility managers, some of them were just unaware of how this range of hazards can affect all the different aspects of their system.”
Though it is becoming more common, only 30% of utilities discussed climate change in their bond statements in 2024. Without disclosure, those buying municipal bonds are left unaware of the risks their drinking water utilities face. In six states alone — Michigan, Illinois, California, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Texas — bond debt is currently around $500 million. Paired with decreased funding from the federal government, the lack of assessment and disclosure only increases the financial strain on drinking water utilities.
As climate hazards intensify, the financial risk combined with climate risks puts millions of customers and water utilities in a vulnerable position.
Some states are addressing the risks their drinking water utilities face. In Colorado, Denver Water is currently assessing the risks drought poses to their utilities so that they can plan appropriately and ensure water for their customers in the future.
Between appropriate risk assessment and increased investment from the state and federal governments, ensuring future access to drinking water is still possible.
“Now is the time for systems to invest,” said Dr. Zyle. “Overall, capital is more affordable now, and they can make these investments before it becomes too expensive.”
In this Oct. 30, 2025, file photo, superintendent Alberto Carvalho speaks at the LAUSD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images, FILE)
(LOS ANGELES) — Law enforcement is executing a court-approved search warrant at the home of Alberto Carvalho, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second-largest school district, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in LA.
Sources told ABC News that the allegations, while under court seal, are not violent in nature, and the search was conducted quickly.
Carvalho has been the district superintendent since 2022, the longest-serving LAUSD superintendent in over two decades.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Ghost is the leading nominee for the 2026 Grammis, the Swedish equivalent of the Grammys.
The Tobias Forge-led band, which formed in Sweden, received a total of six nods, including for artist of the year and album of the year for their 2025 effort, Skeletá.
The 2026 Grammis will take place April 29 in Stockholm and will stream live on YouTube.
Ghost has previously won four Grammis, most recently in 2023 for their album Impera in the hard rock/metal category.
As for the Grammys, Ghost was nominated for the 2026 show in the best metal performance category with the Skeletá track “Lachryma.”
Cardi B performs onstage during the Little Miss Drama Tour at The Kia Forum on February 15, 2026, in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for Live Nation)
Cardi B continues to express her gratitude to all those supporting her Little Miss Drama tour.
“I just want to say thank you for everyone that has come out to my concert,” she wrote on her Instagram Story Wednesday. “Too [sic] my fans, celebrities EVERYONE..I know I keep saying it I’m just overly happy , grateful & thankful..MEANS more to me then you ever know and I mean that!”
Cardi kicked off her tour earlier in February and has since taken to social media to thank fans who have shown up, while addressing those who doubted her success.
“Every show has been sold out, and one thing that I love the most is that while my tickets was being on presale, there was a lot of haters, there was a lot of devils that kept trying to push this propaganda, like, ‘She’s not going to be ready. She just gave birth. She been rehearsing for only a month. She been this, she been that,’ but … I recognize the value of a dollar,” she recently said on social media.
The fans’ commitment to her, she added, is why she takes her tour seriously.
“I don’t like to play with my money, so I wouldn’t want to play with ya money. So if ya paying to see me, I’m gonna give y’all a hell of a show,” Cardi continued. “That’s why I give you all my energy. Because I appreciate that you could do whatever the f*** you want to do with your money, but you’re spending it on me. So I’ma give you the total value of your coin.”
‘L.I.V.E. in São Paulo (Live Immersive Virtual Experiment)’ film poster. (Trafalgar Releasing/Sony Music Vision/RCA)
Bring Me the Horizon has uploaded the first seven minutes of the band’s upcoming concert film, L.I.V.E. in São Paulo (Live Immersive Virtual Experiment).
The film begins with a screen modeled after a video game opening menu. The cursor then selects “extreme” from a list of difficultly modes, after which an animated character named Eve appears on the screen.
“São Paulo, are you ready for the greatest night of your life?” Eve asks the crowd. After an initial reaction, Eve responds, “Analyzing reaction levels. Status: weak as f***.” Eve then poses the same question again, and much more exuberant cheering and yelling ensues.
Following Eve’s introduction, Bring Me the Horizon takes the stage and opens with the song “DArkSide.”
You can watch the first seven minutes of L.I.V.E. in São Paulo now on YouTube.
