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Continuing from the “year of yeehaw,” professional bull riding is having a moment on TikTok. Since the beginning of this year, Professional Bull Riding (PBR)—the largest bull riding league in the world—has gained 650,000 followers across its social media platforms, Mashable recently reported. That’s just 200,000 fewer than they gained throughout all of 2024. Mitch Ladner, PBR’s social media lead, told Mashable’s Christianna Silva that most of this growth comes from followers between the ages of 18 and 35. On PBR’s TikTok, which is nearing 3 million followers, many recent videos tap into viral trends and audio—with a cowboy twist. “Aligning our chakras,” one captio…

WeightWatchers said Tuesday it is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to eliminate $1.15 billion in debt and focus on its transition into a telehealth services provider. Parent WW International Inc. said it has the support of nearly three-quarters of its debt holders. It expects to emerge from bankruptcy within 45 days, if not sooner. WeightWatchers, which was founded more than 60 years ago, has struggled recently. In 2023, the company moved into the prescription drug weight loss business—particularly with the $106 million acquisition of Sequence, now WeightWatchers Clinic, a telehealth service that helps users get prescriptions for drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy an…

What happens when someone comes close to death and then returns to everyday life, including work? For some, the experience can be transformative. Near-death experiences (NDEs) are deeply personal experiences that some people report after a close brush with death. These experiences can include sensations such as floating above one’s body, reviewing moments from one’s life, encountering spiritual beings and feeling a profound sense of unity and love. Although NDEs have been studied since the 1970s, we know relatively little about how they affect people after the event. Research suggests people who have near-death experiences may feel increased empathy, spiritual gro…

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Saturday that he wants to step down as chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year. The revelation came as a surprise because the 94-year-old had previously said he did not plan to retire. Buffett, one of the world’s richest people and most accomplished investors, took control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965 when it was a textiles manufacturer. He turned the company into a conglomerate by finding other businesses and stocks to buy that were selling for less than they were worth. His success made him a Wall Street icon. It also earned him the nickname “Oracle of Omaha,” a reference to the Nebraska city where Buffett…

This weekend, you will need to put on your Sunday clothes—especially a fancy hat—a day early. The 151st Run for the Roses, better known as the 2025 Kentucky Derby, will take off at 6:57 p.m. ET, on Saturday, May 3, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. Twenty three-year-old thoroughbreds have qualified through the “Road to the Kentucky Derby” points system and are ready to leave it all on the track. Here’s what you need to know going into the big race day. Drama on and off the track Trainer Bob Baffert is back after serving a three-year suspension beginning in 2021, which was instituted after the 147th Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit, tested positiv…

Nearly four months after wildfires reduced thousands of Los Angeles-area homes to rubble and ash, some residents are starting to rebuild. In the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, construction workers recently began placing wooden beams to frame a house on a lot where only a charred fireplace remains standing. In the seaside city of Malibu and foothills neighborhood of Altadena, many land parcels where homes once stood are being cleared of debris. Hundreds of homeowners have sought city or county approval for new home designs and other permits to eventually rebuild or repair damaged homes, though few have gotten the green light to break ground. Some 17,000 homes, business…

The 2025 Kentucky Derby is horse racing’s most exclusive starting gate. Twenty horses will post at Churchill Downs on May 3—an elite field, even by exclusivity’s standards. Y Combinator admits less than 3% of startups. Fewer than 1% of those who apply to NASA become astronauts. Google famously hires less than 0.2% of applicants. Yet these standards look almost lax compared to the 0.11% of North American thoroughbreds that make the Kentucky Derby each year, as only 20 of the 17,146 thoroughbred foals eligible earn the honor of participating in the race. Here’s how the fortunate 20 get to Churchill Downs. A sophisticated global qualification system The Kentuc…

On a quiet residential street lined with unassuming homes and white picket fences in Gliwice, Poland, one building is not like the rest. It’s a hulking, bright silver structure that’s covered entirely in pipes. This eye-catching building is the new headquarters for Gambit, a Polish pipe distribution company specializing in underground water systems. Designed by the architecture firm KWK Promes, the headquarters takes Gambit’s building materials aboveground, transforming pipes from a utilitarian necessity into an aesthetic material that encases the building’s entire exterior. The result is a visually striking structure that cleverly merges architecture with product ad…

Quantum computing stocks got pummeled yesterday, with the four most prominent public quantum computing companies—IonQ, Rigetti Computing, Quantum Computing Inc., and D-Wave Quantum Inc.—falling anywhere from over 9% to over 18%. The reason? It has to do with AI chip giant Nvidia. Again. Stocks crash yesterday on Nvidia quantum news Yesterday was a bit of a bloodbath on the stock market for the four most prominent publicly traded quantum computing companies. Here’s a breakdown of how they performed, according to data from Yahoo Finance: IonQ, Inc. (NYSE: IONQ): down 9.27% to $21.14 per share Rigetti Computing, Inc. (Nasdaq RGTI): down 9.24% to $8.99 per shar…

Nokia Bell Labs has a long, storied history—producing Nobel Prize winners, creating innovative new technologies, and bolstering critical infrastructure that underlies most of the devices we all use every day. This week, it held a special event at its Murray Hill, New Jersey campus to celebrate its 100th anniversary, and it featured appearances by politicians like New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy, business leaders, and even a robot named “Porcupine.” The expansive campus houses a number of laboratories where, over the past century, numerous groundbreaking discoveries and inventions have been made or perfected, including cell phones, transistors, and solar cells. Nokia a…

Never underestimate the news media’s ability to amplify the mundane with urgent-sounding headlines. If you follow the twists and turns of the retail industry as closely as we news-watchers do, you may have noticed recently that the simple act of closing for the Easter holiday has been rebranded as a “retail blackout.” If you’ve been at all confused by this oversold terminology, here’s a brief explainer to help break it down: What’s happening? Over the last week or so, a number of news organizations—mostly from outside the United States—have reported on a so-called “retail blackout” that is set to take place on Sunday, April 20, which is Easter Sunday. E…

With more than a decade of experience working as a design and tech analyst, Andrew Hogan is all in on the efficiency and ease that tech brings to our lives. But lately at home with his daughters (ages 4 and 18 months), Hogan is grappling with something unwieldy and undefined: how parents, kids, and technology interact, from smartphones to screen time to AI. “We are so eager to remove friction—avoid it and smooth over the rough spots, especially as parents,” Hogan says. In fall 2024, Hogan began writing a newsletter called Parent.Tech, designed to help him, and other parents, better understand how to navigate the increasingly complex world of tech and consumer pro…

Friday, April 18, 2025, is Good Friday. But when it comes to what places are open and closed on Good Friday, things can be a bit tricky. That’s because Good Friday is not a federal holiday but a religious one. It’s the Friday before Easter, which is always celebrated on a Sunday. Yet Good Friday is also a state holiday in select states. This means that public institutions may be closed in one state but open in another on Good Friday. Here’s what you need to know about what’s open and closed on Good Friday 2025. Is Good Friday a federal holiday? No. Good Friday is not one of the officially recognized federal holidays. Of the 12 federal holidays in 2025, the…