National

Climate Deals

Customers and investors alike are sticking a fork in fake meat.

Why it matters: Eating plant-based meats is one of the easiest ways for Americans to reduce their overall carbon footprint. But after years of hype, the tide is turning against the first generation of plant-based protein makers.

The big picture: Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat captured headlines — and plenty of legitimate interest from consumers — with their plant-based "hamburgers."

Both companies' plant-based burgers were a hit — the "meat" looked and tasted similar enough to beef that many diners couldn't notice the difference.

The meats were so popular that fast food giant Burger King noticed and added an Impossible Whopper to its menu.

Impossible and Beyond started looking at other types of meat they could replace, and expanded their range of offerings to other highly processed meats like chicken nuggets and sausages.

But now, the sector's overall fortunes appear to be waning, with prominent industry names facing headwinds from a slowing economy, and a loss of buzz.

Impossible Foods plans to lay off roughly 20% of its workforce, per a Bloomberg report. However, the company tells Axios that it saw record growth last year. 

Impossible's primary competitor, Beyond Meat, also cut roughly 20% of its workers, and lost several executives, amid its own stock slump.

Beyond Meat's sales fell more than 22% in the third quarter of 2022 compared to 2021. In an Q3 earnings call, company executives blamed inflation for consumers' souring tastes on pricier plant-based meats.

Beyond Meat's stock is down roughly 67% compared to a year ago. 

What they're saying: "We feel good about our growth and performance, and we haven't been experiencing what some of the other brands in the space have reported," an Impossible Foods spokesperson tells Axios in an email.

What we're watching: Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat use a process called high-moisture extrusion, which effectively pre-cooks the protein prior to sale.

The technique works well with ground meat that doesn't require a uniform texture or single cut of meat.

A new set of startups is working on developing new techniques to create more types of plant-based proteins to replace large cuts of meat and fish.

Fake meat fad hits the chopping block

Impossible and Beyond have both laid off employees amid a drop in sales.

Illustration of a burger patty on a flat top grill with grill marks in the shape of the Western hemisphere

Alternative fake meat

Energy & Environment

The Air Force general overseeing American air space admitted Monday that the military had failed to identify multiple Chinese surveillance balloons that flew over the U.S. in the past, calling it a "domain awareness gap."

The big picture: A U.S. fighter jet shot down a Chinese spy balloon over the Atlantic Ocean on Saturday after it had floated across several states, raising concerns that China was collecting sensitive information on military sites.

Over the weekend, a senior defense official said Chinese government surveillance balloons had flown above the continental U.S. four other times in recent years — three times while former president Donald Trump was in office, and once under Biden — "but never for this duration of time."

Driving the news: "I will tell you that we did not detect those threats," Air Force Gen. Glen D. VanHerck, head of U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, said Monday of any previous balloons. 

"That's a domain awareness gap that we have to figure out," VanHerck said in a briefing with reporters. "But I don't want to go in further detail."

VanHerck said U.S. intelligence agencies relied on "additional means of collection" to retroactively identify the other balloons.

He said the most recent balloon — which China has claimed was a civilian weather airship — was "up to 200 feet tall" with a payload comparable to that of a "regional jet."

Zoom out: VanHerck said that the U.S. "took maximum precaution to prevent" the balloon from collecting intelligence while it was above the country but declined to provide further details. 

"We did not assess that it presented a significant collection hazard beyond what already exists in actionable technical means from the Chinese," he said.

He also said the balloon provided the U.S. an opportunity to collect intelligence on its purpose, capabilities, and more.

The U.S. Navy on Monday continued to collect debris from the balloon, which will be used for further analysis. 

The balloon's presence over the U.S. led Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel his upcoming travel to Beijing, which would have been the first trip to China for a top American diplomat in a half-dozen years.

The saga also prompted criticism of President Joe Biden from congressional Republicans, who accused him of acting too slowly to take down the balloon — but military leaders have said they delayed in part due to safety reasons.

Go deeper: Everything we know about the China balloon

Top general says U.S. failed to detect previous Chinese balloons

Chinese balloons transited the U.S. four other times in recent years, the general said.

