Elroy Pepper

DOVER, Del. — Cigarette manufacturer ITG Brands assumed liability for tobacco settlement payments to the state of Florida when it acquired four brands from Reynolds American in 2015, a Delaware judge has ruled.

Vice Chancellor Lori Will ruled Friday that, as a result, ITG must compensate Reynolds American for losses due, granting summary judgment in favor of Reynolds.

Reynolds sold the Kool, Winston, Salem and Maverick brands to ITG in 2014 to gain federal regulators’ approval of its acquisition of Lorillard Inc.

Before the sale closed, Reynolds American affiliate R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. was making payments under a preexisting settlement agreement with Florida for reimbursement of smoking-related health care costs. After closing, Reynolds stopped making payments for the four brands it no longer owned.

The asset purchase agreement required ITG to use reasonable best efforts to join the Florida settlement and make annual payments to Florida for sales of the brands it acquired from Reynolds. ITG has yet to join the settlement agreement with Florida or make any payments.

Florida sued Reynolds and ITG and obtained a judgment requiring Reynolds to continue making payments based on ITG’s brands, unless and until ITG joined the Florida settlement agreement.

“That judgment on Reynolds amounts to over $170 million to date and tens of millions of dollars more each year into perpetuity,” Will noted. The “unambiguous terms” of the asset purchase agreement support Reynold’s arguments that ITG agreed to assume the liability imposed by the Florida judgment and must indemnify Reynolds, she concluded.

The ruling comes in a long-running legal battle between Reynolds and ITG, both based in North Carolina. In 2017, a different Court of Chancery judge concluded that ITG’s obligation to use its best efforts to try to reach a tobacco settlement agreement with Florida did not end when the sale closed.

Last year, Reynolds asked ITG to compensate Reynolds Tobacco for what it had paid and will pay due to the Florida judgment, but ITG refused. In subsequent litigation, ITG argued unsuccessfully that it had fulfilled its reasonable best efforts obligation and was not required to indemnify Reynolds for the payment liability to Florida.

Last year, in the settlement of a lawsuit brought by the state of Minnesota, ITG agreed that it had assumed obligations under that state’s tobacco settlement agreement to make payments for sales of the four brands it acquired from Reynolds. ITG agreed to make payments to Minnesota for 2021 and all future years, while payment liabilities for the period from 2015 to 2020 were split between ITG and Reynolds.

The CEO of American Airlines said Monday that his airline needed a partnership with JetBlue because Delta Air Lines had bulked up through a merger sooner than American, had more takeoff and landing rights at New York airports, and fewer unionized workers.

Robert Isom also conceded that Delta has “run a nice, reliable airline” and enjoys some cost advantages over American.

The Justice Department and six states are suing American and JetBlue in federal court over their regional partnership in the Northeast, which government lawyers call a de facto merger. Isom defended the arrangement, which has been in effect for well over a year, as JetBlue CEO Robin Hayes did last week during a trial in federal court in Boston.

Hayes, however, once had misgivings about the deal — called the Northeast alliance, or NEA — because of American’s size advantage over JetBlue.

“I think NEA is dead as Robin isn’t supportive,” former JetBlue executive Scott Laurence texted a consultant in January 2021.

Laurence — who later jumped to American after a one-month gig at Delta — testified that Hayes worried American “had nearly unlimited resources” to tilt the alliance to its favor. Despite Hayes’ concerns, American and JetBlue announced their deal six months after Laurence’s text message.

The Justice Department is trying to convince U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin to kill the partnership, under which American and JetBlue work together to set schedules and share revenue, although they are not allowed to collaborate on prices. Government lawyers argue that the deal limits competition and will push fares higher.

American and JetBlue say the government has no evidence that the deal is hurting consumers. To the contrary, they say it will help travelers by creating a stronger competitor to Delta and United in New York and Boston.

