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Thousands of nurses in three hospital systems in New York City went on strike Monday after negotiations through the weekend failed to yield breakthroughs in their contract disputes. “Nurses on strike! … Fair contract now!” they shouted on a picket line outside NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital’s campus in Upper Manhattan. Others picketed at multiple hospitals in the Mount Sinai and Montefiore systems. About 15,000 nurses are involved in the strike, according to their union, the New York State Nurses Association. The hospitals remained open, hiring droves of temporary nurses to try to fill the labor gap. The strike involves private, nonprofit hospitals, not city-ru…

Technological advancements in various fields of science are shattering what some scientists once deemed impossible. In recent years, researchers have mitigated the existential threat of asteroids, unlocked the power of immunotherapy to treat cancer tumors, and achieved unprecedented control over the human vestibular system. These scientific innovations have been fostered by new types of cross-disciplinary collaboration and the use of artificial intelligence tools. And though they’re approaching it from vastly different perspectives, planetary science, pathology, and neuroscience researchers shared at the World Changing Ideas Summit in November how they’re re…

Indonesia and Malaysia are the first two countries to ban Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence tool Grok, after the generative AI essentially flooded the social media platform X with sexually explicit, lewd images of young girls and women, made without their consent. Musk folded the generative AI tool into X when he took over Twitter, promising “free speech.” However, critics say it is instead an example of how generative AI, without clear guardrails and regulation, can result in harm. Here’s what to know. What’s happening with Grok? In short, users are typing simple prompts into the AI tool on X to “digitally undress” girls and women, some of which appear t…

On Saturday, hours after U.S. forces in Caracas killed at least 80 people and kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Donald The President sounded less like a wartime commander than a developer surveying a newly acquired property. The country’s future, he told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort, belonged to “very large United States oil companies,” which would soon be pumping “a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground.” The land in question includes the largest proven oil reserves on Earth — at some 300 billion barrels, roughly 17 percent of global totals. But after years of political turmoil and U.S. sanctions, Venezuela accounts for barely 1 percent of …

Americans stressed by high grocery bills have one bright spot to look forward to in 2026. Value-minded grocery chain Aldi is coming to more cities around the country, with 180 new stores set to open in the U.S. this year. Aldi is a compelling option for grocery shoppers on a budget. Founded in Germany, the company envisioned itself as a discount grocery store from day one. Aldi’s aggressive U.S. expansion will meet the needs of more shoppers seeking a no-frills grocery experience without compromising on quality – a niche shared by Aldi competitors like Costco and Trader Joe’s. The budget grocery chain currently operates in 39 states across more than 2,600 stores i…

Facebook owner Meta has named Dina Powell McCormick, a former The President administration adviser and longtime finance executive, as president and vice chairman of the tech giant. Powell McCormick previously served on Meta’s board of directors — where, the company notes, she was “deeply engaged” in accelerating its artificial intelligence push across platforms. In her new management role, Meta says Powell McCormick will help guide its overall strategy, including the execution of multi-billion-dollar investments. The news, announced Monday, quickly gained the applause of U.S. President Donald The President. In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, the …

Iran hasn’t changed its flag, but the emoji for it has changed on X, the social network previously known as Twitter. Iran’s tricolor flag features green, white, and red horizontal stripes, with the country’s national emblem displayed in its center white stripe. But some opposition groups use a historical flag that instead shows a golden lion holding a sword in front of a sun. Since ongoing anti-government demonstrations erupted in Iran in December, that lion-and-sun version of the flag has been used as a symbol of protest around the world, including in demonstrations over the weekend in Los Angeles and London, where one protester held the flag at the Iranian embas…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. When assessing home price momentum, ResiClub believes it’s important to monitor active listings and months of supply. If active listings start to rapidly increase as homes remain on the market for longer periods, it may indicate pricing softness or weakness. Conversely, a rapid decline in active listings beyond seasonality could suggest a market that is heating up. Since the national Pandemic Housing Boom fizzled out in 2022, the national power dynamic has slowly been shifting directionally from sellers to buyers. Of course, across the country that s…

There are many made-up celebrations these days, but at least National Pizza Week delivers something tasty. Coming in hot on the heels of so-called quitter’s day, when many people abandon their New Year’s resolutions, pizza shops around the U.S. will be tossing around some deals that could save customers some dough. Of course, many people don’t need an excuse to eat pizza—on any given day, about 11% of Americans do so, according to a study released in 2024 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Americans grappling with the high cost of living got some relief as inflation cooled in November, but that doesn’t mean that food prices have come down—and particularly for …