A suspected Chinese spy balloon flies near Charlotte, N.C., on February 04, 2023. Photo: Peter Zay/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Military

President Biden has made the COVID-19 crisis and a post-Trump return to national unity and traditional democratic ideals his top priorities. From vaccinations to stimulus to schools, Biden is seeking bipartisan compromise while showing a willingness to use executive authority and bare Democratic majorities in the U.S. House and Senate to implement his policies. Republican leaders are navigating deep party divisions over if and how to move beyond former President Trump.

Politics & Policy

The massive earthquake that killed thousands in Syria and Turkey on Monday is a "crisis within multiple crises" for a population already reeling from nearly 12 years of war, humanitarian groups are warning. 

The big picture: The 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck as people slept in southeastern Turkey and northwestern Syria — areas hosting millions of Syrians displaced by years of conflict.

 A second strong quake hit the same area later in the day. 

The death toll, which was at more than 3,400 late Monday local time, is expected to rise as rescue workers search through the debris left by toppled buildings. 

For many Syrians living in both countries, Monday's quake will likely mean they will be displaced yet again. The International Rescue Committee noted in a statement that many people in northwest Syria have been displaced as many as 20 times.

That reality compounds the already dire multi-prong humanitarian and economic crises millions of Syrians are facing in the region. More than 4 million people — the majority of whom are women and children — in northwest Syria depend on some kind of humanitarian assistance, according to OCHA. More than half of the 4.6 million people living in northwest Syria are those who have been displaced. 

An ongoing cholera outbreak has killed at least 100 people since late August, the World Health Organization reported at the end of January. At the same time, the region has experienced a harsh winter, which is expected to make rescue and relief operations even harder. 

"It was like the apocalypse," Abdul Salam al-Mahmoud, a Syrian in the northern town of Atareb, told Reuters. "It's bitterly cold and there's heavy rain, and people need saving."

Hospitals in some of the hardest-hit areas of Syria were overwhelmed as they worked to treat those injured by the earthquake, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said in a statement. 

“We’ve got quite a lot of hospitals that had been previously hit in the war. So they had already the foundations, everything had already been weakened,” Shajul Islam, a British doctor, told AP. 

The devastation is especially acute for children living in Syria, where conflict, the worsening economic situation and food insecurity have left millions of kids to contend with "one of the most complex humanitarian situations in the world," the UN children's agency (UNICEF) said on Monday. Many already struggling with the "physical and psychological scars of war" will now have to deal with yet another traumatic crisis. 

What they're saying: “This earthquake is yet another devastating blow to so many vulnerable populations already struggling after years of conflict," said Tanya Evans, the Syria country director for the International Rescue Committee. 

"With health facilities strained beyond capacity, even before this tragedy many did not have access to the health care they critically need," she said. 

Carsten Hansen, the Middle East regional director for the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), said Monday's disaster "will worsen the suffering of Syrians already struggling with a severe humanitarian crisis." 

"In the midst of a winter storm and an unprecedented cost-of-living crisis, it is vital that Syrians are not left to face the aftermath on their own," Hasen said. 

“The needs are very high in northwestern Syria as this [earthquake] adds a dramatic layer for vulnerable [people] who are still struggling after many years of war,” said Sebastien Gay, the head of MSF's mission in Syria. “The massive consequences of this disaster will require a [scaled up] international aid effort.” 

State of play: Before Monday's quakes, less than 50% of the $4 billion needed for the UN-led Syria Humanitarian Response Plan (2022-2023) was funded.

"We count on the international community to help the thousands of families hit by this disaster, many of whom were already in dire need of humanitarian aid in areas where access is a challenge," UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement.

Several organizations, including IRC, the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the Islamic Relief, have launched emergency appeals to help with relief efforts.

Meanwhile, countries worldwide have pledged immediate assistance, including the U.S. and U.K., as well as NATO and several European Union member nations.

President Biden said he has authorized an immediate response. "Our teams are deploying quickly to begin to support Turkish search and rescue efforts and address the needs of those injured and displaced by the earthquake," he added. 