American and JetBlue say they were unable to grow in New York on their own because they couldn’t get enough new takeoff and landing times — called slots — at congested airports. JetBlue resorted to unusual tactics including red-eye flights, and it tried to get slots from other airlines.

“How did that go?” JetBlue lawyer Richard Schwed asked Laurence.

“It went poorly,” the executive replied. “I don’t think our competitors were interested in seeing us gain more access.”

The trial is expected to last about another week, but it could be weeks or months later until Sorokin issues his ruling — there is no jury.

OMAHA, Neb. — Billionaire Warren Buffett’s successor bought nearly $70 million worth of stock in the conglomerate he is slated to one day lead.

Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Greg Abel on Monday disclosed buying 168 Class A shares in the company in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The purchases made last Thursday at prices between $405,800 and $408,514.01 per share will give Abel a small stake of 173 Class A shares in the Omaha, Nebraska-based company’s future.

His holdings pale in comparison to Buffett’s Berkshire investment. The legendary investor, who has been Berkshire’s Chairman and CEO for decades, holds 229,016 A shares and 276 B shares to give him control of more than 30% of Berkshire’s voting stock. He has been gradually giving his shares away to five foundations, with most of his donations going to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Abel already oversees all of Berkshire’s noninsurance businesses, and Buffett has said that he will one day take over as CEO as part of the company’s succession plan. But the 92-year-old Buffett says he has no plans to retire.

Investors will no doubt be encouraged to see Abel buying some Berkshire shares, but this summer he sold back to the company for $870 million his stake in Berkshire’s Iowa-based utility division that he used to lead. So even after these recent purchases of Berkshire stock, he has a significantly smaller investment in Berkshire that he used to.

Edward Jones analyst Jim Shanahan said he’s glad to see Abel investing in Berkshire shares because it “demonstrates his alignment with shareholders.” But he said it’s a relatively small investment given Abel’s wealth and compared to his previous stake in Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

Berkshire owns more than 90 different companies including BNSF railroad, Geico insurance, several major utilities and an assortment of manufacturing and retail companies that includes Dairy Queen, See’s Candy, Helzberg Diamonds and Precision Castparts. Besides the companies it owns outright, Berkshire also has a sizeable investment portfolio with major stakes in iconic companies such as Apple, Coca-Cola, Bank of America and American Express.

NEW YORK — Incidents of fraud and scams are occurring more often on the popular peer-to-peer payment service Zelle, according to a report issued Monday by the office of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, giving the public its first glimpse into the growing problems at Zelle.

The report also found that the large banks that partly own Zelle have been reluctant to compensate customers who have been victims of fraud or scams. For instance, less than half of the money customers reported being sent via Zelle without authorization was being reimbursed.

Warren, D-Massachusetts, a long-time critic of the big banks, requested data on fraud and scams on Zelle from seven banks starting in April. The report cites data from four banks that tallied 192,878 cases worth collectively $213.8 million in 2021 and the first half of 2022 where a customer claimed they had been fraudulently tricked into making a payment. In only roughly 3,500 cases did those banks reimburse the customer, the report found.

Further, in the cases where it’s clear funds had been taken out of customers’ accounts without authorization, only 47% of those dollars were ever reimbursed.

Since being launched in June 2017, Zelle has become a popular way for bank customers to send money to friends and family. Almost $500 billion in funds were sent via Zelle in 2021, according to Early Warning Services, the company that operates Zelle.

Zelle is the banking industry’s answer to the growing popularity of peer-to-peer payment services like PayPal, Venmo and the Cash App. The service allows a bank customer to instantaneously send money to a person via their email or phone number, and it will go from one bank account to another. More than 1,700 banks and credit unions offer the service. But the service has also grown more popular with scammers and criminals. Once money is sent via Zelle, it requires a bank’s intervention to attempt to get that money back.

The cases of growing fraud and scams at Zelle have been highlighted in previous news reports, including two by The New York Times. But those stories cited mostly anecdotal evidence. Early Warning Services has previously said that 99.9% of all transactions happen without complaints of fraud or scams. A group of Democratic senators asked for usage data on Zelle after the reports in The New York Times.

