What's on Your Mind?

It’s possible that the IRS may owe you some money from the Covid era. Last month, a U.S. Court of Federal Claims decision broadened the interpretation of a particular part of the tax code, IRC Sec. 7508A, which concerned the postponement of tax deadlines during disasters, such as the Covid pandemic. Specifically, a February ruling in Kwong v. United States (2025)—a lawsuit concerning a plaintiff’s attempt to get a refund for tax penalties—decided that deadlines for filing tax returns, paying taxes, or filing for refunds needed to be completed by July 11, 2023. So, if a taxpayer was supposed to file their 2020 tax return by April 15, 2021, the date was shifted to …

A recent class-action lawsuit against David Protein, filed in January, alleges the company misrepresented the amount of calories and fat in its popular, healthy-branded bar, claiming that it had “way more” of both than customers were led to believe. Now, in response to the lawsuit, social media is having a field day with comparisons to the 2004 movie Mean Girls, with one TikTok user and apparent David Protein customer posting, “I have been Regina Georged.” Here’s a quick brief on what’s happening. Wait, remind me, what’s the ‘Mean Girls’ plot again? If you’re like me, you’ve seen Mean Girls a dozen times. The plot is a hilarious and biting commentary on the…

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has said it would commit $100 million to training the next generation of skilled trades workers who can support a growing demand for new infrastructure. In its announcement, BlackRock explained that its philanthropic Future Builders Initiative will “help address urgent labor needs,” noting that there’s been an increase in “demand for workers in skilled trades such as electricians, HVAC technicians, plumbers, and ironworkers.” The company said that demand is expected to continue to surge in the coming years, and explained that it would help to meet that demand by supporting future workers during all stages of training thro…

Feeld markets itself as “the dating app for the curious.” For most of its users, that means curiosity about kink and casual sex—but its newest tool asks you to be curious about yourself. As a favorite platform for the kink, fetish, and non-mongamous communities, Feeld is a place where taboos are the norm. But a new survey from the app suggests that kink is more mainstream than dominant culture would have you believe. And Feeld’s new tool, Reflections, accompanies the data by letting anyone, Feeld users and otherwise, assess their own relationship with nontraditional sex. Feeld surveyed thousands of both its own users and external respondents for opinions on the pe…

Carnival Cruise Line has announced that it is launching a new dining experience on its ships for people who don’t like the long, leisurely evening dinners that cruises are known for. Here’s why Carnival is introducing the new option, and what it means for you if you’re traveling on a Carnival cruise soon. What’s happened? This week, Carnival announced that it is rolling out a new “Express Dining” option on more than a dozen of its ships. The cruise giant says that the new dining experience is designed to offer “a freshly prepared multi-course dinner experience in under an hour for groups of six guests or fewer.” The idea behind Express Dining is that if Carniva…

Grammarly, the tool meant to assist with spelling, grammar, and in identifying plagiarism, is being sued for a new AI tool called “Expert Review.” The tool offers editing suggestions from established authors and writers—ostensibly not a bad idea—except that none of those people consented to being involved in the first place. The tool offers real-time writing tips from celebrities like Stephen King and Neil deGrasse Tyson, as well as journalists, like The Markup founder Julia Angwin, who filed the class action lawsuit against Grammarly’s parent company Superhuman, after she alleged the tool used her likeness without her permission: “have worked for decades honing my s…

OpenAI’s first artist in residence is launching a new company that aims to turn your thoughts into actual products. Today, entrepreneur and roboticist Alexander Reben announces Phyzify, a lab using AI tools to rapidly prototype physical objects based on your imagination. “There’s a huge gap between idea and [bringing that] thing into existence,” says Reben, cofounder of Phyzify. “And I really think AI and robotics and quantum computing and all the technology that’s about to come is going to accelerate [closing] that gap [and] make walking across that bridge a lot easier.” But what Reben has in mind is far greater than just 3D printing. He’s envisions Phyzify as a …

Every day in America, over 100 people are involved in a life-altering crash that severely injures them or kills them. And that 100-per-day doesn’t even include all the people whose lives are impacted indirectly by severe crashes. Vision Zero is a road safety philosophy that originated in Sweden in the 1990s and has since been adopted by cities across the United States and Europe. Its premise is straightforward: traffic deaths and serious injuries are preventable and can therefore be eliminated. With the right street design, traffic enforcement, and public awareness, everyone can get around safely. The problem is that severe crashes are a catastrophe so routine tha…

Cambodia said Friday it has drafted its first law targeting online scam centers, after vowing to shut them down by the end of April. Cambodia is a major hub for scam operations, which extort money from victims online through bogus investment schemes and feigned romances. Victims around the world are estimated to have been cheated out of tens of billions of dollars annually. At the same time, thousands of people, especially from other Asian nations, have been recruited with false job offers and then forced to work in scam centers in conditions of near-slavery. “This law is the most important legal instrument for Cambodia in combating scams online, fighting money launder…

Nearly every part of the United States is getting walloped by wild weather or just about to be. Days of downpours have begun in Hawaii. The Southwest will soon bake with day after day of record 100-degree-plus (38 Celsius-plus) heat. Two storms will dump snow by the foot over northern Great Lakes states. And the dreaded polar vortex will again invade the Midwest and East with soul-crushing Arctic chill. This forecast of extremes comes as weather whiplash already hit much of the East. On Wednesday, Washington, D.C. residents walked around in shorts in record-breaking 86 degrees Fahrenheit (about 30 Celsius). On Thursday, it snowed. “All of the country, even if you’re no…

