What's on Your Mind?

This weekend, you will need to put on your Sunday clothes—especially a fancy hat—a day early. The 151st Run for the Roses, better known as the 2025 Kentucky Derby, will take off at 6:57 p.m. ET, on Saturday, May 3, at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. Twenty three-year-old thoroughbreds have qualified through the “Road to the Kentucky Derby” points system and are ready to leave it all on the track. Here’s what you need to know going into the big race day. Drama on and off the track Trainer Bob Baffert is back after serving a three-year suspension beginning in 2021, which was instituted after the 147th Kentucky Derby winner, Medina Spirit, tested positiv…

When Skype debuted in 2003, it was the first time I remember feeling that an individual app—and not just the broader internet—was radically disrupting communications. Thanks to its implementation of the voice over internet protocol (VOIP) and its simple interface, the app allowed users worldwide to call virtually any phone number directly from their PC with ease, in addition to calling other Skype users via its peer-to-peer (P2P) network. If you are too young to remember a time before smartphones, FaceTime, and WhatsApp, take it from me that Skype’s launch was truly revolutionary. It suddenly became simple to call home if you were traveling internationally. And if…

A cardinal of the Catholic church going viral for singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” was not on this year’s bingo card. Pope Francis’s passing on Easter Monday sent shockwaves around the world, with around 250,000 visitors flooding St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican to say goodbye to the progressive Pontiff. As the Vatican readies for the conclave, speculations on who might take over the highest role in the Catholic Church is on the rise. But, on TikTok, users have already chosen its favorite contender: Filipino prelate Luis Antonio Tagle. Videos of Tagle–a liberal-leaning front runner for pope referred to as “Asian Francis”–resurfaced in the days following the p…

Half of Airbnb users in the U.S. are now using the company’s AI-powered customer service agent, CEO Brian Chesky said Thursday during an earnings call. The tool was quietly rolled out last month and is expected to be available to all U.S. users in the coming weeks. Chesky said the AI assistant has already led to a 15% drop in users needing to contact live support agents. While the technology is still in its early stages, he expects it to steadily improve. “It’s going to get significantly more personalized and agentic over the years to come,” he said following the release of Airbnb’s first-quarter earnings. Compared to other travel platforms racing to apply AI …

Wake up, the running influencers are fighting again. In the hot seat this week is popular running influencer Kate Mackz, facing heavy backlash over the latest guest on her running interview series: White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt. Mackz, who has nearly 800,000 followers on TikTok, has previously featured notable figures such as political commentator Dana Perino and biohacker-in-chief Bryan Johnson. On Wednesday, she released her newest interview with Leavitt, who declined to run any miles but did give Mackz a tour of the White House. “I can’t believe you get to wake up and be here every single day,” Mackz said as she and Leavitt took a st…

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long encouraged people to use their phones, whether through the forsaken Poke on Facebook or uploading Reels on Instagram. But the company’s newest idea for how and when to take out your phone might be too big an ask for some cinema lovers: Meta wants people to use their phones in movie theaters, specifically for its chatbot Movie Mate. The chatbot, which Meta has reportedly claimed will “get audiences back in theaters,” works by sending moviegoers trivia, quips, and questions about the movie, according to the New York Times. The catch? All of this happens while the film plays in front of them. Fast Company has reached out to Meta fo…

Are you guilty of overusing the monkey covering its eyes emoji? Do you find it impossible to send a text without tacking on a laughing-crying face? Much like choosing between a full stop or an “x” at the end of a message, emojis have become their own form of language—complete with unspoken rules and hidden meanings (we all know exactly what we’re implying with the eyes emoji or the eggplant). But beyond adding subtext or flirtatious nuance, your go-to emojis might reveal more about you than you realize. According to a new study published in Current Psychology by researchers at Oklahoma State University, your emoji habits could offer surprising insight into your un…

It’s a little past 10 a.m. and the heat is already blazing on the outskirts of the Western Indian city of Ahmedabad. Sapnaben Chunara, a 30-year-old mother of three, has just finished her morning chores. She seeks respite from the heat in the shade of a neem tree, a species that can withstand high temperatures and drought. Chunara spends most of the day outdoors in Vanzara Vas, a low-income neighborhood of about 800 families, because her tin-roofed house is even hotter. Indoor temperatures can be even higher, especially when outside they climb above 40 degrees Celsius (104 F). That was once rare but now happens regularly. And this year, high heat started three…