Banks are required under the Electronic Fund Transfer Act to repay customers when funds are illegally taken out of their account without authorization. Banks have argued that in cases of fraud — meaning a customer’s account becomes compromised somehow and they send an unauthorized payment — they do reimburse customers. Banks are more reluctant to reimburse customers who claim to have been scammed, arguing that customers would make such claims more often and it would be hard to tell whether the customer is telling the truth.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has also been looking into Zelle and other payment platforms, and is expected to issue regulations that could require banks to reimburse customers for a wider array of scams and fraud.

The banking industry, aware of Washington’s increased scrutiny of Zelle, has been on a campaign to show Zelle is a safe way to send money. The industry typically likes to point out that fraud and scam claims occur more often on the non-bank payment platforms like Venmo or the Cash App.

“That doesn’t mean that Zelle, just like every other instant (peer-to-peer) payment service, is entirely free from those who seek to defraud the American consumer,” four banking industry lobby groups said in a joint statement. “Banks know this and take steps to mitigate instances of fraud and criminal activity.”

The data for individual banks shows the increase in fraud and scams. PNC Bank had 8,848 cases on Zelle in 2020, and is on pace to have roughly 12,300 cases this year. US Bank had 14,886 cases in 2020 and had 27,702 cases in 2021. Truist had 9,455 cases of fraud and scams on Zelle in 2020, which ballooned to 22,045 last year.

In response to Warren’s report, Zelle’s owner said the increased cases reflected the fact the service has become more popular.

“Zelle usage has grown significantly since its launch, from 247 million transactions in 2017 to 1.8 billion in 2021, while the proportion of fraud and scams has steadily decreased,” Early Warning Services said in a statement.

Warren made fireworks at a congressional hearing last month involving most of the CEOs of the big Wall Street banks that use and partly own Zelle, where she pushed each of the CEOs to release fraud and scam incident data at their banks. The seven are: JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, PNC Financial, Truist, Bank of America, Capital One and U.S. Bank.

The hearing featured an exchange where Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, apologized to Warren for not getting her the data she requested and promised she would have it at the end of that day.

Warren’s office says ultimately JPMorgan’s data on Zelle did not provide the information they were looking for, so data from JPMorgan is not included in the report.JPMorgan did not return a request for comment.

Wells Fargo and Capitol one were also not included in the report. Wells said it sent its data to Warren’s office on Sept. 28, a week after the congressional hearing.

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This story has been updated to correct the name of the company operating Zelle. It is Early Warning Services, not Early Warning Systems.

RIO DE JANEIRO — Former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of the leftist Workers’ Party got the most votes in Brazil’s presidential election Sunday, but not enough to avoid a runoff vote against his far-right rival, incumbent Jair Bolsonaro.

With 97% of the votes tallied, da Silva had 47.9% support and Bolsonaro 43.6%. Since neither candidate received more than 50% of the valid votes, which exclude spoiled and blank ballots, a second round vote between them will be scheduled for Oct. 30.

Brazil’s election authority announced late Sunday that a second round was a mathematical certainty.

The highly polarized election will determine whether the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right leader in office for another four years.

Bolsonaro’s administration has been marked by incendiary speech, his testing of democratic institutions, his widely criticized handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in 15 years. But he has built a devoted base by defending conservative values and presenting himself as protecting the nation from leftist policies that he says infringe on personal liberties and produce economic turmoil.

Da Silva is credited with building an extensive social welfare program during his 2003-2010 tenure that helped lift tens of millions into the middle class. He is also remembered for his administration’s involvement in vast corruption scandals and his own convictions, which were later annulled by the Supreme Court.

