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Russell Vought, should he be confirmed by the full Senate, would join a short list of those able to lead the CFPB, as his predecessor Mick Mulvaney did, per the requirements of the Vacancies Act. View the full article

Meta is removing the Audience Types option from Advantage+ catalog ads that use the sales objective, pushing advertisers toward its AI-driven targeting tools. This change reflects Meta’s broader strategy of automating ad targeting, betting that its AI can better match products with potential buyers than manual audience selection. The big picture. While the change removes some manual controls, Meta’s automated targeting has been showing stronger performance metrics, according to their internal data, suggesting this could benefit advertisers despite the reduced direct control. Key details: Advantage+ catalog ads dynamically display products based on user behavior, using data from Meta Pixel or app SDK. The system personalizes product displays based on individual user interests, intent, and actions. These ads can appear as single images, carousels, or collections. Yes, but. Advertisers aren’t losing all targeting control. They can still create catalog custom audiences based on product interactions, retarget potential customers who’ve shown interest and include/exclude specific audiences from seeing ads. Why we care. The removal of “Audience Types” from Advantage+ catalog ads might initially seem like a limitation, but Meta’s data suggests their AI-driven targeting actually performs better than traditional manual targeting methods. This is because an AI system’s job is to process vast amounts of user behavior data in real-time, identifying patterns and connections that human advertisers might miss. The system analyzes user interests, browsing behavior, purchase intent, and past interactions to make more precise targeting decisions. However, this change also requires advertisers to adapt their approach. While you’re losing some direct control over audience selection, important targeting capabilities through catalog custom audiences are not going away. Between the lines. This update signals Meta’s growing confidence in its AI targeting capabilities. The company is essentially saying its automated systems can outperform human-selected audience targeting. What you need to know. To maintain advanced targeting options, advertisers will need to: Have Meta Pixel or app SDK installed. Create custom audiences manually. Use more advanced targeting setup processes. Bottom line. While this change may initially feel like a loss of control, Meta’s data suggests their automated targeting could actually improve ad performance – as long as advertisers are willing to trust the algorithm. View the full article

DeepSeek makes users liable for travel and litigation expenses if they violate its terms and the violation leads to legal action. The post DeepSeek Terms Make Users Liable For Company’s Travel Expenses appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with: I. Retired Navy SEAL commander Rich Diviney on empathy: “A lack of empathy in any leader obviously is a huge detriment huge detriment. But too much empathy can be just as damaging. It’s hard to be productive if you’re functioning at the whim of other people’s emotions. Empathy is an invaluable tool, so long as it is properly calibrated.” Source: The Attributes: 25 Hidden Drivers of Optimal Performance II. Nikos Mourkogiannis on purpose: “Purpose is preparation for doing what is right and what is worthwhile. As such it creates a sense of obligation. But this obligation is not a weight or a drag in any way—it’s a way of knowing what you can and can’t do. Because Purpose provides certainty, it also provides confidence. All of that comes together to contribute to a firm’s competitive advantage. ‘Do the right thing and do well’—a new way of saying ‘Do well by doing good.’” Source: Purpose: The Starting Point of Great Companies * * * Look for these ideas every Thursday on the Leading Blog. Find more ideas on the LeadingThoughts index. * * * Follow us on Instagram and X for additional leadership and personal development ideas. View the full article

The Army helicopter and regional American Airlines jet that collided over Washington are both workhorse aircraft that operate around the world on a daily basis. There were 60 passengers and four crew members on the jet, a Bombardier CRJ700, officials said. Three service members were on a training flight on the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter. None are believed to have survived the Wednesday night collision, which caused both aircraft to plunge into the frigid Potomac River. What to know about the aircraft: Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk There are about 5,000 Black Hawks in use around the world, according to the aviation site FlightGlobal.com. The twin-engine, four-blade helicopter is manufactured by Sikorsky, a subsidiary of defense contractor Lockheed Martin. The aircraft involved in Wednesday’s collision was an Army version. There are other variants made for the Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard, and for specialized duty such as intelligence gathering. The Black Hawk made its debut in 1979. The helicopters have been involved in numerous U.S. military operations, including the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in May 2011, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the invasions of Panama and Grenada. It is perhaps best known as the namesake aircraft in the 2001 war film “Black Hawk Down,” about a U.S. helicopter shot down in Mogadishu, Somalia, during the civil war there. Others have crashed over the years on training missions. Bombardier CRJ700 The passenger jet was manufactured by Quebec, Canada-based conglomerate Bombardier Inc. The CRJ program was sold in June 2020 to the Japanese company Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, which no longer makes them but continues to produce parts. The twin-engine aircraft comes in several versions capable of seating between 68 and 78 passengers. It is a commonly used regional aircraft used for medium and shorter flights, with more than 900 produced since it was introduced in May 1999. Bombardier said in 2015 that the CRJ700 series accounted for 20% of all departure flights in North America, with about 200,000 flights per month. The plane in Wednesday’s crash was registered as N530EA and manufactured in 2010, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The jet was operated by an American Airlines subsidiary, PSA Airlines. —Curt Anderson, Associated Press View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. It can get a bit confusing to decide between the standard iPad, the iPad Air, and the iPad Pro. For the most budget-friendlyoption, the iPad 10th gen is your best bet. For those looking for top-of-the-line specs, the iPad Pro is the way to go. If you're somewhere in between, that's where the iPad Air's sweet spot is. Right now, the latest 11-inch M2 Wifi iPad Air is $499 (originally $599), and the Wifi + Cellular version (if you don't want to rely on wifi) is $649 (originally $749)—for both models, those match their lowest-ever prices, according to price-tracking tools. Storage: 128GB, Camera: 12MP Front/Back, Wifi: Wi-Fi 6E, Security: Touch ID. iPad Air 11-inch (WiFi, M2) $569.05 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $599.00 Save $29.95 Get Deal Get Deal $569.05 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $599.00 Save $29.95 Storage: 128GB, Camera: 12MP Front/Back, Wifi: Wi-Fi 6E, Cell: 5G, Security: Touch ID. iPad Air 11-inch (WiFi + Cellular, M2) $649.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $749.00 Save $100.00 Get Deal Get Deal $649.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $749.00 Save $100.00 SEE -1 MORE Although $100 off doesn't sound like a ton for such an expensive item, it's still impressive given it is a flagship Apple product that came out less than a year ago. The M2 chip isn't new, but it is a powerful processor, especially for a tablet. The iPad Air gives you about 10 hours of juice depending on your use. You'll get Wi-Fi 6E, Bluetooth 5.3, stereo speakers, Touch ID to log in, a 12MP wide-angle front camera, and a rear 12MP camera. There is no IP rating protection against the elements, though. This smaller 11-inch version has a 2,360 by 1,640-pixel resolution on its LCD screen with a 60Hz refresh rate and 500 nits of brightness. Some newer features include split-view screens, subject lift, and live text features. You can read more about the M2 iPad Air from PCMag's "excellent" review. A new addition for accessories on the iPad Air is being able to use the Pencil Pro, but it's still compatible with the more basic Apple Pencil (the Pencil Pro is worth the extra money, though). You might also consider the Magic Keyboard if you want to use it as a laptop. View the full article

As part of a partnership agreement the two companies entered into, the Ramquest and E-closing platforms have shifted ownership for an undisclosed price. View the full article

Contract signings fell 5.5% to 74.2 in December, according to a National Association of Realtors index released Thursday. View the full article

Mortgage lenders still need to monetize mortgage servicing rights quickly amid the sluggish housing market, representing more opportunities for the firm. View the full article

Google launches AI-powered "Ask For Me" to make business calls, starting with auto repairs and nail salons. The post Google Launches AI Phone Assistant To Call Businesses For You appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

