ResidentialBusiness

Like the first few months of the year, April is a relatively quiet month for sky watching, but it does bring one of the oldest meteor showers and a micromoon. April 13: Pink MoonApril's full moon is known as the Pink Moon, so named for the color of ground phlox, a wildflower that blooms during the month—though the moon itself doesn't actually appear pink in the sky. The Pink Moon is also a micromoon, meaning it occurs at that furthest point from Earth. The opposite of a supermoon, it will look about 5% smaller in diameter than usual. April 21: Lyrid meteor shower peakThe main event in April is the Lyrid meteor shower. It starts mid-month (around April 17) and will peak late on the evening of April 21 and into the early morning hours of April 22. The Lyrids are the result of debris from the Comet Thatcher, which was first observed in 1861. Typically, viewers can expect to see around 18 meteors per hour, though the shower can bring up to 100, according to NASA. This year, the moon will be about 40% full, which may interfere with visibility. The Lyrids are best seen in the Northern Hemisphere after the moon sets but before dawn—and as always, areas with minimal light pollution are best for viewing. Planetary events in AprilMars, Jupiter, and Uranus will be visible in the evening sky in April; Saturn, Mercury, Venus, and Neptune will appear in the morning. The timing and placement varies slightly between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. The best Mercury viewing of the year will be possible on April 21, according to Starwalk, especially for those in the Southern hemisphere. And on April 25, the crescent moon will align with Venus and Saturn just before sunrise to create a triangle that looks like a smile. View the full article

The Republicans have allowed a destructive economic nationalist to lead America into chaos View the full article

iPhone maker one of Wall Street’s biggest casualties despite Tim Cook’s efforts to court US presidentView the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Welcome to “Cookbook of the Week.” This is a series where I highlight cookbooks that are unique, easy to use, or just special to me. While finding a particular recipe online serves a quick purpose, flipping through a truly excellent cookbook has a magic all its own. Every time I see a newly budding tree or a daffodil leaping out of a scruffy patch of grass, it brings me a fresh moment of cheer. Spring is coming to New York. That means sun and spring fashion, but mostly I’m excited for the variety of veggies that’ll be available. I’m choosing to celebrate Spring’s approach with an appropriately veggie-forward Cookbook of the Week: Yassou. About the bookYassou is a Mediterranean cookbook, specifically focusing on Greek dishes, written by Shaily Lipa. This cookbook is brand new; just published in March. Lipa gives the reader a teeny history lesson on how Greek cuisine developed and other cultures that influenced it, and then quickly jumps into recipes. Woven with beautiful photography, you’ll get lost flipping through sections like Mezes and Starters, Stuffed Vegetables, and (my favorite section) Patties and Savory Pastries. This cookbook has classic recipes you’ve probably tried at restaurants, like moussaka or stuffed grape leaves, and new ones you’ve never heard of but are incredibly tempting, like kolokithokeftedes (fried zucchini and feta balls). I don’t usually enjoy historical interludes in cookbooks (I’m very recipe focused) but Lipa includes brief informational sections that focus on specific ingredients that are indispensable to Greek cooking, like The Cheeses of Greece, and The Path of the Olive. These sections give welcome insight into the culture, and whets your palate for the recipes to come. A great cookbook for veggie enthusiasts who don't mind branching outYou like vegetables. You’re interested in eating them often. However, you still like to have fun. (You know what I mean—raw kale salad isn’t fun. I’ll eat it, but “fun” is not an emotion I experience when eating it.) Melitzanosalata, aka Eggplant Spread, drizzled with olive oil and served with pita bread is fun! If you want a cookbook with lots of delicious, vegetable-centric options but you don’t want to feel like you live off of salad alone, Yassou is for you. Sure, it’s a Mediterranean diet, but there is no fear of bread, sugar, oil, or pastry. There are fresh salads for sure, but they’re not the only venue for vegetables. There are numerous styles of cooking with produce, putting them in the background, foreground, and slightly off-stage. Zucchinis are shredded and shaped into fritters; crushed tomatoes create a simmering blanket for shrimp; onion and peppers chargrill on a skewer with juicy hunks of lamb. Many of the recipes rely on plants, but you don’t have to commit. Some days you just want bread and cheese and there are recipes for those moments in Yassou too. There are pasta dishes, fish dishes, bread recipes, and oh, the cheese. I have truly enjoyed a free pass this week to eat all the feta I want. The dishes I made this weekOne thing I appreciate about Yassou is that you can jump into these recipes with whatever cooking skill level you exist at. It’s written simply, and the instructions are clear and easy to follow. There is no preamble about specialty cookware or how to replace ingredients you can’t find. Most of the ingredients are things that are common to the Western grocery store. I didn’t have to sift for very long to find recipes I was able to do because I didn’t have to consider making any special trips or ordering unusual ingredients. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann I decided to make Kassiopita (Greek flatbread) and Horiatiki Salata (Greek Salad). Yes, I essentially made Greek Olive Garden unlimited salad and breadsticks, but I don’t care what you think. It’s always been a great deal. Plus, these recipes made for a fabulous lunch. On the surface, Horiatiki Salata looks like any Greek salad you might have had before—kalamata olives, cucumbers, and feta among other ingredients with a simple dressing. But there are good and bad versions of this salad being made, often in New Jersey diners and pizzerias. This version is perfectly crunchy, briny, and herbaceous with as much creamy, salty feta as you please. I knew I could count on this salad recipe as soon as I saw that the first move was thinly slicing the red onion and pickling it in the oil and vinegar dressing. This should be the treatment of all freshly sliced onions in salad. Credit: Allie Chanthorn Reinmann The Kassiopita, entitled Greek Flatbread in the cookbook, might become something I make quite often. It’s easy to make, loaded with feta, and cooks up quite dramatically in the oven. The batter is made with a blend of yogurt, egg, and flour, so it has the texture of a giant popover, or Dutch Baby. It’s seasoned lightly and then you mix crumbled creamy feta into the batter. The mixture cooks in a casserole dish with a quarter-cup of olive oil in it. I watched the bread bubble and fry as it puffed up in the oven, and broiled it for the last minute and a half to lightly brown the surface. I ate a piece while it was still warm (too hot actually, but I can’t be stopped), and the crumbled feta made decadent melty, tart pockets of cheese dispersed in the eggy bread. Eat it with salad or eat it solo—I can vouch for both. I made the bread in the instructed size dish, but if you wanted the bread to be thinner then you could easily use a larger pan and reduce the cooking time. How to buy itYassou is available as a hardcover, or as an e-book for a reasonable price. I highly suggest taking a jaunt to your nearest big box book shops or local independent bookstores to see if they have it on their new or featured cookbook displays. And if it’s not on their shelves, ask if they can order it to their location (sometimes for no shipping fee). Yassou: The Simple, Seasonal Mediterranean Cooking of Greece $16.99 at Amazon Shop Now Shop Now $16.99 at Amazon View the full article

‘Hard decoupling’ between world’s two largest economies could derail negotiations covering TikTokView the full article