THIS IS BREAKING NEWS: Previous version of story is below:

Brazil’s top two presidential candidates were neck-and-neck late Sunday in a highly polarized election that could determine if the country returns a leftist to the helm of the world’s fourth-largest democracy or keeps the far-right incumbent in office for another four years.

The race pits incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro against his political nemesis, leftist former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. There are nine other candidates, but their support pales to that for Bolsonaro and da Silva.

With 91.6% of votes counted, da Silva had 47.3%, ahead of Bolsonaro with 44.2%, according to the electoral authority.

It appears increasingly likely neither of the top two candidates will receive more than 50% of the valid votes, which exclude spoiled and blank ballots, which would mean a second round vote will be scheduled for Oct. 30.

“We will most likely have a second round,” said Nara Pavão, who teaches political science at the Federal University of Pernambuco. “The probability of ending the election now (in the first round) is too small.”

Recent opinion polls had given da Silva a commanding lead — the last Datafolha survey published Saturday found a 50% to 36% advantage for da Silva among those who intended to vote. It interviewed 12,800 people, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.

The election wound up being far tighter than anticipated, both in the presidential contest and those for governorships and congressional seats.

“The far-right has shown great resilience in the presidential and in the state races,” said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in Sao Paulo.

“It is too soon to go too deep, but this election shows Bolsonaro’s victory in 2018 was not a hiccup,” he added.

Bolsonaro outperformed in Brazil’s southeast region, which includes populous Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Minas Gerais states, according to Rafael Cortez, who oversees political risk at consultancy Tendencias Consultoria.

“The polls didn’t capture that growth,” Cortez said.

Bolsonaro’s administration has been marked by incendiary speech, his testing of democratic institutions, his widely criticized handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the worst deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in 15 years.

But he has built a devoted base by defending conservative values, rebuffing political correctness and presenting himself as protecting the nation from leftist policies that he says infringe on personal liberties and produce economic turmoil.

While voting earlier Sunday, Marley Melo, a 53-year-old trader in capital Brasilia, sported the yellow of the Brazilian flag, which Bolsonaro and his supporters have coopted for demonstrations. Melo said he is once again voting for Bolsonaro, who met his expectations, and he doesn’t believe the surveys that show him trailing.

“Polls can be manipulated. They all belong to companies with interests,” he said.

A slow economic recovery has yet to reach the poor, with 33 million Brazilians going hungry despite higher welfare payments. Like several of its Latin American neighbors coping with high inflation and a vast number of people excluded from formal employment, Brazil is considering a shift to the political left.

Bolsonaro has repeatedly questioned the reliability not just of opinion polls, but also of Brazil’s electronic voting machines. Analysts fear he has laid the groundwork to reject results.

At one point, Bolsonaro claimed to possess evidence of fraud, but never presented any, even after the electoral authority set a deadline to do so. He said as recently as Sept. 18 that if he doesn’t win in the first round, something must be “abnormal.”

Da Silva, 76, was once a metalworker who rose from poverty to the presidency and is credited with building an extensive social welfare program during his 2003-2010 tenure that helped lift tens of millions into the middle class.

But he is also remembered for his administration’s involvement in vast corruption scandals that entangled politicians and business executives.

Da Silva’s own convictions for corruption and money laundering led to 19 months imprisonment, sidelining him from the 2018 presidential race that polls indicated he had been leading against Bolsonaro. The Supreme Court later annulled da Silva’s convictions on grounds that the judge was biased and colluded with prosecutors.

Social worker Nadja Oliveira, 59, said she voted for da Silva and even attended his rallies, but since 2018 votes for Bolsonaro.

“Unfortunately the Workers’ Party disappointed us. It promised to be different,” she said in Brasilia.

Others, like Marialva Pereira, are more forgiving. She said she would vote for the former president for the first time since 2002.

“I didn’t like the scandals in his first administration, never voted for the Workers’ Party again. Now I will, because I think he was unjustly jailed and because Bolsonaro is such a bad president that it makes everyone else look better,” said Pereira, 47.

