What's on Your Mind?

From my earliest days as a journalist, I’ve always prized my dictaphone. It sounds quaint now, but I actually remember excitedly keeping up with advancements in the field. Sony’s ICD-TX50 was a particular revelation for me in 2012, with its tiny OLED display and world’s-thinnest 6.4mm frame. There was no sleeker way to show up to Tokyo press conferences. In recent years, though, my dictaphone collection has taken on a new, less physical form. Google’s Pixel phones have been a revelation for journalists, offering real-time, on-device transcription through the Recorder app. I’ve often found myself bringing a Pixel along to a press event even if I wasn’t actively using i…

Below, Jodi-Ann Burey shares five key insights from her new book, Authentic: The Myth of Bringing Your Full Self to Work. Jodi-Ann is a writer and critic on race, culture, and health equity. Her essays appear in various arts, business, and literary publications. She created and hosts the prose and poetry salon Lit Lounge: The People’s Art, as well as the Black Cancer podcast. What’s the big idea? Authentic is more than a critique of the empty promise of being authentic at work. It is an invitation to question the structural realities of what it takes to be a person at work. To begin, we must take seriously the health and wellbeing of workers most impacted by ha…

I spent several years of my career in the uncomfortable role of middle manager. On one side, I had executives asking me why my team couldn’t “do more,” and on the other side, my employees told me they were stretched too thin. It was an endless tug-of-war. I was both the enforcer of company expectations and the advocate for my team’s needs. At times, my role felt at complete odds with itself. Executives push for efficiency and growth, while employees look for empathy and stability. Middle management, understandably, feels like a pressure cooker. The shifting role of middle management My role as a middle manager was many years ago. Today’s middle manager…

Nobody sitting with perfect posture in a room of button-down shirts, looking at a slide that says “leverage strategic capabilities,” is doing their best work. They’re just not. You know what they’re doing instead? They’re nodding pleasantly, wondering the last time they went to the bathroom, and trying to figure out when to jump into the conversation with an agreeable, jargon-filled platitude. This is good for no one. I have been a management consultant for over a decade, serving many Fortune 500 clients, and I have spewed my share of jargon. I understand the instinct. We want to telegraph our competence and we want to fit in, and therefore, we put on “busines…

Hyper-independence looks like your best employee. The one who never says no, stays late, and carries the team on their back. Leaders often interpret it as strength, but researchers and workplace experts warn it is often a coping mechanism that masks burnout, erodes collaboration, and stalls leadership growth. The behavior has gained cultural visibility. On TikTok, the hashtag “hyper-independence” has racked up millions of views in videos tagged “hyper-independence is a trauma response” and “signs of hyper-independence.” For many viewers, the content is striking because they assumed this was simply how success was achieved, not a survival strategy with hidden costs. Th…

There are many, many maps of New York City. There are the decor maps, sold on Amazon, and the tourist maps, which mostly focus, erroneously, only on Manhattan. There’s the iconic subway map, as well as the MTA’s new version. There’s the Eater and Grubhub maps, which tell us where to eat. And then there’s the map that really matters: the official legal map for the city, which quite literally rules the streets of the city, complete with boundaries and widths. It’s also the map that doesn’t currently exist, at least in one singular and easy-to-use form. That’s changing, though. On Tuesday night, New Yorkers appeared poised to approve Proposal 5, a measure that will…

Restaurants, food banks, nonprofits, and other organizations have stepped up to offer assistance to the 41 million Americans who have been thrust into limbo this month regarding SNAP benefits that have been halved. But retailers are prohibited from offering discounts on groceries. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has sent notices to retailers alerting them that they can’t offer special discounts to customers affected by the lapse in funding. Despite skepticism about the authenticity of these reports, the USDA confirmed the veracity of the notice to Fast Company, though a spokesperson didn’t provide any additional comment. “You must offer eligible foods at…

Voters are filling in their ballots today to choose who will lead America’s largest city for the next four years. New York being a center of global finance and business means that its local elections will always attract some degree of attention outside of the five boroughs, but the city’s mayoral race this year has garnered far more national interest than usual. That’s in large part thanks to Zohran Mamdani, the assemblymember from Queens who was virtually unknown outside of New York before he launched his campaign a year ago. Mamdani went viral early in the race with entertaining person-on-the-street videos in the wake of Donald The President’s second pres…

Pizza Hut could soon be up for sale. Yum Brands, Pizza Hut’s parent company, said Tuesday it’s conducting a formal review of options for the brand, which has struggled to compete in a crowded pizza market. Yum CEO Chris Turner said Pizza Hut has many strengths, including a global footprint and strong growth in many markets. Pizza Hut has nearly 20,000 stores in more than 100 countries, and its international sales were up 2% in the first nine months of this year. China is its second-largest market outside the U.S. But Pizza Hut gets nearly half its sales from the U.S., where it has around 6,500 stores, and U.S. sales fell 7% in the same period. Pizza Hut was lo…