Are you ready for another 140 days of summer vacation? Disney announced today that the long-awaited reboot of its animated hit Phineas and Ferb will be back on June 5 for the start of a 40-episode run across Disney’s linear and streaming platforms. The action picks up the summer after the show’s original run left off, with the kids a year older but not visibly changed—except for an extra orange stripe on Phineas’s trademark T-shirt. Co-creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh are back at the helm. Originally launched on Disney XD in 2008 (after a 2007 “sneak peek”), the animated show—about two inventive stepbrothers on summer vacation, their pet platypus, and a bumbling supervillain named Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz—aired for 126 episodes, the longest-running show in Disney TV history. It beat out rival Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants to become the No. 1 animated TV series among tweens (ages 9 to 14) in 2009, and became the most successful animated series for kids and tweens in Disney Television Animation history. The show spawned six one-hour specials, two movies, a soundtrack album, a touring live show, and a really dedicated cult following both IRL and online (Povenmire has 6.8 million followers on TikTok). Its multilevel humor, catchy songs, and lively visuals appealed not only to its tween target audience but also to their parents. Now those kids are in college, their parents are in their forties and fifties, and there’s a whole new generation of younger viewers who have discovered the show on Disney+. (Across linear and streaming platforms, more than 13 billion hours of Phineas and Ferb content has been viewed since the show’s launch.) Disney has extensive plans to reach all of those viewers where they are. The new episodes will air first on Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney Channel YouTube—and the next day on Disney+. View the full article

It’s summer again. A decade may have passed in real time since stepbrothers Phineas Flynn and Ferb Fletcher had their last summertime adventure on TV, but it’s just one unremarkable school year later for the characters in the beloved animated TV series Phineas and Ferb. The longest-running show in Disney Channel history, Phineas and Ferb aired from February 2008 to June 2015, winning five Emmys and becoming the most successful animated series for kids (ages 6 to 11) and tweens (ages 9 to 14) in Disney Television Animation history. It became the No. 1 animated TV series among tweens in 2009, supplanting Nickelodeon’s SpongeBob SquarePants. Tina Fey, Ben Stiller, Seth MacFarlane, and Chaka Khan guest-starred, among many others, attracting a wide audience—roughly 25% of whom were older than 18. A live show featuring costumed actors doing musical numbers toured North America from 2011 to 2013. Then, after a seven-year run of 126 two-part episodes, co-creators Dan Povenmire and Jeff “Swampy” Marsh ended the show. They were exhausted. But viewers were not—Phineas and Ferb has since racked up more than 13 billion viewing hours across linear and streaming platforms. It remains Disney’s top-ranked title among boys 6 to 11, and has achieved cult status among many of its original fans. Dan PovenmireJeff “Swampy” MarshPhineas and Ferb During the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, Povenmire got on TikTok “because I was bored,” he says. “Almost immediately I got millions and millions of followers.” (He has 6.8 million today.) “I realized that all the twentysomethings who grew up with the show had all moved to TikTok.” Posts in which he’d evoke the voice of Phineas and Ferb archvillain Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz would get millions of views overnight. In January 2023, Disney announced it was bringing the show back. Forty new episodes are set to run, starting with two episodes on Thursday, June 5, at 8 p.m. ET and PT on Disney Channel and Disney XD. (The first episode will be available that same day on Disney Channel YouTube). The first 10 episodes of the season will then premiere the next day on Disney+ and also be available to stream on Disney Channel On Demand. The action picks up the summer after the show’s original run, with the kids a year older but not visibly changed—except for an extra orange stripe on Phineas’s trademark T-shirt. (You can see the new trailer here.) “If you were bingeing the whole series and got to the end of the fourth season and went right into the fifth season, it shouldn’t feel like a different show,” says Povenmire, who returns to the helm with longtime collaborator Marsh (they also voice the characters of Dr. Doofenshmirtz and Major Monogram, respectively). Most of the original voice cast is also returning, and the new series will have the same format: two stories contained in a 30-minute time slot. But since the show’s original run, the world has changed, the way audiences consume media has evolved, and the Disney universe has expanded. So with the reboot of Phineas and Ferb, Disney is using every trick in its marketing playbook, hoping to optimize new platform synergies and maximize engagement with fans well beyond the typical Disney Channel demographic of 6- to 14-year-olds. “With Phineas and Ferb, we have a rare opportunity to tap into both nostalgia and discovery,” says Shannon Ryan, president of marketing at Disney Entertainment Television. “Many original fans are now young adults or parents, and our campaign is designed to celebrate that cross-generational appeal.” “Hey, Ferb! I know what we’re going to do today!” Phineas and Ferb is known for its rapid-fire puns, visual gags, and zany pop-culture references, all of which came easily to creators Povenmire and Marsh, veterans of The Simpsons, King of the Hill, and Family Guy. The show’s plot is essentially always the same: Phineas and Ferb dream up an over-the-top, large-scale invention—an other-dimensionator, a giant robot shark, a tower to the moon, an animal translator, a time machine, a backyard beach with an ocean—and get their pals to help them build it. Their teenage sister, Candace, tries to “bust” them. Meanwhile, the boys’ pet platypus, Perry, in his alter ego as super-spy Agent P., battles the gleefully evil supervillain Dr. Doofenshmirtz and his latest “-inator” device (De-Love-Inator, Hot-Dog-Vendor-Revenge-Inator, Double-Negative-Inator, to name a few). Almost always, the story ends with the evidence of the boys’ invention being wiped away, leaving Candace fuming. “Early on, we decided to make the show a nicer show,” Povenmire says. “We decided to get rid of a lot of the attitudinal humor that is the easiest to write and say, ‘Let’s see if we can make a good, edgy show without making the characters into jerks and idiots.’ And I think that’s what you get—a show that’s wholesome but not cringey.” Integral to the show’s appeal are its catchy songs, written by Povenmire, Marsh, and collaborator Martin Olson. Every episode of Phineas and Ferb features at least one musical number, and these songs have continued to inspire viral content on TikTok and Instagram many years later. “I’d see Jason Derulo [dancing to] ‘Platypus Controlling Me,’” Povennmire says, “Lizzo doing ‘Squirrels in my Pants’ in front of a sold-out crowd at a concert, Jimmy Fallon and Reese Witherspoon doing ‘Squirrels’ on TV. It was really bizarre, but it gave us this feeling like there’s still a very rabid fan base out there.” It’s an unusually broad one. The first generation of Phineas and Ferb fans are college age. Their parents, who were often won over as well, are now (gulp) in their fifties. And an entire new generation of youngsters has discovered the show through streaming on Disney+. Each of these audiences has different viewing habits—and presents unique marketing challenges—and Disney has made a calculated plan to appeal to them all. “Seize the day!” Even during the show’s original run, “it was clear that fan appetite extended beyond traditional TV,” Ryan says. “That’s why we launched early original short-form series like Take Two With Phineas and Ferb and Doof’s Daily Dirt to keep the world alive between seasons.” This summer, Disney will debut two new original shorts, Cartoonified With Phineas and Ferb, a Take Two update featuring interviews with real-life celebrities drawn in the style of the series, and Agent P, Under C, featuring Perry as Agent P. battling rivals from A.N.A.T.H.E.M.A. (the Alliance of Nefarious Animals That Has an Exceptionally Memorable Acronym). The shorts will play on Disney Channel, Disney+, and Disney YouTube channels. The new episodes themselves will initially run at 8 p.m. ET and PT on Disney Channel—a prime family viewing hour. They will then stream on Disney+ the next day, with more episodes released over subsequent weeks. The linear and streaming platforms “don’t seem to be cannibalizing each other,” says Ayo Davis, president of Disney Branded TV. “Kids are title loyal, platform agnostic, and they watch anything, any and everywhere.” Meanwhile, thanks to Disney+’s extended constellation of properties including Marvel and Star Wars, there are new brand synergies to capitalize on. There were a couple of crossover episodes in the original run of the series, including “Mission Marvel” and “Star Wars.” This time around, Marvel will publish new comics featuring Phineas and Ferb and other show characters reimagined as superheroes. New show-related merch will include the first Phineas and Ferb FunkoPop! collectible figures and, on May 9, an album from Disney Music Group called Lofi: Phineas and Ferb, featuring chilled-out renditions of 10 songs from the original series. The “summer celebratory takeover,” in Disney’s marketing speak, will also include trailer placement with in-theater screenings of the Warner Bros. Minecraft movie; promotion at this year’s Vans Warped Tour music festival; branded ice-cream trucks at beaches; and a sponsorship at the San Diego Zoo, home to the only two platypuses in the U.S. Near the start of the new series pilot, Phineas, Ferb, and their gang frantically throw out dozens of ideas for their next invention. Rather than deciding on one, they build them all. Disney seems to be doing much the same thing. “Our campaign is about more than launching a new season of a hit show,” Ryan says. “It’s about making Phineas and Ferb the must-experience event of the summer.” It’s going to be hard to miss. View the full article

