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Rajan Patel, a VP, Engineering for Search at Google and the Co-founder of Google Lens, is now also offering an assist to Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liason. For the past several weeks, Rajan Patel's X profile also was tagged as being associated with the Google Search Liaison account.View the full article

Ever wondered how to increase your reach and engagement and, in turn, grow your following on Instagram? Your Instagram captions could hold the key. Yes, Instagram is a visual social media platform, but your caption carries more weight in the Instagram algorithm than you think. A strong visual can catch users' attention, but carefully thought-out Instagram captions can do more heavy lifting when it comes to growing your following on Instagram. For another, your caption can be crucial in prompting engagement from your followers. For example, you could use those 3,000 characters to: Authentically connect with your followers in a meaningful, vulnerable caption.Ask them a question and prompt them to comment to answer.Share some helpful information that has them lingering on your Instagram post to learn more.Have them laugh out loud, encouraging them to like or share.That said, it's not always easy to come up with something that ticks all the boxes — especially when you've spent hours creating the perfect Instagram Reel, carousel, or photo. So here’s some help: More than 350 funny, clever, or meaningful Instagram caption ideas for you to use on your next post. We’ve also included some guidance on how to use AI to turn it into your own personal Instagram captions generator. Sound good? Let’s dig in. Jump to a section: 35 short Instagram captions 20 birthday Instagram captions 44 motivational Instagram captions 38 Instagram captions for small businesses 20 quotes for Instagram captions 10 Instagram captions for selfies 30 funny Instagram caption ideas 35 Instagram sassy captions 30 cute Instagram captions 23 beach Instagram captions 28 summer Instagram caption ideas 40 fall Instagram caption ideas 20 winter Instagram captions AI Instagram caption generator ⚡Schedule your Instagram posts, carousels, stories, and reels with Buffer: Save your ideas, organize your content calendar, and analyze your performance with Buffer's suite of Instagram scheduling ​tools →35 short Instagram captionsGood Instagram captions don't have to be essays. Let your reels or pics speak for themselves with these short Instagram caption ideas. “Grateful”“Chasing sunsets.”“Thanks for the memories.”“Core memories”“In my happy place”“Baby steps.”“Dreaming.”“Proof of life.”"Limitless."“OOO.”“Courage.”“Curiouser and curiouser.”"Making my own sunshine.""Life is better when you're laughing."“The best life experiences are free.”"Golden hour glow.""Good vibes only.""Lost in the moment.""Sunkissed and smiling.""No rain, no flowers.""Just breathe.""Create your own sunshine.""Chase dreams.""Less perfection, more authenticity.""Keep it simple.""Wild and free.""Do more things that make you forget to check your phone.""Start somewhere.""Stay present.""Live lightly, love deeply.""Dream big, worry less.""Slow down and soak it in.""Collecting moments, not things.""Sunshine in my soul.""Keep going, keep growing."20 birthday Instagram captionsThese birthday captions for Instagram can be used on your own birthday (a very happy birthday if it is!) or tweaked to use as a message to someone else. I've included some great photo captions that will work for a business birthday, too. "I don't know about you, but I'm feeling [insert age].""Aging like a fine wine.""HBD to the MVP!""Old enough to know better, young enough to do it anyway.""Happy cake day!""Your life is a beautiful story. Here's to writing your next chapter.""Growing up is optional, growing old is mandatory.""Another year closer to those senior citizen discounts!""Level unlocked.""Growing stronger each year, thanks to our customers!""A year older, a year bolder.""Chapter [age] begins now.""Growing wiser, not just older.""Making [age] look good.""Aging like a classic song—only getting better.""Today’s forecast: 100% chance of cake.""More candles, more memories, more fun.""Another trip around the sun, and still shining.""Feeling grateful for another year of adventures.""Here’s to another year of making dreams come true."44 motivational Instagram captionsSometimes, the image is so aesthetic that it requires something moving to accompany it. Here are some cool captions for your next Instagram post. (Bonus: these could make for some great text over Instagram Reels, too.) "Create the things you wish existed.""Turning can't into can and dreams into plans.""Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success."“You didn't come this far to only come this far.”