What's on Your Mind?

The northern lights could light up the skies above several northern states this weekend. The aurora borealis will be visible Friday and Saturday nights over North America, and most prevalent for those states on the northern border of the mainland, according to a forecast from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center. Friday offers the highest odds of visibility for most Americans, with the northern lights potentially visible in those states stretching from Washington to Maine, and as far south as Iowa. And Friday’s aurora could be brighter, with a score of 5 out of 9 on an index measuring the three-day geomagnetic…

Here he is, depicted at six months in office, chiseled and brawny, as mighty as the very nation. Here he is as a Star Wars Jedi wielding a patriot-red lightsaber, rescuing our galaxy from the forces of evil. Here he is taking over Gaza, transforming the strip into a luxury resort complete with a golden effigy of himself. You can be anything, perhaps you were told growing up. Doctor. Astronaut. Maybe, one day, the president. But even the chief executive of the United States, the free world’s leader, frames himself as something more epic — as someone not entirely himself. On the social media accounts of Donald The President and his second-term administration, a new,…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. National home prices rose 0.01% year over year from September 2024 to September 2025, according to the Zillow Home Value Index reading published on October 16—decelerated from the 2.4% year-over-year rate from September 2023 to September 2024. This year, the number of major metro-area housing markets seeing year-over-year declines has climbed. —> 31 of the nation’s 300 largest housing markets (10% of markets) had a falling year-over-year reading from January 2024 to January 2025. —> 42 of the nation’s 300 largest housing markets (14%) h…

Is this the beginning of the end for Bitcoin? A Bitcoin (BTC) sell-off on Thursday is sending the cryptocurrency down again today by 3% to $86,410.50 in midday afternoon trading, after a rally had it above $93,000 earlier in the day. It’s now hit its lowest level since April. It’s part of an overall decline in the crypto market that also saw closely watched digital asset XRP (XRP-USD) falling below $2.00 per token during the day, while Ethereum (ETH-USD) shed nearly 3% and was trading at $2,832 in the late afternoon at the time of this writing. Both stock market and Bitcoin investors were briefly riding high on chip maker Nvidia’s third-quarter earnings report…

After a rough start to 2025 due to the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires, awards season in Hollywood is officially back in the swing of things. The fires, which broke out right after the Golden Globes, even caused some to question awards shows’ relevance in this time of crisis. Despite several delays, however, the Critics Choice Awards was held at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica on February 7. The following day, the Producers Guild of America Awards (PGA) was held at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles and the Directors Guild of America Awards (DGA) was presented at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills. The results from these three prestigious awards shows …

A decade ago, Ben Collins quit his job as a corporate accountant and started teaching other people how to use spreadsheets more effectively. That move, terrifying as it seemed at the time, paid off brilliantly. Today Collins is the proprietor of an online spreadsheet training academy and the author of a weekly newsletter dedicated entirely to Google Sheets tips. Some 50,000 people subscribe. And yet once again Collins is finding himself facing a sense of uncertainty over what’s next—as the very nature of what a spreadsheet even is enters a dizzying spiral of transformation. “We’ve had more innovation in the last two years than in the 20 before that,” Collins s…

In today’s world, where success is often tied to financial accomplishments, status, and impressive job titles, Warren Buffett offers a refreshing perspective: True success is about the love we share. Yes, love. Buffett once said, “Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you.” Buffett’s wisdom gets to the core of what matters, reminding us that, ultimately, life’s real currency is the relationships we nurture that lead to two-way love. Who do you want to have love you? Are you a leader, manager, founder, or CEO with scores of people looking at you f…

Neom, the insane urban development project in Saudi Arabia, appears to be sinking faster than the giant holes they keep digging in the middle of nowhere. Increasing delays and soaring cost overruns have led to project cancellations and a general scaling back of the original vision. Now a Wall Street Journal report has uncovered an internal audit that reveals evidence of deliberate manipulation of finances by management to justify rising cost estimates to investors. The sense of impending disaster is even more shocking when you look at the only crazy structure that is now standing in Neom: an unbelievably giant palace. New satellite images obtained by Business Insider …

This week, President Donald The President and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his secretary of health and human services, suggested a link between Tylenol use during pregnancy and autism. The claim, which has been widely debunked by experts and is not backed by medical science, became instant social media fodder. The President and Kennedy’s announcement included a graphic featuring the words “Autism Announcement,” splashed across a blue background. It quickly became repurposed as a meme by many in the Autism community. “How it feels telling the group chat I don’t want to eat at the restaurant they planned because I don’t like the texture of the food they serve,” one X us…

For decades, MBA programs, leadership trainings, and consultancies have told us that effective leaders share a set of “essential competencies.” You know the lists: empathy, strategic vision, humility, charisma, psychological safety, communication skills. These ideas get repeated in boardrooms and promised in executive education programs. But if these competencies were truly essential, then the leaders we most admire should have them. The truth is, they often don’t. This never made sense to me. In addition to my writing and research, I’ve spent the past 15 years running a secret dining experience called the Influencers Dinner. We’ve hosted close to 4,000 Olympians, Nob…

Six decades after it was created by Congress, the nonprofit that brought America Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Sesame Street will shut down for good. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced this week that it would officially shut down, ushering in an uncertain new era for the future of public broadcasting. The organization historically administers funds for NPR, PBS, and more than 1,000 local TV and radio stations nationwide. The nonprofit entity was signed into law by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 to manage federal funds for educational TV and radio shows, but it fell victim to a defunding campaign initiated by the The President administration …

