What's on Your Mind?

There is a new landmark at the home of the Chicago White Sox—Section 140, Row 19, Seat 2. That’s where Father Bob—the future Pope Leo XIV—sat for Game 1 of the 2005 World Series. The White Sox unveiled a graphic installation Monday that pays tribute to the new pontiff and that moment during their last championship run. The pillar artwork features a waving Pope Leo XIV, along with a picture from the TV broadcast of the future pope sitting with good friend Ed Schmit and his grandson, Eddie. The team also is planning to do something to commemorate the Rate Field seat the pope occupied during the 2005 World Series opener. “When people come into the ballpark, it’s an inter…

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in the South American nation, winning recognition as a woman “who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.” The former opposition presidential candidate is a “key, unifying figure” in the once deeply divided opposition to President Nicolás Maduro’s government, said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee. “In the past year, Ms. Machado has been forced to live in hiding,” Watne Frydnes said. “Despite serious threats against her life, she has remained in the country, a choice that has inspired m…

A Powerball ticket purchased at a gas station outside Little Rock, Arkansas, won a $1.817 billion jackpot in Wednesday’s Christmas Eve drawing, ending the lottery game’s three-month stretch without a top-prize winner. The winning numbers were 04, 25, 31, 52 and 59, with the Powerball number being 19. The winning ticket was sold at a Murphy USA in Cabot, lottery officials in Arkansas said Thursday. No one answered the phone Thursday at the location, which was closed for Christmas. The community of roughly 27,000 people is 26 miles (42 kilometers) northeast of Little Rock. Final ticket sales pushed the jackpot higher than previous expected, making it the second-largest in…

It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that an AI-powered tool called “Oz” is heading out of, or near, the Emerald City. On November 12, Microsoft and Land O’Lakes announced that the two companies have co-developed an AI-powered agricultural science tool called “Oz,” designed to help farmers and agricultural operations. Specifically, farmers are facing some very serious problems: labor shortages and lower yields associated with changing climates. Further, costs for fuel, fertilizer, equipment, and tools, not to mention international trade issues, have put agricultural operations in an even tighter vise. Oz was built to help agronomists and farmers do more with what th…

A few years ago, I received some news I’d been longing to hear: The first book I’d ever written received an offer from a publisher. My childhood dream of becoming an author looked set to become a reality. It was six o’clock in the evening—the ideal time for a celebratory drink with my colleagues. But I didn’t tell anyone the news. I thought my excitement would be seen as bragging. So I kept my mouth shut. If only I’d known about the concept of Mitfreude: a German term for the vicarious joy people can feel at another’s happiness. According to recent research, we are needlessly cautious about sharing good news, because we fear it will provoke boredom, irritation, o…

As the holidays approach, and I walk through our historic mill in Faribault, Minnesota, I’m reminded of how much work matters—not just for what it produces, but for what it represents. At Faribault Mill, we make artisanal wool and cotton blankets the old-fashioned way: spinning, weaving, and finishing under one roof, much as we have since the company’s founding in 1865. We also design, market, sell, and ship those same products directly to consumers across the country. In a world where most companies outsource one step or another, we do it all. That makes us one of the few fully vertically integrated manufacturers left in America, and it gives us a unique perspective…

The 9-to-5 is fading, replaced by a fragmented cycle of early logins, late-night pings, and weekend catch-up. Microsoft’s latest Work Trend Index shows the “infinite workday” is no longer an edge case. It’s the norm for many knowledge workers. Unfortunately, it seems the pandemic-era “triple peak” work pattern—morning, afternoon, and an evening spike—has stuck. After-hours activity is rising. Meetings after 8 p.m. are up 16% year over year, and by 10 p.m. nearly one-third of active workers are back in their inboxes. Weekends are not off-limits: Among those working weekends, about 20% say they check email before noon on Saturday and Sunday. During the week, prime …

When Estefania Angel started working as an executive assistant at a large tech company a few months ago, she noticed something counterintuitive: while her company’s job was to help other enterprises set up AI to streamline their in-house tasks, her company didn’t use those systems internally itself. Using AI apps in Slack, Outlook, and Google to track various assignments and ping colleagues, Angel got the attention of her superiors. One even asked Angel to teach her how to use AI at work. “We started tracking a whole project that she was doing,” says Angel, who works as an executive assistant (EA) with EA service company Viva Talent, streamlining the project’s wo…

As employers have wrested back control of the job market, it has been a sharp contrast to the post-pandemic years when workers seemed to hold the power. In 2025, employees fretted about their job security and the sweeping impact of artificial intelligence on their work lives—not to mention corporate America’s continued commitment to keeping them in the office for longer. Here, we’ve compiled some of the most popular Work Life stories from this year—on the issues that consumed you most. The “996” schedule This year saw the return of hustle culture in Silicon Valley, as AI startups popularized a grueling work schedule that became popularized in China. The “996…