Scheduling a project is done in the planning phase. A project schedule gets into the details, including tasks and subtasks. A master schedule provides a more broad-stroke approach to scheduling, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less important. To understand the importance of a master schedule, we’ll define the term in project management, compare it to a project schedule and explain what it needs to include to thoroughly review the project. What Is a Master Schedule? A master schedule is a comprehensive high-level timeline that outlines the major phases, tasks and milestones of a project from start to finish. It serves as the central document that provides an overview of the project’s key activities, deadlines and interdependencies. The master schedule is a crucial tool for project managers because it helps ensure that tasks are executed in the right sequence and on time. It provides clarity to the project team and stakeholders about progress and deadlines and helps identify potential bottlenecks early on, enabling proactive management and adjustments. In complex projects, the master schedule may be broken down into more detailed schedules for individual workstreams or subprojects, but the master schedule remains the overarching framework for managing the project. That’s why most project management software has Gantt charts, which are commonly used for creating a master schedule. ProjectManager is award-winning project and portfolio management software with robust Gantt charts and roadmaps that visualize the project timeline, all key activities and phases, including milestones for one project or multiple projects. Our Gantt chart and roadmaps link all four types of task dependencies to avoid delays and cost overruns as well as filtering for the critical path to identify essential tasks. It schedules tasks, phases and projects, allocates resources and monitors progress. Get started with ProjectManager today for free. /wp-content/uploads/2024/02/light-mode-CTA.jpgProjectManater’s Gantt charts and roadmaps make powerful master schedules. Learn more Master Schedule vs. Project Schedule The master schedule and the project schedule are both essential components in project management. However, they serve different purposes, have different scopes and levels of detail and are used by different stakeholders. Let’s compare the two. Scope The master schedule has a broader scope. It represents the entire project’s timeline at a high level, including all key phases, milestones and deliverables. It typically includes all major tasks but doesn’t go into deep detail about each task. The project schedule, on the other hand, has a narrower scope and provides more detailed information about each specific task or work package. It breaks down the tasks from the master schedule into smaller, actionable steps, with specific start and end dates, assigned resources and task durations. Level of Detail The master schedule contains high-level information about major phases and milestones. It might only show the critical path and key milestones, focusing on the project’s overall timeline and important checkpoints, without getting into the granular details of each task. The project schedule is much more detailed. It lists all the individual tasks, their durations, dependencies, responsible team members and resource allocation. It provides the necessary information to manage and track day-to-day activities, often including specific deadlines for smaller components or deliverables. Purpose The purpose of the master schedule is to provide an overview of the entire project. It helps to track the major milestones and phases, ensuring that the project is moving forward according to plan and within the overall timeframe. It ensures the project aligns with its goals and timeline and serves as a reference for high-level reporting to stakeholders. The purpose of the project schedule is to manage and coordinate the specific activities so that tasks are completed on time and within scope. It serves as a more actionable document used for daily management, providing detailed timelines for the team and ensuring that resources are effectively utilized. It is also used for managing risks, tracking progress and adjusting timelines. Users Senior management, project managers and key stakeholders typically use the master schedule. It helps them get a high-level view of the project’s status and make strategic decisions based on overall progress. It is generally used in executive meetings, for reporting and high-level project tracking. On the other hand, project managers, team members and departmental heads use the project schedule. It’s the primary tool for those directly involved in the day-to-day execution of the project. Team members rely on the project schedule to understand their tasks and deadlines, while project managers use it to monitor progress, manage resources and adjust the plan as needed. What Should Be Included in a Master Schedule? A master schedule provides a high-level overview of a project, capturing essential elements that help ensure its successful execution. Here’s a brief breakdown of what should be included. High-Level Timeline: Spans the entire project duration, from start to finish. Key Milestones: Represents significant events or checkpoints in the project. Key Deliverables: Results of a project that embodies its main goals. Critical Path: The critical path of a project is the longest sequence of tasks that determine the project’s completion time. Dependencies Among Tasks, Phases or Projects: Tasks, phases and projects that cannot start or finish until another starts or finishes. Resource Schedule: Identifies key resources needed for each phase or major task. Potential Risks: High-level view of risks that might affect the timeline. When to Make a Master Schedule Creating a master schedule varies based on the type of industry or project one is managing, as different sectors have distinct requirements. Below are considerations in a variety of settings. Manufacturing & Production In manufacturing, a master schedule is referred to as a master production schedule (MPS). It differs from a production schedule, which is a more detailed, short-term plan used to organize and manage specific production activities, focusing on daily or weekly tasks, to ensure efficient workflow and address immediate operational needs. A master production schedule is a high-level, long-term planning tool that outlines what products need to be products, in what quantities and by when, based on forecasted demand, inventory levels and capacity constraints. It provides a strategic framework for aligning production with business goals, feeding detailed requirements into project schedules. Program and Project Portfolio Management (PPM) The master schedule manages multiple projects or programs simultaneously, aligning them with organizational objectives and ensuring that resources are allocated appropriately across initiatives. Construction Here, master schedules are crucial for coordinating tasks, managing subcontractors and ensuring timely project completion within the agreed-upon budget. Master Schedule Template To create a master schedule, download this free Excel timeline template. It can map activities, processes or projects that will be executed over a timeline that can expand across a year. It provides the same high-level overview that a master schedule does. /wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Excel-Timeline-Template.webp Use this free template to create a project timeline, product roadmap timeline, strategic roadmap timeline and more. It will help adjust planning needs over a six-month, year or multiple-year timeframe. Benefits of Making a Master Schedule Master planning helps to achieve project objectives, manage resource constraints and track project progress, among other things. Creating a master schedule is a good idea for both personal time and management. Let’s explore some key advantages more deeply. Allows Organizations to Allocate Resources Effectively Across Projects A master schedule provides a clear overview of all projects an organization is working on. This allows project managers to see where resources are needed and avoid over-allocating them to one project while neglecting others. It also helps to plan for better resource availability and identify potential conflicts or overlaps in resource usage, which avoids resource conflicts. Project managers can also monitor how resources are being used across multiple projects to ensure no resource is overused or overburdened, and it allows for adjustments if there are bottlenecks. Facilitates Capacity Planning and Monitoring of Resource Utilization By providing a comprehensive overview of all upcoming projects, tasks and deadlines, the master schedule enables organizations to forecast the resources required for each project or phase. Understanding the scope of work in advance, ensures organizations have the necessary resources. Project managers can balance the workload and assess whether the current resource capacity can meet the demands of all projects and whether additional resources are needed. They can also monitor resource utilization, which helps to identify bottlenecks, optimize efficiency and adjust for changes. Helps Make Progress Reports for Stakeholders Another benefit is that a master schedule offers a visual representation of the project timelines, milestones and deadlines, which makes it easier to communicate project progress to stakeholders. It breaks down the project into key milestones and deliverables. Progress reports can then note whether these milestones have been met as well as identify delays and issues. How to Make a Master Schedule With ProjectManager To get the most out of the master schedule, create it with ProjectManager. Our award-winning project and portfolio management software has robust Gantt charts to create project timelines, plus features that allocate resources, track costs and visualize and report on the status of projects, programs and portfolios in real time. To make one, simply sign up for a free trial and get access to the software for 30 days. There’s no credit card information required. Then follow these steps. Create Timelines with Gantt Charts Once logged in, create a new project or import one from a spreadsheet or even a Microsoft Project file. If a new project, add tasks and subtasks with start and end dates. Milestones can also be set to indicate the end or one phase and the beginning of another, for example. As this data is inputted on the Gantt chart spreadsheet on the left, it will automatically populate the timeline to the right. /wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Manufacturing-gantt-chart-light-mode-costs-exposed-.png Allocate Resources and Costs On the Gantt chart, under each task, assign resources. These can be human resources, such as team members, or nonhuman resources, such as equipment, tools, costs, etc. Be sure resources are allocated efficiently. Use the team page to get an overview of the team’s activities (this page can be filtered by progress, priority and more) or visit the color-coded workload chart that shows resource allocation across the project or projects. From this page, users can balance the team’s workload to keep them working at capacity while avoiding burnout. /wp-content/uploads/2024/05/workload-page-resource-management-lightmode.png Visualize the Status of Projects, Programs and Portfolios with Real-Time Dashboards Once the baseline is set on the Gantt chart, the software constantly updates with real-time data that can be used to track progress and performance. Project managers can toggle to the real-time project or portfolio dashboard, depending on whether they’re managing one project or multiple projects. Here they’ll find easy-to-read graphs and charts that display live data on time, cost, workload and more. It’s like getting an instant status report. /wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Dashboard-light-mode.jpg Create Reports In Minutes Users can also set up notifications for task updates, approaching deadlines and overdue tasks to ensure that team members and stakeholders stay informed. Customizable reports also track key metrics like task completion percentages, timelines and resource usage. A status or portfolio status report can be created with a keystroke and filtered to give project managers details they need to deliver projects on time and within budget. Or filter for a more general overview to share with stakeholders and keep them informed. /wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Reports-Light-2554x1372-1.png Related Project Scheduling Content A master schedule is part of project scheduling in project management. For those interested in learning more about the larger picture of mastering things like a workback schedule, schedule variance and more, follow the links below to some of our more recent articles on the subject. Mastering the Workback Schedule: 5 Essential Tips Schedule Management: Process, Tools and Templates Schedule Variance: What Is It & How Do I Calculate It? How to Use a Schedule Maker for Projects How to make a CPM Schedule: CPM Scheduling Basics Schedule Performance Index (SPI): An Introduction 5 Essential Tips for Schedule Control in Project Management ProjectManager is online project and portfolio management software that connects teams whether they’re in the office or out in the field. They can share files, comment at the task level and stay updated with email and in-app notifications. Join teams at Avis, Nestle and Siemens who use our software to deliver successful projects. Get started with ProjectManager today for free. The post What Is a Master Schedule in Project Management? appeared first on ProjectManager. View the full article