Speaking after casting his ballot in Sao Bernardo do Campo, the manufacturing hub in Sao Paulo state where he was a union leader, da Silva recalled that four years ago he was imprisoned and unable to vote.

Bolsonaro grew up in a lower-middle-class family before joining the army. He turned to politics after being forced out of the military for openly pushing to raise servicemen’s pay. During his seven terms as a fringe lawmaker in Congress’ lower house, he regularly expressed nostalgia for the country’s two-decade military dictatorship.

His overtures to the armed forces have raised concern that his possible rejection of election results could be backed by top brass.

On Saturday, Bolsonaro shared social media posts by right-leaning foreign politicians, including former U.S. President Donald Trump, who called on Brazilians to vote for him. Israel’s former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed gratitude for stronger bilateral relations and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán also praised him.

After voting Sunday morning, Bolsonaro told journalists that “clean elections must be respected” and that the first round would be decisive. Asked if he would respect results, he gave a thumbs up and walked away.

Leda Wasem, 68, had no doubt Bolsonaro will not just be reelected. Wearing a jersey of the national soccer squad at a polling place in downtown Curitiba, the real estate agent said an eventual da Silva victory could have only one explanation: fraud.

“I wouldn’t believe it. Where I work, where I go every day, I don’t see a single person who supports Lula,” she said.

———

Savarese reported from Sao Bernardo do Campo. AP writers Daniel Politi and Carla Bridi reported from Curitiba and Brasilia.

TOKYO — Business sentiment among large manufacturers worsened for the third straight quarter, a Bank of Japan survey showed Monday, as the nation grappled with rising costs, the dropping value of the yen and restrictions on economic activity over the coronavirus pandemic.

The headline measure for the “tankan,” measuring sentiment among large manufacturers, was plus 8, down from plus 9 the previous quarter.

The tankan measures corporate sentiment by subtracting the number of companies saying business conditions are negative from those responding they are positive.

Worries are growing about how the Bank of Japan hasn’t gone along with other central banks in tightening interest rates to curb growing inflation. Japan has been trying to fight deflation in recent years and has kept interest rates at near zero.

The nose-diving yen is also a concern, although a cheap yen has in the past been lauded as helping the nation’s big exporters like Toyota Motor Corp., by raising the value of overseas earnings.

The rising costs of imports, including energy as well as food, is hurting Japan, when the U.S. dollar is now trading at nearly 145 yen, when it used to be at 130-yen levels just a few months ago. A year ago, the dollar cost 111 yen.

Sentiment among large nonmanufacturers improved to 14 from 13, according to the latest tankan.

The world’s third-largest economy has struggled for decades to keep growth going. But the stagnation has worsened the last two years because of reduced travel and supply shortages caused by the pandemic.

The war in Ukraine has added to the problems for a resource-poor nation that imports almost all its oil.

The return of individual visa-free travel later this month is certain to work to boost incoming tourists.

The pandemic had squelched overseas tourism, which had sustained economic activity in recent years.

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Yuri Kageyama is on Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama

KIRTLAND, N.M. — The clamor of second graders breaking away from lessons to form lunch lines has gotten quieter in a rural New Mexico community, where families losing coal jobs have been forced to pack up and leave in search of work.

At Judy Nelson Elementary, 1 in 4 students have left in an exodus spurred by decisions made five years ago to shutter a coal-fired power plant and mine that sit just up the road from the school in a largely Navajo community. The plant and mine had provided electricity to millions of people across the southwestern U.S. for nearly a half-century.

The San Juan Generating Station burned its last bit of coal Thursday. The remaining workers will spend the coming weeks draining water from the plant, removing chemicals and preparing to tear down what has long been fixture on the high-desert horizon.

It’s part of the latest wave of coal-burning units to be retired as New Mexico and other states try to fight climate change by requiring more carbon-free sources of electricity. President Joe Biden also has pledged to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.

