In 1965 Hurricane Betsy slammed into New Orleans. Lyndon Johnson made a rare trip to survey the damage caused by “billion-dollar Betsy”. Now such presidential visits to disaster zones are expected. Disaster-prone Louisiana gets $1bn in federal help per crisis. As America’s emergency-assistance programme foots ever more of the bill from ever more disasters, Donald Trump is trying to cut it back. That will have consequences both good and bad. 

Meanwhile, some 200 miles north of New Orleans, Meta is building a cluster of data centres covering an area almost the size of Manhattan. The project is one example of how big tech is planning to feed AI’s voracious appetite for power.