President Donald Trump on Thursday questioned the actions of the army helicopter pilot and air traffic controller ahead of a deadly midair collision in Washington and quickly veered into politics to speculate that Democrats and diversity initiatives shared blame for the deaths of 67 people. As Trump spoke, a federal investigation into the crash was just getting started and first responders were still working to recover bodies from the wreckage of the commercial jet and army helicopter that crashed into the Potomac River near Reagan Washington National Airport Wednesday night. Speaking from the White House — just over three miles from the scene — Trump at points acknowledged that it was too soon to draw conclusions as he encouraged the nation to pray for the victims. But he moved nonetheless to assign blame. Trump said “we are one family” as he expressed condolences for the crash. He then proceeded to attack political opponents and unleash grievances about diversity initiatives. “The FAA is actively recruiting workers who suffer severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric problems and other mental and physical conditions under a diversity and inclusion hiring initiative spelled out on the agency’s website,” Trump said. He added that the program allowed for the hiring of people with hearing and vision issues as well as paralysis, epilepsy and “dwarfism.” Trump said air traffic controllers needed to be geniuses. “They have to be talented, naturally talented geniuses,” he said. “You can’t have regular people doing their job.” Trump said he had no evidence to support his claims that diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and hiring preferences played a role in the crash, allowing that “it just could have been.” He defended doing so “because I have common sense.” The plane crash marked the first major disaster of Trump’s new term, and his response evoked his frequent — and controversial — briefings on the COVID-19 pandemic. His handling of the pandemic helped sour voters on him as he failed to win reelection in 2020. Trump said “we do not know what led to this crash but we have some very strong opinions.” Then he proceeded to hold forth at length about what happened, at one point wondering if the helicopter pilot was wearing night vision goggles. Trump declared that “you had a pilot problem” and the helicopter was “going at an angle that was unbelievably bad.” And he questioned why the Army pilot didn’t change course, saying that “you can stop a helicopter very quickly.” He also mused about the air traffic controller, saying of the two aircraft, “for whatever reason they were at the same elevation,” adding “they should have been at a different height.” Vice President JD Vance, new Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth all lined up behind Trump to praise his leadership and echo his concerns about DEI programs and hiring. “When you don’t have the best standards in who you’re hiring, it means on the one hand, you’re not getting the best people in government,” Vance said, “But on the other hand, it puts stresses on the people who are already there.” Trump complained specifically about Pete Buttigieg, who served as transportation secretary under former President Joe Biden, calling him “a disaster.” “He’s run it right into the ground with his diversity,” Trump said. Complaining about the previous administration, Trump continued, “their policy was horrible and their politics was even worse.” Buttigieg responded in a post on X, calling Trump’s comments “despicable.” He added: “As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying.” Trump made a point to tell Duffy, who was sworn in on Tuesday as Buttigieg’s replacement, “It’s not your fault.” Duffy took the White House podium alongside Trump and declared, “When Americans take off in airplanes, they should expect to land at their destination.” Duffy added, “We will not accept excuses.” Despite the crash, Trump said he “would not hesitate to fly.” —Zeke Miller and Chris Megerian, Associated Press View the full article

Most video editing software works through re-encoding—essentially, uploading the file so it can be broken apart and stitched back together. This is necessary for advanced editing techniques but has some downsides. It's slow, for one thing, and the encoding process isn't lossless, meaning videos can look worse over time. This is a particularly vexing problem when all you want to do is cut a bit from the beginning or end of a file. Lossless Cut is an open source application for Linux, Windows, and Mac that can trim videos without the need for encoding. The changes to the original file are basically instantaneous and totally lossless. It's a great tool if all you ever do when editing video is remove the bits at the start or end that you don't want. It's also potentially a great companion tool for traditional editing software, as it makes it easier to cut clips to size before importing. To get started, open the application and drag a video file to the window—it will open immediately. Use the finger buttons, located to the left and right of the play button, to mark which parts of the video you'd like to remove from the beginning and the end. When you're ready press Export—you'll instantly have a shorter version of your video. Credit: Justin Pot There's also a button for rotating the video, and another for taking a screenshot. You can hit the Toggle advanced view button to see a few more options. My favorite is the ability to add both thumbnails and sound waves to the editing timeline, allowing you to be a little more precise with your cuts. The advanced view also lets you types times manually, instead of clicking. There's more here to play with, but not much, which is kind of the point: This is a very simple tool by design. In my testing, most of the videos I messed with worked without a hitch, though the officially support formats include MP4, MOV, WebM, Matroska, OGG and WAV files. Audio codecs supported include FLAC, MP3, Opus, PCM, Vorbis, and AAC. Supported video codecs include H264, AV1, Theora, VP8, VP9, and H265. LosslessCut is free if you download it from Github. Alternatively, you can buy it for $18.99 from the Mac App Store or for $19.99 from the Microsoft Store. Purchasing the app from the store supports the developer, though you can also donate directly if you'd rather not give a cut to Apple or Microsoft. Give it a try next time you're cutting your own videos back to just the good parts, or trimming downloaded YouTube videos to a friendlier size. View the full article

Nations Lending claims two former branch managers diverted business to CMG Financial before leaving to their new place of employment. View the full article

Former Barclays boss shared information on deals and clients with late sex offender, regulator claimsView the full article