Other countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, China, and India, have also said they would send monetary aid or search teams to help. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke to his Syrian counterpart and Russia's close ally, Bashar al-Assad, following the earthquake and offered to provide "necessary assistance in relieving the consequences of this disaster," the Kremlin said in a statement. Russia also expressed its readiness to immediately provide assistance to Turkey. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Twitter that Kyiv was "ready to provide "the necessary assistance to overcome the consequences of the disaster." 

Iran said it was ready to provide "any kind of assistance," according to state media agency IRNA.

Israel is sending an Israeli military search and rescue to Turkey, Axios Barak Ravid reports. Israel will provide aid to Syria through third parties, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Israeli officials said the Russians asked for tents, blankets and medicine.

For Syrians, quake is "another devastating blow"

Residents retrieve an injured man from the rubble of a collapsed building following an earthquake in the town of Jandaris, Syria, on February 6, 2023. 

Residents retrieve an injured man from the rubble of a collapsed building following an earthquake in the town of Jandaris, in the countryside of Syria's northwestern city of Afrin in the rebel-held part of Aleppo province, on Feb.  6, 2023. Photo: Rami al Sayed/AFP via Getty Images

Syria

China is becoming the most formidable rival America has faced, and the risk of confrontation with Russia, North Korea or Iran still looms. Authoritarians are rising, the chaotic Afghanistan exit revealed the limits of U.S. power, and the pandemic, climate change and other critical challenges continue to pose grave threats.

World

Energy Policy

Energy Policy Alerts

The U.S. electric car market and its reliance on China is heading for a collision with Congress. 

Why it matters: Lawmakers are setting their sights on the auto industry’s global supply relationships as bipartisan support emerges to deal with the dirtier sides of "clean energy." 

Driving the news: House Republicans and Senate Democrats launched probes in recent weeks into EV and battery manufacturers, their reliance on Chinese businesses and potential risks to national security and efforts to prevent forced labor abroad. 

Senate Finance Chairman Ron Wyden asked eight carmakers for detailed information about their supply chains after a report alleged they had “several supply chain exposures” to a region of China where oppressed Muslim communities are believed to be forced to work at nearby factories. 

“This is one of the more significant inquiries that we’ve undertaken because it affects the well-being of workers and consumers in our country, [and] there are implications worldwide,” Wyden told Axios last week. 

Republicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee also began reviewing potential China exposures in twenty federal infrastructure grants to battery tech firms for U.S. projects. 

Zoom in: The Senate probe is getting results — the automakers all gave responses to the Finance Committee and lawmakers are considering whether to conduct “additional investigation,” a committee aide said. 

Wyden plans a hearing “in the coming weeks” about trade enforcement and is considering whether to push for a bipartisan update to customs laws, the aide told Axios, adding the effort isn't limited to dealing with carmakers. 

Four of the eight automakers — Honda, Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis and Volkswagen — told Axios they take this issue seriously and strive to ensure suppliers aren't violating their sustainability standards.

Ford said in a statement: “As we relayed to the Committee, Ford is committed to respecting human  rights everywhere we operate and throughout our entire value chain.” Other companies didn't respond to requests for comment. 

Laura Murphy, a human rights professor who led the team behind the report, told Axios she hopes the committee presses automakers to explain how they "ensure that the metals sourcing for their projects doesn't involve the Uyghur [r]egion." 

"The auto industry needs to be aware that it is exposed in many ways," Murphy said. 

Meanwhile, the House Science investigation’s scrutiny of federal funding to a particular Texas-based company — Microvast —  is finding a fan in Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Joe Manchin. 

“If they’re [Microvast] able to qualify for the incentives we have to make us energy independent, we all should be concerned,” Manchin told reporters last week. 

The big picture: China is the world leader in mining resources and making EV parts. Their hold on supplying battery metals like graphite will make a full excision incredibly difficult. 

Still, auto companies in the probe — like Ford, General Motors, Tesla and Volkswagen — have struck lots of deals with resource and manufacturing firms in the U.S. and elsewhere to try making China optional. 

Between the lines: One auto industry source told Axios that the probes could be damaging if they make lawmakers question the benefits of EV and battery tax incentives, like those in the Inflation Reduction Act. 

