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“Am I required to create three new inherited IRAs so that the firm can divide it equally?”

A Sept. 6 accident in which an Amazon cargo plane overran a runway at Miami International Airport and struck several vehicles before bursting into flames has caused the death of five people and injuries with different degrees of severity to five more.

Rescue teams had to pull out several people from their vehicles as the pilot and co-pilot remained trapped in the plane; it has not currently been confirmed whether the pilot and co-pilot were among those killed in the crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board sent a team of experts to probe the site of the crash and determine the causes, including whether the plane touched down too late to be within the right landing zone. The accident also caused widespread delays and cancelations at Miami International on Sunday night and into Monday, Sept. 7 following a ground stop that was lifted at approximately 5 p.m. on Sept. 6.

American Airlines waives flight change fees amid Miami delays

According to FlightAware tracking data, there were 153 cancelations and 65 delays as of Monday morning. Southwest Airlines and Lufthansa had 100% of their flights taking off on Sept. 7 delayed.

American Airlines, which runs its primary hub to Latin America and The Caribbean from the airport, has waived flight change fees for passengers traveling into or out of Miami up until Sept. 8.

Related: Frontier Airlines to exit entire market by October

Those whose fare class would otherwise not allow for free changes and cancelations are able to change their ticket to another date within one year of purchase or rebook a flight to a number of other airports in Florida including Fort Lauderdale, Fort Myers, Key West or Tampa.

Any changes need to be completed through one’s booking by the end of Sept. 8. While the cancelation fee itself is waived, travelers may have to pay the fare difference if it spikes amid a larger number of others trying to take the same route.

“If your flight is impacted, we’ll reach out via email and app notifications,” the airline writes of its emergency policy.

The crash of an Amazon cargo plane on September 6 led to the death of five people.CHANDAN KHANNA / Getty Images

As flights resume, travelers urged to check flight status online

Throughout Sept. 7, operations at Miami Airport have started to resume as two of the four runways at the airport are now open. Delta Air Lines currently canceled 10% of its flights while Southwest has been at 23% cancelations and 30% delays as of 11 a.m.

As Labor Day weekend is one of the busiest travel periods of the season for the airport, the crash caused significant disruption among travelers who in some cases ended up having to spend the night on airport benches as nearby hotels quickly sold out due to the sudden influx of stranded passengers.

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“Because of aircraft and flight crews not arriving at MIA due to the cancellations yesterday, we will continue to see impacts to operations throughout the day,” Miami International Airport posted to its X account on Monday morning. “Passengers with flights scheduled today should check directly with their airline for flight status updates before heading to the airport.”

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Secrecy is an asset. Like any asset, it can be counterfeited.

Entertainment companies spend years deciding what you see and when, because scarcity turns a product launch into an event.

The tools for protecting scarcity are legal. When unreleased footage escapes, the studio sends copyright notices, platforms pull the clips, and the timeline goes back under company control.

That system works for exactly one reason. The studio owns the frames.

Rockstar Games, the Take-Two Interactive (TTWO) label behind Grand Theft Auto, has run that playbook harder than anyone. Two trailers in nearly three years. No press demos, no hands-on previews, no early code.

Then August arrived. Starting Aug. 18, an account posting as CyberLeek began publishing unreleased gameplay clips and apparent images of the full Leonida map.

Take-Two moved quickly. The publisher filed two DMCA subpoenas in the Southern District of New York on Aug. 20, demanding that Microsoft (MSFT) and Discord identify whoever sits behind the persona, according to Tom’s Hardware.

Those subpoenas are working as designed. And they cannot touch the actual problem.

Most of what is now circulating online under the words “GTA 6 leak” was never Rockstar footage in the first place. It was generated.

Rockstar’s marketing blackout leaves circulating footage fabricated and beyond Take-Two’s copyright claims.GRICHKA BEYSSON-LEANDRI / Getty Images

Take-Two’s takedown power stops where the fakes begin

A copyright notice requires a copyright. Take-Two can strip a stolen clip from a real build off X or Reddit within hours because the company owns that build.

An artificial intelligence (AI) video of a Vice City street that does not exist in Grand Theft Auto VI is not Take-Two property. It is someone else’s fabrication wearing Rockstar’s brand, and the standard legal remedy does not cleanly apply.

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That gap has produced an odd side effect. Whether a clip survives has become the fan community’s most reliable authentication test.

Real leaked footage vanishes fast. Fakes stay up.

Rockstar has said nothing publicly about the leaks. It has not needed to. The takedown filings did the confirming, which is exactly the dynamic that leaves everything still online looking suspiciously legitimate.

