What's on Your Mind?

Pope Francis left a lasting legacy, not least his appreciation for art. In his 2025 biography, Hope, Francis spoke of his admiration for the Baroque painter Caravaggio. He recalled that during his travels to Rome as a cardinal, he prayed in front of the painting by Caravaggio—The Calling of Saint Matthew. The painting is found in the chapel dedicated to St. Matthew in the Church of San Luigi dei Francesi. The donor of the chapel was a French cardinal, Matthieu Cointerel, who died in 1585. This was the first commission for Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, who was hired in July 1599. A year later, The Calling of Saint Matthew and The Martyrdom of Saint Matthew, depict…

In a small village in Senegal, almost no one has electricity, but that’s about to change. Last year, a 40-foot-shipping container rolled into town, unfolded an array of solar panels on its roof, and crews began running wires to connect the whole village to clean power. After final approvals from the local government, the new microgrid will soon switch on. The project had an unusual funding source: ChargePoint, the EV charging company known for its network of a million chargers in the U.S. and Europe, spent six figures helping get it built, working with a technology partner called Africa GreenTec. The EV charging company used money that it earned selling carbon cre…

Flu season is here and it’s shaping up to be a bad one. Cases of the flu are rising sharply across the country – and that’s when looking at data collected right before the holiday. In the U.S., the CDC estimates 7.5 million flu cases so far this season, with 81,000 hospitalizations and more than 3,000 deaths. So far this season eight children have died from flu-related causes according to the CDC, with five of those deaths reported this week. According to CDC data for the week ending on December 20, 32 states reported high or very high levels of illness with flu symptoms, up from 17 states reporting that level of flu activity the week prior. New York, New Jers…

The federal government shut down after midnight last night. Capitol Hill is snarled by a partisan impasse, with no word as to which side might cave, work across the aisle, and try to garner the votes needed to pass a new spending bill. The last government shutdown was at the end of 2018—during President The President’s first term in office—and lasted into the early part of 2019. At 35 days, it was the longest shutdown in four decades. As for what caused this latest shutdown? In the simplest terms, a previously passed bill to fund the federal government’s operations expired as of Wednesday, October 1. The House and Senate need to pass a new spending bill, which th…

To San Francisco chef and restaurateur Thomas McNaughton, QR codes are an efficient way to serve a crowd. Sure, the codes—and restaurants that use them—have endured much loathing. And, yes, people still love to criticize them. But at the newest location of McNaughton’s Flour + Water Pizzeria, set to open later this month, QR codes are the star. There’s good reason. The 1,800-square-foot restaurant sits a few blocks from Oracle Park, where the San Francisco Giants just opened the baseball season. It needs to handle serious spikes in business from game-day crowds and pump out pizzas fast. “We envision a scenario where, for two hours, it’s completely gangbusters befo…

This year, 2,500 girls will be able to attend secondary school in Afghanistan. While this shouldn’t be a remarkable feat, it is: The Taliban government forbids girls from receiving an education beyond 6th grade. Ideas Beyond Borders, a nonprofit organization, is helping to support The Underground School Initiative that educates girls in 38 secret locations throughout Afghanistan. In an unexpected turn, this project will be partially funded by The Citizenry, a U.S.-based home goods brand, which raised money during its Black Friday sale last year to pay for teachers, educational supplies, and facilities for these students. [Photo: The Citizenry] Desperate for an …

The Seattle Mariners will be repping Nintendo this season. The team announced that starting with the season opener on Thursday, team members will be wearing Nintendo patches on their jerseys. It’s the first time the team has ever had a jersey sponsorship. The Mariners promoted the partnership in a video posted to social media showing center fielder Julio Rodríguez wearing the new jersey and grabbing a Mariners ball cap that’s sitting next to a red Mario hat in a locker. Major League Baseball announced in 2022 that it would begin allowing teams to put sponsorships on their uniforms. Some teams quickly capitalized: The New York Yankees signed Starr Insurance, and th…

After Joey Zwillinger stepped down as CEO of Allbirds in March 2024, he took three months off—mainly because his wife Liz said she’d divorce him if he jumped into another venture. He had run the sustainable shoe company for 10 years while the couple raised their three young children. “It took a real toll on the family,” Liz says. (“I would say it developed character in our family,” Zwillinger counters.) Before long, he was itching to start a new project, an ambition he shyly expressed to his wife. “It was really hard to want to sign up for something like that all over again,” Liz says. But this time, he cofounded the venture with Liz. It’s also a bold piv…