“The last thing we need is a political circus around all of this stuff where there are just constant derogatories questioning the value,” said the source, who requested anonymity to candidly discuss the matter. “There’s a lot of benefits that support jobs and national security.” 

The congressional China-EV showdown

Congress is launching probes into the EV industry's reliance on China and the potential risks to national security and efforts to prevent forced labor abroad.

Illustration of a person standing between a US and Chinese flag. 

Energy

Markets

Axios Markets

About 51% of women in marginalized racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. and four other countries said they'd experienced racism or discrimination at their current workplace, according to a new survey released last week.  

The big picture: The survey's stark results come at a time when some companies are pulling back on certain efforts around diversity and inclusion.

What they did: Researchers from Catalyst, a women's advocacy group, surveyed 2,734 women from Australia, Canada, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the U.S. 

The research included anyone who selected at least one race or ethnicity besides white.

They asked a yes or no question: "Have you experienced racism or discrimination because of your ethnicity, nationality, race or religion in your current workplace?"

The respondents were also asked whether or not they identified as women or trans women, and if they were LGBTQ. They were also given a palette of eight skin colors and asked to select one that matched their own most closely.

"We really wanted to push the conversation on racism further, and highlight the intersectional nature of racism," said Kathrina Robotham, Ph.D., a senior associate at Catalyst and one of the study's co-authors. 

What they found: Trans women and queer women were also more likely than cisgender women to say they'd experienced racism. And women with darker skin tones were far more likely to say they'd experienced racism at work, as this chart from Catalyst illustrates:

Respondents were also asked to share examples of their experiences with racism at work. "We got an overwhelming amount of stories," Robotham said. 

There's a notion that racist incidents in the modern workplace are fairly covert or subtle, she said, but the incidents respondents described were "blatant."

The report features several quotes from these women, describing colleagues making racist comments about their appearance, their competence and even using slurs.

By the numbers: 48% of women in the U.S. said they experienced racism, compared to 59% in the U.K., 67% in South Africa, 39% in Canada, and 48% in Australia.

What's next: The authors suggest there's a lot that company leaders can do to try to address this issue. Crucially, they can speak up — and set a tone that their workplace is not one where these behaviors are tolerated. 

Go deeper: Read Catalyst's full report.   

Women report stunning levels of discrimination

A survey's stark results comes as some companies are pulling back on certain diversity and inclusion efforts.

Racism

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

The explosion of interest in ChatGPT and generative AI has tech giants scrambling to rethink and rewrite their product plans to capitalize on the trend.

What's happening: Every major tech company has been investing in AI for years, but the overnight ChatGPT craze that kicked off at the end of 2022 has given the industry a ravenous appetite for one specific flavor of AI — generative programs that produce text, images and other content in response to user prompts.

Driving the news: ChatGPT went from zero to millions of users on a trajectory that left observers agape. Estimates have suggested ChatGPT has topped 100 million monthly active users and is seeing roughly 5 million users a day, per the New York Times.

Microsoft's close relationship with and longstanding investments in ChatGPT creator OpenAI insured that the business-software giant would take a lead in deploying generative AI-based services.

Last week Microsoft rolled out a premium version of its Teams groupware integrating ChatGPT-based tools for summarizing meeting notes, organizing personal tasks and translating texts.

"We’re bringing the power of large language models, including OpenAI’s GPT, to Teams Premium, as we make meetings more intelligent, personalized, and protected," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella tweeted.

The company is also widely expected to use ChatGPT-style AI to reshape its Bing search engine in an attempt to outflank Google. Many observers also assume the company intends to find ways to integrate ChatGPT with Word, email and other programs.

Google has been working for years on the same kind of large language model-based generative AI that powers ChatGPT, and the company pioneered a key element of the technology. One of its projects, LaMDA, even inspired a Google engineer to claim that the program had achieved sentience. 

But Google moved cautiously to open up its research out of concerns over applications' accuracy, trustworthiness and potential for bias — problems that ChatGPT and every similar program share.

The advent of ChatGPT reportedly led Google CEO Sundar Pichai to declare a "code red," consult with company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and fast-track a number of generative-AI-related projects.

