What's on Your Mind?

Two government agencies are warning Americans about threats from Salmonella outbreaks this week. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has cautioned about a multi-state outbreak of the potentially deadly bacteria in poultry, while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has posted two recall notices about tomatoes that are feared to be tainted with Salmonella. Although the poultry and tomato salmonella outbreaks are not reported to be linked, each should be taken seriously given the threat that Salmonella infections can pose. Here’s what you need to know about the Salmonella outbreak and recalls. CDC announces Salmonella outbreak linked to poult…

DoorDash, the ubiquitous U.S. food delivery app, has agreed to acquire British rival Deliveroo for 2.9 billion pounds ($3.9 billion) in cash, expanding its business in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. San Francisco-based DoorDash will pay 180 pence ($2.40) for each Deliveroo share, 29% more than the closing price on April 24, the day before the offer was announced, the companies said in a joint statement before the London Stock Exchange opened for trading on Tuesday. The deal is DoorDash’s second major international acquisition in three years as the company expands from its traditional base in the U.S., Canada and Australia. After the purchase of Deliveroo, and …

Big Four accounting firm PwC is laying off about 1,500 employees in the United States, a company spokesperson told Reuters on Monday. The workforce reduction equates to approximately 2% of our U.S. firm, the spokesperson said. PwC employs more than 75,000 people in the United States. “This was a difficult decision, and we made it with care, thoughtfulness, and a deep awareness of its impact on our people, appreciating that historically low levels of attrition over consecutive years have made it necessary to take this step”, PwC said in a statement. Last year, Reuters had reported that PwC was considering slashing up to half its financial services auditing …

Cisco is the latest company to announce a quantum breakthrough. On Tuesday, the company said it has developed a prototype entanglement source chip that has the potential to cut the timeline for practical quantum computing by as much as a decade. The chip was developed in partnership with UC Santa Barbara and is novel in that it generates up to one million entangled photon pairs per second, and does so at room temperature, saving considerable resources. Additionally, Cisco is also announcing the opening of Cisco Quantum Labs, which will be the company’s dedicated quantum research hub in Santa Monica, California. The chip itself was developed at Cisco’s “Outshift” i…

Prioritizing growth to sell is a perfectly reasonable business strategy. Being acquired by a larger group at some point (like Poppi’s recent sale to PepsiCo) makes sense for many—to generate cash flow for expansion, take a shortcut to economies of scale or market penetration, or just cash in for early retirement. But not for me. Early on in my business journey at Bulletproof, we considered a buyout from a renowned global comms agency. But when they starting asking for growth projections and questioning whether we could achieve them, we walked away. We went on to smash those projections within three years—that’s when I truly started to realize we would be better off in…

“Well, it took a minute,” said Spike Lee, surveying the glittering Met Gala crowd during cocktail hour through bright orange glasses that matched his New York Knicks cap. “But we’re here now, that’s the most important thing.” Lee was referring to the fact that for the very first time, the Met Gala was making a point of celebrating Black style and Black designers — something he felt was an overdue milestone, but a very welcome one. “Long overdue,” Lee repeated. “But we’re here to celebrate. And who knows what’s gonna happen because of this event? There’s gonna be reverberations around the world.” Lee was echoing an excitement that many of the approximately 400 guests — …

When Cadillac designed its new ultraluxury EV, the handcrafted Celestiq, the design team had to completely rethink its battery pack: a standard EV battery wouldn’t fit inside. “We had a challenge, because due to the low roof height and the expressive proportions, there wasn’t room for a typical battery in this vehicle,” says Tony Nausieda, chief engineer of electrical propulsion systems at GM. “It would have been probably pretty straightforward to do something like an internal combustion powertrain, but that was not at all what anybody wanted to do. This was conceived to be an electric vehicle.” They couldn’t compromise on the low lines of the car. It also had…

Next week’s conclave to elect the successor to Pope Francis as leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics is a solemn affair steeped in centuries-old traditions. But far from the Sistine Chapel where cloistered cardinals will cast votes, people are placing bets on who will be chosen as the next pope. From cash bets on websites to online games modeled after fantasy football leagues and casual wagers among friends and families, the popularity of guessing and gambling on the future of the papacy is increasing worldwide, experts and participants say. It’s even topped the Europa League soccer tournament and Formula One drivers’ championship, said Sam Eaton, U.K. manager for…

Lucas Kraft’s friends knew him as the guy who always had an antacid. His recovery from bulimia left him with gastrointestinal damage, which made him reliant on over-the-counter digestive medicines. But they were also filled with chemicals that didn’t mesh with his health-conscious SoCal lifestyle. Luckily, his brother Noah had an eye for predicting where consumer interests are headed. He founded Doppler Labs, the buzzy 2010s startup hoping to create an in-ear computer, three years before Apple launched their AirPods. Doppler Labs was too early, but Wonderbelly—the brothers’ digestive health brand—has been right on time with its focus on clean ingredients and opposit…

Instacart is launching a new stand-alone app called Fizz, designed for groups to order snacks and drinks ahead of parties for a flat $5 delivery fee. The platform, developed in collaboration with the hugely popular event invite app Partiful, enables partygoers in the 30 U.S. states where alcohol delivery is legal to add items to a shared cart from nearby participating grocery stores. Instead of splitting the bill, each user is prompted to pay only for what they’ve added, with an option to include a tip for the shopper. Back in February, Instacart’s chief product officer, Daniel Danker, approached Partiful CEO Shreya Murthy about partnering on the app. The team…