Just weeks ago, Hawaii’s last coal-fired power plant closed after 30 years, and more retirements are scheduled around the U.S. over the next decade.

Realities of shuttering the San Juan plant are setting in for surrounding communities, including the Navajo Nation, where poverty and joblessness already are exponentially higher than national averages. Hundreds of jobs are evaporating along with tens of millions of dollars in annual tax revenue used to fund schools and a community college.

“A lot of the Native American families have multi-generations living in the home so it doesn’t just affect the husband and wife. It affects their children and their grandchildren,” said Arleen Franklin, who teaches second grade at Judy Nelson. Her husband purchases equipment for a coal mine that feeds another power plant scheduled to close in 2031.

Denise Pierro, a reading teacher at Judy Nelson, said it’s stressful for parents to see a steady income erased. Pierro’s husband, who served as the general manager of the mine for the San Juan plant, is among those forced into early retirement.

“They’ve taken the rug out from underneath our feet,” she said.

Area power plants, mines and associated businesses represent 80% of property tax revenues that fund the Central Consolidated School District, which spans an area the size of Delaware and Rhode Island combined. Almost 93% of the students are Navajo.

It’s rural and remote. Some students ride a school bus for three hours round trip, arriving home well after sunset. Internet service is spotty or nonexistent, and many homes don’t have electricity or indoor plumbing. The poverty rate within the district is four times the national level. The median annual household income is about $20,000, and the unemployment rate hovers around 70%.

New Mexico’s Democratic leaders have celebrated the plant’s closure while touting a landmark 2019 law that pushes for a renewable energy economy. Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is running for reelection, has said the law represented a promise to future generations for a cleaner environment and new job opportunities.

Environmentalists have said the closure will reduce air and water pollution in a region that some have described as an industrial sacrifice zone. They argue that power plant emissions and methane from the oilfields have caused health problems for residents.

Joe Ramone, a 69-year-old pipe welder who worked at San Juan, lives in a Navajo community not far from the Four Corners plant. When the wind blows just right, he said his community is hit with ash and coal dust.

Still, he said his priority is making sure Navajos have work.

“I don’t want to see anybody unemployed and I am in no way in favor of these companies being shut down. But there’s room for improvement,” he said, suggesting more investments could have been made.

The loss of the San Juan plant and the mine ripple through every facet of life, from fewer lunch orders at Kirtland’s café to a dwindling ash supply for concrete manufacturers. Meanwhile, prices have skyrocketed for everything from the Navajo staple of mutton to the woven baskets and other materials needed for healing ceremonies.

Public Service Co. of New Mexico, which runs the plant, is providing $11 million in severance packages to help about 200 displaced workers. About 240 mine workers are getting severance payments worth $9 million. Another $3 million went to job training.

A state fund established by the energy law also includes $12 million for affected workers.

Solar and battery storage projects are meant to eventually replace the capacity lost with San Juan’s shutdown and provide jobs during construction. But some of those projects have been delayed due to supply chain problems, and others are on hold indefinitely amid historic inflation and other economic constraints.

Fresh off a night shift as an electrician at the mine for the neighboring Four Corners Power Plant, Christine Aspaas, a Central Consolidated School Board member, said even if those “green” jobs existed now, they would be temporary. And to make up for lost property tax revenue, she said, some families will have to pay up to seven times more.

It’s been heartbreaking for so many Navajos to consider leaving home, Aspaas said.

“That’s what others don’t understand,” she said. “There’s culture, there’s traditions, and so it’s not easy.”

Sharon Clahchischilliage, once a teacher and a former New Mexico lawmaker, said people in her Navajo community near Shiprock are angry.

“One of them told me, ‘I don’t know who to be angry at for us having to do this. We don’t have a family anymore,'” she said, referring to bonds broken as Navajos search for jobs elsewhere.

In the final days, the plant’s spinning turbine sent vibrations through layers of concrete and passing work boots. Heat emanated from the boilers below.