Nearly half of Americans believe that we will see a civil war in the United States in our lifetime. As a corporate leader of a large, diverse team that operates across the United States, I am simultaneously horrified by this and hopeful that it will not come to fruition. The workplace gives me a window into the relationships that are at stake if our country further divides. It also gives me hope that relationships can hold us together, two people at a time. I met my colleague Ted last year. We are a generation apart. I’m a city girl. He’s a country guy. I’ve never voted Republican. I doubt he’s ever voted for a Democrat. We both call ourselves Christian, while o…

As the threat of drone attacks grows, the federal government is turning this summer into a proving ground for U.S. efforts to shore up aerial defenses at events like the World Cup. It may also serve as a launchpad for defense tech firms hoping to sell systems designed to intercept unmanned aerial vehicles. “Out of the World Cup, you’ll see the baseline for what law enforcement and critical infrastructure sites will then buy at scale,” says Jon Gruen, CEO of Fortem Technologies, which signed a multimillion-dollar deal to provide artificial intelligence systems, radar, and drone interdiction technology to U.S. cities hosting the tournament. “You’re going to see how it w…

The new year is a time for resolutions. This year, governments, platforms, and campaigners all seem to have hit on the same ones: Children should spend less time online, and companies should know exactly how old their users are. From TikTok’s infinite scroll to chatbots like xAI’s Grok that can spin up uncensored answers to almost any question in seconds, addictive and inappropriate online options leave legislators and regulators worried. The result is a new kind of arms race: Lawmakers, often spooked by headlines about mental health, extremism, or sexual exploitation, are turning to age gates, usage caps, and outright bans as solutions to social media’s problems. Jus…

The world’s sources of critical minerals are increasingly concentrated in just a few countries, most notably China, leaving the global economy vulnerable to supply cutoffs that could disrupt industry and hit consumers with higher prices, a report said Wednesday. The Paris-based International Energy Agency’s report looked at the availability of minerals and metals that may be small in quantity — but large in impact when it comes to shifting the economy away from fossil fuels toward electricity and renewable energy. It found that for copper, lithium, cobalt, graphite and rare earth elements, the average market share of the three top producing countries rose to 86% in 2024…

Researchers funded by the U.S. Navy have used gene-editing technology to make house spiders produce red fluorescent silk. This might seem like a quirky scientific novelty, but the breakthrough is a critical step toward modifying spider silk properties and creating new “supermaterials” for industries ranging from textiles to aerospace. The team at Germany’s University of Bayreuth, led by Professor Thomas Scheibel, successfully applied CRISPR-Cas9—a molecular tool that acts as “genetic scissors” to cut and modify DNA sequences—to spiders for the first time. The study, published in the scientific journal Angewandte Chemie, demonstrates how this technology introduces modi…

Almost everywhere you go, from the doctor’s office to the library to the car dealership, there’s one ubiquitous design gem hidden in plain sight: the Bic Cristal. This unsung hero of the writing desk has produced uncountable signatures and annotations—but now it’s getting its moment in the spotlight through a collaboration with the Italian home goods brand Seletti. The Bic Cristal is the world’s best-selling pen, boasting more than 120 billion sales since its release in 1950. For the tail end of the pen’s 75th anniversary, Bic teamed up with Seletti to produce a work of art inspired by the pen: a giant, 12:1 scale lamp. The product’s massive scale translates…

Parents, rejoice: For the first time ever, there’s a Lego brick so tiny that you can’t see it, let alone step on it. The brick in question is a microscopic sculpture created by U.K.-based artist David A Lindon. It’s made from a standard red square Lego, and it looks like one, too, aside from the fact that it measures just 0.02517 millimeter by 0.02184 millimeter (about the size of a white blood cell). As of this month, the brick has snagged the Guinness World Record for the smallest-ever handmade sculpture, measuring four times smaller than the previous record holder. We’ve seen lunar Legos, renewable Legos, and giant Legos, but this brick might just be the most i…

Road congestion is a persistent thorn in the side of our car-centric society. It’s loud, stressful, dangerous, and worsens air quality. It’s been linked to all kinds of adverse health effects, including lower birth weights, memory and attention problems in school kids, higher mortality in elderly adults, and even crime. But traffic might also affect our eating habits—and not in a good way. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, published in the Journal of Urban Economics, examined weekday traffic data from Los Angeles County highways between 2017 and 2019 and compared it with cellphone GPS data tracking customer visits to fast food restaurants …

The legend of Sisyphus goes like this: As punishment for cheating death and embarrassing the gods, he is banished to the underworld and sentenced to push a boulder up a hill. As Sisyphus nears the peak, the boulder rolls back down, and he must start over. And the episode repeats for eternity. I risk sounding melodramatic by comparing this story to the plight of the employed in 2026. Fair enough. But consider, if you will, the cycles in which a modern worker finds herself. She masters a new skill, and it’s deemed outdated. She learns a new software, and is told to use a different one. She gets a new boss, and the company is reorganized. She applies for a job, and …