Healthcare professionals tend to have many pairs of scrubs, and those scrubs can get worn out, especially with frequent washing. Or maybe some scrubs just aren’t the right fit, style, or comfort level anymore. Instead of tossing those in the trash, scrubs company Figs is launching a new recycling program to give old scrubs a second life. It’s the latest take-back program in partnership with SuperCircle, a recycling management company that has worked with J. Crew, Reformation, Parachute, and other brands to help keep textiles out of landfills. Called “Scrubs That Don’t Suck,” the circularity initiative will collect old, used, worn out, or simply uncomfortable scrubs from any brand (just launder them first, please). Figs says the idea came from their community members, who said they often have “old, boxy, itchy” scrubs in the back of their closet, “and they’re just not sure what to do with them,” says Figs’ Chief Marketing Officer Bené Eaton. Some workplaces give out scrubs, and nursing schools can require students to wear scrubs from specific brands, so healthcare workers can amass a collection. People who want to send in their old scrubs can get a prepaid shipping label from Figs, or they can drop them off in person at Figs’ community hub locations in Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Through April, for the launch of the program, customers who recycle their scrubs will get a $50 credit toward a Figs purchase; after that, they’ll get a $25 credit. (Figs scrub tops start at $38, and bottoms at $44; the apparel company did more than $555 million in net revenue over 2024.) Those sent-in scrubs will either be fiber-to-fiber recycled, meaning the fibers will be turned into new fabrics, or open-loop recycled, meaning they’ll be shredded and processed for housing insulation, carpet matting, and other uses. While all textiles are still somewhat difficult to recycle, certain fibers, like 100% cotton, have “more robust” recycling outcomes, says SuperCircle cofounder and CEO Chloe Songer. Assuming scrubs follow broad apparel recycling trends, she estimates 40% will go to fiber-to-fiber recycling, and 60% to open loop. “We only work with projects that extend the life of the fiber at least five years,” she adds. That way, those textiles aren’t being turned into items like rags that may just end up in landfills within a year or two. Textile waste is a massive environmental issue. In the U.S. alone, people throw out an estimated 11.3 million tons of textiles annually. The majority of clothing ends up in landfills after only one owner. It’s difficult to nail down specific statistics on scrubs; people do donate them to secondhand stores or set up groups to trade scrubs. But scrubs are a “high frequency wear” item, Songer notes, meaning they get washed frequently and generally get dirty and worn. Scrubs that may be especially shabby, poor quality, or stained may not be a good fit for donation. “The biggest point of feedback we’ve had is that our community has collected, for years, these really poor, ill-fitting pieces of apparel, and so they end up sort of being stuck with them,” Eaton says. In April 2024, Figs did a one-month pilot of a scrubs take-back program to test out a solution. That pilot collected 45,000 pounds of scrubs. “It’s a great indicator in terms of what the long-term impact can be,” she adds. With this launch, Figs’ take-back program is now permanent. The focus on circularity also fits into Figs’s broader sustainability goals; the brand aims to have at least 75% of its scrub fabric be made of recycled and upcycled materials by 2030. Currently, its “Indestructible” scrubwear line, launched in 2024, uses 54% recycled polyester. Scrubs can be made up of different materials; some may be cotton, others polyester, and many are a blend. SuperCircle uses near-infrared spectroscopy, or NIR, technology, which uses infrared light to identify a textile’s makeup. Then it can catalogue and sort those different textiles, and send them off to the right recycling facilities. Scrubs are good candidates for apparel recycling because many don’t have zippers or buttons that can complicate the recycling process. For textile recycling to work, Songer says, it needs scale; SuperCircle ships its material to recyclers 40,000 pounds at a time. Collecting scrubs will help SuperCircle scale and ramp up its overall textile recycling volume. “This will be the first time that we’re getting post-consumer scrubs into textile recycling outcomes,” she says. This partnership, though, is just “scratching the surface” of medical apparel waste, she adds; SuperCircle hopes to continue working with the medical industry more widely to help divert items like hospital gowns and linens from landfills. View the full article

