What's on Your Mind?

The holidays are the perfect time to show people that you appreciate their time, their effort, and the value they bring. But when it comes to giving gifts at work, most people are confused about what to do. Should you, or shouldn’t you, buy your boss a present? What about your coworkers or direct reports? How much should you spend for the office gift exchange? What about your office bestie? We asked the experts to weigh in, and here’s what they had to say. Is it acceptable to give holiday gifts at work? “To gift someone in the workplace is always acceptable, Alyse Dermer, founder of Mr. Considerate, a luxury gift concierge service, tells Fast Company. “Gift…

The Girl Scouts have been sued by consumers over the alleged presence of “heavy metals” and pesticides in its popular Thin Mints and other cookies. A proposed class action lawsuit was filed on Monday night in federal court in the New York City borough of Brooklyn against the 113-year-old nonprofit and the cookies’ licensed producers, ABC Bakers and Ferrero USA’s Little Brownie Bakers. It cited a December 2024 study commissioned by GMO Science and Moms Across America that tested samples of 25 cookies from three U.S. states. The study said Girl Scout cookies contained at least four of five heavy metals – aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury – that can ha…

In mountain ranges around the world, glaciers are melting as global temperatures rise. Europe’s Alps and Pyrenees lost 40% of their glacier volume from 2000 to 2023. These and other icy regions have provided freshwater for people living downstream for centuries—almost 2 billion people rely on glaciers today. But as glaciers melt faster, they also pose potentially lethal risks. Water from the melting ice often drains into depressions once occupied by the glacier, creating large lakes. Many of these expanding lakes are held in place by precarious ice dams or rock moraines deposited by the glacier over centuries. Too much water behind these dams or a landslide into t…

Glen Powell has done it all on screen—from battling storms in Twisters to trading banter in the rom-com Anyone but You. But his latest role? It’s a little unexpected: reinventing the American pantry. The actor is stepping into the food world as a cofounder of Smash Kitchen, a new condiment brand hitting Walmart shelves nationwide on April 2. The line includes ketchup, mustard, mayo, and BBQ sauce—all made with better-for-you ingredients like organic tomatoes and mustard seeds, cage-free organic eggs, and none of the usual suspects like high-fructose corn syrup or artificial additives. The goal? To bring all your favorite condiments under one cleaner, tastier brand. …

Glen Powell has proven that he can hold it down as the star of blockbuster movies, from Twisters to Hit Man. But on October 3, in his hometown of Austin, he was holding down the grill at the parking lot of his local Walmart. Powell’s grill work was pulling double duty as promotion for his new TV comedy, Chad Powers, and for Smash Kitchen, his clean food brand, which launched at Walmart in April. The brand debuted with a suite of condiments including ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and barbecue sauce that look and taste on par with heritage brands but are made with all-organic ingredients. Priced from $1.97 to $4.97, they’re just pennies more expensive than their legacy …

Fear over credit quality in U.S. regional banks rippled through markets on Friday, dragging global financial stocks lower and reviving memories of the crisis of confidence that shook sentiment just over two years ago. The selloff hit Wall Street, with main equities indexes seeing a mixed open, as investors stayed on edge with banking sector worries adding to anxiety already heightened by escalating U.S.-China trade tensions and renewed worries about the global economic outlook. The banking sector’s exposure to two recent U.S. auto bankruptcies has rekindled concerns about lending standards more than two years after Silicon Valley Bank’s failure, when high interest…

A London judge ruled Friday that global mining company BHP Group is liable in Brazil’s worst environmental disaster when a dam collapse a decade ago unleashed tons of toxic waste into a major river, killing 19 people and devastating villages downstream. High Court Justice Finola O’Farrell said that Australia-based BHP was responsible, despite not owning the dam at the time, finding its negligence, carelessness or lack of skill led to the collapse. Anglo-Australian BHP owns 50% of Samarco, the Brazilian company that operates the iron ore mine where the tailings dam ruptured on Nov. 5, 2015. Sludge from the burst dam destroyed the once-bustling village of Bento Rodrigues…