In the dim control room, workers monitored screens displaying temperatures, pressure, turbine speeds and pollution control systems. Allen Palmer, 70, spent over half his life working his way up the ranks.

“I hate to see it close,” he said.

Workers knew for years that the plant would be shuttered. It became more real as coal piles shrank each day — until there was nothing left. As the finish line approached, the company served workers green chile cheeseburgers as a morale booster alongside a big projection screen that read: “Thank you to all employees at San Juan for your years of dedicated service!”

The last few dozen employees will be laid off over the coming weeks. Some were ready to retire; in June, there were voluntary layoffs when the first of the last two generating units closed.

“There’s lots of us who have worked 20-plus years and we all know each other and it’s our family,” said plant director Rodney Warner, who will oversee the decommissioning. “It’s who we are.”

December would have marked 10 years at the plant for Steven Sorrow, 32. He and his coworkers know there’s a good chance they will have to uproot and possibly enter other fields. Some will head to Wyoming, Colorado or Utah, where there are other plants and mines.

“It’s going to be an adjustment for sure,” he said. “I feel like I’ve tried to prepare over the five years when they told us what we had left. Hopefully I’ve prepared well enough.”

Aspaas said officials need to find ways to keep the workforce in New Mexico. She said the foundation of economic development is education but without economic development, education suffers.

“This whole transition, everything that’s happening, the closures, that’s what is threatening our ability to keep funding education,” she said. “When you go down to what it impacts, it is the education of our people, of the Navajo people, our students.”

PARIS — Valentino’s Paris fashion show on Sunday saw black cars snared for blocks dropping off battalions of celebrities who, amid the commotion, just couldn’t find the entrance.

Seated VIP guests were sweatily crammed in together inside the Le Marais’ Carreau du Temple venue, waiting as the show started an hour late. Outside, screaming members of the public braved the rain for hours just for a glimpse of their favorite stars.

Fever pitch like this at Paris ready-to-wear fashion shows is reminiscent of the French capital’s pre-pandemic fashion scene — and one more visible sign the industry is buoyant again after the devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

Here are some highlights of Sunday’s spring-summer 2023 collections in Paris:

VALENTINO’S REVEAL

“Cuts and transparencies reveal the persona,” the brand said of designer Pierpaolo Piccioli’s glitzy spring collection that mixed gimmicks with moments of thoughtful fashion skill.

Models with faces and necks completely covered in disturbing interlocking “V” make-up began the show, introducing the theme of the reveal.

The exploration of inside-out or back-to-front continued in a beautiful nude skin-like top with matching nude pants speckled sparingly with diaphanous plumes on model Anna Cleveland.

A coat had ostrich feathers peaking out from inside through the hems. The sides of some dresses were scooped out, while a dazzling purple sequined floor-length gown revealed the model’s flesh only at the back.

Yet at times it felt as if the lauded Italian designer may have tried to fit too much in. By outfit number 91, it also felt exhausting — with fashion insiders fidgeting for the show to wrap up.

The Valentino finale was the true reveal of the show, which was livestreamed: The models did not even walk past seated guests as usual, but straight outside to the cheering general public, making some inside feel superfluous.

RAIN ON GIVENCHY’S PARADE

Rain would normally be a good thing in the green thickets of the Jardin des Plantes, the gardens in central Paris.

For Givenchy’s outside runway, it was another story.

VIP guests including Olivia Rodrigo survived torrential downpours only thanks to helpers clutching transparent umbrellas. But the show had to go on. For Matthew M. Williams, a designer who has garnered lukewarm reviews of late, this collection was a little like crunch time.

For spring, the U.S. designer moved his street aesthetic in a dressier direction — likely trying to bring him to the safer ground of the age-old house’s traditional aesthetic. He had some success.

An oversized tweed black bolero cut a creatively surreal silhouette atop a pencil-thin mini dress, twinned with Matrix-style shades. Elsewhere, features such as ruching on a silken top, or draping on a fluid skirt, resembled thick organic sinews or ribs.

