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Holly Andrzejewski hadn’t yet welcomed her and her family’s first guests to the Atlantic Inn on Hatteras Island when she had to start rescheduling them, as Hurricane Erin neared North Carolina’s Outer Banks on Tuesday and threatened to whip up wild waves and tropical force winds.Although the monster storm is expected to stay offshore, evacuations were ordered on such barrier islands along the Carolina coast as Hatteras as authorities warned the storm could churn up dangerous rip currents and swamp roads with waves of 15 feet (4.6 meters).Andrzejewski and her husband purchased the bed-and-breakfast, known as the oldest inn on the island, less than a week ago. By Monday they had brought in all the outdoor furniture and made sure their daughter and her boyfriend, who are the innkeepers, had generators, extra water and flashlights as they stayed behind to keep an eye on the property.“It’s just one of those things where you know this is always a possibility and it could happen, and you just make the best out of it. Otherwise you wouldn’t live at the beach,” said Andrzejewski, who will also remain on the island, at her home about a 15 minutes’ drive away.Erin lashed part of the Caribbean with rain and wind Monday. Forecasters are confident it will curl north and away from the eastern U.S., but tropical storm and surge watches were issued for much of the Outer Banks.Officials at the Wrightsville Beach, near Wilmington, North Carolina, reported to the National Weather Service rescuing at least 60 swimmers from rip currents Monday.By early Tuesday, Erin had lost some strength from previous days but was still a Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph), the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. It was about 675 miles (1,090 kilometers) southwest of Bermuda and 770 miles (1,240 kilometers) south-southeast of Cape Hatteras and was moving northwest at a slower 7 mph (11 kph).A tropical storm warning remained in effect for the Turks and Caicos Islands, where government services were suspended, some ports were closed and residents were ordered to stay home.On North Carolina’s Outer Banks, coastal flooding was expected to begin Tuesday and continue through Thursday.The evacuations on Hatteras Island and Ocracoke came at the height of tourist season on the thin stretch of low-lying barrier islands that jut into the Atlantic Ocean and are increasingly vulnerable to storm surges.A year ago, Hurricane Ernesto stayed hundreds of miles offshore yet still produced high surf and swells that caused coastal damage.This time there are concerns that several days of heavy surf, high winds and waves could wash out parts of the main highway. Some routes could be impassible for days.This is the first evacuation for Ocracoke since Hurricane Dorian in 2019 caused the most damage in the island’s recorded history.Tommy Hutcherson, who owns the community’s only grocery store, said the island has mostly bounced back. He’s optimistic this storm won’t be as destructive.“But you just never know. I felt the same way about Dorian and we really got smacked,” he said.Scientists have linked the rapid intensification of hurricanes in the Atlantic to climate change. Global warming is causing the atmosphere to hold more water vapor and is spiking ocean temperatures, and warmer waters give hurricanes fuel to unleash more rain and strengthen more quickly.Bermuda will experience the most severe threat Thursday evening, said Phil Rogers, director of the Bermuda Weather Service. By then, waters could swell up to 24 feet (7 meters).“Surfers, swimmers and boaters must resist the temptation to go out. The waters will be very dangerous and lives will be placed at risk,” acting Minister of National Security Jache Adams said. Associated Press journalists Safiyah Riddle in Montgomery, Alabama, and Julie Walker in New York contributed to this report. Ben Finley, John Seewer and Hallie Golden, Associated Press
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E-Commerce
Clippy has become an unlikely protest symbol against Big Tech. The trend started when YouTuber Louis Rossmann posted a video earlier this month titled Change your profile picture to clippy. Im serious. His followers answered the call and now across YouTube, X, and other platforms, profile photos are turning into the iconic Microsoft Office Assistant as a silent protest against tech companies encroachment into daily life. The consumer rights activist, whose content focuses on electronic repair and right-to-repair topics, hopes to rally consumers against practices like data harvesting for AI training, selling user information to data brokers, planned obsolescence, censorship, and ransomware. I didn’t label it a protest because Im not asking people to boycott a specific product or company. Im not telling you to stop shopping at Target or throw iPhones away, thats not the point, he tells Fast Company. This is one small element in a broader long-term movement for consumer rights and ownership I’ve been trying to build with my audience for over 11 years. Now the movement has found its mascot. From Office 98 to 2004, Clippy, Microsofts googly-eyed paperclip, was infamous for popping up with offers of help while you were trying to get on with work. Annoying as he might have been, Clippy could always be dismissed or switched off altogether. Thats the point. If you told Clippy that you were having a bad day, he wasn’t going to use that information to try and figure out which advertiser to sell you to, nor was he trying to steal your personal data or get you to purchase other Microsoft products. He had no ulterior motives, Rossmann explained in the now viral video. Clippy just wanted to help. The video has since racked up more than 3.2 million views, much to Rossmanns surprise. This was a throwaway video, something I recorded talking about what was on my mind that day, he tells Fast Company. I am very happy that the consumer rights database, that our nonprofit has been focused on building, has been exploding with edits and new stories over the past week and a half. People aren’t just changing their profile photos, they’re actually doing the grunt work. The growing number of those joining the movement is a clear message to tech companies that consumers see what they are doing and arent happy about it. Clippy would never add AI overview to every single search result, wrote one user in the comments section. Clippy would never take your data for AI learning, wrote another. Clippy would never read my menstrual data from my period tracking app so it can sell my attention to advertisers, wrote a third. But changing your profile picture to Clippy is just the first step in a wider shift Rossmann hopes to bring about. Its a signal that tells others ‘Im not okay with this, and youre not alone if you feel the same,'” he says. “The goal is to get people who would otherwise be apathetic thinking ‘there’s no point in pushing back because nobody cares’ to think twice about that defeatist mindset. As one Clippy avatar wrote in the comments: It looks like youre trying to take back your freedom. Would you like help?