In late January Google showed off demos of a new generative AI project that can generate a wide range of music from a user's text prompt.

Facebook parent Meta has sunk fortunes into AI, using it to rank News Feed items, moderate content, translate text and perform many other tasks.

It has detailed a number of efforts in the generative space, including text-to-image and text-to-video.

But two recent public demos by Meta of generative-AI projects went awry, with the ChatGPT-like Blenderbot drawing criticism for its low-quality output and ready embrace of conspiracy theories, and the academic research-focused Galactica getting panned for its inaccuracies. 

AI and generative AI were mentioned many more times on the company's earnings call last week than "metaverse," the emerging technology CEO Mark Zuckerberg has bet the company on.

"The two major technological waves driving our roadmap are AI today, and over the longer term, the metaverse," Zuckerberg said.

Experts see potential for Meta to use AI to generate and populate the virtual worlds it aims to build — but first it has to provide reasons for users to want to visit them.

Amazon uses AI for Alexa's voice recognition, to optimize its warehouse operations, and for other purposes, but it has not yet raced to hop on the generative AI bandwagon.

Reports that some software developers inside Amazon were using ChatGPT as a coding aid led a lawyer to order employees not to share corporate information with the bot over fears that company secrets could leak, per Business Insider.

ChatGPT "is not concerned about the truth, but just about putting words together convincingly," Amazon CTO Werner Vogels tweeted last week.

CEO Tim Cook spoke during Apple's earnings call last week about the potential of AI to change just about everything that the company does. However, the examples he offered — detecting heart rhythms and car crashes — don't appear to be tied to the generative AI trend.

Yes, but: Apple remains a profoundly secretive company. If it has a product that makes use of generative AI in the works, we aren't likely to hear about it until it is ready to launch.

Be smart: AI is already deeply integrated into much of the tech we use every day, from Google Search to Facebook's News Feed to your email spam filters to your phone's voice-to-text function. ChatGPT has shown the industry there's a public hunger for the specific capabilities of generative AI to simulate human conversation and creativity.

Our thought bubble: Tech's chase-the-hotness herd mentality almost always overshoots the mark, and that's likely to be the case with ChatGPT mania. AI has a huge future — but we still don't know what creative and economic uses generative AI will serve, what harms it will cause and what failures it may encounter.

Tech giants rush to put chatbot to work

The ChatGPT craze has industry leaders scrambling to show they're on top of the trend.

Animated gif of a computer screen that reads "A.I" with the "I" as a blinking cursor

ChatGPT

Illustration of a laptop screen showing the characters "A.I." with the I represented by a blinking insert cursor.

Automation and AI

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Technology

Crypto

Axios Crypto

A year ago, crypto successfully scraped and scrapped to get a foot in the door in Washington. But in the wake of crypto's winter, and FTX's spectacular collapse, that door has now slammed shut.

Why it matters: Gaining legitimacy in Washington has been an essential part of the industry's push into the mainstream. But a series of recent announcements from the Biden administration suggest there's a crackdown ahead.

Driving the news: The vibes from the White House and federal agencies have been somber at best for anyone trying to run a cryptocurrency business. Over the last two weeks, government officials repeatedly gave crypto the cold shoulder.

First, a crypto-friendly bank was firmly denied its request to join the Federal Reserve system. Custodia Bank, which believed it did everything by the book, was blindsided.

On a larger scale, the Fed's rejection of Custodia was a major blow for an industry that's always envisioned disrupting traditional finance. To do that, it needs direct access to the systems that underpin it, including the Fed's payment network.

If that didn't make the point clearly enough, the Fed also warned every other bank that they need to ask permission before engaging in any crypto activity —(and it doesn't sound like any will get the nod.

And the White House put out a big-picture statement essentially chasing Congress off the idea of passing any crypto bills this year.

What we're watching: The likely losers in all of this are companies that have played by the rules and operated most closely to paper money.

Companies like Coinbase and Gemini live and die by being fiat on-ramps, and they stand to be hurt.

The winners, or at least those with the least to lose, are the blockchain natives who live off the books.