Beleaguered pharmacy chain Rite Aid has officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after weeks of media reports suggesting that it was on the cusp of doing so. The bankruptcy is Rite Aid’s second in two years, and it leaves a lot of questions for both customers and employees, including whether stores will be closing, if there will be layoffs, and what happens to customers’ prescriptions. Here’s what you need to know about Rite Aid’s second bankruptcy. Why did Rite Aid file bankruptcy the first time? Rite Aid originally filed for bankruptcy in 2023. It emerged from the process less than a year ago, in 2024, with the hopes of being in a better fi…

Pinterest fans are nothing if not loyal. Many have spent years—sometimes decades—carefully curating boards filled with wedding inspiration, home decor ideas, fashion, and more. Now users are logging in only to find themselves locked out of their accounts without warning, with all their pins gone. Frustrated users have taken to platforms like X and r/Pinterest to vent. The comment sections on Pinterest’s official Instagram and TikTok pages are flooded with pleas from angry users demanding answers. “I had a beautiful Pinterest board with over 26,000 of the most beautiful images and my account was just permanently banned,” one user posted on X. “Pinterest you will be…

There we were: two experienced professionals, each standing on the iconic red dot of our own TEDx stages, ready to deliver what we hoped would be the most impactful talks of our careers. For Jamie, her meticulously rehearsed opening line—the one she practiced 327 times in the shower, in the mirror, and in front of a very patient partner—evaporated the moment the spotlight hit. Hundreds of expectant eyes waited as the silence stretched . . . and stretched. “Oh @*#%,” she whispered—into the mic. What was meant to be a private moment of panic turned into a public announcement. But instead of recoiling, the audience leaned in. Scott was one minute and fifty secon…

Across the United States, there is a long history of communities of color being underserved—if not outright oppressed—by the dominant modes of urban planning and development. But for the past 10 years, a collective of architects, designers, artists, and urban planners called BlackSpace has been rethinking how communities of color get designed and built. Now, the group is trying to build up the ranks of practitioners working alongside communities of color in the built environment to make sure their needs are no longer overlooked or ignored. To spread this work through young and emerging firms, BlackSpace has launched Studio KIN (Kinfolx Imagining Neighborhoods), a busi…

At a recent academic conference, I noticed a familiar unease ripple through conversations about “soft skills.” Many participants winced at the term. They recognized the inadequacy of the term, yet struggled to agree on a better alternative. People floated around suggestions like “human skills,” “essential skills,” or “power skills,” but none seemed to stick. This persistent terminology problem reflects a deeper tension in our educational system. There’s a long-standing bias that elevates “hard” technical competencies over the nuanced, deeply human capabilities that actually define long-term professional success. Historically, hard skills emerged from the natural s…

Getting older can be a time when declining vision, hearing, and cognitive abilities may mean it’s no longer safe to drive. It may even lead to giving up your driver’s license. In theory, those who age out of driving should be perfect new customers for ride-sharing apps. And yet, Lyft says only 5.6% of its U.S. riders are older than 65. The company sensed a disconnect. The app wasn’t meeting older riders’ needs, and it needed a redesign. Lyft Silver, now available nationwide, is designed specifically for older users, with a font that’s 1.4 times bigger than the standard app, and a simple interface. “Developing Lyft Silver was truly a labor of care and intention…

Chances are, if you’re not an Italian grandma or a skilled home chef from Rome, you’ve probably messed up while trying to make cacio e pepe. At least, that’s the thesis underpinning the scientific study “Phase behavior of Cacio e Pepe sauce,” published on April 29 in the journal Physics of Fluids. The study—conducted by a group of scientists from the University of Barcelona, the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Germany, the University of Padova in Italy, and the Institute of Science and Technology Austria—is pretty much what its title suggests: a full-on scientific investigation into the most “optimized recipe” for the creamy, peppery pasta d…

Just two years ago, prompt engineering was hailed as a hot new job in tech. Now, it has all but disappeared. At the beginning of the corporate AI boom, some companies sought out large language model (LLM) translators—prompt engineers who specialized in crafting the most effective questions to ask internal AIs, ensuring optimal and efficient outputs. Today, strong AI prompting is simply an expected skill, not a stand-alone role. Some companies are even using AI to generate the best prompts for their own AI systems. The decline of prompt engineering serves as a cautionary tale for the AI job market. The flashy, niche roles that emerged with ChatGPT’s rise may prove …

Design-minded home goods brand Simplehuman recently released a product that’s a little out of its wheelhouse—a limited-edition tequila with distillery Nosotros. It may be the company’s first foray into spirits, but the brand already knows how to work with the Weber blue agave that made the tequila. The agave fibers on Simplehuman’s Soapwell sponge begin their life cycle by being pressed into Nosotros tequila at the company’s distillery in Tequila, Mexico. Nosotros then supplies its leftover agave fibers to Simplehuman. The $100 Nosotros x Simplehuman Blanco tequila is made out of that same agave, and was released to mark a year that Simplehuman has been spinning the f…