A Silicon Valley airport that is on the approach to San Francisco International Airport (SFO) will no longer have air traffic controllers guiding planes starting Saturday, the airport’s manager said in a Wednesday notice. Current controllers for the San Carlos Airport (SQL) have resigned after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) changed air traffic contracts to a firm that would pay controllers “significantly” less than their current compensation, the notice states. Airport manager Gretchen Kelly said its request for temporary FAA staffing for the tower was denied. The San Carlos Airport has more than 25 aviation-related businesses and about 500 aircraft, according to city data. The letter came just hours ahead of a deadly crash of a military helicopter with an American Airlines jet at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Washington, D.C. Fast Company has reached out to the FAA for comment. The agency has been operating without an administrator since Mike Whitaker stepped down on January 20. President Trump named a new acting administrator for the agency on Thursday morning at a press conference related to Wednesday’s crash. Kelly said the airport is “working closely” with the office of Congressman Kevin Mullin, who represents the area, “to push the FAA to meet its obligation to provide air traffic services at SQL.” It’s also exploring options to return the control tower to its previous contractor or find FAA staffing. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Have you ever switched gyms and tried to do your usual workout, only to find that the machines are a lot harder—or maybe a lot easier? Before you start questioning your strength or your training, you need to know something: you can’t trust the numbers on the weight stack, and you shouldn’t expect them to match from gym to gym or even machine to machine. What do the numbers on the weight stacks mean? When you’re looking at a cable machine, or any type of strength training machine with a stack of rectangular weights, there is probably a little sticker on each plate with a number. Sometimes those numbers are in pounds, and they represent the weight of the plate itself. If you were to take the 10 pound plate off the machine and weigh it, it would weigh 10 pounds. (Probably.) Sometimes they are in kilograms. If it doesn’t say which, there’s no easy way to know for sure. It also doesn’t really matter, for reasons I’ll explain below. And sometimes, plate stacks aren’t labeled with weights at all. You just know that if you’re strong enough to work with the plate labeled “5”, you’re stronger than if you could only use the machine at the “4” setting. How many pounds are you lifting? It’s not telling, and to be honest it doesn’t matter. Pulleys and levers change how heavy the weight feels Even when the numbers on the machine are accurate, they’re not really helpful. Let’s say there’s a cable stack where each plate is 10 pounds, and you can use 5 plates for a certain exercise. You are moving 50 pounds of iron. But are you really applying 50 pounds of force to move that iron? Not necessarily. As you may or may not remember from your school days, pulleys and levers can make it easier or harder to move a weight. If you’re doing a cable crossover on a LifeFitness Signature Series Dual Adjustable Pulley machine, the one below, you’re getting a 4:1 mechanical advantage. When you put the pin in the stack where it says 52.5 pounds, you may be lifting 52.5 pounds but you only need about 13 pounds of force to do that. Cable machines are simple enough that a company can publish their ratio, like LifeFitness did. (For some more examples: Rep’s Athena pulley system has a 2:1 ratio, so that 20 pounds feels like 10 pounds, whereas their lat pulldown has a 1:1 ratio, so 10 pounds feels like 10 pounds.) But when it comes to other types of machines, there may not be a simple answer. A given gym contraption may have a combination of pulleys, levers, and other devices, and they may provide different amounts of assistance depending on how you adjust the machine or what exercises you are doing. Machines have different designs (and maintenance schedules)With all of that in mind, you now know that the weight you feel like you’re moving is different from the weight labeled on the stack. But what does that tell us about comparing one machine to another? Machines can have different designs, especially if they are different models or come from different manufacturers. One gym might have a 4:1 cable machine, while another might have a similar machine with a 2:1 ratio. One gym’s leg press might be a horizontal style with a weight stack, while another is an angled leg press that you load with plates from the free weight section. You shouldn’t expect 200 pounds on one to feel like 200 pounds on the other. Even when two gyms have the exact same make and model of machine, one may be harder to move than the other. Maybe Gym A has an older machine that’s built up some rust, while Gym B has a newer model that was just oiled yesterday. How to track your progress when you train on different machinesNow that we know that every machine is different, and the labels don’t necessarily mean what they say, how are you supposed to handle that? Unfortunately, there’s no simple solution. If you alternate between two gyms, your best bet is to keep notes separately for each one. In your notebook or your strength training app, just track “leg press Planet Fitness” as separate from “leg press Crunch.” (Most apps will let you duplicate and edit the exercise entries.) If you drop into a variety of mystery gyms—maybe you travel a lot—try programming your workouts by RPE. Instead of doing four sets of 12 reps of 70 pounds, think of it as four sets of 12 reps at an 8-out-of-10 difficulty. That might be 70 pounds on the stack at one gym, 65 at another, and 72.5 at a third, but it doesn’t matter. You’ll still be getting a good workout at all three. View the full article

This week's highlights featuring some great market news from Dell'Oro. Enjoy. The post Roundup: Wi-Fi 7 drives return to market growth this year, ACT Fibernet deploys Aprecomm, Matter update appeared first on Wi-Fi NOW Global. View the full article

On Thursday, United Parcel Service (UPS) predicted downbeat 2025 revenue as it cut back service with its largest customer, Amazon, in order to focus on more profitable businesses. The decision will cut Amazon’s transported volumes by more than 50% by the second half of 2026. The unexpected announcement came with disappointing revenue results, with UPS failing to meet expectations for 2024. UPS’s Q4 revenue was $25.3 billion, slightly below the predicted $25.42 billion. This decision came at a time when UPS is struggling due to a decline in parcel demand following the e-commerce boom of the pandemic and an increase in shipments from discount online retailers such as Shein and Temu. UPS stock was down more than 14% as of Thursday afternoon, after falling during premarket trading. The decline was on track to break the current record for the stock’s worst day, which occurred in July 2024, as MarketWatch reports. Shares have lost half their value since 2022, though the company said that carrying less freight for Amazon will eventually boost its revenue per piece. “Amazon is our largest customer, but it’s not our most profitable customer,” CEO Carol Tomé told investors on a conference call Thursday. “Foundational changes” Amazon and its affiliates represented about 12% of UPS revenue in 2023, which is nearly all of its United States package business. The package carrier is hoping to gain volume from more profitable segments, such as healthcare-product shippers, small- and-medium-size businesses, and international markets. UPS expects revenue of about $89 billion for 2025, down from $91.1 billion in 2024. The parcel service has brought all of its UPS SurePost products in-house and will launch multiyear “efficiency reimagine” initiatives to drive about $1 billion in savings by rethinking its business design. The company aims to cut costs by closing buildings, reducing the size of its vehicle and aircraft fleets, and decreasing the size of its workforce. “We are making business and operational changes that, along with the foundational changes we’ve already made, will put us further down the path to becoming a more profitable, agile, and differentiated UPS that is growing in the best parts of the market,” said Tomé in the annual earnings report. In 2025, UPS expects average daily U.S volume to drop about 8.5% year-over-year while revenue per package is projected to increase by 6%. View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: I just saw the below post on LinkedIn, and I thought I’d send it along and get your thoughts on this strategy. After years of reading your blog, it makes me cringe so much. (Why would you write someone a reference if you weren’t their manager? Why would you pester every person at every interview stage with this letter? What if it’s not helpful information for them? Etc.) But everyone in the comments was praising this, saying how it’s so actionable and helpful and “gold,” which I found perplexing. Curious to hear your take on these kinds of strategies, especially as these sort of “advice posts” become more common. This is the post: Just went through a RIF but weren’t impacted? Are you saying, “let me know what I can do” to the people impacted? Stop. Here’s your play — the Reference in Advance play — or RIA, as the kids call it: 1. Write an email reference template for the person — helps if you were the direct manager or person that hired them — but doesn’t have to be. 2. Tell the person to send you the email addresses of the people of every interview they have. 3. Ask the person when the interview is and when they need it sent. 4. Then copy and paste your letter and send it to those people IN ADVANCE of the interview (makes people stand out immediately, nobody really does this before an interview). 5. You can send it more than once to a specific company as they move through the process by forwarding it to the new people, referencing that you sent it to the previous and wanted to share with them as well. The results can be pretty astounding. And in total, it should take 15 minutes to write the letter and 30 seconds for each send. Put your action where your (maybe empty but maybe you really mean it but don’t know what to do) words are. And we were just saying that there are fewer gimmicks these days! This is indeed a bad idea. First, written references aren’t a thing in most fields (although there are some exceptions, like teaching and some parts of law). When most hiring managers are ready to talk to references, they want to ask about the things that matter most to them, and most will want to talk — so we can hear tone and hesitations and ask follow-up questions. Plus, no one puts critical info in reference letters, so they’re not terribly useful. (I also don’t see anything in this advice about making sure the letters are nuanced or speak to what the job the person is applying for requires, so they really won’t carry any weight.) Second and more importantly, this behavior is way too salesy and annoying. It’s going to look like the candidate is the one organizing it, and it’s going to make them look pushy and out of touch with how hiring works. It will not make them stand out — or at least, it won’t make them stand out in a good way; it is likely to make them stand out in an annoying way. And then sending the letter over and over as the process moves on? It’ll just keep annoying people, and at some point when they realize they’re all getting the same letter, it’s going to feel really spammy. Third, the hiring manager won’t know anything about who these letters are coming from. Are they all your friends? Family members? Is the candidate herself emailing the letters from a bunch of fake email accounts? Someone actually did this to me years ago and it was concerning, not impressive. To be clear, it’s different if the person contacting your interviewer knows them personally. If you hear that I’m interviewing Valentina Warbleworth who used to work for you and you email me to rave about how great she is, that’s something that will carry weight — because I know you, I know your judgment, and it’ll be clear that it was our existing relationship that moved you to do me the favor of giving me intel on a candidate. None of that is in effect with a bunch of unsolicited letters from strangers that will appear to be coordinated by the candidate herself. View the full article