The volume is the harder half. A search for leaks now surfaces AI slop about as often as genuine material, Kotaku reported, noting that some of it looks “pretty convincing at a quick glance.”

AI fake leaks are now the cheapest attention trade online

None of this began in August. It has been building since the first trailer landed in December 2023.

A fan account that had spent months posting AI images engineered to resemble leaked screenshots issued a public apology on April 24 after receiving a cease-and-desist letter from Take-Two, according to GTA BOOM.

Related: Take-Two’s real GTA 6 jackpot may not be the game itself

The economics explain the persistence. A convincing fake costs a few cents and a prompt, and it competes for the same attention as footage that took a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars to produce.

Platforms also have little reason to intervene. A fabricated clip infringes no copyright, names no real person and defames nobody, which puts it outside nearly every automated category that actually triggers a removal.

Here is how the past three weeks actually unfolded.

Aug. 18: CyberLeek publishes the first gameplay clips and alleged Leonida map images, according to GameSpot. 

Aug. 19: A malicious gta6_installer.exe sample appears one day later, according to Malwarebytes.

Aug. 20: Take-Two files two DMCA subpoenas seeking device identifiers and login records, according to Tom’s Hardware.

Aug. 25: Leaked footage reaches roughly 17 minutes in total, according to Cyber Magazine.

Aug. 27: Rockstar premieres a 27-minute extended look on Netflix (NFLX), according to Variety. 

Rockstar’s answer was to flood the zone with the real thing. The showcase was “captured entirely from in-game footage on PlayStation 5,” the company said on its Newswire.

What the fake leak wave costs Take-Two shareholders

When I lined the leak timeline up against Take-Two’s own investor filings, the mismatch was hard to miss. The company is running a precision marketing calendar into a channel it no longer controls.

Take-Two posted net bookings of $1.39 billion in the quarter ended June 30, with recurrent consumer spending accounting for 84% of that total, according to its fiscal first-quarter results.

Management reiterated fiscal 2027 net bookings guidance of $8 billion to $8.2 billion, roughly 20% growth, in the same filing.

Nearly all of that growth assumes one game lands on one date at $79.99.

Grand Theft Auto V has sold more than 230 million units worldwide, the company told analysts. That install base is the audience every counterfeit screenshot is competing to reach.

My analysis says the fake-leak flood is not a revenue event. It is a trust event, and trust is what a record pre-order book is priced on.

Every fabricated clip promising a feature that will not ship builds an expectation Rockstar never set. Those expectations arrive as refund requests and one-star reviews in the week the company can least afford them.

There is a second cost, and it lands on readers rather than shareholders. A malicious installer disguised as a GTA 6 build surfaced on Aug. 19, one day after the first genuine material began spreading, according to Malwarebytes.

If you go looking for leaked footage between now and November, the likeliest outcome is not spoilers. It is an infostealer.

Why the noise only gets louder before Nov. 19

Grand Theft Auto VI is scheduled for Nov. 19 on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X and S. Prediction market traders have put the odds of another delay in the low teens, according to Polymarket, though that number moves.

The marketing calendar from here is dense. More screenshots, more previews, a likely review embargo in late October or early November.

Each of those releases hands the fake-leak economy fresh raw material to work from. Official screenshots are exactly what an image model needs to produce a convincing counterfeit of the next one.

That is the trap. Rockstar cannot go quiet, because silence is what let the fakes fill the vacuum in August. It also cannot go loud without feeding them.

The Netflix partnership shows the company knows it. Putting the showcase behind a platform with verified distribution was a way to make one piece of footage unambiguously real.

The practical takeaway is smaller and more useful than the legal fight. Treat anything labeled a leak as fabricated until a takedown notice proves otherwise, and never install a file promising early access.

Take-Two will win the CyberLeek case or it will not. Either way, the counterfeits stay up, because there is nothing to sue. The company spent 13 years controlling a story it will now have to share with anyone holding a prompt window.

Related: As GTA VI pre-orders break records, investors still need one answer

Your wallet and your portfolio kick off this week quivering on the cusp of anticipation for the newest round of inflation data that’s coming in just days.

It could trigger an interest-rate hike by the Federal Reserve next week that will pinch households, investors, and businesses, just as the nation heads into a bitter midterm election driven by affordability pressures.

The Sept. 4 blowout jobs report demonstrates the U.S. labor market is plowing through the economic uncertainty and financial jitters from the Iran War despite higher gas and other energy prices.  

But the persistently high inflation of the last five years is shadowing the Fed, which Chairman Kevin Warsh says is now focused squarely on the other side of its dual mandate: price stability.