As for the whole film, L.I.V.E. in São Paulo will screen in theaters worldwide on March 25 and 28. It will be released as a live album on April 10.
Bring Me the Horizon will launch a North American tour in April.
INXS March, 1998 ((Photo by Paul Natkin/WireImage)
INXS received their first-ever nomination for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Wednesday, and founding member Andrew Farriss says he and his bandmates are thrilled by the recognition.
“I think everybody in the band is thrilled and excited to be nominated, and obviously we’re very much honored to have something like that,” Farriss tells Billboard. “It’s something, I guess, that goes into the history books, whatever they are.”
“I never started writing songs and playing music to be in a hall of fame; that’s not why I started doing it — but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate it,” he adds.
“I probably wouldn’t be the first person to say I’m just amazed to be able to be in a situation like this; it comes as a surprise, believe it or not,” he notes. “You’re not entitled to anything; you’re kind of lucky, whatever comes your way. I’m grateful.”
Farris says he believes the band’s frontman Michael Hutchence, who died in 1997 at 37, would be honored with the nod.
“One thing he said very early on in our career is, ‘One day I’d like to think whatever we did mattered.’ That’s something he said,” says Farriss. “I think this shows that it did. That’s pretty cool.”
The Aussie band, best known for songs like “Need You Tonight,” “What You Need” and “Never Tear Us Apart,” first became eligible for a nomination 21 years ago.
This year’s Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class will be announced in April. The 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction is set to take place this fall, although an exact date has yet to be announced.
Hilary Duff performs onstage at Voltaire at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas on February 14, 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for HD)
After Ashley Tisdale published her notorious essay about her “toxic mom group,” fans speculated that she was talking about a group that included fellow celebs Hilary Duff, Mandy Moore and Meghan Trainor. Hilary has now responded to the controversy on the new episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast.
While chatting with host Alex Cooper, Hilary was asked how she felt when the essay appeared. “I felt really sad,” she said. “I was pretty taken aback and felt just, like, sad.”
She added, “I think I just was like, ‘Woah.’ It sucks to read something that’s not true, and it sucks on behalf of, like, six women and all of their lives.”
Hilary further told Alex that she didn’t know her husband, Matthew Koma, was going to respond to Ashley with an Instagram Story in which he wrote the fake headline, “When You’re The Most Self Obsessed Tone Deaf Person On Earth, Other Moms Tend To Shift Focus To Their Actual Toddlers.”
“I was like, ‘Oh my God,'” she laughed. “I don’t tell him what he can and can’t post. He is so, like, fierce for me and, like, I love him for that.”
Hilary then went on to imply that she felt that Ashley had timed the news to coincide with the fact that the Lizzie McGuire star had recently stepped back into the spotlight with new music.
“I think it came at, like, the craziest time. … Like, the timing felt not great,” Hilary explained. “And I felt used.”
“Like, would this have happened had you not had your big resurgence and everything going on with you,” Alex responded. At that point, Hilary smiled and pointed at Alex, as if to say, “You got it.”
US President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at the White House, Washington, D.C., US on February 20, 2026. Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump rushed to enact new tariffs and vowed to preserve others after a recent Supreme Court ruling knocked out most of his levies.
Businesses and consumers now face a different set of tariffs, which amount to taxes paid by importers for goods shipped into the U.S. Oftentimes, importers pass along tariff-related costs to consumers, raising retail prices.
The nation’s overall tariff rate has dropped, meaning some products have gained relief from tariff-related price pressures, some analysts told ABC News. But levies remain in place for nearly all imported goods, including duties as high as 50%, hiking costs for some companies and shoppers, they added.
“In general, we’ve seen tariffs pushing up on prices. That won’t go away,” Jason Miller, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, told ABC News.
The high court ruled on Friday that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEPPA) does not authorize Trump to impose levies, nullifying 70% of Trump’s tariffs after they collected more than $140 billion through December, the Yale Budget Lab found.
During his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Trump criticized the Supreme Court decision, describing at as a “very unfortunate ruling,” and asserting that he retains the ability to impose tariffs under “fully approved and tested alternative legal statutes.”
In a social media post on Monday, Trump affirmed what he said was his authority to issue tariffs, saying he does not need to consult Congress before erecting new trade levies.