In the world of interior design gaming, where perfection is often the goal, Redecor, a 3D design-simulation game, has taken an unexpected turn—celebrating flaws. The limited-time Real World Beauty collection, available free until April 15, highlights the authentic, lived-in charm of real homes. Instead of perfection, this update introduces design elements that reflect everyday life, such as coffee stains on wooden tables, sofas worn by pets, and walls decorated with kids’ doodles. The “flawed” collection features elements that players never explicitly asked for but quickly embraced. Natalie Gal, senior director of content for Redecor, explains the inspiration behind i…

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…

Chinese tech giant ByteDance has signed an agreement to sell a majority stake in its video platform TikTok to a group of U.S. investors. President Donald The President announced a preliminary agreement for the sale on Sept. 19, 2025, following his negotiation with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told employees in a memo obtained by news organizations that the company is working to close the deal by Jan. 22, 2026. Chinese and U.S. authorities will also need to approve the deal. The deal creates a new U.S.-only version of the app, bringing it into compliance with a law signed by President Joe Biden on April 23, 2024, and upheld by the Supreme Cour…

The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more. Most ordinary people know little about the calculus, statistics, linear algebra, logic, and programming languages required to design projects and products to leverage artificial intelligence. However, we are not exempt from using products and services that rely on AI. If we do not learn how to maximize these tools, our organizations—businesses, schools, and governments—will …

In news outlets, business publications, and scholarly journals, there is a crescendo of commentary about the combined power of human intelligence and artificial intelligence. Without question, that convergence is already yielding exciting discoveries in many fields. Yet a third, equally crucial, kind of intelligence is being left out of the discussion: nature’s intelligence. The idea that nature itself displays the hallmarks of what we understand as intelligence—the ability to learn, to encode those learnings in new, more effective models, and to continually adapt—is not altogether new. Leonardo da Vinci understood this well. Nature was his teacher and his inspira…

Public servants manage a geographically distributed group of people across dozens of public and private organizations daily. Cybersecurity officials work with state and federal counterparts, and homelessness coordinators work with public health departments and nonprofits. State veterans affairs departments sit at the intersection of educational and health benefits along with housing and job assistance. From my conversations with public servants across the country, it’s clear that most critical government functions cannot happen without collaboration. This makes it paramount to have a deep understanding of who does what across dozens of organizations for government…

In a world where trust in institutions is at an all-time low and the pace of change is relentless, the most effective leaders are not those who hide behind polished press releases or corporate jargon. They are the ones who step forward with authentic stories—stories that reveal not just their vision, but their humility, values, and the messy realities of leading in uncertain times. Welcome to the era of the storytelling CEO, where transparency isn’t just a buzzword, it’s the new leadership currency. Why Stories Matter More Than Ever For millennia, stories have been the glue that binds communities, shapes cultures, and helps us make sense of the world. Today, as org…

President Donald The President was geared up for a show of federal force in San Francisco, a city he’s blasted as everything wrong with liberal governance. Then conversations with some of the Bay Area’s most prominent tech leaders and the mayor changed his mind. “I got a great call from some incredible people, some friends of mine, very successful people,” The President told reporters Thursday at the White House, specifically referencing Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, one of the world’s most valuable tech companies, and Marc Benioff, CEO of software company Salesforce. He said they told him San Francisco was working hard to reduce crime. “So we are holding off that su…

The White House, one of the most historically significant and secure buildings in the United States, is being torn apart. Demolition crews were on the White House grounds this week to begin demolition of the front facade of the East Wing in order to make way for the construction of a new 90,000-square-foot ballroom that President The President announced in July. “I am pleased to announce that ground has been broken on the White House grounds to build the new, big, beautiful White House Ballroom,” The President wrote on social media the day the work began. When the ballroom was first announced this summer, The President said the project “won’t interfere with the c…

President Donald The President filed a lawsuit Monday seeking $10 billion in damages from the BBC, accusing the British broadcaster of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices. The 33-page lawsuit accuses the BBC of broadcasting a “false, defamatory, deceptive, disparaging, inflammatory, and malicious depiction of President The President,” calling it “a brazen attempt to interfere in and influence” the 2024 U.S. presidential election. It accused the BBC of “splicing together two entirely separate parts of President The President’s speech on January 6, 2021” in order to “intentionally misrepresent the meaning of what President The President said.” The …

This week, chips were on the menu in the White House. “When you ask about AI and chips, Saudi Arabia has a huge need for computing power,” Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) said at a press conference on Tuesday with President The President, where he floated a potential $50-billion purchase of American microchips. The President’s Commerce Department signed off on exporting 70,000 such advanced microchips made by Nvidia to state-owned AI firms in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia. Little wonder why Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s high-flying CEO, joined a gaggle of tech moguls – including Elon Musk, Tim Cook, and Michael Dell – at a dinner honoring the Saudi …