What's on Your Mind?

Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz have been indicted on charges they took bribes from sports bettors to throw certain types of pitches, including tossing balls in the dirt instead of strikes, to ensure successful bets. According to the indictment unsealed Sunday in federal court in Brooklyn, the highly paid hurlers took several thousand dollars in payoffs to help two unnamed gamblers from their native Dominican Republic win at least $460,000 on in-game prop bets on the speed and outcome of certain pitches. Clase, the Guardians’ former closer, and Ortiz, a starter, have been on non-disciplinary paid leave since July, when MLB started investigatin…

When Amazon proposed building its Project Blue data center in Tucson, Arizona, the company faced intense pushback. Residents raised concerns about the enormous amounts of water and electricity that the data center would need, two major ways such projects impact the environment, especially in a desert city. Ultimately, Tucson’s town council rejected the proposal (though its developer hasn’t given up). But the story highlights both the growing environmental impacts of data centers, and how location matters to that impact. A study published this week in the journal Nature Sustainability makes that connection even clearer. Led by researchers at Cornell University, t…

Some of my best ideas come to me when I’m exercising. At least I think they’re some of my best ideas; by the time I actually get a chance to write them down, I’ve often forgotten them. While you could argue that something I was unable to remember for an hour or so can’t be that great, still: we’ve all had things we wanted to remember, but couldn’t. So what can you do if you need to remember something important? Most memory-improvement techniques—like mnemonics, chunking, and building memory palaces—involve a fair amount of effort. But these simple strategies to improve your short-term memory and recall require almost no effort—and very little time. 1. Say…

AI can do a lot of things. It can write your emails. It can make your grocery list. It can even interview you for a job. But now, more and more people are depending on AI for things that require real human qualities: life coaching, therapy, even companionship. Scott Galloway, best-selling author and professor of marketing at New York University’s Stern School of Business, says the real problem with synthetic relationships is what they lack: any kind of struggle or challenge that comes with maintaining real relationships. Leaning on AI In a recent social media post, Galloway calls AI “a rabbit hole” that is “sequestering us from each other”—and while it may…

Emotional intelligence matters, and not just on a personal level. Research shows developing greater emotional intelligence can lead to higher performance and pay, as well as better professional and personal relationships. The better you can understand and manage your emotions, and the emotions of people around you, the greater your chances of success. So how emotionally intelligent are you? You could take an emotional intelligence test. Or you could just see how you answer the following questions. “Do I ask for advice instead of feedback?” Say you’re okay with getting feedback, even when it’s critical. (Plenty of people who claim they do, really don’t.…

As soon as ChatGPT launched, Odyssey Gohain saw the writing on the wall. The now 27-year-old was working as a marketer in Amsterdam at the time, looking to move into a more senior role when the powerful AI tool started replacing individual tasks, then team members—including an older colleague whose career Gohain idolized. “I thought maybe in three, four years, I’ll be in her place. And she got laid off,” says Gohain, who was let go soon after. After moving back home with her parents in 2023, Gohain started an independent marketing business as a solopreneur. Two years later, she is still earning less than at her previous role, but says the transition has offere…

Do you know that the longer a decision-maker views your résumé, the more likely it is that you’ll get an interview? Recent research combined eye-tracking and machine learning to understand résumé decisions better. The most actionable conclusion was that Experience section dwell time predicts interview invitations. That’s next-level information. We’ve had eye-tracking studies for years. They tell us what readers look at, but give no additional meaning. Now, by applying AI, we know which sections of the résumé matter the most for getting interviews. I was a retained search consultant for 25-plus years. For the last 10 years, I’ve been writing executive and board ré…

Is Bitcoin biting the dust? The world’s most popular cryptocurrency (BTC) has seen its value drop significantly from highs earlier this year as it has struggled to shake off a price decline that began in early October. As of Monday morning, the price of one BTC was around $94,000, which is down almost 8% over the past five days and down 14% over the past month. Notably, the token is now roughly flat since the beginning of the year—meaning it’s given back all of the value it gained earlier in 2025, having topped out at slightly more than $124,000 in October. The downturn started in early October, and since then, Bitcoin is down roughly 32%, putting it fi…