Muhammad Ali once joked that he should be a postage stamp because “that’s the only way I’ll ever get licked.” Now, the three-time heavyweight champion’s quip is becoming reality. Widely regarded as the most famous and influential boxer of all time, and a cultural force who fused athletic brilliance with political conviction and showmanship, Ali is being honored for the first time with a commemorative U.S. postage stamp. “As sort of the guardian of his legacy, I’m thrilled. I’m excited. I’m ecstatic,” Lonnie Ali, the champ’s wife of nearly 30 years, told The Associated Press. “Because people, every time they look at that stamp, they will remember him. And he wi…

Shares of the budget airline Sun Country were flying today after the carrier announced an upcoming merger with Las Vegas-based competitor Allegiant. In a press release published on January 11, Allegiant shared its plan to acquire Minneapolis-based Sun Country in a $1.5 billion cash and stock transaction, which is expected to close in the second half of 2026. Per the release, the merger will bring together a shared customer pool of nearly 22 million annual fliers across 175 cities and more than 650 routes. It will also give Allegiant access to Sun Country’s multi-year partnership delivering packages with Amazon Prime Air, which Allegiant CEO Greg Anderson told CNBC…

On the red carpet of the 2026 Golden Globes, several celebrities used their garments as vehicles of protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and spoke openly about their dissent against the current The President administration. But on the event’s actual stage, political commentary was noticeably absent compared with years past. Popular American awards shows have long been criticized for primarily uplifting the voices of white, male, affluent creators. But, equally, the stages of these events have been used as platforms for public figures to speak out about current politics and social justice. In 1973, Marlon Brando famously rejected his best …

The Justice Department has threatened the Federal Reserve with a criminal indictment over the testimony of Fed Chair Jerome Powell this summer regarding its building renovations, Powell said over the weekend. It is a major escalation by the administration after repeated attempts by President Donald The President to exert greater control over the independent institution. The President has repeatedly attacked Powell for not cutting the short-term interest rate, and even threatened to fire him. Powell’s caution has infuriated The President, who has demanded the Fed cut borrowing costs to spur the economy and reduce the interest rates the federal government pays on it…

The The President administration’s criminal investigation of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell appeared on Monday to be emboldening defenders of the U.S. central bank against the efforts of President Donald The President to control the Fed. The backlash reflected the bigger stakes of a contest about the fate of the Fed’s independence, the balance of power within the federal government, and the path of the U.S. economy. The President has long publicly lashed out against Powell for not slashing the Fed’s benchmark interest rates to his liking, but the prospect of a criminal indictment was a step too far for an institution that has an outsized influence on both inflati…

When my mom was dying, hospice came daily and stayed for about ninety minutes. They answered questions, checked what needed to be checked, and did what good professionals do: They made a brutal situation feel slightly less impossible. And then they left. Ninety minutes go fast when you are watching your mother decline. The rest of the day stretches out in a way that does not feel like time so much as exposure. Every sound becomes a data point. Every small change feels like a decision you did not train for. Her breathing sounds strange. What do we do? How often should we turn her to avoid bedsores? What is the diaper situation, exactly? That was the gap, the lo…

Paramount Skydance is taking another step in its hostile takeover bid of Warner Bros. Discovery, saying Monday that it will name its own slate of directors before the next shareholder meeting of the Hollywood studio. Paramount also filed a suit in Delaware Chancery Court seeking to compel Warner Bros. to disclose to shareholders how it values its bid and the competing offer from Netflix. Warner Bros. is in the middle of a bidding war between Paramount and Netflix. Warner’s leadership has repeatedly rebuffed overtures from Skydance-owned Paramount — and urged shareholders to back the sale of its streaming and studio business to Netflix for $72 billion. Paramount, m…

There’s a quote from Charles Bukowski framed on my office wall: “What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.” We’re in that fire right now. For 25 years, our company has moved people to show up for entertainment. Then the world changed. Entertainment changed. Technology changed. Almost overnight, we had to throw the old playbook out the window. So, we paused. We looked inward and asked the hard question: Do we rebuild what we had or transform into what we need to be for the future? Companies need to choose the second. For us that meant becoming culture-led, not as a slogan or a rebrand, but as the infrastructure for how we operate. Becoming cultur…

