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A hearing Wednesday before Nevada’s high court could provide the first public window into a secretive legal dispute over who will control Rupert Murdoch’s powerful media empire after he dies. The case has been unfolding behind closed doors in state court in Reno, with most documents under seal. But reporting by The New York Times, which said it obtained some of the documents, revealed Murdoch’s efforts to keep just one of his sons, Lachlan, in charge and ensure that Fox News maintains its conservative editorial slant. Media outlets including the Times and The Associated Press are now asking the Nevada Supreme Court to unseal the case and make future hearings public. The…

Literate in tone, far-reaching in scope, and witty to its bones, The New Yorker brought a new – and much-needed – sophistication to American journalism when it launched 100 years ago this month. As I researched the history of U.S. journalism for my book “Covering America,” I became fascinated by the magazine’s origin story and the story of its founder, Harold Ross. In a business full of characters, Ross fit right in. He never graduated from high school. With a gap-toothed smile and bristle-brush hair, he was frequently divorced and plagued by ulcers. Ross devoted his adult life to one cause: The New Yorker magazine. For the literati, by the literati Bor…

When people talk about how AI might reshape media, the term “hyper-personalization” comes up a lot. In broad terms, it means that AI can tailor the experience around your preferences—assuming it has enough data about you. To some extent, algorithms and ad tech have been doing this for years, recommending links and stories based on your clicks and browsing behavior. What generative AI brings to the table is the ability to adapt the content itself. A large language model could, in theory, understand the kinds of stories I care about and modify what I’m reading—maybe by adding an angle relevant to my region. It could even offer up different lengths or even formats. If I’…

Artificial intelligence is changing everything: how we work, build, create, and grow. It’s unlocking opportunities daily. At Grove Collaborative, we’ve seen it firsthand. AI helps us move faster, make smarter decisions, and, most importantly, serve our customers better. But here’s the part not enough people are talking about: the environmental cost. AI is resource-intensive, especially when rolled out at scale. It uses a ton of electricity and water, drives new forms of e-waste, and complicates carbon accounting. For mission-driven companies—especially those built on sustainability—that creates a real tension. We want to innovate. But we also want to protect the p…

For most of my career at L’Oréal, I sold confidence in a tube: lipstick. But lipstick isn’t just about applying color to your lips. It’s about identity. Ritual. Power. Beauty has never been superficial. It’s always been about self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-expression, knowing that how you’re feeling inside is reflected on the outside. Today, the boldest expression of that confidence comes from beyond the makeup bag: It’s a full night’s sleep working with a skincare routine, balanced hormones supporting a healthy glow, nutrients fueling both energy and radiance, and gut health supporting complexion. The truth is simple: Health is the new lipstick. Healt…

For decades, America has told a singular story about success, suggesting that the only acceptable path to success is a four-year degree. Any other trajectory was treated as a detour. Fortunately, that story is changing with new, acceptable ways to achieve success. At both the federal and state levels, the U.S. is gradually reinventing its education system to value skills, not just diplomas. From new federal initiatives like Workforce Pell to state-led Education Savings Accounts (ESAs), policy is beginning to catch up to what the economy has been signaling for years. As a country, we need electricians, plumbers, welders, and builders as much as we need white-collar wor…

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 Anthropic and OpenAI duke it out with Pentagon matters, Cowork capabilities, and model launches, it’s important to remember that technology is not the goal. It is a means to an end. Its value comes from helping people solve daily problems and giving them one less thing to think about—on a global scale. However, people must first realize there’s a problem and understand how technology can solve it before AI can make a meaningful difference. When things click, it’s always a matter of consumer education, which leads to expanded adoption, which in turn leads to society-wide impact (in that order). Each step can happen swiftly—or take months or years to complete. …

Corporate philanthropy and corporate social responsibility (CSR) teams face increasing pressure to maximize the effectiveness of their limited funds while addressing complex social and environmental challenges. To meet these demands, innovative strategies that combine campaigns, education, and deep stakeholder engagement are proving vital. By leveraging these approaches, organizations are shifting from traditional grantmaking to more dynamic, impact-driven models that can deliver tangible and sustainable outcomes on a global scale. How catalytic impact transforms funding models In contrast to traditional isolated efforts, a catalytic impact model brings together di…

Until recently, some of the fastest-growing places in the U.S. were also among the most exposed to climate risk. But that’s starting to change—more Americans are now moving out of the areas that are most likely to flood. In the Miami area, where nearly a third of homes face flood risk, nearly 70,000 more people moved away than moved in last year, according to a new report from Redfin. In Houston, the domestic outflow was more than 30,000 people; in Brooklyn, where around a quarter of homes face flood risk, around 28,000 more people left than moved in. In Florida’s Pinellas County, where many homes were hit hard by Hurricane Helene, around 4,000 more people left for ot…

Accessibility used to mean compliance. An installed grab bar, an added ramp, a resized font. But meeting physical standards is only half the challenge. The other half, the part that truly changes lives, is how design makes people feel. That’s where emotional accessibility comes in. It’s what Michael Graves taught us to do 40 years ago. We believe it is the next frontier of design: creating experiences that don’t just accommodate users but also affirm, reassure, and delight them. When we talk about accessibility, we’re really talking about belonging. And belonging is emotional. A product can meet every ergonomic and ADA guideline yet still make someone feel exclu…

