What's on Your Mind?

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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 …

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…

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…

Imagine you are searching for a new mattress online and find something surprising. The retailer displays an ad featuring a “Mattress Comfort Scale” running from 1 (soft) to 10 (firm), followed by the message that if your firmness preference is at either end, this mattress is not for you. Wait . . . what? A retailer telling someone not to buy its product? No way! Why would a company tell potential buyers that the product might not suit them? Our team of professors—Karen Anne Wallach, Jaclyn L. Tanenbaum, and Sean Blair—examines this question in a recently published article in the Journal of Consumer Research. Marketers spend billions trying to persuade consumers th…

If winning gold medals were the only standard, almost all Olympic athletes would be considered failures. A clinical psychologist with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Emily Clark’s job when the Winter Games open in Italy on Feb. 6 is to help athletes interpret what it means to be successful. Should gold medals be the only measure? Part of a 15-member staff providing psychological services, Clark nurtures athletes accustomed to triumph but who invariably risk failure. The staff deals with matters termed “mental health and mental performance.” They include topics such as motivation, anger management, anxiety, eating disorders, family issues, tra…

Fitness brand Modern Warrior has voluntarily recalled all lots of its dietary supplement Modern Warrior Ready after testing revealed the presence of “undeclared ingredients,” one of which could be potentially life threatening. ​The product was sold over a period of three years as capsule-based dietary supplements. Consumers nationwide could buy them directly online. The voluntary recall was announced on Friday, January 9, the same day that a recall notice was published on the website of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Here’s what you need to know. What does the recalled product look like? The recalled dietary supplement, Modern Warrior Ready, is…

Mattel Inc. is introducing an autistic Barbie on Monday as the newest member of its line intended to celebrate diversity, joining a collection that already includes Barbies with Down syndrome, a blind Barbie, a Barbie and a Ken with vitiligo, and other models the toymaker added to make its fashion dolls more inclusive. Mattel said it developed the autistic doll over more than 18 months in partnership with the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the rights and better media representation of people with autism. The goal: to create a Barbie that reflected some of the ways autistic people may experience and process the world around the…