Shares in video game giant Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: TTWO) are plummeting in early morning trading today after the company’s subsidiary, Rockstar Games, announced that it is delaying the release of its next flagship title, Grand Theft Auto VI, from fall 2025 until May 2026. Here’s what you need to know about the delay and how investors are reacting. Grand Theft Auto VI delayed until May 2026 In December 2023, Rockstar announced that GTA6—perhaps the most anticipated game of all time—would launch in the fall of 2025. Now, the studio has announced the game’s release is being pushed back until May 26, 2026. Rockstar’s announcement was brief. In …

Nearly four months after wildfires reduced thousands of Los Angeles-area homes to rubble and ash, some residents are starting to rebuild. In the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, construction workers recently began placing wooden beams to frame a house on a lot where only a charred fireplace remains standing. In the seaside city of Malibu and foothills neighborhood of Altadena, many land parcels where homes once stood are being cleared of debris. Hundreds of homeowners have sought city or county approval for new home designs and other permits to eventually rebuild or repair damaged homes, though few have gotten the green light to break ground. Some 17,000 homes, business…

Many industry insiders and cinephiles alike predicted that Joel Souza’s Rust would simply remain unfinished, that its only legacies would be the tragic death of 42-year-old cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, which occurred on set, and the complicated legal proceedings that followed. However, despite Souza’s own misgivings, he completed the project. The Western film will see a limited U. S. release on roughly 150 screens beginning today (Friday, May 2) thanks to Falling Forward Films. Souza has been making the press rounds to explain this decision, which he says the Hutchins family supports, despite her mother making comments to the contrary. Here’s a recap of the tr…

Home ownership is receding further out of reach for most Americans as elevated mortgage rates and rising prices stretch the limits of what buyers can afford. A homebuyer now needs to earn at least $114,000 a year to afford a $431,250 home—the national median listing price in April, according to data released Thursday by Realtor.com The analysis assumes that a homebuyer will make a 20% down payment, finance the rest of the purchase with a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, and that the buyer’s housing costs won’t exceed 30% of their gross monthly income—an often-used barometer of housing affordability. Based off the latest U.S. median home listing price, homebuyers need to ea…

European Union privacy watchdogs fined TikTok 530 million euros ($600 million) on Friday after a four-year investigation found that the video-sharing app’s data transfers to China breached strict data privacy rules in the EU. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission also sanctioned TikTok for not being transparent with users about where their personal data was being sent and it ordered the company to comply with the rules within six months. The Irish national watchdog serves as TikTok’s lead data privacy regulator in the 27-nation EU because the company’s European headquarters is based in Dublin. “TikTok failed to verify, guarantee and demonstrate that the personal data of…

SharkNinja has announced the voluntary recall of more than 1.8 million units of Foodi multi-function pressure cookers after more than 100 reports of burn injuries—many of them serious. Here’s what you need to know about the SharkNinja pressure cooker recall. What’s happened? On May 1, home appliance company SharkNinja issued a recall for some of its SharkNinja pressure cookers, according to a notice posted on the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) website. The recall covers more than 1.8 million units of SharkNinja’s Foodi OP300 Series Multi-Function Pressure Cookers. The recall was issued after the company received 106 reports of burn injuries from…

The era of subway gate jumping could soon be over. By this fall, 20 stations across the New York City subway system will begin testing new gate systems that aim to make it all but impossible for someone to get through the gate to the subway platform without paying a fare. This week, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) announced the planned piloting of four gate control systems as part of its effort to crack down on fare evasion in the subway system. The four systems will be installed in five stations each across the MTA’s subway network to test their effectiveness. In contrast to the conventional turnstile gates seen in many subway stations, the MTA’s …

SAG-AFTRA is expanding its reach into the influencer economy. In late April, the union’s board unanimously voted to establish a new influencer committee, appointing New York-based lifestyle influencer Patrick Janelle as chair. SAG-AFTRA’s involvement with influencers isn’t new. In 2021, the union introduced an influencer agreement and waiver to cover branded content work—an initiative that thousands of members have used. While that agreement marked a major step forward, it notably excluded original creative content, which remains the core of many creators’ livelihoods. “It really became clear that if we’re going to continue to expand, and especially outside of…