European shares opened lower on Thursday after a broad advance in Asia spurred by a rebound on Wall Street. Upbeat economic updates and a steady flow of quarterly reports from U.S. companies have helped counter worries over surging share prices for Big Tech companies. But that optimism failed to carry over from Asia to Europe. Germany’s DAX lost 0.2% to 24,003.24, while the CAC 40 in Paris declined 0.5% to 8,033.11. Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped 0.2% to 9,761.18. The future for the S&P 500 was virtually unchanged while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.1%. In Asia, shares bounced back from a retreat the day before. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 jumped 1.3% to 5…

European and Asian shares mostly gained on Tuesday after U.S. stocks rallied on hopes the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates soon. The futures for the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1%. Germany’s DAX edged 0.1% lower to 23,216.76 and the CAC 40 in Paris added 0.1% to 7,965.77. Britain’s FTSE 100 likewise gained 0.1%, to 9,542.55. In Asian trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 picked up 0.1% to 48,659.52 as a plunge in technology giant SoftBank’s shares weighed on the market. It fell 10.3% on concerns that returns from its heavy investments in OpenAI may be threatened by the next generation Gemini artificial intelligence model that Google launched…

Shares in Europe and Asia advanced on Wednesday after benchmarks on Wall Street surged on hopes the Federal Reserve will soon opt to cut interest rates. The future for the S&P 500 gained 0.3%, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.2%. In early European trading, Germany’s DAX gained 0.2% to 23,500.98, while the CAC 40 in Paris also rose 0.2%, to 9,623.22. Britain’s FTSE 100 edged 0.1% higher. In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 rose 1.9% to 49,559.07 in a broad rally that encompassed major exporters and technology shares. However, shares in Kioxia dropped 14.9% on reports that Bain Capital plans to sell $2.3 billion of the computer memory maker’s shares. …

Global sustainability models are failing. They’ve been designed to showcase ethical trade and environmental responsibility, but they fundamentally misunderstand how global supply chains operate—especially the critical, unseen work at the beginning of essential value chains such as critical minerals. For decades, these models have burdened African merchants, miners, and farmers—the backbone of global industries from cocoa to lithium—while corporations further along the chain claim the benefits. The systems celebrate end products, like sleek electric vehicles (EVs) or iPhones, while ignoring the heavy lifting at the start of the work, where it’s most difficult. Th…

Novo Nordisk, the Danish drug company that makes Ozempic and Wegovy, is now offering the drugs at lower prices for self-pay patients. On Monday, the company announced it would offer both medications, Ozempic (the weight loss version of the drug) and Wegovy (the version that addressed diabetes), at a discounted rate of $199 per month for a limited time. The introductory offer goes from now until March 31, 2026. The announcement noted that the pricing is only good for the first two months of treatment, and at the lowest doses of the medications. After the initial months of treatment, the payrate will move to the new monthly self-pay rate of $349 per month, down from $4…

Michelle, a 42-year-old marketing executive, was scrolling through her grocery app when she saw the total: $87. A year ago, her weekly cart never dipped below $200. Chips, late-night snacks, and bottles of wine had given way to produce, yogurt, and lean proteins. But that same morning, a $900 charge for her GLP-1 prescription landed on her credit card. Whatever she was saving at the supermarket felt dwarfed by the cost of her medication. Drugs like Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro, and Zepbound are being hailed as medical breakthroughs. They’re not just changing waistlines—they’re changing household budgets. And as these shifts ripple through everyday spending, the finan…

Management at the Bay Area transportation startup Glydways wants you to be clear about what the company is not: It may plan to move people in futuristic autonomous pods, but it’s not hyperloop-grade vaporware. And its funding by big-name Silicon Valley investors does not make it a ride for the 1%. “Public transit for everyone, everywhere,” says founder Mark Seeger. But Glydways is starting smaller than that. Its first green-lit project (after a temporary test track now under construction next to an abandoned mall in Richmond, Calif.) and others under consideration by local governments will have Glydways’s four-seat electric vehicles plying short on-demand routes between …

