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Just a short drive outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, the quaint city of Kannapolis is seeing a rapid economic revival. The city, which was traditionally known for its textile mills, has recently transformed into a research hub in the for Southeast. And right in Kannapolis’s city center, less than a ten minute walk from the Georgian-style city hall, sits Atrium Health Ballpark: the home of the Minor League Baseball team known as the Cannon Ballers. Over the last five years, the Cannon Ballers have played an increasingly vital role in Kannapolis’s revitalization. Throughout the course of a season, the team’s total attendance is around 200,000 people—a number m…

More than a dozen frozen supplemental shake products are being recalled over fears that they may be contaminated with a deadly strain of Listeria monocytogenes. The outbreak is so far believed to have hospitalized 37 people and led to the deaths of 11 individuals. Here’s what you need to know about the frozen shake recall. What’s happened? On February 21, food distributor Lyons Magnus issued a voluntary recall of certain ReadyCare and Sysco Imperial Frozen Supplemental Shakes due to fears that they were contaminated with a strain of Listeria monocytogenes. The shakes were manufactured by a Prairie Farms Dairy, Inc. facility in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Lyons Magnus …

Business leaders love to talk about innovation. But for all the energy poured into frameworks and strategy decks, most teams rarely experience what innovation actually feels like. Real innovation is uncertain, emotional, iterative, and profoundly human. That’s why Cliff has spent the past several years guiding organizations through songwriting experiences—yes, literal songwriting—to unlock the emotional and relational capacities that innovation demands. And as someone who works at the intersection of story, leadership, and transformational design, Tony sees this as more than a clever workshop: it’s a reorientation. The same skills it takes to write a compelling song—…

Weeks ahead of his death, Pope Francis dedicated this month’s prayer intention to new technologies and the hope that it can serve “every person, especially the weakest.” “How I would like for us to look less at screens and look each other in the eyes more,” Pope Francis said in a prerecorded video released April 1. “Something’s wrong if we spend more time on our cellphones than with people. The screen makes us forget that there are real people behind it who breathe, laugh, and cry.” Pope Francis died at 88 Monday morning, the Vatican announced in a statement on X, just after his appearance in St. Peter’s Square on Easter Sunday. Pope Francis, in his 12-year papac…

This week, genomics and biotechnology company Colossal Biosciences unveiled genetically engineered canines—named Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi—that it calls dire wolves, a species of wolf that went extinct 13,000 years ago. The company, which has raised $437 million from investors and is valued at $10.2 billion, created the animals by editing the DNA of existing gray wolf cells to include traits from long-extinct dire wolves (like fluffy white fur and big size). It then developed embryos using cloning technology and implanted them into a female dog. Critics immediately disagreed with Colossal’s de-extinction claim, saying that the creatures, which were incubated and birthe…

You’ve probably heard AI is coming for many of our jobs. But how would you feel about getting a medical diagnosis from an AI doctor? Would you trust a verdict delivered by an AI judge? A new study of 10,000 people in 20 countries, including the United States, India, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and China, found when it comes to artificial intelligence replacing human jobs, people are most concerned about AI replacing doctors and judges, and least concerned about AI replacing journalists. The findings, published in American Psychologist by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, focused on the study participants’ attitudes to AI taking over six occupations: doctors…

I’ve always been a doer. I move fast, I love learning new things, and I don’t sit still for long. Productivity has been a faithful companion throughout my career, and I attribute much of my success to one key trait: the courage to take action—even when things seem uncertain or complex. I trace this mentality back to a moment in my childhood. I was about 11 years old, growing up in the Netherlands, where a bicycle isn’t just a toy—it’s your main mode of transportation. One day, I had my first flat tire and it was raining (as it always is). I felt defeated and immobile. No bike meant no freedom, no way to get from A to B. I walked home, and my dad, calm as ever, lo…

I was strolling up the hill in Greater Boston to a French cooking class. The rich aroma of melting butter and fresh herbs greeted us as it wafted through the chilly fall air. My friend Sylvie and I were eager to learn the art of soufflé-making. The French instructors asked for everyone’s background. When Sylvie said she was from France, they pressed her to be specific: Which part of France? When they learned she hailed from Strasbourg, the Parisiennes exchanged disapproving glances. Sylvie eyed their silent, snooty disdain. It got worse. When Sylvie started asking about techniques, we received curt responses and pronounced sighs. We left feeling as deflated as a c…

Are you guilty of overusing the monkey covering its eyes emoji? Do you find it impossible to send a text without tacking on a laughing-crying face? Much like choosing between a full stop or an “x” at the end of a message, emojis have become their own form of language—complete with unspoken rules and hidden meanings (we all know exactly what we’re implying with the eyes emoji or the eggplant). But beyond adding subtext or flirtatious nuance, your go-to emojis might reveal more about you than you realize. According to a new study published in Current Psychology by researchers at Oklahoma State University, your emoji habits could offer surprising insight into your un…

Shares in video game giant Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: TTWO) are plummeting in early morning trading today after the company’s subsidiary, Rockstar Games, announced that it is delaying the release of its next flagship title, Grand Theft Auto VI, from fall 2025 until May 2026. Here’s what you need to know about the delay and how investors are reacting. Grand Theft Auto VI delayed until May 2026 In December 2023, Rockstar announced that GTA6—perhaps the most anticipated game of all time—would launch in the fall of 2025. Now, the studio has announced the game’s release is being pushed back until May 26, 2026. Rockstar’s announcement was brief. In …