It’s that time again. The calendar has flipped, the resolutions are written, and you’re probably sitting in your office chair at your office desk looking at a lukewarm cup of office coffee, wondering if you’ve really got another year of fluorescent lights and “serendipitous” coworker interactions in you. Let’s make a pact: No more. It’s time to find a great remote job. Unfortunately, you can’t find 21st-century work using 20th-century methods. If you’re still scrolling through the generic “Big Box” job boards and getting buried in 5,000 applications for one role, you’re doing it wrong. Instead, here are the five sites you should check first when you’re looking…

Americans go to great lengths to ensure they are financially set for their later years. But if you’re asking Elon Musk, you really needn’t bother. According to the world’s richest man, whose net worth is estimated at well over $700 billion, saving for retirement will soon be obsolete. Musk aired this view on a recent episode of the Moonshots With Peter Diamandis podcast. Musk let listeners in on his vision of our financial future, a world where technology, specifically artificial intelligence, creates such an abundance of resources that anyone can buy anything they want. The entrepreneur said that within just a few years, we will live in a world marked by a great…

I had to submit my résumé for a role. Then I went through three interviews, with nearly identical questions each time. The problem? The role was for a freelance writing position. Not to become a company employee. I got all the way to the third interview only to learn that the role paid a fraction of my usual rate, even though I’d provided my rate up front. I’m experienced enough as a solopreneur to know that going through three interviews was a bad sign. The potential client wasn’t communicating internally (as confirmed by the fact that my rate had been overlooked). Multiple interviews are incredibly uncommon in my line of work, and indicated to me that the comp…

About a year ago, an advertisement caught the attention of Ashleigh Ruane, a PhD student in physics at the University of Cambridge. The ad was simple but unusual: Teach AI about physics. Curious, she clicked. She learned that experts across fields—from physics and finance to healthcare and law—were now being paid to help train AI models to think, reason, and problem-solve like domain specialists. She applied, was accepted, and now logs about 50 hours a week providing data for Mercor, a platform that connects AI labs with domain experts. Ruane is part of a fast-growing cohort of professionals who are shaping how AI models learn. According to Freelancer, thousands o…

Sitting on a coffee table in his Chelsea office in New York City and surrounded by framed wedding invitations on the walls, Justin McLeod is worrying about AI. Specifically, the cofounder and CEO of dating app Hinge is concerned that his users—many of whom have asked him to their weddings over the years—might fall in love with it instead of one another. McLeod has spent the greater part of the past 15 years studying the dynamics of human relationships, including what makes one person fall for another, and he sees that chatbots offer exactly what many people crave. “Why would I invest in these hard human relationships with people that are not always available …

It’s a little-known fact that Columbia University, in Manhattan, was home to the first mining school in America—the School of Mines—founded in 1864. For the past three decades, the university’s program has been mothballed. Parts of its curriculum were subsumed into the more fashionable subjects of earth and environmental engineering. But next fall, Columbia University will offer a bachelor of science degree in mining engineering once again. Other schools are barreling down, as well. The University of Texas at El Paso is also relaunching its mining engineering degree, starting in the fall of 2027, after a 60-year hiatus. The University of Texas system is prov…

As utilities struggle to keep up with surging energy demand, they’re starting to turn to an unexpected tool: windows that insulate like walls. “Think of it like a thermos bottle in your walls,” says LuxWall CEO and founder Scott Thomsen, who worked in the semiconductor and flat-panel display glass industry before taking on the challenge of windows. Energy-efficient windows aren’t new. But a radical design from LuxWall, a Michigan-based startup, goes further. Rather than relying on double or triple panes, it uses a vacuum to block heat transfer, the same way your Yeti tumbler can keep a drink ice-cold or steaming hot while the outside stays close to room temperatur…

At first glance, the most striking part of the SunRise, a recently redeveloped residential tower in Edmonton, Alberta, is the boldly colored facade, with strips of primary color and a lively mural. Called The Land We Share, the vibrant landscape sketch has sparkled on the skyline since its unveiling this past summer. But the mural is far more than a pretty picture. Covered on all sides in a kind of colored solar panel called BIPV made by Canadian firm Mitrex, the mural and the rest of the structure generate roughly 267 kilowatt hours, enough to cut the building’s carbon emissions in half. Typically, high-rises generate solar power primarily via their rooftops. Bu…