Yesterday, Nintendo finally announced its successor to the Nintendo Switch, fittingly named the Switch 2. I already wrote about my general experiences with the console, where I talked about how it’s mostly boring, but probably the right move on Nintendo’s part. Still, I wanted to take a moment to call out one part of the console that definitely isn’t boring: the mouse controls. When you take one of the Switch 2’s controllers, the Joy-Con 2, off the console and put it on its side, it becomes a mouse—simple as that. If you’re playing a compatible game, you’ll instantly see a cursor pop up on screen, and right away, you’ll be playing as if you were on PC. Rotate the controller to be upright again, and you’ll be back to a more traditional setup. This is akin to a magic trick. Despite consoles generally being easier to set up than PCs, and more often played from more comfortable positions like the living room, certain genres have eluded them for a while. These include shooters, strategy games, and other titles that benefit from quick and precise pointer movement. There have been attempts to fix that before, like with motion controls, but having gone hands-on with the Switch 2’s mouse mode, it’s easily my favorite so far. Suddenly, the comfort of consoles and precision control of PCs don’t need to be at odds anymore. There are a few drawbacks, which I’ll get into in a moment, but I was surprised how well it worked overall. Take Metroid Prime 4. This series started off on the GameCube, with shooting almost entirely relegated to an archaic lock-on system. Then, it re-released on the Wii and later the original Switch with improved motion controls, but those could get tiring after a bit. Now, with Metroid Prime 4, it plays just like any other shooter (OK, the lock-on is still there if you want it, but you get my point). That’s huge. Granted, an exploration-based series like Metroid doesn’t necessarily need to cross that threshold, but it worked nearly perfectly in my time with it, and represents so many possibilities for the Switch 2. Now, the Nintendo port of Call of Duty or similar titles might not be some compromised alternative when you don’t have any other systems; it could be the best way to play, barring the PC. And this goes double for genres like strategy games, which often skip consoles altogether. Civilization VIII on the Switch 2 felt exactly like controlling it at my desk. But even if those more traditional use cases elude you, the mouse controls are the one place in the Switch 2’s design where you can see Nintendo’s classic playfulness at work. About a month after the console’s launch, the company is set to re-release its latest Mario Party game with an enhanced port for the Switch 2, and as I saw first-hand, it took the opportunity to go all-in on the mouse. In a pre-release hands-on with the Switch 2 version of the game, I got to use mouse controls to play a convincing substitute for air hockey, a classic mouse avoider game, plus two mini-games that actually do things you can’t do on a normal mouse. The first had me spray painting objects with the Joy-Con, then quickly shaking it to refill my paint canister. It wasn’t the most robust experience, but it did show off one benefit to just tossing mouse functionality on an existing controller—you can use the controller’s other functions, like motion controls, in tandem with it. This was more noticeable in a stacking mini-game I played, where I had to use the mouse pointer in combination with the Joy-Con’s gyro to make a taller block tower than my competitors without knocking it over. Throw in some oddball shapes, like a Yoshi stuffed animal, and it was great fun. Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt But perhaps the most noticeable example of Nintendo doing something new with the mouse was in Drag X Drive, a basketball game that sees you controlling a player in a wheelchair. With its crude graphics and mocap-feeling animation, it definitely had tech-demo vibes, and I’ll leave it to others more versed in the topic than me to talk to the representation of disabled athletes. But I will say that it might be the only game I’ve seen played with two mice at once. In the game, you place both Joy-Con 2 controllers in mouse mode, then use your left hand to control your left wheel, and your right hand to control your right wheel. Honestly, it got tiring pretty fast, but it did feel shockingly accurate to the few experiences where I’ve been in a wheelchair (although, again, I’ll leave the real judgment there to experts). It’s also another good example of the mouse controls combining with another Joy-Con feature, in this case vibration. The controllers did a great job of simulating my wheels’ drag on the ground as I turned them, which helped me know what needed moving where, and made controlling my character fluid enough that, yes, I was able to dunk. All this said, this playfulness has me equal parts excited and worried. As much as I’m excited to see that new play experiences aren’t entirely dead on the Switch 2, mouse controls will only thrive as long as developers use them. Given Nintendo’s past history with accessories like the Wii MotionPlus, I worry that they’ll quickly fall by the wayside following a few of its own first party releases. There’s also some physical discomfort to acknowledge here. The Joy-Con 2 technically have capabilities normal mice don’t, yes, but they also lose out on ergonomics. They’re much thinner, so I have to grip them with a very tight claw style that’s not natural to me, and pressing the face buttons on them while using them as mice can be a bit of a challenge at first. I’d love to see the ability to map the right stick to face buttons instead, but we shall see. Still, this is one feature I can’t be mad about—if only because I’m still holding out hope that it may eventually lead to Nintendo DS and Wii U emulation in Switch Online. Playing games made for these consoles on other devices has always been a bit difficult because of their unique touch controls, even on mobile. But with a big screen TV and a mouse pointer taking the place of a stylus, we may finally have the perfect answer to this longstanding problem. I’m beaming, as I’m sure the dozen other The World Ends With You fans are. View the full article

Misplaced nostalgia is not a good enough reason for something that will only hurt votersView the full article

Whether you want to quickly check where a particular city is or grab an address to share with a friend, opening a full-blown maps app sometimes feels like overkill. Mappa Mini is a free Mac app by developer Lucas Raggers that lets you do a quick search without taking up all of your attention. Just click the menu bar icon and search for any business or location. You'll see right where it is in a small pop-up, without having to load any application or website. If there are multiple matches, you'll see them all in a list—click any of them to see the location in context. This is perfect for when you quickly need to check where something is. You can get more details by clicking the three dots to the right of the location. This allows you to add the location to your favorites, open the location or create a route to it, or copy the address. Credit: Justin Pot You can choose to copy the full address or just a part of it, such as the full address, postal code, city, or street. You can also copy the coordinates, or just copy a link or picture of the map. All of this is useful if you're texting a friend about where to meet and want to provide some quick context. By default, opening a location will launch Apple Maps. You can change this, if you like, so that locations open in your choice of Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, Waze, or HERE WeGo. Note that the initial map will always be an Apple Map—the setting only changes what happens when you choose to open the location or get directions to it. There's not much more in the way of settings—you can change the size of the pop-up window, the map radius, and whether the application launches in the menu bar when your Mac boots. It's not an application that's going to replace your map app of choice, nor is it trying to be. It's great at what it does, though, and that's doing quick map searches before getting out of your way. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Peppers are one of the best vegetables to grow. They are expensive to buy, even when in season; they don’t take up a lot of garden space; and although there are a limited number of peppers available in stores, there are thousands of varieties are out there that you can grow. Plus, you can choose precisely when to harvest them. The pepper most people choose to grow in their garden—full size bell peppers—are a waste, though, in my opinion. Each plant only yields a few peppers, and because of their size, bell peppers take a while to grow and then to ripen. In that time, the pepper is susceptible to pests and disease. Even in the most perfect circumstances, you’ll likely only get a few big peppers. You can roast or char snacking peppers just like large bells, or just eat them raw. Credit: Amanda Blum Instead, try growing snacking peppers, a miniature version of the bell pepper. Each plant grows heaps of peppers, which ripen in a shorter time span. You can use them in the same way you would large size bell peppers (except for stuffing). Available in red, yellow, chocolate, purple, and orange, these peppers light up the garden with color. I’ve pulled in excess of fifty peppers off each of my plants the last two years. When to start growing snacking peppersPeppers are part of the trio of nightshades that almost everyone grows each summer (tomatoes, eggplants, peppers). Because these three require the sun and heat you usually only find in the summer months, they truly are a once-a-year treat. Usually, seeds for peppers need to start early because they take longer to germinate than other nightshades. In my area (the Pacific Northwest), that means I start pepper seeds at the beginning of March. If you haven’t started your pepper seeds yet, you’ll want to do so immediately, so you’ll have time to grow starts before outdoor temperatures reach fifty degrees overnight and you can place them outside. I don’t know anyone who direct-seeds peppers outside; gardeners generally start from seedlings they’ve bought or grown themselves because you need the jumpstart seedlings offer. How to encourage branching and support the plantAs your pepper plant grows, you want to encourage as much branching as possible, since this will result in more peppers. When the first set of true leaves appear on the plant, pinch them off using your fingers to encourage the plant to produce two branches, each with their own set of leaves. You can continue pinching off twin leaves to encourage the plant to produce more sets of branches. When the first flower appears on your plant, many gardeners will strip the plant of the flower and every branch and leaf below the flower, all the way to the soil line. Removing the first flower encourages the plant to produce more, which will result in fruit. Stripping the leaves below the flower will encourage airflow and make the plant focus energy on the plant above the flower. The most common mistake I see people make is expecting their pepper plant to support itself. Your plant should reach two to three feet in height, but snacking pepper plants will be heavy with fruit, and top heavy at that. At the least, support the plant with a single stake for the main stem. But it would be better to consider a trellis that will offer branches support as well. Peppers don’t achieve the same width as tomatoes, so tomato trellises are often too wide to offer real support. Instead, consider pepper trellises. Protect against disease and pestsPeppers are mostly susceptible to fungal problems. The solution for this is to ensure good airflow around your pepper plant and water only at the base of the plant. Make sure when you are touching your plant that your hands are clean, and cut out leaves with noticeable issues immediately. You can purchase seeds that are resistant to bacterial leaf spot, another common pepper malady, but if the seeds aren’t resistant, you’ll need to watch for signs: green and brown spots on the leaves. While you can try to treat bacterial leaf spot with copper treatments, you may decide to cull the plant, instead, so it does not spread to the rest of your garden. The biggest threat to your pepper plant is snacking pests as the fruit ripens. Peppers are colorful and easy to spot. The best solution is to get them off the plant as soon as possible, which is why snacking peppers are a good idea. Peppers won’t ripen on their own inside, so you want to pick them when some color has developed on them, but you don’t need to wait until they are fully developed, either. How to eat snacking peppersYou can eat snacking peppers raw, just like bell peppers. You can roast or broil them, char and peel them, or use them in any way you might larger varieties. I roast and freeze them each year. The only limitation is their size, so stuffing these small peppers makes for great appetizers, if not a main course. There are a number of seeds to consider, and if you’ve missed the window on starting seeds, you can find snacking peppers at your local nursery, or order them online to be shipped. "Lunchbox" pepper mix SVPS0953 (bacterial leaf spot resistant), in orange, red, and yellow "Sweet Nibblers," available in red seeds or plants or yellow seeds or plants Orange "first taste" sweet pepper "Burpee Garden Sown" sweet hybrid "Sweetie" pepper snack pack (red, yellow, orange) plants Miniature bell peppers in yellow, red, or chocolate Snacking pepper plants in red or yellow View the full article