“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”"When nothing goes right, go left."The best view comes after the hardest climb.""The sky is not the limit. Your mind is.""The harder you work, the luckier you get.""The secret to getting ahead is getting started.""Small steps every day lead to big results.""Dream it. Believe it. Achieve it.""Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.""Be so good they can’t ignore you.""Make today so awesome that yesterday gets jealous.""Success doesn’t come from what you do occasionally; it comes from what you do consistently.""If it doesn’t challenge you, it won’t change you.""Your only limit is your mindset.""Work until your idols become your rivals."Hard work and hustle captions"Hustle in silence, let success make the noise.""Chase dreams, not things.""You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.""Do what you love, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.""Push yourself, because no one else is going to do it for you.""Success is nothing more than a few simple disciplines, practiced every day.""Winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners.""The road to success is always under construction.""Your hustle will determine your future.""If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door."Mindset and positivity captions"Your mindset shapes your reality.""Start small, but dream big.""Believe in yourself and you will be unstoppable.""You become what you believe.""Don’t limit your challenges, challenge your limits.""Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.""Happiness is not a goal; it’s a byproduct of a life well-lived.""Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.""Fall seven times, stand up eight.""Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations."Success and growth captions"Growth begins at the end of your comfort zone.""Stay focused, go after your dreams, and keep moving toward your goals.""Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.""Great things never come from comfort zones.""You have within you right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you."38 Instagram captions for small businessesIt can be tricky to create reel or photo captions for Instagram but still strike an appropriate tone and maintain your brand voice as a small business. Here are some clever Instagram captions to get you started: "Who needs therapy when you can shop here?" "Shopping here is a form of self-care.""Laughter is the best medicine, but our products are a close second.""Behind every small business is a dream, hard work, and dedication.""Big dreams, tiny team.""Every order makes us do a happy dance!""Making cool stuff since [year].""Thanks for supporting our dream.""Doing what we love for people who love what we do."“Dream big, shop small.”"Every big brand started as a small business. Thanks for being part of our journey!""Made with passion, sold with love.""Your support means the world to our small business!""When you buy from a small business, an actual person does a little happy dance.""Handmade, heartfelt, and hustle-driven.""Small business, big dreams, endless possibilities.""You're not just buying a product; you're supporting a dream.""We’re not just a business; we’re a community.""One purchase, one smile, one step closer to our dreams.""Quality over quantity, always.""Warning: Shopping here may cause extreme happiness.""More than a brand — it's a labor of love.""No big investors, just big dreams.""Alexa, add everything to my cart!""Cute things inside — handle with care!""Because retail therapy is real therapy.""Local, loyal, and loving what we do!""Not just a product, but a whole vibe.""Hustling hard so you don’t have to shop anywhere else!""Running a small business: 50% passion, 50% coffee!"Customer appreciation captions for Instagram"Your support = our success. Thank you!""A little shop with a lot of love.""Every time you shop small, a real person does a happy dance.""Your orders keep our dreams alive — thank you!""Tag us in your purchase — we love seeing our products in action!""The best customers in the world? We got ‘em!""Thank you for shopping small and making a big impact!"20 quotes for Instagram captionsSometimes, someone else said it better. From Taylor Swift to Han Solo to William Shakespeare, here are some quotes that could make for the perfect Instagram caption. "I don't even have a 'pla.'" — Phoebe Buffay, Friends"Never tell me the odds." — Han Solo, Star Wars"Love is the most common miracle." — John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” — William Shakespeare, Hamlet“People like me are gone forever when you say goodbye.” — Taylor Swift, All You Had To Do Was Stay"Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” — John D. Rockefeller"Isn't that just kick-you-in-the-crotch, spit-on-your-neck fantastic?" — Rachel Green, Friends"Exit, pursued by a bear." — William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale“You wouldn't last an hour in the asylum where they raised me.” — Taylor Swift, Who's Afraid of Little Old Me?