What's on Your Mind?

Tax filing season is in full swing, and while preparing your taxes can often be filled with stress, misplaced documents, and worries about proper filing, this year, there may be a silver lining. According to analysts, many Americans may get larger refunds in 2026 due to The President’s 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill legislation. Last year, the average refund was $3,167, but, given there are a number of new changes and deductions, experts say many Americans are looking to get back an additional $1,000 or more. Overall, that could come out to around $90 billion more dollars in tax returns. Here are the biggest changes that could boost your tax refund this year: No tax…

Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday signed into law a bill requiring Apple and Alphabet’s Google to verify the age of users of their app stores, putting the second-most-populous U.S. state at the center of a debate over whether and how to regulate smartphone use by children and teenagers. The law, effective on January 1, requires parental consent to download apps or make in-app purchases for users aged below 18. Utah was the first U.S. state to pass a similar law earlier this year, and U.S. lawmakers have also introduced a federal bill. Another Texas bill, passed in the state’s House of Representatives and awaiting a Senate vote, would restrict social media apps…

When the confetti settles and the ball has dropped, many Americans will wake up on New Year’s Day — Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026 — with errands to run, groceries to buy, or just the urge to grab coffee. But because New Year’s Day is a federal holiday, the holiday clock affects a wide range of services differently: some go dormant for the day, others hum along with normal or modified hours, and a few offer the convenience you might need as you kick off the new year. Here’s what to expect if you’re planning to be out and about — or just need to know whether that store you’re counting on is open. Will I get mail on New Year’s Day? Thursday is a full federal holiday, whi…

There are two sorts of people in this world: Those who think it sounds like fun to brave the elements for hours on end to watch the ball drop at midnight in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, and then there’s the rest of us. It’s become a time-honored tradition for millions of people to crowd into a few blocks of New York to celebrate a new year, and some new features await revelers this year. A larger ball will be dropped in the annual countdown to midnight, weighing in at 12,000-plus pounds and adorned with 5,200 crystals and LED lights. And there’s some special red, white, and blue confetti among the nearly three tons to celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary. …

There’s something incredibly compelling about a brand-new year. A fresh start beckons, with each day untroubled by your past decisions. Whatever mistakes you made in 2025 are old news. They were sooo last year. You’re a new person now with new priorities, new habits, and new strategies. It’s in this spirit of new-leaf-turning-over that nearly a third of American adults—and almost half of 18- to 29-year-olds—decide to make New Year’s resolutions for the coming year. Unfortunately, making resolutions doesn’t work. Baylor College of Medicine reported in January 2024 that 88% of people who make resolutions abandon them within two weeks. That doesn’t mean change or imp…

Every January, millions of people set ambitious New Year’s resolutions. They do this with genuine enthusiasm, hoping to transform their lives. Yet research indicates that by January 8th, just one week into the year, a quarter of these resolutions have already failed. By the end of the year, most individuals return to their familiar patterns, and the promises they made to themselves are often abandoned. My life doesn’t permit me the luxury of being part of that statistic. I operate at the intersection of three distinct and demanding identities: a PhD scholar at Oxford researching outer space financing, the founder of a career advancement platform called Network Capital…

Office work is officially back from the dead—if New York is any indication, that is. In Manhattan, businesses are leasing more office space than they have in close to a decade, in a sign that the return-to-office movement is likely to stick around. According to real estate investor CBRE, during the first nine months of 2025, Manhattan businesses leased 23.2 million square feet of office space, the most since 2006. Leasing has already surpassed last year’s total, with 143 leases at more than $100 per square foot. However, as the epicenter of business, New York City is an outlier: Nationally, leasing is still around 11% below the pre-COVID average. Unsurprisingly, …

As snow piled up in front of bus stops and fire hydrants during New York City’s second winter storm of the year, city workers have tried to move fast to remove it before snow hardened into ice. A new internal tool makes that job easier to track. The city’s Department of Sanitation (DSNY) now tags infrastructure that’s been plowed in a mobile mapping tool that employees can update on the go. “We have started the work of geotagging every single bus shelter and crosswalk,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said Monday, and overnight, he said the city cleared more than 1,600 crosswalks, 419 fire hydrants, and nearly 900 bus stops. DSNY handles trash collection, but it’s al…

One of the world’s most iconic and controversial maps just got a major redesign. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) in New York has unveiled the final version of an updated map of its subway system, marking the first time the map has had a full redesign since 1979. It’s a visually bold, user-centric design that, according to the MTA, will make it easier for people to understand where they’re going and how to use the system. The new maps are expected to be installed in train cars and stations over the next few weeks. The map features bright, color-coded lines for each train line, which criss-cross a stylized map of the city in horizontal, vertical, and dia…

Taxpayers in the Empire State will soon receive a refund to help offset rising living costs. Part of the 2025-2026 New York State budget allocates funds for inflation refund checks. The onetime payments offer relief to New Yorkers who have incurred increased sales tax costs due to inflation. According to the state, 8.2 million households will receive payments. Governor Kathy Hochul announced that as of September 26, inflation refund checks have started to be mailed to taxpayers. Checks will continue to be issued throughout October and November. Here’s what to know about whether you’re eligible, how much you’ll receive, and more. Am I eligible for an inflat…