At Visa’s ETA Transact event on April 3, the payments giant introduced three new products designed to simplify and secure payment acceptance. These innovations—Authorize.net 2.0, Unified Checkout, and the ARIC Risk Hub—all aim to enhance efficiency and fraud protection for businesses navigating an increasingly complex commercial landscape. By integrating the three new tools, Visa seeks to service businesses end to end—from integrating with existing platforms to accepting more payments, reducing checkout friction, and managing risk efficiently. “Visa is looking to wherever appropriate to invest in next-generation technologies and uplift our products,” says Rob Cameron, global head of Visa Acceptance Solutions. Authorize.net 2.0 A major overhaul of one of the first internet platforms for e-commerce payments, Authorize.net 2.0 enhances the user experience while connecting businesses with banks and merchant acquirers across the United States. New AI-driven tools further enhance the platform by automating tasks and optimizing payment strategies. Businesses can now issue invoices simply by speaking to Authorize.net, which will generate the invoice, locate the customer, and prepare the invoice for sending—eliminating manual entry. Subscription-based businesses, such as tutoring services, will benefit from the platform’s streamlined setup to accept payments and then charge customers on a recurring basis. “This saves time and allows small-business owners to operate more efficiently,” Cameron says. Unified Checkout Unified Checkout is Visa’s next-generation solution for online payments, designed to create a seamless experience for merchants and customers that reduces lost sales at the checkout point. By automatically adapting the checkout page to match a business’s website, the system ensures a consistent look and feel while improving security. “It’ll look at your existing website, and then it’ll configure a checkout page so it looks like you’re still in the same environment, even though we’ve insulated the website from the credit card data and all the things that websites don’t actually want for security,” Cameron says. Businesses can customize the checkout button order based on insights, prioritizing payment methods like Apple Pay to match customer preferences. With “25 out-of-the-box, different payment types,” including Klarna’s buy now, pay later services, the system helps reduce cart abandonment by ensuring customers find their preferred payment method. The platform also enhances customer retention through tokenization, allowing returning customers to shift from “guest checkout to remember me next time” for a smoother purchasing experience. ARIC Risk Hub Visa’s 2024 acquisition of Featurespace led to the development of ARIC (adaptive, real-time, individual, change identification) Risk Hub, a fraud-detection and risk-management tool that enhances acquirers’ ability to monitor risk and protect merchants. ​​Featurespace’s powerful, adaptive AI helps identify risky transactions and builds profiles around genuine customer activity to increase approvals and stop bad actors in real time. This system enables “dynamic settlement,” meaning businesses can receive payments based on risk assessments. “If I decide you’re low risk, maybe I’ll decide to settle you instantly and I’ll give you money right away,” Cameron says, noting that for higher-risk businesses—such as those selling furniture that won’t be delivered for months—reserves can be adjusted dynamically. The platform’s ongoing monitoring allows financial institutions to approve more merchants up front. Without it, strict barriers are needed to block risky merchants. However, by continuously analyzing transactions and merchant behavior, acquirers can make smarter decisions over time. Cameron says this can ultimately boost revenue by increasing approval rates. Additionally, ARIC Risk Hub provides fraud prevention through acquirer-backed monitoring services. If a merchant receives a suspicious order, the system can detect risks and issue a warning, which, Cameron notes, “allows acquirers to actually provide monitoring services to protect their merchants.” View the full article

Beans and chocolate prices set to rise as a result of new levies View the full article