“It's not that diamonds are a girl's best friend, but it's your best friends who are your diamonds.” — Gina Barreca"You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream." – C.S. Lewis"The purpose of our lives is to be happy." – Dalai Lama"Great things are done by a series of small things brought together." – Vincent Van Gogh“Not all those who wander are lost.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying." – Oscar Wilde"You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it." – Robin Williams"The new me is really still the real me." — Drake, In My Feelings“Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me.” — Michael Scott, The Office“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”― Neil Gaiman, Coraline“Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life.” — Mark Twain10 Instagram captions for selfiesHere are some witty, funny, and moving photo captions for Instagram selfies. "Be the reason someone smiles today."“Confidence level: Insta selfie.”"Self-love is the best love.""Just another day being awesome.""Won't delete later."“You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." — John Lennon, Imagine“Always be a first-rate version of yourself and not a second-rate version of someone else.”― Judy Garland“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” ― Mae West“It's no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” ― Lewis Carroll"Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are." — Brené Brown30 funny Instagram caption ideasFunny captions often make for the most memorable Instagram posts. Many Instagram users want to be entertained, after all! Here are some of the best Instagram captions I've seen for inspiring a laugh from your followers. “I'm just here for the food.”"If I had a dollar for every time I got distracted, I wish I had a puppy.""My favorite exercise is a cross between a lunge and a crunch ... I call it lunch.""I'm not lazy, I'm on energy-saving mode.""I'm not arguing, I'm just explaining why I'm right.""Building an empire... one typo at a time.""Is it too late to be a morning person?""Putting the ‘pro' in procrastination.""I like big books, and I cannot lie.""I need six months of vacation, twice a year.""I put the ‘pro’ in procrastinate.""Life update: Still alive, still funny, still hungry.""Some people graduate with honors, I am just honored to graduate from my bed every morning.""I don’t need a hairstylist, my pillow gives me a new style every morning.""I’m not saying I’m lazy, but… OK, fine, I am lazy."Funny food and eating captions for Instagram "I like my coffee like I like my mornings — dark and strong.""Abs are great, but have you tried pizza?""Currently holding it all together with snacks and sarcasm.""I'm on a seafood diet. I see food, and I eat it.""I tried to be healthy today, but then I heard my fridge whisper ‘pizza’.”Funny work and productivity captions for Instagram "Work hard so you can shop harder.""I need six months of vacation, twice a year.""If mornings had a snooze button, I’d hit it.""Don’t worry if plan A fails; there are 25 more letters in the alphabet.""I pretend to work. They pretend to pay me. It’s a fair deal.”Funny selfie and confidence captions for Instagram "Confidence level: That one friend who always double-texts.""I don’t always take selfies, but when I do, I make sure the lighting is perfect.""Me: posts a fire selfie. Also me: hides for three days from notifications.""I woke up like this… late.""Mirror: You look amazing today. Camera: Nope, try again."35 Instagram sassy captionsTurn up the attitude and sprinkle your feed with these bold, unapologetic photo captions that will have your followers living for your confidence. "Serving attitude with a side of ‘you can’t sit with me.’""Spilling more sass than my morning coffee.""If wit was a sport, I’d have a gold medal.""Not everyone likes me, but not everyone matters.""Catch flights, not feelings … unless the feelings are about me.""Living life one bold move at a time"“Main character energy.”"No GPS needed, I’m already on my way to the top.""Sassy but always classy.""Warning: I may be too hot to handle.""Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the boldest of them all?""Born to stand out — fitting in was never an option.""Chasing my dreams, not boys.""Just me, living my best life.""Keep your heels, head, and standards high.""Just me, dripping confidence like it’s Chanel No. 5.""Looking like a million bucks … on a budget.""Flaws? I call them unique design features.""I am the plot twist you didn’t see coming.""The glow-up is real. Stay tuned.""Zero percent interest in your negativity.""Brb, living my best life.""I can’t be everyone’s cup of tea … but I’m someone’s favorite coffee.""I’m not extra, I’m just the full package.""They told me I couldn’t, so I did it twice and took selfies.""I break hearts, not promises.""Bad vibes don’t go