And thus squeezes the central bank into deciding whether to hike benchmark interest rates Sept. 15-16 and raise the cost of short-term borrowing on credit cards, student loans and home-equity loans.

Higher interest rates also increase the yield on fixed income and alter how equity markets value future corporate earnings.

The current inflationary environment is challenging the effectiveness of Fed policy, according to Rob Conzo, CEO and Managing Director at The Wealth Alliance.

“The Fed must determine whether higher energy prices will remain isolated or spread through the broader economy,’’ Conzo told TheStreet in an email. “Tightening policy too aggressively could weaken growth and employment. Moving too cautiously risks inflation expectations to become embedded.” 

Fed interest-rate hike risk tied to new inflation data

Fed officials are divided over how the central bank should act in the short term but agree that new evidence of sticky price pressures could shift the Federal Open Market Committee into a rate hike next week.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release August data for the Producer Price Index on Sept. 10 and the Consumer Price Index on Sept. 11.

Cool PPI and CPI headlines could keep the Federal Funds Rate on hold at 3.50%-3.75%.

The fact that the August jobs figures show strong wage growth is missing from the economy suggests today’s inflation is not primarily a labor story, Conzo said. 

Plus inflation driven by supply-side forces “cannot be directly controlled by Fed monetary policy,’’ he added.

“Therefore, policymakers may have to tolerate some inflation volatility while focusing on preventing second-round effects from taking hold,’’ such as wage catch-up demands and business pass-through costs, Conzo said.

The typical broad-based pay increases that occur in the usual wage-price spiral have not taken hold, Conzo said.

“In many cases, wages have reacted to higher prices rather than driving the higher prices,’’ Conzo said. 

Warsh’s Fed is divided on interest-rate hike risk

Warsh displayed a noticeable hawkish shift during an Aug. 28 speech in which he pledged the central bank would work to tame elevated inflation: “We have work to do.” 

That commitment reset market expectations in the CME Group FedWatch Tool for a 25 basis-point hike probability to nearly 60% this month.

But Fed officials are divided on the interest-rate hike path.

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said on Sept. 3 that he is tilting toward holding rates steady next week if the new inflation data shows price pressures are continuing to moderate.

“If there is continued progress toward our 2% goal, then I am willing to support holding the policy rate at its current level,” Waller said.

But he added that the upcoming August CPI and PPI figures could shift his support to a rate hike this month. 

New York Fed President John Williams called the most recent inflation numbers “encouraging,” adding that they definitely showed that price pressures are slowing.

“If inflation comes in hot, I would consider a rate hike,” he said, adding that the biggest drivers of inflation are still tariffs and higher energy prices from the Iran War. 

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Beth Hammack, one of three FOMC dissenting members to vote for a 25-basis-point hike in July, said in a Sept. 4 LinkedIn post that it’s time for a rate hike to cool inflation.

“Right now, what I’m hearing is that it’s time to act,” Hammack said, adding that both data and anecdotes from her district are telling her that current monetary policy is not sufficient.

Warsh focuses on inflation side of the Fed’s mandate

The Fed’s dual mandate from Congress requires maximum employment and stable prices.

Lower interest rates support hiring but can fuel inflation. This risks fueling further inflation, potentially leading to an inflationary spiral.

Higher rates cool prices but can weaken the job market. This increases the cost of borrowing and further stifles economic activity.

U.S. job growth surged in August and the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1%, topping all estimates and hinting that the labor market has more momentum than previously thought.

August jobs report could lead to interest-rate hike: analyst

Stephen Evans, Chief Investment Officer at Pave Finance, said in an email to TheStreet that the August jobs report also contained signs of inflationary pressure, with average hourly earnings rising alongside average workweek hours.

“This may point to tighter labor supply and, if employers are struggling to find suitable workers, they may have to pay more and ask existing staff to work longer hours. Wage inflation can be particularly persistent because higher pay is difficult to reverse once given,’’ Evans said.

Related: Investors drop two-word verdict on Warsh’s Fed rate shift

The Phillips curve trade-off between low unemployment and inflation holds true here, he said.

“At around 4% unemployment, we may be approaching the point where a tight labor market starts to generate more persistent wage and price pressures,’’ he said. “This, in turn, could make it harder for the Fed to cut rates, and even lead to rate hikes if the trend progresses.”

How Fed monetary policy affects you

As I reported, the rate-setting FOMC voted 9-3 last month to hold its benchmark Federal Funds Rate target in a range of 3.5% to 3.75%. The three dissenters wanted to raise rates by 25 basis points because of inflation concerns.