Google is launching a limited test using AI to automatically generate background images for Shopping Ad product listings. How it works. The AI system will: Generate contextual background scenes for existing product images. Maintain the original product appearance without alterations. Require human review and approval before ads go live. Why we care. This update represents a significant shift in how product photography can be handled in ecommerce advertising. Moreover, since product presentation directly influences consumer purchasing decisions, this automated enhancement could potentially improve conversion rates without requiring additional investment in creative assets. On the other hand, do you want Google automating the image that shows on the background of shopping ads, when we have hears advertisers lack of confidence in AI being able to reflect brand guidelines in AI generated creatives accurately? Worth noting. Advertisers can opt out of the test if they prefer to maintain complete control over their product imagery. The big picture. This move aligns with Google’s broader strategy of integrating AI across its advertising products, potentially democratizing access to high-quality product presentation for smaller retailers who can’t afford professional studio photography. First seen. This update was first brought to our attention by Samantha Noble, founder of Biddable Moments, who shared an email from Google on LinkedIn: What we’re watching. How consumers respond to AI-generated backgrounds and whether this leads to measurable improvements in shopping ad performance. Bottom line. Google is betting that AI-enhanced product imagery will drive better ad performance, though advertisers maintain the final say in whether their products participate in this experimental feature. View the full article

President cites ‘moment of anguish’ after 67 people die after helicopter collides with commercial jetView the full article

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here. After a week of DeepSeek freakout, doubts and mysteries remain The Chinese company DeepSeek sent shockwaves through the AI and investment communities this week as people learned that it created state-of-the-art AI models using far less computing power and capital than anyone thought possible. The company then showed its work in published research papers and by making its models available to other developers. This raised two burning questions: Has the U.S. lost its edge in the AI race? And will we really need as many expensive AI chips as we’ve been told? How much computing power did DeepSeek really use? DeepSeek claimed it trained its most recent model for about $5.6 million, and without the most powerful AI chips (the U.S. barred Nvidia from selling its powerful H100 graphics processing units in China, so DeepSeek made do with 2,048 H800s). But the information it provided in research papers about its costs and methods is incomplete. “The $5 million refers to the final training run of the system,” points out Oregon State University AI/robotics professor Alan Fern in a statement to Fast Company. “In order to experiment with and identify a system configuration and mix of tricks that would result in a $5M training run, they very likely spent orders of magnitude more.” He adds that based on the available information it’s impossible to replicate DeepSeek’s $5.6 million training run. How exactly did DeepSeek do so much with so little? DeepSeek appears to have pulled off some legitimate engineering innovations to make its models less expensive to train and run. But the techniques it used, such as Mixture-of-experts architecture and chain-of-thought reasoning, are well-known in the AI world and generally used by all the major AI research labs. The innovations are described only at a high level in the research papers, so it’s not easy to see how DeepSeek put its own spin on them. “Maybe there was one main trick or maybe there were lots of things that were just very well engineered all over,” says Robert Nishihara, cofounder of the AI run-time platform Anyscale. Many of DeepSeek’s innovations grew from having to use less powerful GPUs (Nvidia H800s instead of H100s) because of the Biden Administration’s chip bans. “Being resource limited forces you to come up with new innovative efficient methods,” Nishihara says. “That’s why grad students come up with a lot of interesting stuff with far less resources—it’s just a different mindset.” What innovation is likely to influence other AI labs the most? As Anthropic’s Jack Clark points out in a recent blog post, DeepSeek was able to use a large model, DeepSeek-V3 (~700K parameters), to teach a smaller R1 model to be a reasoning model (like OpenAI’s o1) with a surprisingly small amount of training data and no human supervision. V3 generated 800,000 annotated text samples showing questions and the chains of thought it followed to answer them, Clark writes. DeepSeek showed that after processing the samples for a time the smaller R1 model spontaneously began to “think” about its answers, explains Andrew Jardine, head of go-to-market at Adaptive ML. “You just say ‘here’s my problem—create some answers to that problem’ and then based on the answers that are correct or incorrect, you give it a reward [a binary code that means “good”] and say ‘try again,’ and eventually it starts going ‘I’m not sure; let me try this new angle or approach’ or ‘that approach wasn’t the right one, let me try this other one’ and it just starts happening on its own.” There’s some real magic there. DeepSeek’s researchers called it an “aha moment.” Why haven’t U.S. AI companies already been doing what DeepSeek did? “How do you know they haven’t?” asks Jardine. “We don’t have visibility into exactly the techniques that are being used by Google and OpenAI; we don’t know exactly how efficient the training approaches are.” That’s because those U.S. AI labs don’t describe their techniques in research papers and release the weights of their models, as DeepSeek did. “There’s a lot of reason to believe they do have at least some of these efficiency methods already.” It should come as no surprise if OpenAI’s next reasoning model, o3, is less compute-intensive, more cost-effective, and faster than DeepSeek’s models. Is Nvidia stock still worth 50X of earnings? Nvidia provides up to 95% percent of the advanced AI chips used to research, train, and run frontier AI models. The company’s stock lost 17% of its value on Monday when investors interpreted DeepSeek’s research results as a signal that fewer expensive Nvidia chips would be needed in the future than previously anticipated. Meta’s Yann LeCun says Monday’s sell-off grew from a “major misunderstanding about AI infrastructure investments.” The Turing Award winner says that while DeepSeek showed that frontier models could be trained with fewer GPUs, the main job of the chips in the future will be during inference—the reasoning work the model does when it’s responding to a user’s question or problem. (Actually, DeepSeek did find a novel way of compressing context window data so that less compute is needed during inference.) He says that as AI systems process more data, and more kinds of data, during inference, the computing costs will continue to increase. As of Wednesday night, the stock has not recovered. Did DeepSeek use OpenAI models to help train its own models? Nobody knows for sure, and disagreement remains among AI experts on the question. The Financial Times reports Wednesday that OpenAI believes it has seen evidence that DeepSeek did use content generated by OpenAI models to train its own models, which would violate OpenAI’s terms. Distillation refers to saving time and money by feeding the outputs of larger, smarter models into smaller models to teach them how to handle specific tasks. We’ve just experienced a moment when the open-source world produced some models that equaled the current closed-source offerings in performance. The real cost of developing the DeepSeek models remains an open question. But in the long run the AI companies that can marshal the most cutting-edge chips and infrastructure will very likely have the advantage as fewer performance gains can be wrung from pretraining and more computing power is applied at inference, when the AI must reason toward its answers. So the answers to the two burning questions raised above are “probably not” and “likely yes.” The DeepSeek breakthroughs could be good news for Apple The problem of finding truly useful ways of using AI in real life is becoming more pressing as the cost of developing models and building infrastructure mounts. One big hope is that powerful AI models will become so small and efficient that they can run on devices like smartphones and AR glasses. DeepSeek’s engineering breakthroughs to create cheaper and less compute-hungry models may breathe new life into research on small models that live on edge devices. “Dramatically decreased memory requirements for inference make edge inference much more viable, and Apple has the best hardware for exactly that,” says tech analyst Ben Thompson in a recent Stratechery newsletter. “Apple Silicon uses unified memory, which means that the CPU, GPU, and NPU (neural processing unit) have access to a shared pool of memory; this means that Apple’s high-end hardware actually has the best consumer chip for inference.” Stability AI founder Emad Mostaque says that reasoning models like OpenAI’s o1 and DeepSeek’s R1 will run on smartphones by next year, performing PhD-level tasks with only 20 watts of electricity—equivalent to the human brain. OpenAI releases an AI agent for government workers OpenAI this week announced a new AI tool called ChatGPT Gov that’s designed specifically for use by U.S. government agencies. Since sending sensitive government data out through an API to an OpenAI server presents obvious privacy and security problems, ChatGPT Gov can be hosted within an agency’s own private cloud environment. “[W]e see enormous potential for these tools to support the public sector in tackling complex challenges—from improving public health and infrastructure to strengthening national security,” OpenAI writes in a blog post. The Biden Administration in 2023 directed government agencies to find productive and safe ways to use new generative AI technology (Trump recently revoked the executive order). The Department of Homeland Security, for example, built its own AI chatbot, which is now used by thousands of DHS workers. OpenAI says 90,000 users within federal, state, and local government offices have already used the company’s ChatGPT Enterprise product. More AI coverage from Fast Company: Microsoft posts 10% growth for Q4 as it plans to spend $80 billion on AI AI assistants for lawyers are a booming business—with big risks Why we need to leverage AI to address global food insecurity Alibaba rolls out AI model, claiming it’s better than DeepSeek-V3 Want exclusive reporting and trend analysis on technology, business innovation, future of work, and design? Sign up for Fast Company Premium. View the full article