The bottom line: Last March, the Biden administration put out a call for its agencies to study the topic of cryptocurrency. Its latest message suggests that it's done studying, and it's come to a conclusion: We don't like it.

If a crackdown comes, look for the current crypto price rally to end. Expect a lot of flat to downward trading until the next hot idea counteracts it.

Washington turns hostile on crypto

The White House is closing a door the industry fought hard to open.

Illustration of a bald eagle flying down to grab a golden coin with binary code

Cryptocurrencies

Generate

Axios Generate

Data: Chris Vagasky, National Lightning Safety Council; Map: Erin Davis/Axios Visuals

Florida took the top prize for the most lightning flashes last year, and the Southwest experienced significantly more lightning than usual, according to data from Vaisala, which operates a national lightning detection network.

Why it matters: In a warming world, the total amount of lightning is expected to increase. Shifts in lightning hot spots can provide clues to major storm events and how storm corridors are changing over time.

Details: Florida's large quantity of lightning partly reflects Hurricane Ian's devastating landfall in late September.

Meanwhile, last year saw an uptick in lightning compared to the average across the Southwest, which reflects an active monsoon season. Strikes across the country's northern tier were also plentiful, revealing the prevailing storm track.

Mapped: 2022's lightning strikes

Florida saw the most overall lightning strikes.

Data graphics

A look at the scientific breakthroughs changing the world, explorations in space and in worlds beyond our own and the threats posed to us by our own planet, both out of our control and of our own making.

Science

Red states are limiting Black history lessons in public schools at the same time scholars are producing groundbreaking new works around art, slavery, civil rights, and the Great Migration. 

Why it matters: A work on Black history has won a National Book Award every year since 2018 as historians find more stories that challenge the popular U.S. narrative. That's sparking a backlash. 

Details: "South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation" by Imani Perry won the National Book Award last year and was an immediate bestseller upon its release. 

Other recent works, like Erica Armstrong Dunbar's 2017 book on Ona Judge, a woman who fled enslavement from President George Washington, also have garnered national attention. 

A biography on Malcolm X and a book on McDonald's historic relationships in Black communities won Pulitzers in 2021. 

"Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America," by W. Caleb McDaniel, a meditation on reparations based on the story of a woman who survived kidnapping and re-enslavement, won a Pulitzer in 2020.  

State of play: The boom results from new sources and scholars who entered graduate programs after segregation, Gerald Horne, a history professor at the University of Houston, tells Axios. 

The new generation of scholars also is responding to current events, from the backlash to Barack Obama's presidency to the rise of Donald Trump. "The times impact the way that history is written."

Yes, but: At the same time scholarship is expanding, schools' ability to teach some of the same themes and information is shrinking.

At least 18 states have enacted legislation since last year to limit the teaching of "divisive concepts" or critical race theory, according to data from the National Conference of State Legislatures, the American Instructional Resources Survey and an Axios analysis of recent stories.

Amid criticism from Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and other conservative politicians, the College Board changed the curriculum for its new Advanced Placement African American Studies course, excluding concepts such as Black Lives Matter and reparations.

The intrigue: The National Council for Black Studies, an organization dedicated to advancing Black Studies, is holding its annual conference next month at the University of Florida. 

It's the first in-person gathering for the organization since the pandemic, Amilcar Shabazz, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, tells Axios.

Scholars in Black Studies are coming to Florida in solidarity with other scholars in the state. 

What's next: Shabazz and Horne said states' restrictions won't stop the momentum of exciting work in Black history, but could make it harder for new scholars to get jobs.

"The discouragement is the highest for folks who are in the pipeline...the dissertation writers and the recent PhDs," Shabazz said.

Of note: The National Council for Black Studies this year is focusing on the 100th anniversary of the Rosewood Massacre of 1923 — in which a white mob violently attacked the predominantly African American town of Rosewood, Florida, and wiped it out. 

It's unclear whether teachers in Florida, under new restrictions, can even bring  up the massacre without facing discipline.

Black history booms as states restrict it

The backlash comes as historians find more stories that challenge the popular U.S. narrative

Monday's top stories