What's on Your Mind?

Russia has attempted to fully block WhatsApp in the country, the company said, the latest move in an ongoing government effort to tighten control over the internet. A WhatsApp spokesperson said late Wednesday that the Russian authorities’ action was intended to “drive users to a state-owned surveillance app,” a reference to Russia’s own state-supported MAX messaging app that’s seen by critics as a surveillance tool. “Trying to isolate over 100 million people from private and secure communication is a backwards step and can only lead to less safety for people in Russia,” the WhatsApp spokesperson said. “We continue to do everything we can to keep people connected.” Russ…

Daniel Kokotajlo predicted the end of the world would happen in April 2027. In “AI 2027” — a document outlining the impending impacts of AI, published in April 2025 — the former OpenAI employee and several peers announced that by April 2027, unchecked AI development would lead to superintelligence and consequently destroy humanity. The authors, however are going back on their predictions. Now, Kokotajlo forecasts superintelligence will land in 2034, but he doesn’t know if and when AI will destroy humanity. In “AI 2027,” Kokotajlo argued that superintelligence will emerge through “fully autonomous coding,” enabling AI systems to drive their own development. The r…

Think about how many emails you receive each day. Then how many of those include the phrase “please find attached” in the body. One X user has made a plea to retire the phrase, a relic leftover from a time when business communication relied on typewritten letters posted in envelopes, which actually included attached documents to be found. The post quickly went viral, gaining nearly 15 million views since it was posted earlier this week. While the user doesn’t elaborate why exactly they personally take issue with the phrase, or what to say instead, the post had the desired effect, with many weighing in with their own takes on modern email etiquette. Some agr…

Adam Mosseri, the head of Meta’s Instagram, testified Wednesday during a landmark social media trial in Los Angeles that he disagrees with the idea that people can be clinically addicted to social media platforms. The question of addiction is a key pillar of the case, where plaintiffs seek to hold social media companies responsible for harms to children who use their platforms. Meta Platforms and Google’s YouTube are the two remaining defendants in the case, which TikTok and Snap have settled. At the core of the Los Angeles case is a 20-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose lawsuit could determine how thousands of similar lawsuits against social media co…

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell sharply in January as higher home prices and possibly harsh winter weather kept many prospective homebuyers on the sidelines despite easing mortgage rates. Existing home sales sank 8.4% last month from December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.91 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Thursday. That’s the biggest monthly decline in nearly four years and the slowest annualized sales pace in more than two years. Sales fell 4.4% compared with January last year. The latest sales figure fell short of the 4.105 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet. “The decrease in sales …

In late 2025, Interpol coordinated a global operation across 134 nations, seizing roughly 30,000 live animals, confiscating illegal plant and timber products, and identifying about 1,100 suspected wildlife traffickers for national police to investigate. Wildlife trafficking is one of the most lucrative illicit industries worldwide. It nets between US$7 billion and $23 billion per year, according to the Global Environment Facility, a group of nearly 200 nations as well as businesses and nonprofits that fund environmental improvement and protection projects. People buy and sell a wide range of items, including live animals, plant powders and oils, ivory carvings, an…

Stellantis, the maker of Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, Ram, issued a “do not drive” warning for certain late-model vehicles, telling drivers not to use their vehicles until defective air bags are replaced, according to a notice from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). This stop-drive directive was issued for 225,000 U.S. vehicles from 2003 to 2016 that contain the “defective, deadly” Takata airbag inflators, and is part of a larger, ongoing recall. More than 67 million Takata air bags have been recalled in tens of millions of vehicles across U.S. “Over time, the chemical propellant inside certain Takata inflators can degrade, particularly in hot a…

For most of modern management history, wasting time has been treated as a vice. This sensibility can be traced back to Frederick Taylor’s doctrine of scientific management, which recast work as an engineering problem and workers as components in a machine to be optimized, standardized, and controlled. In reducing human effort to measurable outputs and time-motion efficiencies, Taylorism marked the beginning of the end for seeing people as thinking agents, turning them instead into productivity units not unlike laboratory rats, rewarded or punished according to how efficiently they ran the maze. Since then, we have come a long way. The post-war rise of the knowledge wo…

Single this Valentine’s Day? You’re not alone. New research from The Harris Poll shows that nearly half of Americans (46%) are not in relationships—many of them on purpose. The report, shared exclusively with Fast Company, calls it a “cultural revolution,” where people are using singlehood as a way to prioritize their agency rather than focusing on traditional relationship expectations. Not everyone is staying single, but 80% of Americans say you don’t need marriage to be happy. In fact, singles are more likely than those in relationships to say they live a fulfilling life. More time for friendships—or careers The idea of what makes a fulfilling relationsh…