This story was originally published by ProPublica. The icebreaker Aiviq is a gas guzzler with a troubled history. The ship was built to operate in the Arctic, but it has a type of propulsion system susceptible to failure in ice. Its waste and discharge systems weren’t designed to meet polar code, its helicopter pad is in the wrong place to launch rescue operations and its rear deck is easily swamped by big waves. On its maiden voyage to Alaska in 2012, the 360-foot vessel lost control of the Shell Oil drill rig it was towing, and Coast Guard helicopter crews braved a storm to pluck 18 men off the wildly lurching deck of the rig before it crashed into a rocky beach. An eventual Coast Guard investigation faulted bad decision-making by people in charge but also flagged problems with the Aiviq’s design. But for all this, the same Coast Guard bought the Aiviq for $125 million late last year. The United States urgently needs new icebreakers in an era when climate change is bringing increased traffic to the Arctic, including military patrols near U.S. waters by Russia and China. That the first of the revamped U.S. fleet is a secondhand vessel a top Coast Guard admiral once said “may, at best, marginally meet our requirements” is a sign of how long the country has tried and failed to build new ones. It’s also a sign of how much sway political donors can have over Congress. Edison Chouest, the Louisiana company that built the icebreaker, has contributed more than $7 million to state and national parties, to political action committees and super PACS, and to members of key House and Senate committees since 2012. Chouest spent most of that period looking to unload the vessel after Shell, its intended user, walked away. Members who received money from Chouest pressured the Coast Guard to rent or buy the Aiviq from the company. One U.S. representative from Alaska, where the ship will be stationed, told an admiral in a 2016 hearing that his service’s objections were “bullshit.” And there would be even tougher pressures to come. It’s now been a dozen years since the Aiviq set out on its first mission to Alaska, long enough for its troubles to fade from public memory. The ship, though owned and operated by Chouest, was part of Shell’s Arctic fleet, designed for a specific role: as a tugboat that could tow Shell’s 250-foot-tall polar drill rig, the Kulluk, around the coast of Alaska and help anchor it in the waters of the Far North. At its christening ceremony in Louisiana, attended by Shell executives, U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and U.S. Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, it was named after the Iñupiaq word for walrus. As a journalist, I’d been following the oil company’s multibillion-dollar play in the warming Arctic with interest. One June morning in 2012, I got word that Shell was on the move near my Seattle home, so I sped to a narrow point in Puget Sound with a good view of passing traffic. It was sunny, the water calm. The Aiviq bobbed past with Kulluk in tow. The icebreaker’s paint — blue at the time — was fresh, its hull shiny. It looked capable. The problems began once the Aiviq was out of view. A Coast Guard report said that while the ship towed the Kulluk northward through an Arctic storm, waves crashed over its rear deck and poured into interior spaces, which investigators determined may have caused it to list up to 20 degrees to one side. The water damaged cranes, heaters and firefighting equipment, and the vents to the fuel system were submerged. On its way back from Alaska’s Beaufort Sea two months later, the Aiviq suffered an electrical blackout, and one of its engines failed, necessitating a repair in Dutch Harbor in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. Then the Aiviq and Kulluk set out on a wintertime voyage back to Seattle. The National Weather Service issued a gale warning predicting 15-foot seas and 40-knot winds. The sailors aboard the Aiviq and Kulluk exchanged worried messages. The cable with which the Aiviq was towing the Kulluk came free two days later when a shackle broke. The icebreaker’s captain made a U-turn in heavy swells to hook up an emergency tow line, and water again poured over its deck and into the fuel vents. The Aiviq’s four diesel engines soon began to fail, one after another. Although a Chouest engineer later testified that an unknown fuel additive must have caused the failures, Coast Guard investigators believe the likely cause was “fuel contamination by seawater.” They said the fuel system’s design, which they described as substandard, made contamination more likely. The Aiviq and Kulluk were reattached — but now, and for the next two days, adrift. Storms pushed them ever closer toward land. By the time the engines were repaired, it was too late. The Kulluk ran aground at an uninhabited island off Kodiak, Alaska, on New Year’s Eve. Shell’s Arctic dreams began to unravel. The oil company sold its drill rig off for scrap. (It did not respond to a request for comment.) And the Aiviq? A month after the accident, I visited Kodiak to report on what went wrong. I saw it anchored in the safety of a protected bay, an expensive, purpose-built ship now stripped of its purpose. Shell formally abandoned its Arctic efforts in 2015, after failing to find oil. The Aiviq eventually steamed back south. Chouest began looking around for someone to take the troubled icebreaker off its hands. The Coast Guard, which had criticized the ship’s role in the Kulluk accident, now became a potential customer. Traffic in the warming Arctic has surged as countries eye the region’s natural resources, and it will grow all the more if the storied Northwest Passage melts enough to become a viable route for freight in the decades ahead. The number of ships in the High North increased by 37% from 2013 to 2023. It’s the U.S. Coast Guard’s job to patrol these waters as part of an agreement with the Navy, projecting military strength while monitoring maritime traffic, enforcing fishing laws and rescuing vessels in distress. Although surface ice in the Arctic Ocean is shrinking on average, it can still form and move about the ocean unpredictably. A Coast Guard vessel needs to be able to cut through it to be a reliable presence. But the U.S. icebreaker fleet is deteriorating. The Coast Guard began raising alarms about the problem decades ago, starting with a study published in 1984. Russia, with its extensive northern coastline, now has over 40 large icebreakers, and more under construction. The United States has barely been able to keep two or three in service. An urgent Coast Guard report to Congress in 2010 highlighted what has become known as the “icebreaker gap”: If we didn’t quickly start building new ships, our existing icebreakers could go out of commission before replacements were ready. The study called for at least six new icebreakers. Subsequent Coast Guard analysis has called for eight or nine. To date, the United States has built zero. Congress dragged its feet for years on funding icebreaker construction. But the Coast Guard also slowed progress with overly optimistic timelines, fuzzy cost estimates and a tendency to keep fiddling with new designs, according to a 2023 Government Accountability Office report. More than a decade in, construction on the first of the new ships has finally just begun. The Coast Guard’s latest cost estimate is $1 billion per icebreaker, while the Congressional Budget Office last year put it at $1.6 billion to $1.9 billion. Icebreakers have “been the penultimate studied-to-death subject for 40 years,” said Lawson Brigham, a former Coast Guard heavy icebreaker commander who has a doctorate from Cambridge University and has researched polar shipping since the 1980s. The longer the Coast Guard failed to build the ships it did want, the more pressure it faced to settle for one it didn’t. Chouest seized the opportunity. The company invited Coast Guard officers to tour the Aiviq as early as 2016 and soon sent over a lease proposal. Canada rejected similar overtures that year. A middleman for Chouest promised Canadian lawmakers a “fast-track polar icebreaker” — the Aiviq — “at less than one-third of the price of the permanent replacement.” Also on offer were three smaller, Norwegian-built icebreakers. Canada bought those instead. The U.S. Coast Guard’s problem with the Aiviq, retired officers told ProPublica, was the ship’s design. Originally built for oil operations, it had a low, wet deck and a helipad near its bow, where it would be ill suited for launching rescue operations. Its direct-drive propulsion system was both less efficient and more likely to get jammed up in ice than the diesel-electric systems the Coast Guard used. “I mean, on paper it’s an icebreaker,” Adm. Paul Zukunft, the then-commandant of the Coast Guard, told Congress in 2017. “But it hasn’t demonstrated an ability to break ice.” (Years later, in 2022 and 2023, the Aiviq would make two successful icebreaking trips to Antarctica under contract with the Australian government.) The service estimated it would take years and hundreds of millions of dollars to upgrade the Aiviq’s features to near-standard for a Coast Guard icebreaker. Even then, it wouldn’t be able to move forward through ice thicker than about 4.5 feet. The Coast Guard’s most immediate need was for heavy icebreakers, burlier ships that can handle missions in the Arctic as well as supply runs to the U.S. research station at McMurdo Sound, Antarctica. So how would the U.S. Coast Guard use the Aiviq beyond flag-waving and general presence in the near Arctic? According to Brigham, the former icebreaker captain and polar-shipping expert, “No one that I know, no study that I’ve seen, no one I’ve talked to really knows.” But it wasn’t for the Coast Guard alone to turn down Chouest’s bargain offer. Members of Congress had their own ideas. The late U.S. Rep. Don Young represented Alaska, a state thousands of miles from Chouest’s home base in Louisiana. But as of 2016, when Chouest was looking to sell the Aiviq, Young had taken in hundreds of thousands of dollars in political contributions from the company — so many donations in one year that he had once faced a congressional ethics investigation concerning Chouest money. (He was cleared.) Young became the most vocal of many congressional critics to publicly dress down the Coast Guard for resisting Chouest’s offering of the Aiviq. At a House hearing that July, he began grilling the Coast Guard’s second-in-command, Adm. Charles Michel, about a “privately owned ship” with a “tremendous capability of icebreaking power.” “I know you have the proposal on your desk,” he scolded Michel. “It is an automatic ‘no.’ Why?” “Sir,” the admiral said, “that vessel is not suitable for military service without substantial refit.” Michel’s response sparked derision from Young. “That is what I call,” Young muttered, “a bullshit answer.” Michel, now retired, declined to comment on his exchange with Young. According to the representative’s former chief of staff Alex Ortiz, Young’s frustration stemmed from the fact that the Coast Guard lacked the money to build an icebreaker from scratch but showed “an unwillingness to accept the realities of that.” Young and many other lawmakers also supported getting new icebreakers, but perfect had become the enemy of the good the Aiviq had to offer right away. “I genuinely don’t think that he was advocating for leasing the vessel just because of Chouest’s support,” Ortiz said. Chouest, Young’s benefactor, is based in Cut Off, Louisiana. It’s led by its founder’s billionaire son and has long provided ships for the oil and gas industry. At the time of the 2016 hearing, Chouest was relatively new to Coast Guard contracts. One of the company’s affiliates would later take over the contract to build new heavy icebreakers, in 2022, making Chouest the supplier of both a ship the Coast Guard desired and the one it resisted. Chouest did not respond to questions for this article. More than 95% of Chouest’s $7 million in political contributions since 2012 has gone to Republicans, according to OpenSecrets, a nonprofit that tracks money from family members, employees and corporate affiliates. But when it comes to lawmakers who oversee the Coast Guard, Democrats also have been major recipients. The late Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, head of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation for five years, received $94,700 in the decade before his 2019 death. Rep. John Garamendi of California, a longtime committee member, started taking Chouest donations in 2021 and has since received a total of $40,500. (Garamendi’s office acknowledged the recent donations but issued a statement saying he has for many years “pushed the Coast Guard to build icebreakers expeditiously, particularly given the aging fleet and the national security imperative.”) Alaska politicians are particular beneficiaries of Chouest’s largesse, second only to those from Louisiana. Chouest’s interests in the 49th state, beyond icebreakers, have included a 10-year contract to escort oil tankers through Alaska’s Prince William Sound. Federal Elections Commission records show that Young, before his death in 2022, collected a career total of almost $300,000 from the company. Sen. Dan Sullivan has taken in at least $31,500, Sen. Lisa Murkowski $84,400. The year after Young swore at the Coast Guard admiral in public, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter of California brought up the issue once more at a different House hearing featuring a different admiral, Zukunft. Hunter’s total from Chouest would be $58,800 before he pleaded guilty to stealing campaign funds and stepped down in 2020. “Icebreakers,” Hunter said. “Let’s talk icebreakers.” Hunter was backed up by Rep. Garret Graves of Louisiana, whose Chouest contributions now total $240,500. “Admiral, I think every time you’ve come before this committee, this issue has come up,” Graves said. “We need to see some substantial progress.” Weeks later at yet another hearing, Rep. John Carter of Texas, whose single biggest donor the previous election cycle was Edison Chouest at $33,700, pressed Zukunft again. “There’s this commercial ship that has been offered …” Carter began. In the end, the advocates for Chouest’s ship prevailed. The Alaskans played a particular role. In 2022, after Young’s death, Sullivan helped author the Don Young Coast Guard Authorization Act, which included an approval for the service to buy a “United States built available icebreaker.” Sullivan, who would later be praised for leading a revolt against his Senate colleague Tommy Tuberville’s blockade on promotions of military officers, also engaged in some quiet hardball. Until the country can complete a long-delayed near-Arctic port, icebreakers have been based in Seattle, where there are working shipyards and experienced contractors to do maintenance. But as a recent press release describes it, Sullivan “put a hold on certain USCG promotions until the Coast Guard produced a long promised study on the homeporting of an icebreaker in Alaska.” Last year, Sullivan, Murkowski and former Rep. Mary Peltola of Alaska announced that Congress had finally appropriated $125 million for the Aiviq. The Coast Guard took possession of the ship last month. (Murkowski and Peltola, along with Hunter, Graves and Carter, did not respond to requests for comment.) In a statement to ProPublica, a Sullivan spokesperson wrote that the senator “has long advocated for the purchase of a commercially available icebreaker of the Coast Guard’s choosing but has never advocated for the purchase of the Aiviq specifically.” The way Congress wrote the specifications for a “United States built” icebreaker, however, ensured there was only one the Coast Guard could choose: the Aiviq. The icebreaker’s new home — based on the findings of the Coast Guard’s urgently completed port study — will be Alaska’s capital, Juneau. The city is facing what the Juneau Empire has called “a crisis-level housing shortage,” and it remains unclear how it will manage an influx of hundreds of sailors and family members. Juneau also lacks a shipyard. For repairs and upgrades, the Aiviq will have to travel hundreds or thousands of miles out of state. Former Coast Guard icebreaker captains were reluctant to criticize the purchase of the Aiviq when contacted by ProPublica, in part because it has taken impossibly long for the service to build the new heavy icebreakers it says it needs. “Is the Coast Guard getting the Aiviq a bad thing? No,” said Rear Adm. Jeff Garrett, a former captain of the Healy icebreaker. But “is it the ideal resource? No.” To reach the Arctic from Juneau, Garrett noted, the Aiviq will have to regularly cross the same storm-swept stretch of the Gulf of Alaska where it once lost the Kulluk. Lawson Brigham said he had questions about the Aiviq “since it’s our tax dollars at work,” but he granted that “it’s bringing some capability into the Coast Guard at a time when we’re awaiting whenever the shipbuilder can get the first ship out, which is still unknown.” Zukunft, who retired in 2018, stands by his past opposition to the Aiviq. “I remain unconvinced,” he wrote in response to questions from ProPublica, that it “meets the operational requirements and design of a polar icebreaker that have been thoroughly documented by the Coast Guard.” By acquiring the Aiviq, “the Coast Guard runs the risk that those requirements can be compromised.” In a statement, the Coast Guard described the purchase of the Aiviq as a “bridging strategy” and said the ship “will be capable of projecting U.S. sovereignty in the Arctic and conducting select Coast Guard missions.” The fuel vents that flooded during the Kulluk accident have since been raised, a Chouest engineer has testified. The Coast Guard did not respond to questions about the Aiviq’s fuel consumption or whether its waste systems will comply with polar code. It did not say whether its helicopter deck will be moved aft for safer search-and-rescue operations. It confirmed that there will be no changes to the propulsion system. “Initial modifications to the vessel will be minimal,” the statement reads. The Aiviq will be put into service more or less as is. Last month, an amateur photographer spotted the Aiviq at a Chouest-owned shipyard in Tampa, Florida, and posted images online. It had been repainted, its hull now a gleaming Coast Guard icebreaker red. New lettering revealed that the ship has been renamed the Storis, after a celebrated World War II vessel that patrolled for 60 years in the Bering Sea and beyond. From a distance, the icebreaker looked ready to serve. “The question is,” said Brigham, “What is this ship going to be used for? That’s been the question from Day 1. What the hell are we going to use it for?” —McKenzie Funk, ProPublica View the full article