Walking around the factory floor of Twincraft Skincare, outside Burlington, Vermont, there is the unmistakable scent of soap. The general manager points out the luxury lines and designer labels for whom they manufacture soaps and lotions, as well as the basic, inexpensive bars and bottles left on hotel room sinks. The factory runs two 10-hour shifts per day, four days a week, with an overtime option as needed. At over 400 employees, Twincraft is one of the top employers in the state. In the last few years, there’s been a boom in skincare products and, to meet demand, Michele Asch, Twincraft’s chief people officer, says they’ve had to hire over 180 people over the past 18 months. But, pre-pandemic, Asch had begun to notice a problem in hiring workers: People couldn’t find local childcare. One standout employee, she recalls, spent an hour driving each morning to drop her kids off in two different towns before driving to work—though she lived only 15 minutes away. In 2020, Asch met with Aly Richards, the director of Let’s Grow Kids, the organization responsible for spearheading the decade-long campaign to provide a comprehensive fix for the state’s childcare shortage. Via Zoom, Asch recalls asking, “‘Aly, we make skincare. Can’t I just pay into a system so we can get this childcare fixed?’” But “fixed” isn’t so simple for childcare. Childcare is an industry in crisis, where the demand is high, the supply is low, and market forces alone cannot correct it. The high teacher-to-student ratios required for childcare mean that parents pay high costs—often more than they can reasonably afford—while providers are compensated little. Many providers rely on public benefits or are unable to afford sending their own children to the childcare locations in which they work. Like Asch’s employee who had to drive an hour to find care, half of the country is living in childcare deserts, where no workable care options exist. “Vermont is in a deep demographic crisis now,” says Richards. With a dwindling and aging population, Vermont was losing potential workers and the tax base that accompanies it. “Many women with education and careers would work if they had access to affordable childcare.” And if businesses, like Twincraft, wanted to stay, grow, and manufacture products in the state, they needed to find a way to retain young employees and bring new ones in. Richards appointed Asch to the board of Let’s Grow Kids and to the CEO Task Force, a group assigned to devise a funding plan for childcare that business leaders in the state could get behind, facilitated by a former state tax commissioner. Initially, the task force was adamantly against a payroll tax to finance childcare. But after exploring every funding option—including an income tax and property tax—the payroll tax emerged as the solution “that checked every box,” according to Asch. A payroll tax allowed the payment burden of the childcare program to be placed on workers, not retirees. As more people took advantage of the program and went to work, the revenue stream would grow. Asch began speaking one-on-one with business leaders on the need to invest in childcare. She personally invited other manufacturing leaders in the state to meet with Richards, vet the proposal, and ask any and all pointed questions. The Twincraft conference room was filled with business leaders of Vermont’s most recognizable brands: Bag Balm, Runamok Maple, Birrn Chocolates, Vermont Creamery, Lake Champlain Chocolates, Burton’s Snowboard, and Mamava. Those peer-to-peer conversations were critically important, explains Richards, because “you have a trusted business partner running a successful business. They can literally say, ‘I’ve studied this deeply with my values and my prowess and I’m here to tell you, [this] is the deal with childcare in summary form.’” ‘Childcare is necessary infrastructure for doing business’ Childcare has long been a social policy issue without a designated home. It is part education, part parenting, part economics—as obstacles to childcare remain one of the top reasons that parents cannot access paid work. Even in message testing surrounding childcare, arguments about the economic and workforce benefits are considered the most persuasive. Data from Let’s Grow Kids and the University of Vermont estimated that with the additional childcare funds in the state, 5,000 additional parents could participate in Vermont’s workforce, and by parents paying less for care and receiving more income as wage-earners, and providers receiving more, there would be a $375 million annual boost to the state’s economy due to such influx. Asch’s biggest challenge wasn’t that her business colleagues disagreed with the need for childcare, but that they didn’t fully understand why this state-organized effort funded by the payroll tax was the proposed solution. “Once they understood [the childcare plan] they would enthusiastically or reluctantly support it,” she said. “I don’t pay individually to have our roads done. I pay into a system to have the trucks come in to pick up the soap. [Childcare] is necessary infrastructure for doing business.” In January of 2023, Vermont’s business leaders testified in support of the childcare legislation, now named Act 76, in front of the state’s Senate Economic Development Committee, both for the need for childcare to support their employees and hire more, and to show their willingness to shoulder the payroll tax that accompanied it. Cara Tobin, a chef and mother of two who’d opened the restaurant Honey Road in Burlington and become a James Beard finalist, testified that it was “easier to open a restaurant than find childcare.” Tobin was one of 10 business leaders who testified in support of Act 76, including a cross-section of business interests of the state: a solar company, an entrepreneur, a ski resort, and, of course, manufacturers. In June 2023, the legislation passed with bipartisan support, and after a veto from the governor, passed with a bipartisan veto override. The payroll tax took effect in July 2024: 0.44% split between employees (0.11%) and employers (0.33%). Some employers, Twincraft among them, have opted to cover the entire tax for their workers. In January 2024, childcare providers began seeing a change in compensation, and since the legislation has taken effect, childcare supply has boomed in the state: 90 new childcare programs have opened, with a net gain of 1,000 new childcare spots. For the first time since 2018, more childcare programs have opened in the state than closed. Asch has noticed that more of her employees can find childcare closer to where they work, and have more affordable options “and therefore less stress,” she said. She’s exploring opening a childcare center adjacent to Twincraft. Tobin’s youngest child went to kindergarten when Act 76 took effect; she hasn’t been able to personally take advantage of the program, but her restaurant employees have. “I see it working for other people for sure,” Tobin said. “This completes the circle: You are supporting your workers who can make money, then spend money in the community, and it keeps coming back around. When we support the community, they support us.” View the full article

Ikea’s new collection is all about accessibility. The furniture maker’s new Bäsingen collection, which is available this month, includes six items for the bathroom that the company designed to be easy to use for people with disabilities: a shower chair, two kids of stools with rails, a towel rail, a shower shelf, and a toilet roll holder. The products range from about $12 to about $39. The collection was designed to be sturdy and non-slippery, with tube handles on the stools and that are thick for an easy grip. The dark color for the products in the collections was also chosen so the items would be easily visible, but stylish enough so to be something you’d want to keep out in view, Ikea says. Sarah Fager, Ikea’s senior designer, said she started working on the Bäsingen collection “by wanting to learn more about the needs and wishes of people with physical limitations.” She said it was one of her most challenging design projects “because it was about meeting needs that were new to me,” but it was also one of her most enlightening. “The products were created to bring great functionality together with a beautiful design, as they have a minimalistic expression that is rooted in our Scandinavian design tradition,” she said. “Bäsingen is designed to help customers create a comfortable experience.” At least 61 million U.S. adults have at least one disability, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data shows. Some may have more requirements than the average user for household products, like stools with handles they can hold onto for stability for safety in the bathroom or shower. Global sales of assistive furniture reached an estimated $4.93 billion in 2024, according to data from Fact.MR, a market research firm. And Ikea isn’t the only furniture maker that’s designing for accessibility. Last year, Pottery Barn added optional, accessible features to three of its most popular furniture lines. Ikea released Omtänksam, a collection of ergonomic products for comfort and support in 2020. “There are many people who experience impactful and common circumstantial changes that can make something as simple as taking a shower challenging,” Ikea product design developer Watts Zijlstra said in a statement. “Yet, we see that the home environment is often not equipped for change. The starting point for Bäsingen was a clear need for specific product functions.” View the full article

President reveals plans to impose 10% universal levies and higher duties on major partnersView the full article

President’s move to rip up global trade rule book will hit an economy already losing momentum, say economistsView the full article

In HBO’s hit show Succession, patriarch Logan Roy pitted his children against each other for the top spot of leading his media conglomerate. Those who’ve seen the show will know how it ends, but what if he took a different route? What if he established a collaborative, multi-generational leadership team to guide Waystar RoyCo into the future? Granted, it would have made for far less dramatic tension (and probably fewer award wins) for the show. But for Roy’s shareholders, it would’ve been a smarter move in a rapidly changing media industry. Succession planning is a non-negotiable principle for any thriving organization, yet it’s also one of the hardest to get right. And in today’s volatile, fast-changing environment, proactive planning is even more critical. There are relentless technological disruptions, and diversity initiatives are under scrutiny. For the first time in history, five generations will work side-by-side in offices around the world. These dynamics present unique challenges for maintaining growth and stability. For CEOs, whose average age is 59, the following questions are critical: Are they equipped to engage Gen Z employees and the subsequent generation? Are they prepared to lead in an AI-driven world? Without support, the honest answer is often no. Last year, the Financial Times reported that a record number of CEOs stepped down due to investor pressures, technological disruptions, and underperforming markets. All of these factors are making the role harder than ever. After years of thought, I recently decided to appoint a new CEO for our U.K. and European business. It was a bold move as we skipped a few generations. But he was ready to take the reins after a lot of training, learning, and success. So far, it’s working. In a very short period, our business already feels more energized, agile, innovative, and resilient. Here’s how you can create the same momentum for your business. Build an open culture of multi-generational learning By the time Generation Alpha enters the workforce, five generations will be working together in a single workplace. Rather than seeing this as a challenge, treat it as an opportunity. Harnessing multi-generational perspectives fosters creativity, improves decision-making, and strengthens collaboration across teams. To align generational differences, encourage multi-generational open learning. For example, you could introduce mentoring schemes that encourage a two-way flow of ideas and perspectives between senior and junior staff, rather than solely top-down programs. Balancing continuity with the pursuit of innovation is the leadership challenge of our times. A multi-CEO model with age diversity might just be the way to navigate it. A diverse suite of leaders can help bridge the gaps between generations because it creates a synergy that benefits employees, clients, and organizational growth. Identify and support the right successors from each generation Finding qualified leaders has always been a challenge, and today’s hyper-disruptive business environment has only made it more difficult. From tech to media, industries undergoing transformation need leaders who can navigate complexity and disruption, even though it may be the first time they’ve done it. You might be wondering whether you should promote internally or hire from the outside. My view is clear, and it’s that home-grown works best. I’ve tried both, and in our type of business, growing a successor over time always seems to work better than bringing in someone from outside. Once you’ve identified a potential successor, help them rise with a development plan that gets them to the top job. They’ll have plenty of opportunities to succeed and fail along the way. By observing how they handle these moments, you build confidence in your choice. Just be aware that high-performing employees will have their choice of job offers, so you need to figure out how you can incentivize them to stay. Twice, I’ve developed successors only to have them leave for competitors. Losing these experts can be costly and immensely frustrating. A multi-generational C-suite acts as a safety net, retaining these individuals while equipping them with the tools and mentorship they need to continue excelling. Act now to prepare for the future The best time to think about your succession strategy is now. Tomorrow’s leaders need opportunities to observe, contribute, and think collectively about the decisions, products, and services that will define your organization in three to five years. Invite emerging leaders to share their opinions and take on increased responsibility. Encourage them to collaborate across generations. By empowering future leaders today, you foster innovation and resilience for the years ahead. Succession wasn’t just the heart of a TV drama; it’s a real-life leadership challenge. For business owners, Logan Roy’s missteps offer a cautionary tale. Procrastination and neglecting to nurture a diverse pool of future leaders are risks that no organization can afford. A multi-generational leadership pipeline isn’t just an asset; it’s a necessity in an environment defined by rapid transformation and complexity. Developing new leaders while leveraging the expertise of seasoned executives positions your business to weather disruptions and capitalize on opportunities. Don’t wait. Start building a forward-thinking succession strategy today and ensure that your organization is ready for tomorrow’s challenges. A dynamic, multi-generational C-suite can secure your place as a disruptor, not the disrupted. View the full article

