Hilltop Scales The Mountaintop

Hurricane Helene hit Florida as a category 4 storm Thursday night, killing at least 21 people in four states. The storm has caused widespread damage in Florida, and power outages and flooding throughout several states in the south. Helene began as a tropical storm earlier this week, but was upgraded to a category 4 hurricane before it reached the U.

This week, Vice President Kamala Harris explicitly reached out to business leaders with a major economic address in Pittsburgh—and new polling results show growing support for the Harris-Walz ticket among CEOs. As we previously wrote for TIME, polling data from approximately 60 top CEOs in attendance at our Yale CEO Caucus this month reveals that business leaders are increasingly optimistic about the economy. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] But what is even more revealing is what these polling results show about how CEOs are thinking about politics.

Beloved British actor Maggie Smith, who stole hearts in her portrayal of Downton Abbey’s Violet Crawley and Harry Potter’s Professor Minerva McGonagall, died Friday morning at the age of 89. Smith died peacefully at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London on Sept. 27, her sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, confirmed in a statement on Friday.

Instituto Terra was founded by Brazilian photographer Sebastiao Salgado and his wife Lélia Dluiz Wanick. Since 1998, they have planted more than 2.7 million trees in the Brazillian Rio Doce Basin area. Through their work, Instituto Terra has helped to restore more than 550 acres of forest and 2,000 natural springs in the region.

More than half of American states have abolished the death penalty or hit pause on executions. Less than half—47%—of Americans believe the death penalty is administered fairly, a record low. A clear trend line has emerged. Every year, we see fewer new death sentences and fewer executions. So what happened last week?

(LONDON) — Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey” and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Smith’s sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital. “She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs. Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies. She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that “when you get into the granny era, you’re lucky to get anything.” Smith drily summarized her later roles as “a gallery of grotesques,” including Professor McGonagall.