Lululemon has filed a lawsuit against Costco that accuses the wholesale club operator of selling lower-priced duplicates of some of its popular athleisure clothing.
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Lululemon Athletica claims in its lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California that Costco has “unlawfully traded” on its reputation, goodwill and sweat equity by selling unauthorized and unlicensed apparel that uses knockoff, infringing versions of its patents.
Lululemon alleges that Costco is known to use manufacturers of popular branded products for its private label Kirkland brand, but that the company and the manufacturers don’t tell consumers of the connection between them for many of the Kirkland-branded products. Because of this, Lululemon claims this leads at least some shoppers to believe that Kirkland-branded products are made by the authentic supplier of the “original” products. Lululemon claims Costco doesn’t try to dispel the ambiguity.
“As an innovation-led company that invests significantly in the research, development, and design of our products, we take the responsibility of protecting and enforcing our intellectual property rights very seriously and pursue the appropriate legal action when necessary,” a Lululemon company spokesperson said in a statement.
Some of the products Lululemon says Costco is making duplicates of include its popular Scuba hoodies, Define jackets, and ABC pants.
Lululemon claims one of the duplicates that Costco sells is the Hi-Tec Men’s Scuba Full Zip, with the lawsuit showing a screenshot image of Costco’s website showing the item priced at $19.97. Lululemon sells several men’s jackets that cost more than $100 each.
Costco, based in Issaquah, Washington, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
Lululemon is requesting a jury trial and wants Costco to stop selling the products that it considers to be duplicates. It is also seeking an unspecified amount in monetary damages.
Lulemon was in a similar legal dispute with Peloton in 2021. Two years later the companies announced a five-year partnership that included Lululemon becoming the primary athletic apparel partner to Peloton.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. job openings rose unexpectedly in May, a sign that the American labor market remains resilien t in the face of high borrowing costs and uncertainty over U.S. economic policy.
U.S. employers posted 7.8 million vacancies in May, The Labor Department reported Tuesday, up from 7.4 million in April. Economists had expected a slight decrease to 7.3 million.
The number of Americans quitting their job — a sign of confidence in their prospects — rose modestly, and layoffs fell.
Openings are high by historical standards but have come down sharply since peaking at a record 12.1 million in March 2022.
The U.S. job market has steadily decelerated from hiring boom of 2021-2023 when the economy bounced back from COVID-19 lockdowns. The unexpectedly strong post-pandemic recovery ignited inflation, prompting the Federal Reserve to raise its benchmark interest rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023.
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The higher borrowing costs have gradually cooled the labor market, and President Donald Trump’s policy of taxing imports at high rates has added uncertainty to the hiring outlook.
The Labor Department is expected to report Thursday that the U.S. economy generated 117,000 jobs last month, according to a survey of forecasters by the data firm FactSet. That would be down from 139,000 in May, from an average 168,000 a month in 2024 and a from a monthly average of 400,000 from 2021 through 2023. The unemployment rate is forecast to tick up to a still-low 4.3% from 4.2% in May.
OCHOPEE, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump will turn a new immigration detention center in a remote area of the Florida Everglades into a symbol of his border crackdown when he visits on Tuesday.
The facility, assembled on a remote airstrip with tents and trailers that are normally used after a natural disaster, has been given the nickname “Alligator Alcatraz,” a moniker that has alarmed immigrant activists but appeals to the Republican president’s aggressive approach to deportations.
“This is not a nice business,” Trump said while leaving the White House in the morning. Then he joked that “we’re going to teach them how to run away from an alligator if they escape prison.”
“Don’t run in a straight line. Run like this,” he said, as he moved his hand in a zigzag motion. “And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%.”
This satellite photo captured by Planet Labs PBC on June 25, 2025, shows white structures cropping up on an airstrip in Ochopee, Fla., in the Everglades, where state officials are building an immigration detention facility. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
Environmental advocates and protesters at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport on Tamiami Trail E, Ochopee, Fla., on Saturday, June 28, 2025, object to the “Alligator Alcatraz” being built at the facility. (Mike Stocker /South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)
President Donald Trump speaks to the media before walking across the South Lawn of the White House to board Marine One en route to Joint Base Andrews, Md., and on to Florida, Tuesday, July 1, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
President Donald Trump waves as he boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews, Md., Tuesday, July 1, 2025, for a trip to visit a new migrant detention center in Ochopee, Fla. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
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This satellite photo captured by Planet Labs PBC on June 25, 2025, shows white structures cropping up on an airstrip in Ochopee, Fla., in the Everglades, where state officials are building an immigration detention facility. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
Ahead of Trump’s arrival, local authorities were positioned by the entrance of the airstrip. Media vans and other vehicles were parked along the highway lined by cypress trees.