Gone are the days when marketers can think in five- or 10-year plans. These days, it’s about tomorrow, not the next 16 months, because culture and what captures consumers’ attention is changing faster than ever. Today, it’s Love Island and Traitors reality TV star Rob Rausch posing shirtless on a giant billboard in Times Square for MAC Cosmetics. And tomorrow, it’s Punch the Monkey holding on to his plush doll. (And if you know what we’re talking about, congrats, you are chronically online and in tune with the culture. If you don’t, you’ve got some work to do, but that’s why we’re here.) The state of brand building in 2026 looks vastly different than what any ve…

My new favorite creator on TikTok is Apple. Yes, that Apple. On March 4, Apple launched its newest product, the head-turningly affordable $599 MacBook Neo. That same day, the company also deleted all of the content that once populated its TikTok page and started over. Its new videos—on view there are now 15—run the gamut from a clip inspired by Steve Jobs’s original introduction of the 1984 Macintosh to a cutesy animation of the Mac finder icon giggling and blushing. The videos have consistently debuted in batches of three, each corresponding to one of the brand colors associated with the Neo. This TikTok refresh is a clear play to cater to the audience that Apple…

I was walking down the street with my partner in London’s Camden neighborhood on Wednesday night when we saw an ad that said, “This app was designed to keep you hooked.” A finger could be seen tapping Instagram’s app icon above a claim reading, “45% of teens say they spend too much time on social media.” In theory, this was all straightforward messaging, but the ad’s final note in the corner threw us: “From Meta,” logo and all. We turned to each other in confusion, trying to make sense of it. The ad looked so professionally designed that we wondered, could Meta Platforms, a company that has repeatedly denied responsibility for its users’ mental health, be ad…

Shares in the preeminent graphics software company Adobe Inc. (Nasdaq: ADBE) are dropping significantly in premarket trading this morning following the company’s Q1 2026 earnings results. Yet it’s not the earnings themselves that are driving ADBE stock lower. It’s an announcement from the company’s CEO, Shantanu Narayen, who said he plans to exit the role he has held for over 18 years. Here’s what you need to know: What’s happened? On Thursday, Adobe announced the results of its first quarter for fiscal 2026. And for all intents and purposes, the results were of the caliber that would normally make investors happy: Total revenue of $6.4 billion (up 12% ye…

Being seen is a fundamental human need. We all can recall a moment when we truly felt “seen” by someone for who we are, and how good and empowering it made us feel. When this happens, it deepens our sense of belonging and makes us more connected to our work, and to others. And today, with so much of our attention being scattered and superficial, being truly seen is as surprising as it is refreshing. Research supports this: a sense of social belonging is one of the strongest predictors of engagement and performance at work. According to Deloitte’s Global Human Capital Trends report, 79% of organizations say that creating a sense of belonging is important or very import…

Hello again, and welcome back to Fast Company’s Plugged In. On March 9, Jay Graber stepped down as CEO of Bluesky. She will become the social networking platform’s chief innovation officer, while Toni Schneider, a venture capitalist and former CEO of WordPress parent company Automattic, joins Bluesky as interim CEO. (I may be the last person left who also associates Schneider with Oddpost, an impressive browser-based email client he co-created way back before Gmail existed.) Graber explained her decision as stemming in part from a desire to turn the CEO role over to someone who can help scale up the platform. From November 2024 to January 2025, as Elon Musk’s role…

As of yesterday, March 12, hundreds of thousands of innovators, disruptors, and leaders began descending on Austin for SXSW. If you search “Tech and AI” in this year’s schedule, you’ll find 185 results. That’s more than double the 80 AI sessions in 2024, the same year I wrote a Fast Company op-ed about how women have spent decades building the intellectual foundation of AI while receiving almost none of the credit. It was also the year that companies with at least one female founder raised $38.8 billion in venture capital funding which is a 27 percent increase from the year prior, but still not close to the high point in 2021 with a raise of $62.5 billion. Two years …

Usually the epitome of good humor, my friend was seething. She had devised a zany and creative marketing idea for her firm. Securing the budget, designing a content strategy, hiring a creative agency, and then doing all the related work had consumed Alex and her team for a full six months. This was on top of their already demanding jobs. And then the unthinkable happened. “Before the idea was announced, one of my coworkers, a PR guy, shared the idea—my idea—with the CEO and CMO.” I watched her pace around my kitchen, her face getting redder and redder. “While he didn’t exactly say he’d done the work himself, how he talked about it made it seem like it was all his.…

Here is a number worth sitting with: 295%. That’s how much U.S. app uninstalls of ChatGPT surged in a single day last month, after OpenAI struck a deal with the Department of Defense that its rival Anthropic had publicly refused to sign. In the same 24-hour window, Claude’s downloads jumped 51%. By that evening, Anthropic’s app had climbed to No. 1 on the U.S. App Store, leapfrogging 20 apps in under a week. One values-driven decision. One weekend. A measurable transfer of market share. Most of the coverage framed this as a political story. It isn’t. Or at least, not only. It’s also a brand loyalty story. And it tells us something important about the category …