Trump also reiterated his commitment to his policy approach, warning other countries that they may face a “much higher Tariff, and worse.”
A 10% global tariff took effect on Tuesday, marking the first duty enacted by Trump since the high court’s decision. Trump issued the levy under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to hike tariffs for 150 days as means of addressing “large and serious” balance-of-payments deficits, or disparities between a country’s total payments in transactions with other nations and its total earnings. In order to extend the Section 122 tariffs beyond 150 days, Trump would need to secure congressional approval.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said this week that Democrats would oppose an extension of Section 122 tariffs, which could deny Trump the 60 votes necessary to overcome a potential Senate filibuster.
Trump has vowed to hike the Section 122 tariff to 15%. As of Tuesday, however, the president had not issued an order formalizing that increase.
A 15% Section 122 tariff would result in price increases amounting to $800 in additional costs for an average U.S. household over the next 150 days, the Yale Budget Lab projected.
“That’s hundreds of dollars that you’re going to be paying as a result of these tariffs,” Raymond Robertson, professor for trade, economics and public policy at Texas A&M University, told ABC News.
Robertson noted the ultimate cost impact may be slightly lower than projected as consumers shift away from products that display noticeable tariff-induced price hikes. But, he added, tariff-impacted products will be all but impossible for shoppers to avoid.
“These tariffs are hitting across the board,” Robertson said.
The Trump administration also plans to maintain sector-specific tariffs imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 and conclude pending investigations that could authorize additional levies, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said in a statement on Friday.
That statute permits the White House to levy tariffs on products of importance to national security. Under the law, the White House must await the result of an investigation undertaken by the Commerce Department before imposing a tariff.
Under Section 232, for instance, steel and aluminum face a 50% tariff, putting upward pressure on prices for tableware, motorcycles, canned goods and assorted children’s products, analysts previously told ABC News.
A 50% tariff also applies to some copper products, while 25% tariffs remain for cars and auto parts. Those levies exclude a host of goods compliant with the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, or USMCA, a free trade agreement.
To be sure, some products will experience a reduction of tariffs in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision. Products from China, Brazil, Vietnam and India will likely gain notable tariff relief, since those nations faced significant tariffs under the legal authority that was struck down by the Supreme Court, Miller said.
Electronics and clothing are among the products that could benefit from softer tariffs.
If the Supreme Court had opted to uphold tariffs issued under IEPPA, the nation’s effective tariff rate would have remained at 16%, the Yale Budget Lab said. Taking into account Section 122 tariffs, the effective tariff rate now stands at 13.7%, the group said.
“The good news for consumers is there’s an overall decrease in tariff rates,” Miller said. “What creates a challenge is we don’t know exactly what the new landscape will look like.”
Kendrick Lamar poses for a photo onstage at the Super Bowl LIX Pregame & Apple Music Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show Press Conference at Ernest N. Morial Convention Center on February 06, 2025, in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Michael Owens/Getty Images)
Night two of the 57th NAACP Image Awards virtual show aired Tuesday night, revealing a group of winners that included Cardi B, Kendrick Lamar, Tyla and Monaleo.
Cardi B was victorious in three categories: outstanding female artist, outstanding hip-hop/rap song for “ErrTime” and outstanding album for her sophomore release, Am I the Drama?
Kendrick, whose Super Bowl halftime show took home an award Monday night, picked up two more awards: outstanding music video/visual album for the SZA-assisted “luther” and outstanding male artist.
Tyla’s “Is It” won the award for outstanding international song, while Chris Brown took home outstanding duo, group or collaboration (contemporary) for “It Depends” featuring Bryson Tiller and Usher. Monaleo was this year’s winner of the outstanding new artist category.
Winning in the gospel categories were Kirk Franklin, whose song “Do It Again” was named outstanding gospel/Christian song of the year, and Tasha Cobbs Leonard, who secured the award for outstanding gospel/Christian album for Tasha.
Ryan Coogler’s Sinners also earned some NAACP Image Awards, winning outstanding soundtrack/compilation album and outstanding original score for TV/film.
The full list of winners can be found on the award’s show website. The third and final night of the virtual iteration of the show takes place Wednesday night, with the actual award show airing live Saturday at 8 p.m. ET on BET and CBS.