In today’s turbulent economic climate, there’s an intense pressure to perform. Organizations are exploring new business models and ways of working to accelerate growth and stay competitive. Boards and shareholders demand results, which pushes leadership teams to dial up their expectations. The term “accountability” has become a buzzword in discussions, but far too many misunderstand and misapply it. When leaders talk about creating a culture of accountability, they often rely on “shame and blame” tactics. This approach might seem effective in the short term, but it ultimately undermines the culture leaders seek to build. Instead of motivating individuals to do more, it drives people to hide from responsibility. Redefining accountability The challenge is redefining accountability. How do you set clear, high-performance expectations and hold people to them without sliding into the counterproductive cycle of shaming and blaming? To create a culture of accountability that truly enhances performance, leaders need to think about accountability differently. That means moving away from coercion and blame to mutual responsibility and ownership, which empowers individuals to own their roles and contribute to the team’s success. Consider the case of a manufacturing company I worked with. Facing stiff competition and the need to innovate quickly, the company’s executive team realized that the old ways of operating were no longer sufficient. Its traditional approach to accountability was stifling innovation and preventing the company from adapting to new market realities. The culture had to change from blame-focused to one where everyone—from the top down—felt invested in the company’s success and comfortable owning both their wins and their mistakes. Leadership needed to break down accountability into the distinct behaviors they wanted to see: identifying the issues, claiming the issues as your own, and changing the outcomes. This approach made the change real and enabled leaders to work collaboratively to implement the new culture. Here’s how: 1. Identify the issues: proactively ask for understanding The first step to building accountability in the company was for leaders to help their teams see issues before they escalate. They brought this to life through scaled leader sprints, which were focused, short-term initiatives designed to instill key habits across the organization. This practice encouraged leaders to seek feedback from their teams and peers, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and transparency when team members felt safe to speak up. Leaders also practiced how to pause before reacting to bad news. The simple act of taking a moment to consider the best response helped them approach problems with a clear mind, avoiding knee-jerk reactions that might discourage team members from raising concerns. Lastly, this practice also taught leaders to invite perspectives by asking, “How do you see it?” rather than the more typical “What do you think?” This promoted open dialogue and the consideration of multiple viewpoints to understand the same problem. By cultivating these habits, the company’s leaders focused more on inquiry, shifting active problem-solving to a collaborative process with the team. 2. Claim the issues as your own: embrace the outcomes The second part of accountability for the company was about taking actions that delivered the most critical business outcomes. The company needed to train leaders to prioritize initiatives that had the highest impact on these goals, avoiding the trap of rewarding “busy work” that appeared productive but didn’t contribute to organizational objectives. Leaders practiced skills to evaluate their initiatives to concentrate on high-leverage actions—those that would generate the most significant results with the least amount of wasted effort. That means setting the example of refocusing themselves on impactful actions (while stopping those that were mere activity) and then deliberately taking time in team meetings to review and reassess priorities. As a result, the leaders were able to develop a new muscle in themselves and their teams. The clarity on prioritizing the right actions over simply working harder energized the organization to continue to make the change. 3. Change the outcomes: measure and adapt The company focused on evolving its key performance metrics to support these new priority outcomes. Leadership realized that if they tried to change behavior, yet continued to measure the same old actions, the change wouldn’t stick. The company also needed to shift these key performance metrics to reflect what’s more important or impactful as business priorities evolved, which required more flexibility and transparency from the leaders. In this phase, the leaders moved to create a new dashboard, identifying the core metrics they were trying to accomplish that would tell them if they were moving the needle in response to competitive threats. They agreed to review the data quarterly and share what they learned with the organization. When the metrics moved in the right direction, there was a public celebration of the progress. And perhaps more importantly, when they didn’t, the leaders engaged their teams in ideating how to adapt their actions—and what they were measuring—rather than placing blame. The new habits practiced in these three phases created visible early momentum, as the aura of “shame and blame” noticeably lifted. One team, for example, reduced the time that it took to get product updates to market. Their rapid prototyping test-review-fail program allowed them to experiment quickly, share learnings at weekly meetings, and fail without fear of reprisal. By shifting away from traditional views of accountability and embracing a more collaborative and trust-based approach, you can help your team achieve the high performance that current market conditions demand. View the full article

The first year of Otting's tenure as the New York lender's CEO brought substantial change, but the job isn't done. His goal: to build a powerhouse, profitable regional bank. View the full article

Calculation deeply flawed economically and will fail in stated aim of ‘driving bilateral trade deficits to zero’, say analystsView the full article

European markets fall sharply and US futures point to lower open after declines in AsiaView the full article

