Highway closed: Interstate 10 near Michoud Boulevard and Irish Bayou was closed in both directions for several hours this morning due to multiple crashes as fog and smoke from nearby marsh fires have combined, creating “superfog” conditions that limit visibility on the road. The New Orleans Police Department says one man died in the crash and eight others were injured. WAFB-TV has the latest.
Tech startups: IBM is dedicating $500 million to invest in generative AI startups focused on business customers. The company plans to invest in startups across stages, with no set target number of annual investments or capital deployment timeline, and it is particularly interested in startups focused on tools for specific verticals (like health care) or on a specific business process. Read the full story from Axios.
Sales up: Americans who have been priced out of the tight residential real estate market are turning to prefabricated homes, helping to power a nascent recovery in sales of a far less expensive home-buying option, Reuters reports. Shipments of manufactured homes were up for five months in a row through August, the most recent month for which data is available, according to the Census Bureau. They have risen by 7% to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 89,000 from 83,000 in March, the lowest since May 2020. Read the full story from Reuters.