This felt like a good, gently transgressive direction for the house immortalized by Audrey Hepburn’s LBD.

However, many of Williams’ design elements still felt out of place on the haute Paris runway, such as 90s lowslung cargo shorts that seemed off-kilter. Furthermore, they clashed with the black silken ruffled cuffs that dangled down.

THE ART OF THE INVITATION

The art of the chic invite is still very much a staple of the Paris luxury industry.

The little works of art sometimes provide a hint as to what the collection has in store; other times, they are just plain wacky.

Balenciaga’s spring invite was — unfathomably — a real used leather wallet containing real French franc notes, a health security card, a photo of a pet cat, and credit cards as well as other things spilling out. Countless videos appeared on social media of surprised guests opening their “invite.”

One fashion inside exclaimed: “But how do you know how to get to the show?”

Valentino’s invitation was a smooth black cube that opened to have nothing inside but a QR code. Chanel’s was a card of Kristen Stewart’s face that was so big it could not fit into letter boxes.

BARBARA BUI IS SMART

Low-key French designer Barbara Bui is a good example of how the pandemic affected the fashion industry — for better and for worse.

Many houses went digital during the lockdowns, opting to show a fashion film instead of staging a show, which was for many months prohibited. In this spring Paris season — like in Milan’s — the industry seems to be very much back to pre-pandemic runways, yet Bui’s was one of a spattering of collections that continued with the fashion film format.

It’s a smart move: Smaller houses like Bui’s have benefited from the new flexibility as runway collections are clearly much more expensive to produce.

The collection’s spring video featured a couple of lovers in a French country house seeking each other out and seemingly wearing each other’s clothes — a good theme for a co-ed fashion show.

The film’s use of light sat well with the fluidity of a loose white tuxedo suit on a bare chest, or a giant multicolored foulard thrown nonchalantly over the male model’s naked shoulder. A cobalt blue one-shoulder piece was set off by the male model’s long bright red and androgynous nail polish.

AUSTIN, Texas — Tesla’s sales rose 35% in the July-September period compared to the second quarter as the company’s huge factory in China got past supply chain issues and pandemic restrictions.

The electric vehicle and solar panel company said Sunday it sold 343,830 cars and SUVs in the third quarter compared with 254,695 deliveries made from April through June.

But the delivery numbers still fell far short of Wall Street estimates. Analysts polled by data provider FactSet expected sales of 371,000 vehicles.

Tesla said it’s becoming more challenging to find transportation capacity at a reasonable cost when it needs to move vehicles from its factories to its customers. Tesla said it had higher than usual numbers of vehicles in transit at the end of the quarter that will count as sales once they’re delivered to customers.

Tesla said it produced 365,923 vehicles in the July-September period.

So far this year, the company has delivered 908,573 vehicles, but it will need a strong finish to the year to hit its predictions of 50% annual sales growth for the next few years.

Last year, the Austin, Texas, company delivered 936,172 vehicles. A 50% increase would be just over 1.4 million for this year.

The third-quarter sales are a good indication of how the company’s earnings will go when it releases them after the market closes on Oct. 19.

The rest of the auto industry reports September and third-quarter sales on Monday in a tough environment. Automakers, including Tesla, have reported difficulty getting computer chips and other parts needed to make vehicles. As a result, some factories are running way under capacity, and supplies of vehicles are low and prices are high.

As the pandemic erupted in the U.S. in 2020, automakers had to shut factories for eight weeks to help stop the virus from spreading. Some parts companies canceled orders for semiconductors. At the same time, demand for laptops, tablets and gaming consoles skyrocketed as people stuck at home upgraded their devices.

By the time auto production resumed, chip makers had shifted production to consumer goods, creating a shortage of weather-resistant automotive-grade chips. Although Tesla has fared better than other automakers, the industry still can’t get enough chips.