What's on Your Mind?

Pharrell Williams has high hopes for the Met Gala, the first to focus exclusively on Black designers, and the first in more than 20 years to have a menswear theme. “I want it to feel like the most epic night of power, a reflection of Black resiliency in a world that continues to be colonized, by which I mean policies and legislation that are nothing short of that,” he recently told Vogue. “It’s our turn.” Indeed. And welcome to the first Monday in May. How to watch the 2025 Met Gala Vogue will livestream the gala starting at 6 p.m. Eastern on Vogue.com, its YouTube channel and across its other digital platforms. Teyana Taylor, La La Anthony and Ego Nwodim will h…

Right-leaning comedy podcasts are a gateway to conspiracy theories and misogynistic content, a new study has found. While these podcasts may seem harmless at first—often discussing sports like the NFL and MMA and featuring guests such as Ben Affleck and David Goggins—a new report reveals that engaging with their content online can open a Pandora’s box of aliens and Andrew Tate, the former professional kickboxer who built his platform by promoting misogynistic ideas. In a study published this week, the nonprofit Media Matters for America examined five comedy shows that platformed Donald The President during the 2024 presidential election while claiming to be nonpol…

Fans of Joann have one last chance to grab fistfuls of fabric, yarn, and other critical sewing supplies before the ill-fated retailer closes for good—but time is running out. The beloved brand, which has been winding down operations after seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for a second time, will close its last remaining stores at the end of May, meaning this is the last full weekend that they will be open for business. A spokesperson for GA Group, the asset firm that took control of Joann in February, shared the list of locations with Fast Company. It includes 444 stores in 45 states. At the time of its bankruptcy filing, Joann had roughly 800 locations, bu…

If you’ve been on Google or virtually any social media website over the last few days, you might have seen stories about Amazon layoffs making the rounds. And if you were curious enough to click through to any of those stories, you might have discovered that Amazon is supposedly planning to lay off 14,000 managers by the end of this quarter—a stunning figure, even for a company as big as Amazon. But that figure is untrue. Not only that, it seems to have been essentially conjured up out of nowhere, before being picked up by a stream of headlines on Google News, viral Reddit threads, and would-be LinkedIn influencers dissecting it as if it were fact. In reality,…

As genetic testing company 23andMe heads to bankruptcy court, there is a lot of data at stake. The company, which analyses DNA through its salvia test kits and offers information about customers’ ancestry, health traits, and genetic risks, now seeks “authorization from the Court to commence a process to sell substantially all of its assets through a chapter 11 plan,” according to 23andMe’s press release. Your DNA data could be part of those assets. A close reading of the bankruptcy docket shows the company’s terms of service appear to allow 23andMe to transfer personally identifiable information in the event of “bankruptcy, merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale …

The odds of winning the lottery are about one in 300 million. If you have a tattoo of an old Mountain Dew logo on your body, your odds of winning Mountain Dew’s new sweepstakes are much, much higher. The soda’s owner, PepsiCo, is launching the contest to celebrate Mountain Dew’s new logo hitting store shelves. It’s asking people who have a tattoo of the old Mountain Dew logo to upload a photo to social media and tag Mountain Dew for a chance to win a trip for two to Las Vegas to get a tattoo of the new logo. Last year, Mountain Dew retired its jagged, abbreviated “Mtn Dew” logo introduced in 2009 for a new logo that spells out the citrus soda brand’s entire name.…

The number of domestic travelers in the U.S. is expected to break a record for Memorial Day weekend that was set in 2005. AAA anticipates that 45.1 million people will travel 50 miles or more from home over the weekend, an increase of 1.4 million travelers compared to last year. Those traveling by car see the biggest difference, with more than a million extra travelers expected on the roads compared to last year. While 87% of travelers choose to take road trips during Memorial Day weekend, this year, they’re also aided by the lower crude oil prices making gasoline cheaper nationwide. (Typically, gas prices will peak in the summer as the busy travel season commences. Y…

In recent years, Khan Academy founder Sal Khan has been most visible promoting the organization’s AI learning assistant, Khanmigo. But a second nonprofit he founded, called Schoolhouse, focuses on connecting students with their peers for human-centered educational interactions. Since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Schoolhouse has connected students with trained and certified volunteer tutors, often around their own age, who help them understand a variety of academic subjects. Now, through a pilot with the College Board, these tutors also help students prepare for the SATs. “It was a very utopian idea that frankly a lot of people were very skeptical of—that you c…

Psychologist: “Design influences behavior.” Neuroscientist: “Design influences behavior.” Uncivil engineer: “It’s not like my road design influences driver behavior.” Every day, preventable crashes are destroying lives because transportation planners and engineers don’t understand that design influences behavior. (I’m being charitable by assuming they don’t understand.) Drivers respond to the built environment much the same way water responds to a riverbed. The shape, width, and surface conditions of the riverbed determine the water’s speed, turbulence, and direction. Likewise, the width of a road, presence of visual cues, curvature, intersections, and sur…

A colossal squid has been caught on camera for the first time in the deep sea by an international team of researchers steering a remotely operated submersible. The sighting was announced Tuesday by the Schmidt Ocean Institute. The squid filmed was a juvenile about 1 foot (30 centimeters) in length at a depth of 1,968 feet (600 meters) in the South Atlantic Ocean. Full-grown adult colossal squids, which scientists have uncovered from the bellies of whales and seabirds, can reach lengths up to 23 feet (7 meters) — almost the size of a small fire truck. The squid was spied last month near the South Sandwich Islands during an expedition to search for new sea life.…

BESSEMER, Ala.—They all came here for peace, and so far, the land has given it to them. For Marshall Killingsworth, the peace comes from the owls whose hoots echo across the valley as he sits in his favorite spot in his garden. For David Havron, it’s looking up at the stars at night as the moonlight glistens off the lake just outside his back door. For Mary Rosenboom, it’s the calls of the songbirds as the sun slowly sets over the hilly terrain. For Becky Morgan, it’s the view of the mountain from her recliner—through the long windows that line the sides of her home. But all these residents in this area of rural Jefferson County are afraid—fearful that their peac…

Noodles & Company, the fast-casual chain known for serving an array of noodle-based dishes, will shutter up to 21 restaurants. The brand, founded in Denver, Colorado in 1995, has already closed at least nine locations over the past year. In a conference call last week, chief financial officer Michael Hynes said, “We expect to close 13 to 17 company-owned and four franchise restaurants in 2025.” The most recent count is up from a previous estimate of 12 to 15 company-owned closures. Noodles & Company currently has 380 company-owned restaurants and 89 franchised locations in 31 states. According to the brand’s website, the impending closures are due to higher f…