There are a whole host of decluttering methods you can try, but no matter which one you choose, at some point, you'll you'll be faced with the difficult task of picking up and considering every single item in your space to determine whether it should stay or go. Ideally, you'll do this with a particular criteria in mind, and for a lot of people, that means following the KonMari principle of pondering whether the thing you're looking at "sparks joy." But that doesn't work for everybody, or every object. Maybe you're less sentimental, and more practical. Maybe you already did a round of decluttering and found that too many things "sparked joy," so you're still overladen with stuff. Maybe you just want to shake up your approach and find another way to weed through your belongings. Here are eight other questions you can ask yourself when gauging your feelings of joy isn't cutting it. "When was the last time I used this?"This is my favorite decluttering question. It doesn't come from any well-established method or a cleaning guru's book. It's just a sensible, straightforward inquiry that can reveal a lot about the utility of the items you own. I find it most useful in the kitchen, because I'm not much of a chef or baker, but I have a habit of buying things like cake molds "just in case" I ever suddenly get the urge to whip up a confection in the shape of a large bear . When you use this question, you have two options: First, you can consider it a general survey, to determine how often you really use certain items so you get a better sense of your own habits; you can use that to tailor a more structured decluttering plan after that. Or, you can be a little more strict, and set a definitive timeline to determines what stays and goes. For instance, you could set out to declutter a cupboard with the goal of donating or tossing anything you haven't used in three months. "Do I want the job of managing this item?"This question comes from Tessa Hughes, a decluttering pro who posts helpful tips on Instagram Reels. I like it because it functions similarly to Marie Kondo's infamous question about joy, but is a little more realistic. You're still considering the feeling you'll get from interacting with the item in the future, but instead of ruminating over whether it might bring you some happiness, you'll also consider whether it might bring you some dread or a feeling of being overwhelmed. It's easy to hold onto things with the optimistic hope they'll make you happy, but considering whether they'll be drain on your resources, space, or time—another "job" you have to oversee—can help you figure out if you really need to hold onto them. Owning and using things does take up mental energy, after all: You have to clean your stuff, you have to store it, you have to relocate it when you move. All of those involve responsibility and effort, and, frankly, some of your stuff just isn't worth it. "Is this item working or functioning as it should?"It seems obvious that you should get rid of things that are broken or damaged, but as someone who is constantly making vague promises to myself to get things fixed, I know it's not. Similarly to asking yourself whether you want the "job" of managing the item, be realistic about what fixing a broken item will actually entail. I finally accepted the reality that I will not, in fact, ever take my 15-year-old shoes to the cobbler to replace the broken sole on the right one, nor am I likely to seek out a replacement part for the busted SodaStream I inherited from a friend who was decluttering their own apartment. Recently, I put both in the trash. It felt good. "Does this contribute to the life I want?"This question is based on Peter Walsh's decluttering method, which is similar to—but not the same as—Kondo's. Instead of thinking about the "joy" an item gives you, you should think about whether it has a role in the vision you see for yourself and your space. To utilize Walsh's method, you first create a vision for a space in your home and set an intention for it. For instance, you might want to declutter and overhaul your home office, so you imagine how it would look and operate if it were at its most functional, and you were at your most functional working within it. Having a clear goal for the space and keeping that vision in mind will help you declutter, because every item you go over will either fit into that vision, or it won't. "Would I know I had this if I needed it?"The inspiration for this question is Dana K. White's "Decluttering at the Speed of Life" approach, which calls on you to ask yourself two questions: “If I needed this item, where would I look for it?” and, “If I needed this item, would it occur to me that I already had one?” Even if you're not following White's five-step method, simply asking yourself if you would even know if you had a particular thing if you needed it can be really illuminating when you're decluttering. It happens to me all the time: I'll find, say, a bottle opener or hex key stuffed in a junk drawer or other mysterious location, think to myself, "Wow, I didn't even know I had this," and then justify holding onto it even though I probably have more stashed somewhere. But if I take a minute to ask myself if I would even remember I had it a hex key in a junk drawer when I actually needed a hex key, the answer will usually be usually no, which makes it a lot easier to get rid of the thing without making excuses for keeping it. "Could I replace this if I needed to?"This question is a distilled version of the Minimalists' famous "20/20 rule." Those decluttering masters suggest asking yourself if you could replace a particular item for under $20 and in under 20 minutes if you discovered had to have it. This works best for smaller items and things you use infrequently. As the argument goes, there is no need to hold onto something you rarely, if ever, actually use on the off chance you need it again, especially if you can't even imagine a scenario in the near future that will call for it. It's much likelier you're just making excuses to not get rid of something, so tricking yourself with reassurance that you could easily obtain a replacement can help you break those bonds. "Do I have something that could replace this?"Another great question to ask when decluttering is whether you have another item that can serve the same purpose. I had a lot of success with this when clearing out my kitchen over the summer. As it turns out, I owned way too many pairs of scissors. They were all shapes and varieties, so I justified keeping them because they "did different things," but that wasn't really true. Simply put, they all cut things. I can only cut one thing at a time, so I can only use one at a time, which means I only need one. Another example I came across in my own decluttering journey: bottle openers. First, I can't remember the last time I drank a from bottle without a twist-off cap (see also: "When was the last time I used this?"), and second, my wine opener has a bottle opener attachment in the handle, so there's no need to hold onto the keychain and tchotchke versions littering my bar table. "Would someone else benefit more from owning this than I do?"This is the question I ask myself when I am considering donating or listing clothes or accessories for sale, but it works for all manner of items. When I'm feeling cautious about getting rid of, say, a nice bag, I think about how much I enjoyed using it, question whether I'll reach for it again soon, and, most importantly, imagine how happy another person might be to have it instead. Applying this line of thinking to possible donations is really important: It's easy to selfishly hold onto something "just in case" you need it or because you have a sentimental attachment to it, but imagining someone else benefitting from it can shake you out of that pretty fast. Clothes that no longer fit you or your kids, school supplies, old kitchen appliances, furniture, and things you have duplicates of could all serve someone else better. View the full article