In a seismic shift for one of television’s marquee events, the Academy Awards will depart ABC and begin streaming on YouTube beginning in 2029, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday. ABC will continue to broadcast the annual ceremony through 2028. That year will mark the 100th Oscars. But starting in 2029, YouTube will retain global rights to streaming the Oscars through 2033. YouTube will effectively be the home to all things Oscars, including red-carpet coverage, the Governors Awards, and the Oscar nominations announcement. “We are thrilled to enter into a multifaceted global partnership with YouTube to be the future home of the…

There’s Blue Sky and then there’s Bluesky. Blue Sky, a paper goods company founded 16 years ago, appears to be seeing a massive bump in traffic to its website, www.bluesky.com, thanks to the newfound popularity of the social media platform of a nearly identical name. Blue Sky’s website saw 215,100 visitors in March of this year compared to 56,300 visitors in March of 2024, marking a 282% increase in visits, according to data from digital market intelligence firm Similarweb. At the same time, Bluesky, the X competitor hosted at bsky.app, saw a 864% growth in visitors. In March 2025, Similarweb tracked 169.8 million visitors, compared to 17.6 million in March 20…

In moments of political chaos, deepfakes and AI-generated content can thrive. Case in point: the online reaction to the US government’s shocking operation in Venezuela over the weekend, which included multiple airstrikes and a clandestine mission that ended with the capture of the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife. They were soon charged with narcoterrorism, along with other crimes, and they’re currently being held at a federal prison in New York. Right now, the facts of the extraordinary operation are still coming to light, and the future of Venezuela is incredibly unclear. President Donald The President says the U.S. government plans to “run” the co…

It’s no secret that raising kids in the U.S. has become grossly expensive. The price of childcare alone has ballooned over the past decade, with many families reporting that it costs them at least a quarter of their annual income. Across many states, families need to earn an average of $180,000 to comfortably afford infant care; the high cost of living in states like California and New York can require an income exceeding $250,000. An increasing burden on families A new analysis by the online lending marketplace LendingTree captures why so many families are struggling to manage the enormous cost of having children. The study found that since 2023, the annual cost o…

Members of the Sackler family who own OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma must pay billions of dollars to settle a flood of lawsuits over the harms of opioids, under a new deal that was formally approved by a federal bankruptcy judge on Tuesday. The Sackler family must contribute up to $7 billion over 15 years. Most of the money is to go to government entities to fight the opioid crisis, which has been linked to 900,000 deaths in the U.S. since 1999. Thousands of victims of the opioid epidemic could be paid thousands of dollars each, with a portion of the money distributed next year to some people who had OxyContin prescriptions and their survivors. “This plan is no…

When deciding if something is worth the effort, whether you’ve already exerted yourself or face the prospect of work, changes your calculus. That’s what we found in our new research, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. When you consider a future effort, more work makes the outcome less appealing. But once you’ve completed the work, more effort makes the outcome seem more valuable. We also discovered that hiding behind this general principle of timing there are individual differences in how future and past effort shapes people’s value for the fruits of their labor. What’s it worth to you? In our experiment, we gave participants a choice…

China produces 75% of the world’s batteries. South Korea and Japan control much of the remaining supply chain. With tariffs looming over the industry, the U.S. is in a unique position, having both urgency and opportunity to strengthen domestic battery production for myriad uses. The reality is that American battery manufacturers lag their Asian counterparts. Companies here are attempting to catch up by rushing to follow Asia’s manufacturing formula, but that strategy won’t hold up in the long term. The only way to surpass these larger Asian competitors is to move on from outdated manufacturing methods and materials and focus on what defines American leadership: innov…

Your pennies are now collector’s items. The last penny was minted Wednesday at the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia, spelling the end of America’s longest-running coin design. More than Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe or Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, it’s sculptor and medalist Victor David Brenner’s profile of Abraham Lincoln on the humble penny that’s actually believed to be the most-reproduced piece of art in the history of the world: the U.S. Mint estimates some 300 billion pennies remain in circulation. And even though no new pennies will be minted, the coin will remain legal tender—good news for those inclined to give a penny, take a penny at their local gas station. …

If one founder is good, then more must be better, right? Not necessarily. New research shows that the benefits of cofounding a startup with strangers can be eclipsed by the risks. Yes, cofounders can bring their own perspectives, along with “access to wider networks, greater capacity, and access to funding,” says Monique Boddington, a management practice associate professor at the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School, whose research includes early-stage venture formation and startup strategy development. And yet: “An increasing number of individuals have been setting up businesses with no intention of taking on employees,” she explains. That’s beca…

The Phoenix Mercury rebranded for the first time in team history, and the new look is part of a wider trend across the WNBA as teams modernize their logos for a growing league. The new Mercury logo shows an “M” that’s a simplified version of the letter taken from the team’s old script wordmark. The bottom of the “M” is angled up at 19.97 degrees as a nod to the team’s 1997 founding as one of the league’s eight original franchises, and it’s set on a circle with a crescent shadow that represents the planet Mercury. The modernized logo was designed in-house. The rebrand comes at an inflection point for the team, which lost star player Diana Taurasi to retirement in F…

When Steve Jobs wanted to motivate his Mac team at Apple, he didn’t give them corporate pep talks or send them to management retreats. Instead, he told them they were “pirates” fighting against the “navy.” The message was clear: stay scrappy, stay rebellious, and don’t let the corporate machine slow you down. That pirate mentality worked. The Mac team moved fast, took risks, and delivered something revolutionary. But here’s the irony: Apple was itself the navy they were once fighting against. Today, with over 160,000 employees and a market cap exceeding $3 trillion, Apple faces the same challenge that confronts every successful company—how do you stay pirates when you…