Charging a car, or electric vehicle, typically takes about 350 kilowatts. Charging an entire ocean freighter, or electric vessel, could take 20 megawatts, roughly 57 times more power. It’s a striking difference in power and generating capacity, and illuminates the challenges and opportunities behind greening the freighters and container ships crisscrossing the earth’s oceans. Across the Atlantic, maritime green energy provider NatPower Marine is developing the infrastructure to establish the world’s first operational electrified shipping corridor between Ireland and England. This includes electric boats and chargers and the renewable energy projects—which include…

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. Regardless of whether your company has a strict in-office policy or supports a flexible schedule, the reality is that office attendance is at its highest levels in five years, according to Bisnow. Nobody would argue the need for a healthy office, especially one with more people in it. And if you ask what makes a healthy office, most would say it is one that supports physical health and safet…

Within their first moments of stepping inside Universal’s newly opened Epic Universe theme park in Orlando, Florida, visitors will realize there is something different about the space. Rather than the typical onslaught of gift shops and pavement that can usually be found right inside the gates of most theme parks around the world, Epic Universe’s grounds are unusually bucolic, with a dense canopy of trees, winding pathways, and lush landscaping. This meandering entrance space is named Celestial Park, and it’s a notable counterpoint to the theme park standard of densely packed commercialism. “[It’s] where we’ve put the ‘park’ back in theme park,” says Steve Tatham, Epi…

Walgreens has agreed to pay up to $350 million in a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice, who accused the pharmacy of illegally filling millions of prescriptions in the last decade for opioids and other controlled substances. The nationwide drugstore chain must pay the government at least $300 million and will owe another $50 million if the company is sold, merged, or transferred before 2032, according to the settlement reached last Friday. The government’s complaint, filed in January in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, alleges that Walgreens knowingly filled millions of illegal prescriptions for controlled substances between Augu…

SAG-AFTRA is expanding its reach into the influencer economy. In late April, the union’s board unanimously voted to establish a new influencer committee, appointing New York-based lifestyle influencer Patrick Janelle as chair. SAG-AFTRA’s involvement with influencers isn’t new. In 2021, the union introduced an influencer agreement and waiver to cover branded content work—an initiative that thousands of members have used. While that agreement marked a major step forward, it notably excluded original creative content, which remains the core of many creators’ livelihoods. “It really became clear that if we’re going to continue to expand, and especially outside of…

The Prada Group announced a deal Thursday to buy Italy’s Versace from the U.S. luxury group Capri Holdings under terms that value the fashion house at 1.25 billion euros ($1.4 billion). Prada said the addition of Versace’s “highly recognizable aesthetic . . . constitutes a strongly complementary addition” to its portfolio, which includes the Prada and Miu Miu fashion brands. It said Milan-based Versace offered “significant untapped growth potential.” The final value of the deal will be adjusted at closing, expected in the second half of the year. It will be funded by 1.5 billion euros in new debt and has been approved by the Prada and Capri Holdings board of directors. …

Ernest Hemingway had an influential theory about fiction that might explain a lot about a particular weakness of artificial intelligence, or AI. In Hemingway’s opinion, the best stories are like icebergs—with what characters actually say and do located above the surface, but making up only a fraction of the unfolding action. The rest of the story—the characters’ motivations, feelings, and their understanding of the world—ideally resides instead beneath the surface, like the bulk of an iceberg, serving as unarticulated subtext for all that transpires. Perhaps the reason Hemingway’s theory struck a chord is because human beings are like icebergs. Whatever people say or …

Google’s logo just got a little bit blurrier. In a new logo quietly rolled out across iOS and Pixel, the search giant ditches its color blocked “G” for gradients. Google’s new logo keeps the same letterform, as well as the bright red-yellow-green-blue color sequence, but now those colors blur into each other. The new “G” is Google’s biggest update to its visual identity since retiring serfs for its current sans-serif font, Product Sans, in 2015. Why a gradient? In 2013, Google was among the first tech companies to move from skeuomorphic, dimensional lettering to a flat logo design. It arguably ushered in the “blanding” era—a moment when companies embraced s…

It’s one thing to invent something cool within controlled laboratory environments. It’s entirely another to scale that new baby for sale. The tension between innovation and commercialization is something we regularly wrestle with at Abstrax. Every morning, we don lab coats and ask the same question: “How do you make money from research done in a lab?” Balance innovation with commercial reality Discovery for its own sake isn’t enough. Many R&D-heavy companies discover that brilliant ideas can languish for years if they don’t have a system for bringing them to market. We decided early on to build that bridge proactively. This meant investing heavily no…

Bobby sat at his desk, rewriting the same email to his manager over and over. His boss had just announced a major reorganization without acknowledging how it would impact several critical projects Bobby led. Bobby knew he needed to address the issue, but he didn’t want to seem difficult or negative. But staying silent didn’t feel right either. Bobby found himself in a situation many professionals face—unsure about how to bring up frustrations and disappointments to those in charge. It’s tempting to avoid these tough conversations. You don’t want to damage the relationship, but it’s hard not to be upset by sudden changes or what you see as poor choices. While it m…

COVID-19 cases are rising again as a new variant begins to circulate in some parts of the world. The World Health Organization said Wednesday the rise in cases is primarily in the eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Asia and western Pacific regions. Airport screening in the United States has detected the new variant in travelers arriving from those regions to destinations in California, Washington state, Virginia and New York. The new variant is called NB.1.8.1. It arrives as the United States’ official stance on COVID-19 vaccination is changing. On Tuesday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that COVID-19 shots are no longer recommended for healthy chi…