Four years ago, if you found yourself at one particular intersection of Buenos Aires, you would see a nondescript, three-story parking garage with no cars inside. That building still exists—but it’s completely unrecognizable. Today, that structure looks like a stubby, UFO-like tower mushrooming from a concrete pedestal with a landscaped ramp curving upward. The metamorphosis is thanks to a multiyear project by New York architecture firm ODA. Ola Palermo, as the reimagined structure is known, has become a mixed-use building with cafés, restaurants, and Class A office space. The cherry on top of this (concrete) cake is an open-air promenade that peels off the sidewalk, winds up to what used to be the roof of the garage, blossoms into a rooftop park, then winds back down to the other side of the building. In a structure once defined by cars, the ramp is now be synonymous with people. To demolish or not to demolishODA (ranked among the World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2025 by Fast Company) has a history of working on adaptive reuse projects, including Detroit’s Book Tower and 10 Jay Street in Brooklyn, but when founder Eran Chen first heard about the project from real estate firm BSD Investments, it was presented to him as an empty site. The building, which had been vacant for years, sits on a tricky plot sandwiched between two busy roads and an elevated train line. It is very close to the edge of Tres de Febrero Park (also known as Bosques de Palermo, or Palermo Woods), but before ODA got involved the two were not connected. Before arriving on-site, Chen had considered demolishing the parking garage, but when he saw the building, the idea just clicked. “The building immediately captured my imagination,” Chen says, noting the first thing that surprised him was the structure’s ceiling height. Most parking garages have low ceilings, which makes them challenging to convert—this one had a 14- to 15-foot ceiling. (For perspective: Most homes have 8- to 9-foot ceilings.) The ceiling had a waffle design, which looks like a grid of intersecting beams that create a pattern of recessed squares. This helped distribute the weight of the ceiling evenly, allowing it to span large areas without the need for additional columns for support, and creating a more open and flexible space for the building’s use. To top it all off, the roof afforded a clear 360-degree view. On one side, you could see through Palermo Woods, all the way to downtown Buenos Aires. On the other, there’s a private racetrack and polo fields that people can visit only if they have exclusive memberships. “On one side you have the haves, and on the other, you have everybody else, and this is smack dab in between the two,” says Chen. He saw the rooftop as an opportunity to turn the tables and allow the park’s visitors to “look down” on the exclusive grounds and catch a (free) glimpse of any events that take place there. Form follows experiencesODA kept 80% of the original structure to create a 160,000-square-foot building. A quarter of this surface—about 40,000 square feet—is dedicated to public terraces, green spaces, and the open-air promenade. The rest is taken up by restaurants, cafés, and retail spaces. Parking for 250 cars is also available on the ground floor. But the program, or function, of the building wasn’t always clear. The area isn’t zoned for residential use, and commercial use wasn’t “the obvious choice,” says Chen, as most companies who could afford rent for a modern office building would opt for a space in downtown Buenos Aires. Retail, which thrives on heavy footfall, wasn’t obvious either since the site is so isolated and on the edge of the city. But for many years now, Chen has been honing a new mantra. “Form should not follow function anymore. Form should follow experiences,” he says. “If we design buildings for the human experience, people will visit these buildings—and enjoy them—regardless of the program.” In other words, build it and they will come? I ask. “Build it well and they will come,” he says. An important distinction. To turn the building into an irresistible destination, ODA made four incisions. They carved out one courtyard to let light into the widest part of the building, and shaved off slivers of the facade to make room for two sets of stairs and the ramp. These incisions amount to 20% of the floor area, but the architects didn’t lose that space; they redistributed it. At one end of the building, there once was a water tower that rose above the area’s height restrictions. The tower was obsolete, so Chen convinced the city to remove it. In its place, Chen’s team built a four-story tower “based on the memory of the water tower.” This “concrete mushroom” as he calls it, now rises above the rest of the structure, holding its most premium office spaces. A blueprint for the U.S.The resulting building is what Chen calls a “win-win-win.” It benefits city agencies because it makes a meaningful contribution to the public realm. It benefits the local community, which now has access to a public rooftop park. And it benefits the developer, who saved on construction costs (no new foundations were required) by not demolishing the building. It also benefits the environment, since giving buildings a second chance, as Chen puts it, can help lower the environmental footprint associated with building anew. (Though there could be costs associated with bringing an old building up to code.) “Cities are filled with structures that are either dated or unnecessary, and of course, a big chunk of it is parking garages,” Chen says. Already, architects are starting to build “future-proof” parking garages like this multistory car park in Calgary, Alberta, that was specifically designed to transform into a 600-person office or 50-unit residential building if (and when) the need arises. But Chen believes that residential and commercial are not the only options, especially if the building’s ceilings are low, as they often are. He includes indoor/outdoor sports venues, like pickleball courts; urban farms; and even open-air markets among the possibilities. “The key,” he says, “is not to be fixated on the obvious programs that people might think of.” View the full article

Job searching can feel like a full-time job in and of itself. Endless networking coffees and cover letter drafts can make it easy to get discouraged. And while it’s helpful to get support from family, friends, and your significant other, they may not truly grasp the day-to-day grind that’s needed to keep the momentum going. In fact, for many, searching for a job is an isolating experience. According to a recent American Staffing Association/Harris Poll Workforce Monitor survey, 72% of Americans say applying for jobs can feel like sending résumés into a “black box.” And four out of 10 unemployed U.S. job seekers revealed they didn’t land a single job interview in a year. This cycle of applying for jobs and not hearing back can lead to frustration, hopelessness and loneliness, says Richard Wahlquist, chief executive officer at the American Staffing Association. One way to keep up a productive job search is to find a job-search partner. Experts say this support can help keep you motivated and feeling supported. Here’s how to best work with another job searcher to both secure new roles: 1. You’ll gain an extra set of eyes and ears There’s only so many hours in the day and so many networking channels one can explore. So, having a job partner—especially one searching in the same industry—can double your outreach. “They can identify job openings you missed,” says Wahlquist. 2. They can help you polish your materials and prep for interviews A job search partner can not only assist with proofreading, but they can also offer you a fresh perspective on your cover letter, and provide suggestions on how to customize your résumé for each position you apply for. Interview prep is also paramount, and Walhquist says a job search partner can provide very helpful roleplay as you practice answering challenging interview questions. These exercises can improve your communication skills and boost your confidence. 3. They can help you stay motivated Knowing that someone depends on your support can be motivating. “There’s an extra layer of accountability on days when the last thing you feel like doing is applying for another job,” says Wahlquist. How to choose a job search buddy It’s a personal decision whether to partner with a job seeker in your same industry—and of course depends on who you know who might also be searching for a job at the same time. Here are a few reasons why picking someone in the same field can be helpful: They understand the industry. Jenny Wood, a career-development expert and author of the new book Wild Courage: Go After What You Want and Get It, says picking a person in your field can be a good move, even if you’re worried about potential competition. “There are hundreds of thousands of jobs out there,” says Wood. “They only need one and you only need one. There are enough to go around.” They can give real feedback. Not only can they help you choose winning résumé keywords and bullet points, an insider can also help you grasp “what a solid versus mediocre answer is to an interview question,” says Wood. They’ll also better understand what certain role descriptions mean when you are both searching and applying. How to be sure a job search partner adds value Gaining support can only help you on your employment journey. “Job seekers who end up with the most options and, eventually, the best jobs are the ones who enlist as many people and resources as possible to support their job searches,” says Walhquist. But be sure to keep an eye on the prize of getting a job, and keep the interactions productive. “While it may be comforting to constantly touch base with your job search partner, make sure the relationship is not getting in the way of your actual search,” says Wahlquist. “Sitting in a café with your friend may be fun, but at the end of the day, you have to actually do the work to apply for jobs.” How often to check in The frequency of check-ins depends on the individuals involved, says Matthew A. Solit, LMSW, executive clinical director with LifeStance Health. “Weekly may work for some, but for others, higher frequency can increase accountability.” It’s all about what works for you and your accountability partner or partners. “Mutually agreed upon communication patterns and a framework for accountability is key to a good working partnership,” adds Solit. What to do when one of you gets a job There is a high likelihood that one member of the partnership will be offered a position before the other. And, says Solit, when one member of the team succeeds, everyone succeeds. “It’s not a race, and it’s not about winning or losing,” says Solit. “It is important to continue to support your job-search peers even if you are hired first and to see the mutual commitment to accountability through to the end for both members.” View the full article