Six fast-growing states in the South — Florida, Texas, Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee — now add more to the national GDP than the Northeast, the perennial powerhouse.

• Why it matters: This is fascinating evidence of the new influence frontier we've been telling you about. It's not just about the coasts and the bubbles anymore: Americans are spreading out, physically and economically.

Those six states' new muscle is part of a "$100 billion wealth migration" as the U.S. economic center of gravity tilts south, Bloomberg reports.

• The switch happened during peak COVID. There's no sign it'll reverse.

🧮 By the numbers: A flood of transplants helped steer about $100 billion in new income to the Southeast in 2020 and 2021 alone, while the Northeast bled out about $60 billion, Bloomberg writes from IRS data.

The Census Bureau said in May that nine of the nation's 15 fastest-growing cities were in the South.

• Of the nine fastest-growing cities in the South, six were in Texas.

The bottom line: For years, the U.S. population has been trending south and southwest. Now money and economic activity are following.

Companies could face a talent drought following the Supreme Court decision overturning affirmative action in college admissions.

• Why it matters: A decrease in campus diversity could mean a less diverse corporate pipeline and workforce, Emily Peck writes for Axios Markets.

"Over the next decade, traditional talent pipelines will become less diverse because of this ruling," writes Joelle Emerson, CEO of Paradigm, a diversity consulting company.

• The ruling is "a problem for our economy because businesses often rely on colleges and universities to provide a diverse pipeline of talent for recruitment and hiring," said Charlotte Burrows, the chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in a statement Thursday.

More than 20 top companies — including Accenture, Apple, GM, Google and United Airlines — argued in an amicus brief before the court that U.S. businesses have a strong interest in hiring a diverse workforce to remain maximally competitive in an increasingly diverse country.

• The brief points to research that finds diverse teams are better at decision-making, creativity and communications: "Diverse groups can better understand and serve the increasingly diverse population that uses their products and services. These benefits are not simply intangible; they translate into businesses' bottom lines."

🥊 Reality check: The court didn't directly address company diversity efforts. So for now, those programs are untouched by the landmark decision.

• Companies don't treat race in hiring the way colleges handle it in admissions practices. Corporate DEI efforts are typically more focused on reducing bias in hiring — recruiting from a broader talent base, figuring out how to reduce discrimination in the interview process, etc.

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The entire planet sweltered to the unofficial hottest day in human recordkeeping on July 3, AP reports from University of Maine scientists at the Climate Reanalyzer project.

• The global record is preliminary, pending approval from gold-standard climate-measurement entities, including NOAA.

Why it matters: The calculation captures global-scale heating, and is an indication that climate change is reaching into uncharted territory.

What's happening: High-temperature records were surpassed July 3 and 4 in Quebec and northwestern Canada and Peru.

• Cities across the U.S. — from Medford, Ore., to Tampa, Fla. — have been hovering at all-time highs, said Zack Taylor, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
• Beijing reported 9 straight days last week when the temperature exceeded 95° F.

🥊 Reality check: Scientists generally use much longer measurements — months, years, decades — to track the Earth's warming.

• The preliminary record for the hottest day is based on data that only goes back to 1979, the start of satellite record-keeping. NOAA's data goes back to 1880.

The bottom line: Human-caused climate change is like an upward escalator for global temperatures.

• El Nino — a temporary natural warming of parts of the central Pacific Ocean that changes weather worldwide and generally makes the planet hotter — is like jumping up while standing on the escalator.

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Independence Day Parade yesterday in Southport, N.C.

Huge crowds on Huntington Beach, Calif., before fireworks over the pier.

Confetti falls during the Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular at the open-air Hatch Shell in Boston last night.

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The old web is coming apart at the seams faster than efforts to shape a new one can fill the gap, Axios managing editor Scott Rosenberg writes.

• Why it matters: Any site that depends on contributions from the public — text messages, product reviews, photo or video uploads — is preparing to be swamped with AI-generated input.

What's happening: Over the holiday weekend, Elon Musk shut down public access to Twitter, requiring users to be logged in to read anything anyone has ever said in the ostensible "global town square."

• In a three-week civil war between Reddit management and volunteer moderators, many of the discussion site's subcommunities have "gone dark," restricting public access in a protest over the company's plan to charge outside developers for access. Those charges kicked in Saturday.

Behind the scenes: Public sites are also trying to shut their technical gates so others can't gobble up troves of data for AI models to study.

The bottom line: The tech world built 30 years of growth on the ideals of the open web. But the emergence of ChatGPT and other AI tools trained on this stockpile of human expression — along with a financial downturn that's made firms scramble for revenue — imperils the web's old ideal.

• Keep reading.

A federal judge yesterday restricted Biden administration officials and agencies from communicating with social media companies on content moderation, Axios' Rebecca Falconer writes.

• Why it matters: The preliminary injunction, in an ongoing lawsuit by Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri, could have major First Amendment implications.

The plaintiffs allege the Biden administration's efforts to encourage social media sites — including Facebook, YouTube and Twitter — to crack down on COVID misinformation and other matters constitute a "sprawling federal 'Censorship Enterprise.'"

• U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty in Louisiana said in the injunction the attorneys general "have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content."
• The Trump-appointed judge blocked certain officials from meeting with, calling, emailing, sending letters, texting or meeting with social media firms "for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted" online.

Officials affected by the ruling include HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, along with Justice Department and FBI employees.

• A White House official said the Justice Department is reviewing the injunction "and will evaluate its options in this case."

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Rivian — the EV startup headquartered in Irvine, Calif. — saw its shares pop 17.4% after it reported higher-than-expected spring deliveries, Ben Geman writes for Axios Generate.

• Some analysts said Rivian's focus on developing its own drive unit to lower costs and reduce dependency on suppliers has helped the company stand out among other EV startups, Reuters reports.

Market leader Tesla also saw its deliveries surge to a record Q2, and was also rewarded with a big market bounce.

• China's BYD posted record deliveries last quarter, tallying 700,244. But that includes plug-in hybrids, not just full electrics.

🔎 Between the lines: A consistently profitable Tesla delivered 466,140 EVs last quarter, while the younger Rivian tallied 12,640.

Food makers rushing to introduce new "plant-based" products are shying away from the term "vegan," which some perceive as having negative or off-putting connotations.

• Why it matters: The two terms aren't always synonymous. "Vegan" tends to refer to a lifestyle as well as a diet, in which all animal products are avoided, Jennifer A. Kingson writes for Axios What's Next.

The semantic differences are critically important to marketers, as demand for animal-free foodstuffs balloons.

• New plant-based foods were out in full force at last week's Summer Fancy Food Show at the Javits Center in Manhattan— a prominent showcase for new products. But many entrepreneurs said they consciously avoided the "vegan" label.
• The entrepreneurs emphasized that their products were vegan But heralding that quality on packaging or advertising might turn off more customers than it attracts.

The average consumer leans more toward a "reducetarian" diet, where they aim to reduce — not eliminate — animal products.

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