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E-Commerce
Imagine you have an iPod mini, preferably metallic pink. You toggle to the song Milkshake by Kelis, there in black pixelated font. You plug in your wired headphones, and without any notifications to distract you, you click play. About twenty years before a little espresso fueled an addictively candy-coated cultural renaissance of feminine braggadocio, Kelis brought the boys to the yard in super low-rise jeans. (Bossy.) Now, Gap is bringing both back. The casual clothing brand is today relaunching its early 2000s long and lean denim style, which was first available between 2001 and 2010, for $89.95. This time around, the style comes in ten new washes and a few smart design updates for better wearability, along with a campaign featuring girl group Katseye performing Milkshake. Brace yourself, the long and lean is low-rise. And Gap’s not stopping there: it’s also releasing existing denim fits like its super baggy and 90’s straight in low-rise versions as well. If mass market American brand Gap is going all in on low-rise this fall, thats a major signal the cut is back in full force. Another marker of Y2K’s comeback Low-rise denim has been making its comeback for a little while now, especially by fashions early adopters. Search interest in low rise jeans officially surpassed high rise jeans over a year ago, in May 2024, and this month search interest in the navel-baring style has reached an all-time high, according to Google Trends August report. Other clothing thats searched at an all-time high this August? Polo shirt, babydoll top, and baby tee. Holy Abercrombie! Vintage hollister and hollister 2000s, referring to the olfactory-forward mall brand, were also top search terms, and considering the broader, rolling return of Y2K styles and brands over the past few years (camis, trucker hats, bedazzled sweatsuits and jeans, rimless sunglasses, etc.,) it was only a matter of time between corresponding denim styles returned to consumer shopping carts. Gaps own internal data proved out increasingly positive consumer sentiment for low rise jeans. The design team clocked low rises return to street stylea place they often look to for emerging trendsover the past couple of years and put feelers out with their customer. But they were too early. Until now. Weve been kind of waiting for this moment, says senior vice president and general manager of Gap Specialty Noelle Rogers. We tested a few times on low rise and it wasnt until the last nine, ten months that the customer was ready. Then they scaled. “We always say, ‘we’re trend but not too trend,” adds Pattinson. “But there is this new customer that is very trend aware. Gen Z is so into everything.” And so Gap’s contemporary low rise portfolio makes a play for the large, existing customer base who used to buy the style, as well as Gen Z first-timers. Putting a style online early, even if its customer isn’t ready, allows the company to move fast once a trend goes big. Now that low rise is taking off broadly, Gap is ensuring that millennialsthose in their teens or 20s the first time this trend came aroundwill be comfortable wearing the midriff-challenging design again. Gap is making design changes to the waistband and pant legs that make low rise more approachable. “From the 2000s, it was all about this one fit,” says Pattinson. “Now, you have this big story which is low rise, but many fits within that, because we need that inclusivity and diversity. That’s the big, big difference of where we were in the 2000s. It’s a change. Still the same voice, but just speaking to it differently.” The company ran a smaller batch of the long and lean style online last fall to test how itd perform, and based off of a high volume of sales from that period, decided to go all in, increasing the styles production and range to meet projected customer demand. There’s a real appetite for this new proportion, says Gap senior vice president and global head of design Jane Pattinson. When I met with her, she paired her Gap barrel jeans with a strappy Celine heeled sandal. Sky high and high rise and mid-rise are still important; its just something new. [Photo: Gap] Get low The Long and Lean style was a huge part of early 2000s Gap, worn by celebrities like Salma Hayek, Alanis Morissette, and Sarah Jessica Parker, and is a main character of many of its campaigns from the period, along with the Gap tag, for every generation. In the Gap archives, near racks of vintage colorblocked windbreakers, corduroy caps, and a pull of vintage long and lean denim, Pattinson explains that while the archive is a treasure trove of inspiration, for now, this generations long and lean (and low-rise denim overall) is not the 2.5 zipper lowrise of yesteryear. Indeed, the long and lean hits about an inch below the navel, closer to a midrise style than Christina Aguilera-at-the-2001-VMA-awards or Keira-Knightley-and-Jamie-Dornan-paparazzi-shots underwear baring, below the hipbone jeans. Its definitely low rise but its not super low, says Pattinson. Thats key. The waistband also has a contoured shape that does away with the bucket back design flaw common to lower-rise pants of the early 2000s. Pattinson and he team also hiked up the back a bit and lowered the front for what she describes as a more relevant and flattering fit. They also added 1%-6% stretch for comfort, depending on the wash, and 1/4″ longer inseam. They tested the jeans on fit models of multiple sizes. Pointing to the wider waistbands, hemlines, washes and tints of the archival denim, she notes that theres more and more we can add. The silhouette of the pant leg is a slim boot cut that Pattinson describes as a cross between a flare and a boot. Its not nearly as common as the wide leg jeans that are everywhere today, but Pattinson says shes seen it all over Gen Zers, which is indicative of its comeback. Were positioned to bridge this generation gap, says Rogers. Now that were obsessed with it, we see it everywhere says Pattinson, who adds that shes seen it worn in a very polished way with a tank a ballet flat. The “long and lean” is the company’s hero low-rise style, but for those who arent quite ready for a full 2000s redux, the company is now also offering a broad range of pant styles with a low-rise waist, like baggy, loose, and straight. “It’s nice to have a hero and then the range, since range of fits has been what’s really been driving the business,” says Rogers. “Which is choice. One day you want to wear long and lean and then one day you want to wear loose.” Customers don’t have to choose. They can buy both.
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E-Commerce
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