New York is the latest state to consider a bill that would prohibit AI chatbots from dispensing advice that licensed professionals would normally give, such as medical or legal advice. The bill would also allow people who believe they were harmed by such advice to sue the operator of the chatbot. Senate Bill S7263, introduced by Democratic state Senator Kristen Gonzalez, passed out of a technology committee on a 6–0 vote last week and now advances to a reading on the floor of the Senate. Interestingly, the bill requires operators to clearly label their chatbots as AI, but stipulates that such a label isn’t enough to shield them from lawsuits under the statute. The…

There are many, many maps of New York City. There are the decor maps, sold on Amazon, and the tourist maps, which mostly focus, erroneously, only on Manhattan. There’s the iconic subway map, as well as the MTA’s new version. There’s the Eater and Grubhub maps, which tell us where to eat. And then there’s the map that really matters: the official legal map for the city, which quite literally rules the streets of the city, complete with boundaries and widths. It’s also the map that doesn’t currently exist, at least in one singular and easy-to-use form. That’s changing, though. On Tuesday night, New Yorkers appeared poised to approve Proposal 5, a measure that will…

In January 2025, subway riders at the 59th Street-Lexington Avenue station in Manhattan noticed a surprising new addition: spiked metal partitions between each fare gate. Some commuters called the partitions “silly and foolish.” Others said they were “a waste of money.” Over the past nine months, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority has rolled out the same spiked partitions to 183 stations across the subway network, with more on the way. Like spikes on a handrail prevent people from sitting on it, these metal screens (which the MTA calls “sleeves”) are designed to prevent people from hoisting themselves over the turnstiles. They’ve also turned what was already an…

New York City scaffolding is so commonplace it has become a kind of extra architectural skin covering the city. It’s estimated that there are more than 9,000 of these “construction sheds” (another term for scaffolding) installed across the city, enough to stretch nearly 400 miles if they were put end to end. They do the important work of shielding pedestrians from potential falling debris during building construction and renovation projects, but they also shroud large swaths of sidewalk in dark and cloistered tunnels made of an unfortunate jumble of steel poles and plywood. Construction scaffolding is the city’s ubiquitous, utilitarian, and mostly unpleasant nec…

As Los Angeles reels from deadly January wildfires that destroyed thousands of homes, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday he will order the state to advance long-delayed regulations requiring homeowners in high-risk areas to clear combustible materials around their homes. His office didn’t immediately say if the executive order will set a timeline for implementing the rule, which was passed by lawmakers in 2020 and originally set to take effect by January 1, 2023. Newsom is expected to sign it after his trip to Washington to advocate for disaster aid. The rule requires homeowners to clear materials like dead plants and wooden furniture within 5 feet (1.5 me…

Last Energy, a nuclear upstart backed by an Elon Musk-linked venture capital fund, says it plans to construct 30 microreactors on a site in Texas to supply electricity to data centers across the state. The initiative, which it says could provide about 600 megawatts of electricity, would be the company’s largest project to date and help it develop a commercial pipeline in the U.S. Set on a 200-acre site Last Energy has obtained in Haskell County, in northwest Texas, the project still faces likely years of regulatory and public scrutiny. The Washington, D.C.-based company hasn’t yet disclosed customers or the details of its financing, or announced a timeline for the ef…

All eyes are on Netflix, which is set to report fourth-quarter earnings after Tuesday’s closing bell. In the ongoing saga over whether will Netflix will acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, the streaming giant is now offering to pay all cash for the deal, revising a previous bid that included a mix of stock with cash, according to filing from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). On Tuesday, Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery announced the amended agreement, which simplifies the deal for investors who no longer have to worry about Netflix’s fluctuating stock price. The news comes as Netflix continues to stave off a hostile takeover bid from rival Skydanc…

General managers around the National Hockey League are putting some of their old roster and team management tactics on ice. That’s because NHL front offices, through a partnership with software company SAP, are now using the SAP-NHL Front Office App, bringing reams of data and information into a single all-encompassing platform. Given that so much of the sports world is driven by numbers—goals, shots, saves, salaries, and more—all the data and information can be difficult to wrangle. For those working in the front office in the NHL, it could mean “staring at eight computer screens,” and “carrying around a big binder” to make sure it’s all on-hand, as Don Waddell, GM o…

Meta Quest 3 users will now be able to explore detailed 3D scans of sculptures, rock formations, plant life, and other interesting objects from around the world. The 3D images, which users can virtually zoom in on or walk around, are part of a new app from Pokémon Go-maker Niantic called Into the Scaniverse. Last year, the company released the latest version of a smartphone Scaniverse app letting users create detailed images of public scenes or objects within their phones, with the ability to add public images to a shared map. Already, the map includes more than 50,000 3D scenes, including renderings of Stonehenge, ancient ruins in Europe, Japanese temples, and even a shr…