Chipotle, like almost every other fast casual restaurant, has been battling an ongoing period of increased inflation and lower consumer spending. Last year, the company saw what its CEO Scott Boatwright described to investors as a “broad-based pullback in frequency” of customer visits, especially among low- to middle-income customers and younger consumers, due to concerns about the economy. But the burrito chain has a master plan to address that, and it’s currently moving into its next phase: making earning rewards feel more like a game. The company’s fourth quarter report showed a revenue increase of 5.4% to $11.9 billion. But those gains were partially offset by a 1…

In October 2024, I wrote that the tech industry was entering an era of silent firing. Jobs were not being eliminated overnight, but subtly reshaped in ways that encouraged attrition, as companies quietly prepared for large-scale automation. At the time, this was largely a warning. With age, it looks more like a pattern. Amazon’s January 2026 announcement of 16,000 layoffs brings corporate staff reductions to roughly 10% of its workforce. Publicly, leadership has been careful to separate these cuts from artificial intelligence. As CEO Andy Jassy put it after earlier reductions, “the announcement that we made…was not really financially driven, and it’s not even really A…

The relentless hype around AI makes it difficult to separate the signal from the noise. So it’s understandable if you’ve tuned out recent talk about autonomous AI agents. A word of advice: Don’t. The significance of agentic AI may actually exceed the hype. An Autonomous AI agent can interact with the environment, make decisions, take action, and learn from the process. This represents a seismic shift in the use of AI and, accordingly, presents corresponding opportunities—and risks. The P in GPT To date, generative AI tools, largely subject to human supervision, have been designed to function by being pretrained (the P in GPT) on vast amounts of data such as l…

New locker rooms. Rows of seats removed. Every last Real Madrid sign hidden from sight. These are just some of the measures the National Football League took to transform one of the world’s most iconic soccer stadiums for a matchup between the Miami Dolphins and the Washington Commanders. On November 16, the two teams will compete on the field of Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu, though the pitch won’t look anything like its usual self. To get the field ready, the NFL spent $2.32 million on a series of temporary renovations. The most fundamental change was to the playing surface itself. Since soccer pitches are shorter than American football fields, the playing field h…

NFL games are slow. They’re 11 minutes of actual action, spread across a 3 hour and 12 minute broadcast. You can blame that pace of the game on penalties, injuries, and, of course, commercials. But now, the NFL is teaming up with Sony to fix one of the game’s biggest time sinks: measurements. Beginning in the 2025 NFL season, all 30 teams will switch from human measurements to computer automation. Each stadium will be equipped with six, 8K Sony Hawk-Eye cameras that track the position of the ball on the field. It’s a significant upgrade to century-old technology. Chains have been used to measure the position of the football since they were first introduced in 1898…

The NFT market crash has a long tail. In the late 2010s, crypto enthusiasts and web3 advocates celebrated the arrival of digital art. Non-Fungible Tokens, they argued, could offer the permanence and investment value of a traditional painting. Not anymore: even amid President The President’s memecoin surge, NFT valuations continue to hit new lows. The market has been in free fall for nearly two years, with no bottom in sight. While NFTs may be dead, NFT lawsuits are alive and well. Corporate suppliers are beginning to regret their blockchain experiments. The NFT lawsuit boom Most recently, buyers of Nike’s NFTs sued the retailer for $5 million. Nike had acqu…

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Thursday that it is opening an investigation into 2.88 million Tesla vehicles equipped with its Full Self-Driving system over more than 50 reports of traffic-safety violations and a series of crashes. The auto safety agency said FSD — an assistance system that requires drivers to pay attention and intervene if needed — has “induced vehicle behavior that violated traffic safety laws.” The agency said it has reports of Tesla vehicles using FSD driving through red traffic lights and driving against the proper direction of travel during a lane change. RECALL COULD FOLLOW IF NHTSA FINDS SAFETY RISKS …

Once a year, a crowd of thousands of runners fill Central Park as they look up at the sky with joy, relief, exhaustion, and tears, knowing they just completed the iconic TCS New York City Marathon. Recognizing the endless storytelling opportunities that come from the event, New York Road Runners (NYRR), the nonprofit behind the marathon, is launching its own production studio, East 89th St Productions. “It was clear to me that this was a huge opportunity for the organization from the first day that I went to the finish line of the marathon,” NYRR CEO Rob Simmelkjaer says. “It’s rare that you can look and see total strangers by the hundreds, having a moment that y…

The northern lights have been viewable from locations you don’t normally see them on a number of recent occasions, and on the evening of January 20, the same will be true. On Tuesday night, the aurora borealis may be visible in parts of more than half of all U.S. states. That’s a few more than the usual six or so Northern states that are used to seeing the lit up skies. That’s because solar storms can change visibility, making the spectacle visible to more locations in times of heightened geomagnetic activity. According to an announcement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric’s Space Weather Prediction Center, that’s precisely what’s in the forecast this even…

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…