Policymakers had cut rates by 25 basis points at its last three meetings of 2025 to shore up the softening labor market. 

These “insurance” cuts stopped after the majority of policymakers decided the risk from higher prices was outweighing signs that the jobs market was stabilizing.

The funds rate is the interest rate at which banks lend balances at the Federal Reserve to other banks overnight. 

A change in the funds rate triggers moves in short-term borrowing costs ranging from credit cards to student loans and home equity loans. 

Related: Veteran analyst predicts Fed rate hike after Warsh’s hawkish shift

When you run a service business, it takes qualified workers to operate.

That’s something workers themselves notice.

“When asked to identify the greatest barrier to delivering exceptional products and services to customers, employees most often cited staffing shortages. More than one-third (37%) named staffing as the top obstacle, far exceeding training (16%), tools or equipment (9%), and unclear standards (8%),” according to a 2025 Gallup poll.

In some service-based areas, like salons, there simply aren’t enough trained workers to meet the industry’s needs.

“In addition, due to challenges facing the for-profit education industry, cosmetology schools have experienced declines in enrollment, revenues, and profitability in recent years,” Regis shared in its 2026 annual report

That comes at a time when the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) sees demand growing.

“Overall employment of barbers, hairstylists, and cosmetologists is projected to grow 5% from 2024 to 2034, faster than the average for all occupations,” the agency reported.

It’s a problem that has contributed to years of struggles for Regis, which has been steadily closing unprofitable salons.

Regis has been shrinking

CFO Kersten Zupfer talked about Regis’ results during the chain’s fourth-quarter earnings call. The company, she noted, has made progress in its turnaround efforts.

“We generated $32.8 million of adjusted EBITDA, an increase of $1.2 million compared to fiscal year 2025, and $13.5 million of unrestricted cash from operations, up from $5.4 million in the prior year,” she shared.

That profit growth happened as the company continues to shrink.

“We ended fiscal 2026 with 207 closures, offset by 8 openings for a net decline of 199 salons. The locations that exited the system were predominantly lower volume salons, resulting in a smaller impact on royalty revenue than the unit count alone would suggest,” she shared.

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The difference between the remaining salons and the closed locations is dramatic.

“The average unit volume of the closed locations was approximately $136,000, roughly $364,000 below the average unit volume of stores in our highest performing quartile,” she added.

Regis owns salons under a number of brand names.Shutterstock

Closing Regis salons may help in the long run

The CFO also believes that the shutdowns create opportunity for the remaining locations.

“While the decline in salon count continues to affect franchise revenue, we believe the remaining salon base is becoming stronger and more productive, which should support improved franchisee economics over time,” Zupfer said.

She also delivered some somber news for fiscal 2027.

“For budgeting purposes, we identify salons at risk of closure based primarily on lease expiration dates and key operating metrics, including average unit volume and rent as a percentage of revenue. Based on the visibility we have today, we do not expect fiscal year 2027 closures to be materially different from fiscal year 2026,” she added.

Regis faces real challenges

Gordon Miller, a salon industry veteran and founder of Chicago-based Social Beauty Makers consultancy, thinks that several factors are working against a Regis turnaround, he told Twin City Business.

The labor shortage is especially challenging for Regis, he says, since its wages tend to be at the low end of the industry spectrum. 

“The question is how much run room is there for Regis to come back from their fall. Great Clips, Sport Clips, and others have absorbed much of what Regis has lost and created significant national brand awareness and client loyalty along the way. It’s difficult to say how much room there will be to build demand, given Regis has been out of sight to many for close to a decade,” he added.

The median hourly wage for barbers was $18.73 while median hourly wage for hairdressers, hairstylists, and cosmetologists was $16.95 in May 2024, according to BLS data.

Regis has been struggling but the company does have a long history.

“In 1922, Paul and Florence Kunin opened Kunin Beauty Salon, which quickly expanded into a chain of value-priced salons located in department stores. Their son Myron bought the chain in 1958 and changed the company name to Regis,” the company shared on its website.

CEO Susan Lintonsmith remains convinced that Regis has the right turnaround plan.

“We finished the year with $224.5 million of revenue, $32.8 million of adjusted EBITDA and more than $13 million in cash from operations, extending our track record to 7 consecutive quarters of positive cash from operations,” she shared during the Q4 earnings call.

The company, she noted, has also returned to growth.

“We delivered positive comparable sales growth in the fourth quarter with consolidated same-store sales up 0.1% and Supercuts up 2.6%. For the full fiscal year, consolidated same-store sales increased by 0.9%, driven largely by Supercuts, which achieved 3% growth, delivering growth for the 5th consecutive year,” she added.

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