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All eyes are on Harvey, the tropical storm that strengthened into a hurricane on Thursday and is bearing down on the Texas coast. Forecasters predict it will make landfall on Friday night or early Saturday morning local time as the first major hurricane to hit the U.S. in over a decade, with warnings of “life-threatening” storm surges and historic levels of rainfall. Harvey has alreadydisrupted oil operations along the Gulf Coast, which accounts for nearly half the country’s refining capacity.—Katie Robertson

 

reaching the limit

Ratings companies expect Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will resort to prioritizing U.S. debt payments if Congress fails to raise his borrowing authority in time. Yet the firms are in stark disagreement over what that would mean for the nation’s credit. Meanwhile, President Trump has blamed the debt ceiling “mess” on GOP leaders Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan.

 
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Amazon to cut prices at Whole Foods. Amazon is wasting no time bringing its reputation for undercutting competitors to its new grocery business. The company said it will begin slashing prices on a range of Whole Foods groceries on Monday—the same day the $13.7 billion deal is set to close.

 

Narwhals are helping NASA understand melting ice and rising seas. Never send a satellite to do a whale’s job. Scientists are using narwhals, the whales with 9 foot long unicorn-like tusks, to map out the bottom of Greenland’s melting glaciers. A five-year, $10 million study aims to determine how quickly the country’s ice will disappear—and by how much global sea levels will rise.

 

General John Kelly commands the White House, but he can’t control Trump. Trump’s appointment of the new chief of staff hasn’t been the political lifeline Republican allies had hoped for. Kelly has so far been unable to perform one of the role’s most basic duties: stopping a president from following his worst instincts.

 

Western monuments will change under a proposal to Trump. The Interior Department will recommend scaling back but not overturning some controversial national monument designations, an initial step toward fulfilling the president’s vow to stop a “massive federal land grab” by his predecessors that put oil, timber and mineral riches out of reach.

 

Victoria’s Secret is bucking the bra trend. The legacy lingerie house is done with the bralette craze. CEO Jan Singer has outlined her plan to reinvigorate the brand, pledging to return to its bawdier roots and double down on the sexy push-up bras that made it big in the first place.

 
 
 

your next vacation

Some of the world’s most popular destinations are not OK with hordes. Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Dubrovnik have all taken steps to curb tourism, seeing it as a burden on locals rather than a bastion of economic opportunity. Try these alternative destinations for a comparable (but less crowded) trip.

 
 

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