If drivers want to switch away from a completely gas-powered car to something electric, they have a few options. Namely: battery electric vehicles, hybrids, or plug-in hybrids (PHEVs). All are seen as a way to reduce transportation emissions and move away from gas-guzzling internal combustion cars. But it turns out, plug-in hybrid owners may not actually be plugging in their vehicles, making PHEVs not quite the environmental solution that they seem like. General Motors CEO Mary Barra, speaking this week at the Automotive Press Association conference in Detroit, touched on this reality when talking about GM’s plans with electric and hybrid vehicles. “What …

The Chevrolet Corvette has been the icon of U.S. industrial power since 1953. It also symbolizes the great ideal of America—a dream of individual freedom that was ultimately embodied in big roaring cars and endless highways. This gasoline-fueled dream might lose its gasoline smell forever, as General Motors experiments with a fully electric Corvette. GM created this car in its new design studio in Royal Leamington Spa, about 20 miles from Birmingham in the U.K. And, although the company insists that it is not a confirmed production model (concept cars are never production models), it marks the beginning of a path already taken by rivals like the Ford Mustang and the D…

And the layoffs keep coming. General Motors joins Amazon and Paramount this week, announcing on Wednesday it will be laying off 1,750 workers in Michigan and Ohio, in response to the downturn in U.S. electric vehicle (EV) market. The Detroit News first reported the news. Shares in the automotive maker (NYSE: GM) were down less than 1% in midday trading on Wednesday. The company said those cuts include 1,200 workers in Detroit at the company’s electric vehicle plant and another 550 employees at Ohio’s Ultium Cells battery cell plant. The company is also instituting temporary layoffs for some 850 workers at the Ohio plant and another 700 workers in Tennessee,…

General Motors said on Tuesday it would take a $1.6 billion charge in the third quarter as it reshapes its electric vehicle strategy following the scrapping of a key federal incentive, a move likely to dampen demand. U.S. carmakers have delayed or canceled new EV models and battery plants and pared other investments, citing weaker-than-expected demand. The market faces further strain after the The President administration removed a $7,500 federal tax credit for EVs, a key support for the industry. EV adoption rate to slow “Following recent U.S. Government policy changes, including the termination of certain consumer tax incentives for EV purchases and the r…

General Motors will be hit with charges of about $6 billion as sales of electric vehicles sputter after the U.S. cut tax incentives to buy them and also eased auto emissions standards. Shares slid almost 3% Friday. The charges that will be recorded in the fourth quarter follow an announcement in October that the Detroit automaker would take a $1.6 billion charge for the same reason in the previous quarter, with automakers forced to reconsider ambitious plans to convert their fleets to electric power. The EV tax credit ended in September. The clean vehicle tax credit was worth $7,500 for new EVs and up to $4,000 for used ones. GM, which had been the most am…

As automakers look to get more people in electric vehicles, they continue to make advancements in EV batteries—developments that add range, speed up charging times, or lower costs, all of which entice customer adoption. Now, General Motors says it has developed a new kind of EV battery that provides a higher range at a more affordable price, and that it aims to become the first carmaker to deploy the technology. Called lithium manganese-rich (LMR) prismatic battery cells, these batteries use a higher amount of less-expensive minerals, like magnesium, rather than more of the most expensive minerals like cobalt and nickel. Most EVs in the U.S. use lithium-ion batteries…

Four years ago, GM set an audacious goal: By 2035, the automaker planned to go all-electric. The company says it’s still aiming for that target. But it simultaneously lobbied the Senate to end California’s ban on new gas car sales—which was also supposed to go fully into effect in 2035. In theory, California’s policy should have supported GM’s transition. GM even recruited employees in the lobbying effort. “We need your help!” the company wrote in an email to staff, as reported by The Wall Street Journal. “Emissions standards that are not aligned with market realities pose a serious threat to our business by undermining consumer choice and vehicle affordability.” …

However uncertain the outlook is for the American auto industry in the age of tariffs, growing competition from China, and the rise of EV upstarts, the view inside the new boardroom at General Motors is stylishly optimistic. Part of the automaker’s new corporate headquarters that’s opening January 12, the boardroom is a large and elegant space with a massive marble table surrounded by mainstay elements of mid-century modern design. Fluted wood wall treatments, subtle curves, geometric overhead lighting, minimalist bench seating, and sweeping views of a changing downtown Detroit combine to create a physical manifestation of how GM sees itself evolving through the 21st …