Protestors have often gathered near the facility, which is about 50 miles (80.47 kilometers) west of Miami and could house 5,000 detainees. They’ve criticized the potential impact on a delicate ecosystem and say Trump is trying to send a cruel message to immigrants — while some Native American leaders have also opposed construction, saying the land is sacred.
But a key selling point for the Trump administration is the site’s remoteness — and the fact that it is in swampland filled with mosquitoes, pythons and alligators. The White House hopes that conveys a message to detainees and the rest of the world that repercussions will be severe if the immigration laws of the United States are not followed.
“There’s only one road leading in, and the only way out is a one-way flight,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday. “It is isolated, and it is surrounded by dangerous wildlife and unforgiving terrain.”
Crackdowns on the U.S.-Mexico border and harsh immigration policies have long been a centerpiece of Trump’s political brand.
During his first term in 2019, Trump denied reports that he floated the idea of building a moat filled with alligators at the southern border. “I may be tough on Border Security, but not that tough,” he said at the time.
In his second term, Trump has suggested that his administration could move to reopen Alcatraz, the notorious and hard-to-reach island prison off San Francisco. The White House has similarly promoted the political shock value of sending some immigrants awaiting deportation from the U.S. to a detention lockup in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and others to a megaprison in El Salvador.
Some of the ideas have been impractical. For example, transforming Alcatraz from a tourist attraction into a prison would be very costly, and Guantánamo Bay is being used less often than administration officials originally envisioned.
However, the new detention center in the Everglades came together very quickly. Former U.S. Rep. David Jolly of Florida, a former Republican who is now running for governor as a Democrat, called the facility a “callous political stunt.”
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees are generally held for reasons like entering the country illegally or overstaying a visa. They are either waiting for ICE to put them on the next flight or bus ride home, or they’re fighting their removal in immigration court.
If an immigrant is accused of or has committed a violent crime, he or she is tried and held in state or federal criminal jurisdiction, separate from the immigration system. In those cases, they may be transferred to ICE for deportation after completing their criminal sentences.
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State officials are spearheading construction of the Florida facility, but much of the cost is being covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is best known for responding to hurricanes and other natural disasters.
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, whom Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has credited as the architect of the Everglades plan, first debuted the proposal with a slickly produced video, complete with custom graphics featuring red-eyed alligators and a hard rock soundtrack.
The Department of Homeland Security posted an image of alligators wearing ICE hats and sitting in front of a fenced-in compound ringed with barbed wire.
The Florida Republican Party has fundraised off the facility, selling branded T-shirts and beverage container sleeves. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suggested Monday that the facility would be open and “ready for business” by the time Trump arrives.
The governor, who challenged Trump for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has also played up the fact that the site will be hard to escape from.
“They ain’t going anywhere once they’re there, unless you want them to go somewhere, because good luck getting to civilization,” DeSantis said. “So the security is amazing.”
Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Kate Payne in Tallahassee, Florida, Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Chris Megerian in Washington contributed to this report.
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are drifting on Tuesday as Wall Street’s momentum slows after setting record highs in each of the last two days.
The S&P 500 was 0.3% lower in early trading and on track for its first loss in four days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was edging down by 21 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% lower.
Tesla helped pull the market lower as the relationship between its CEO, Elon Musk, and President Donald Trump soured even further. Once allies, the two have clashed recently, and Trump suggested there’s potentially “BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED” by scrutinizing subsidies, contracts or other government spending going to Musk’s companies.
Tesla fell 6.9% and was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500. It had already dropped a little more than 21% for the year so far coming into the day, in part because of Musk’s and Trump’s feud.
Many of Trump’s stiff proposed taxes on imports are currently on pause, but they’re scheduled to kick into effect in about a week. Depending on how big they are, they could hurt the economy and worsen inflation.
Congress is also debating proposed cuts to tax rates and other measures that could send the U.S. government’s debt spiraling higher, which could push inflation upward. That in turn could mean higher interest rates, which would hurt prices for bonds, stocks and other investments.
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Despite such challenges, strategists at Barclays nevertheless say they’re seeing signals of euphoria emerging among amateur and smaller-pocketed investors. The strategists say a measure that tries to show how much “excess optimism” is in the market is not far from the peaks seen during the “meme stock” craze that sent GameStop to market-bending heights or to the dot-com bubble at the turn of the millennium.
Other signals are also indicating exuberance in the market, such as demand for what are known as “blank-check companies” that hunt for privately held companies to buy.
Of course, “market bubbles are infamously difficult to predict and can endure far longer than anticipated before correcting,” according to the Barclays strategists led by Stefano Pascale and Anshul Gupta.
In the bond market, Treasury yields held relatively steady ahead of a suite of economic reports coming later this week.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury edged down to 4.23% from 4.24%.
In stock markets abroad, indexes fell modestly in Europe following more mixed sessions in Asia.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.2%, and South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.6% for two of the larger moves.
AP Writers Teresa Cerojano and Matt Ott contributed.