Microdosing isn’t just about mushrooms any more. While taking tiny non-psychedelic doses of hallucinogens was once the health craze du jour, small, sub-clinical doses of weight loss drugs have taken over the term “microdosing” in 2025. Little research has been done on the efficacy of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic when prescribed in smaller doses, but that hasn’t stopped the craze from catching on. People are turning to microdosed GLP-1s to manage their weight, stave off side effects and to make the medications more affordable on a long term basis. For telehealth companies cashing in on off-brand formulations of popular weight loss drugs, microdosing is an option …

Saudi oil giant Aramco reported Tuesday a $26.9 billion profit in the third quarter, down slightly from last year as global energy prices remain depressed over concerns of too much oil being on the market. Aramco’s results serve as a bellwether for the wider oil industry, which is still digesting the OPEC+ decision this weekend to halt planned production increases in the first quarter of next year over supply worries. Benchmark Brent crude, at just under $65 a barrel, has been fluttering near a four-year low. In filing on Riyadh’s Tadawul stock exchange, Aramco, formally known as the Saudi Arabian Oil Co., reported overall revenue of $111 billion in the third quarter, c…

More than six years after a Boeing 737 Max jetliner crashed in Ethiopia, the first civil trial stemming from the disaster that killed all 157 people on board the plane appears poised to move forward. Boeing has settled most of the dozens of wrongful death lawsuits that families of the victims filed against the aircraft maker after the March 2019 crash, but two of the remaining cases are scheduled to open before a federal court jury as soon as Tuesday. The trial in Chicago, where Boeing used to have its headquarters, isn’t expected to examine the company’s liability. Boeing already accepted responsibility for what happened to Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and for a…

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 addition to voting in the highly anticipated mayoral race this November, New Yorkers will make another consequential decision this election day. They’ll also decide whether the city will begin holding elections only on even-numbered calendar years. While it may sound irrelevant, it’s an important yay or nay. The measure, as written in Ballot Proposal 6, would mean that off-year primary and general elections would begin taking place in the same year as the presidential elections. If New Yorkers voted for the proposal, it would be in line with what New York state has already been moving toward. Earlier this month, the Court of Appeals unanimously voted to uphold …

Flight delays continued at U.S. airports Sunday amid air traffic controller shortages as the government shutdown entered its second month, with Newark airport in New Jersey experiencing delays of two to three hours. New York City’s Emergency Management office said on X that Newark delays often ripple out to the region’s other airports. Travelers flying to, from or through New York “should expect schedule changes, gate holds, and missed connections. Anyone flying today should check flight status before heading to the airport and expect longer waits,” the social media post added. George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and…

The $500 million Los Angeles Dodgers’ thrilling World Series win over the Toronto Blue Jays attracted record international attention for Major League Baseball, affirmed LA’s status as the sport’s best team and drew more attention to baseball’s payroll disparity heading into what is likely to be contentious labor negotiations. Los Angeles’ 5-4, 11-inning win over Toronto in Game 7 on Saturday night capped a postseason with seven winner-take-all games, two more than any previous year. Shohei Ohtani is building a case as the sport’s best player ever with his unprecedented two-way performances, captivating audiences outside the U.S. unlike any previous player. “It just abs…

Microsoft said Monday it will be shipping Nvidia‘s most advanced artificial intelligence chips to the United Arab Emirates as part of a deal approved by the U.S. Commerce Department. The Redmond, Washington software giant said licenses approved in September under “stringent” safeguards enable it to ship more than 60,000 Nvidia chips, including the California chipmaker’s advanced GB300 Grace Blackwell chips, for use in data centers in the Middle Eastern country. The agreement appeared to contradict President Donald The President’s remarks in a “60 Minutes” interview aired Sunday that such chips would not be exported outside the U.S. Asked by CBS News’ Norah O’D…

How do you say yes when you have no idea how to deliver? My cofounders and I built Moment Factory by saying yes to projects most people thought were impossible. Long before the technology existed, we designed interactive concerts, illuminated night walks through forests, and towering LED installations in airports. Every project started with the same challenge: Finding the path to make the impossible possible. The unknown isn’t unique to our industry. Every creative team faces it—startups launch apps no one knew they needed, architects design spaces no one had imagined, chefs invent dishes no one had tasted. At the beginning of every project, you don’t know the outcome…

“I always dream of the same mall.” So begins a recent post on the popular subreddit r/The MallWorld. The subreddit was first created in 2021, and currently has 10,000 monthly visitors detailing their recurring dreams of eerie, often empty spaces. The description reads, “Have you been to one of these common dream locations?” The post continued: “It has a very vintage feel to it. It always has warm amber lighting and wooden guard rails. It has 3 main floors, and one secret lower floor. “The lower floor is usually kept pristine, a time capsule of the 90’s. The stores are closed, but the merchandise remains. It smells like my kindergarten class did..” If this…