Now you can sing along with America’s Founding Fathers as you crush your opponents under oppressive rents and market domination. The Op Games, a publisher of board games and puzzles, is releasing a new version of Monopoly based on the hit Broadway musical Hamilton, marking the latest iteration of the classic economics game that has been a staple of family game nights for many decades. The Op Games plans to announce the new version today, a spokesperson told Fast Company. The game commemorates the 10th anniversary of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s rap-infused retelling of America’s origin story, which made its Broadway debut in the summer of 2015 and went on to win 11 To…

At this fall’s prestigious New York World Spirits Competition, a wheated bourbon that’s widely available for about $30 claimed the title of Best Overall Bourbon. The blind-tasting competition drew a crowded field of bourbons that included bottles that are typically impossible to find—or exorbitantly marked up on shelves. Among more than 100 contenders, including bourbon heavyweights like Blanton’s Gold Edition and W.L. Weller Full Proof, the reasonably priced Green River Wheated Bourbon landed the top title. Green River Wheated is an approachable 90 proof (45 percent ABV) and a blend of four- to six-year-old barrels. The judging panel described it as “a richly t…

To Trina Spear, cofounder and CEO of medical apparel brand Figs, change for the healthcare industry has to start with a focus on healthcare workers. “We believe if you serve the provider, they will be able to better serve the patient,” she says. “And that drives better outcomes. That drives a better healthcare system.” As part of that focus, Figs gave away hundreds of thousands of scrubs, organized healthcare worker retreats, and donated some $510,000 to healthcare nonprofits in 2024 alone. Now it’s expanding that work by launching its own nonprofit, the Awesome Humans Foundation, which will provide financial support, training, and resources to healthcare pro…

Chanel’s new showman, Matthieu Blazy, took his designs on the road Tuesday — or rather, underground, with a buzzy New York runway show staged on an actual subway platform. The designer, just weeks after his splashy Paris debut for Chanel in October, took over a decommissioned part of Manhattan’s Bowery station for his first Métiers d’Art collection. The annual show, which takes place in a different city each year, celebrates the craftsmanship of the artisans that partner with Chanel. In this case, it was two shows—one in the afternoon and one in the evening. And befitting the first Chanel shows in New York since 2018, there were VIPs aplenty: A$AP Rocky, Tilda Swinton, …

The city of San Francisco filed a lawsuit against some of the nation’s top food manufacturers on Tuesday, arguing that ultraprocessed food from the likes of Coca-Cola and Nestle are responsible for a public health crisis. City Attorney David Chiu named 10 companies in the lawsuit, including the makers of such popular foods as Oreo cookies, Sour Patch Kids, Kit Kat, Cheerios and Lunchables. The lawsuit argues that ultraprocessed foods are linked to diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease and cancer. “They took food and made it unrecognizable and harmful to the human body,” Chiu said in a news release. “These companies engineered a public health crisis, they…

Less than five months have passed since American Eagle’s controversial Sydney Sweeney campaign, which led to accusations ranging from cluelessness to Nazi propaganda. While the mall mainstay defended the campaign and has escaped relatively unscathed, a new quarterly earnings report shows the success of its sister-brand Aerie is buoying its financial results. On Tuesday, December 2, apparel retail company American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) shared its third-quarter earnings for fiscal 2025, including $1.36 billion in revenue. The 6% increase year-over-year (YOY) beat Wall Street’s predicted $1.32 billion in revenue, according to consensus estimates cited by CNBC. …

As the ‘fourth wave’ of coffee begins taking shape, companies that are embracing modern—and increasingly, automated—coffee making are working to balance their tech with the craft of brewing. Terra Kaffe is one of them. The company, known for its pricy, hyper-modern automatic espresso machine TK-02—revealed its first brand expansion with the August launch of Demi, a miniature version of its flagship product. Now, it’s launching a slate of accessories to complement its machines and move the brand out of startup mode and help establish itself as a serious competitor in the world of coffee gadgets. The accessories, which will be rolling out into early 2026, inclu…