Leica is perhaps the most storied brand in photography. A portmanteau formed from the name of founder Ernst Leitz and the word “camera”, the first Leica popularized 35mm photography, while the legendary M system standardized the modern rangefinder in 1954 and has a hallowed reputation to this day. Leica’s stewardship of its brand, however, has not always quite lived up to its history. The company historically outsourced most of its point-and-shoot camera design to Panasonic, slapping its iconic red dot on existing compacts and charging an unwarranted markup. Early smartphone collaborations with Huawei and Sharp were similarly surface-level. But for the past few y…

A Massachusetts-based seafood importer and distributor has recalled salmon that was sold across multiple states due to concerns that the product may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, a potentially deadly bacteria. The company, Slade Gorton & Co., says the recall affects one lot of Wellsley Farms Farm-Raised Atlantic Salmon. The two-pound packages of frozen salmon were sold at BJ’s Wholesale Club across seven states. A recall notice was published Thursday, February 12, by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). To date, no illnesses have been reported. Here’s what you need to know. What product is included in the recall? The recall ap…

Somewhere around the turn of the 20th century, archaeologists in Heerlen, Netherlands, came across an odd-looking smooth white stone. They knew the territory was once the Roman settlement of Coriovallum, but had never seen anything like it and had no idea what it was for. For the better part of the next 100 years, it sat in a storage unit at the Thermenmuseum, a mystery taunting researchers. Then, six years ago, archaeologist Walter Crist spotted the stone while wandering the museum. Crist specializes in ancient board games and recognized it as one, though not one he had ever seen before. That sparked his curiosity. Now, with the help of artificial intelligence, he th…

Part of a figure skater’s job is to make their routine look as effortless and graceful as possible, as if they’re floating on ice and soaring into the air through sheer force of will. In reality, they’re often launching themselves multiple feet into the air with what amounts to sand bags on their feet; generating hundreds of pounds of centripetal force through rotations; and landing on a blade that’s just 3/16 of an inch wide. At the 2026 Winter Games in Milan and Cortina, Italy, NBC is using an AI tool developed by a former MIT researcher to help audiences understand just how mind-boggling the feats of today’s Olympic athletes are. Jerry Lu Jerry Lu is a 202…

For investors, DraftKings has been anything but a sure bet. The company reported earnings on Thursday, which showed revenue of nearly $2 billion—an increase of 43% year-over-year—and earnings per share of $0.25. “We closed 2025 on a high note. Fourth quarter revenue increased 43% year-over-year and we achieved records for revenue and Adjusted EBITDA. Our core business is strong as we enter 2026,” said Jason Robins, DraftKings’ Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder, in a statement included with the earnings release. However, despite the strong numbers, DraftKings’ stock was down more than 15% during pre-trading on Friday morning, and is now down almost 30% since t…

Maybe you first bonded over shared workplace frustrations. You gradually started finding each other every lunch break and synchronizing trips to the coffee machine. Eventually they become a confidant for venting about your real life outside of work. They become your work spouse. And if you find yourself strolling the greeting card aisle sometime today, you may even feel compelled to get this person in your life a trinket for celebrating the most romantic day of the year. Turns out, there are options available. “For my work wife on Valentines day,” one option reads from Card Factory. “I’ve finally found someone just as inappropriate as me!” A card to show…

News that the Washington Post had laid off hundreds of workers and scrapped several sections of the storied paper altogether stunned the journalism community last week. The Post cut roughly one-third of its staff, reduced local coverage, and completely destroyed its sports and international departments. The paper is owned by Jeff Bezos. The Amazon founder, who has a staggering net worth of approximately $250 billion, bought the Post for $250 million in 2013. The newspaper has consistently lost more money than it has made since the 2020 election, yet has long been considered a stalwart of American dailies. But last week, The Post’s editor-in-chief Matt Murray told …

Ellie Frazier first started posting content three years ago, sharing day-in-the-life vlogs and content tips for fellow creators. As her following grew, she began noticing other creators posting videos with uncannily similar scripts to her own. The clips felt the same. The editing style, identical. In one example, Frazier stretched in front of a window; another creator stretched in front of a window. Frazier chopped vegetables; the other creator chopped an orange. On its own, that might not seem especially striking. But the voiceover script used by the other creator was also almost verbatim Frazier’s words. “There’s a very stark difference between taking inspir…

Wendy’s is moving ahead with its plans to close hundreds of restaurants, amounting to between 5 and 6% of its total stores in the U.S., according to its fourth quarter earnings report. The report, published on February 13, showed that Wendy’s business in the U.S. is currently lagging behind its international efforts. Total same-store sales fell 10.1% over the quarter, driven by performance in the U.S., where same-stores sales were down 11.3% compared to 2% at international locations. Overall, global systemwide sales were $3.4 billion, a decrease of 8.3% from the previous quarter. According to Wendy’s interim CEO Ken Cook, one way the company is addressing this tr…