with my outfit.""Confidence level: Beyoncé in ‘Formation’.""Just like my eyeliner, I always wing it and make it work.""I came. I saw. I left them speechless.""Why stress when you can impress?""Life is too short to wear boring clothes.""Be the energy you want to attract. Mine? Unstoppable.""Rolling my eyes so hard, I might find my brain.""Some follow trends, I set them."30 cute Instagram captionsSweeten up your Instagram post with these adorable captions. Perfect for those moments when you just can't help but smile. "Smiles, sunshine, and a little bit of sparkle.""Keep shining, beautiful things are ahead!""Cuteness overload, handle with care!""Throw kindness around like confetti.""Sunshine mixed with a little bit of sweetness.""You make my heart smile.""Just a cupcake in a world full of muffins.""Happiness looks good on me, don’t you think?""Keep calm and stay adorable!""Sprinkling a little bit of magic wherever I go.""Smiling because life is just that sweet.""Caution: Too much cuteness in one picture!""Messy bun and having fun!""A little bit of sugar, a little bit of spice, and a whole lot of nice!""Selfie mode: ON. Filter needed? Nah.""Chase dreams, catch cute moments.""A little sparkle never hurt anyone.""Feeling cute, might take another selfie later.""No filter, just me.""All smiles, no worries!""You + Me = ❤️""Together is my favorite place to be.""Every love story is beautiful, but ours is my favorite.""Love is in the air … or maybe it’s just coffee!""Stealing hearts and snacks, one day at a time.""I fall for you every single day.""Cuddles, giggles, and a whole lot of love!""My heart does a happy dance every time I see you.""Life’s cuter when you’re around!""Love, laughter, and a little bit of magic.""Made of sugar, spice, and everything nice!""Collecting happy moments like seashells.""Smiling my way through life, one cute moment at a time.""Falling for fall, but make it cute!""Bringing all the good vibes and cuteness your way!"23 beach Instagram captionsEven if you're not a travel creator, you can be forgiven for flooding your feed with seaside Instagram posts on a beach holiday. Here are some poignant, clever, cool captions for Instagram to accompany your beachy snaps and clips. “My job is just… beach.” — Ken, The Barbie Movie"I'm looking for a man in flip-flops. Sun-kissed. Seaside. Good vibes.”“Life's a beach.”"Gone to the beach, be back never.""Life is better in flip flops.""The tans will fade, but the memories will last forever.""Every time I slip into the ocean, it's like going home." — Sylvia Earle"Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air." — Ralph Waldo Emerson"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea." — Karen Blixen"Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away." — Sarah Kay"Life’s a beach, enjoy the waves!""Seas the day!""Lost at sea? I’m not complaining.""Beach, please!""Good vibes and tan lines.""If there’s a will, there’s a wave.""Keep palm and carry on.""High tides and good vibes.""Mermaid mode activated.""Ocean breeze & salty knees.""Salty air, sandy toes, and sun-kissed nose.""Beach hair, don’t care.""Sunkissed and sea-salted."28 summer Instagram caption ideasSoak up the sun and let the good times roll! Whether you're beachside or poolside, these captions will bring the summer vibes to your next Instagram post. Summer sun captions"Sunshine, tan lines, and good vibes only.""Hello, summer! Please stay forever.""Living life in a tropical state of mind.""Summer days and ocean waves.""Less Monday, more summer.""Blue skies, sunshine, endless possibilities!""Vacation mode: ON."Pool party and water fun captions"Pool hair, don’t care.""Splish, splash, summer’s a blast!""Floating through life one pool day at a time.""Sun’s out, fun’s out!""Swimsuit season is my favorite season.""Just keep swimming … towards the weekend!""Water you up to? Just making a splash!""Summer isn’t complete without a poolside drink!"Summer food and drink captions"Ice cream solves everything.""Sippin’ on sunshine.""Stay cool, eat watermelon!""Popsicle kisses and summer wishes.""Coconut in one hand, a margarita in the other.""More ice cream, less worries.""When life gives you lemons, make a margarita."Fun and playful summer vibes captions"Tan lines fade, but summer memories last forever.""Let’s make some waves!""Here for a good time, not a long time.""Sunshine is the best accessory.""Find me under the palm trees.""Living life one sunny day at a time."40 fall Instagram caption ideasThink fall, think cozy vibes, crunchy leaves, and pumpkin spice — capture that feeling in your video or photo captions! Here are some fun fall-themed captions to get you started. "Pumpkin spice and everything nice.""Leaves are falling, autumn is calling.""Sweater weather is better weather.""Fall breeze and crunchy leaves, yes please!""Autumn leaves and pumpkin dreams.""Falling in love with fall all over again.""Crisp air, cozy vibes, and pumpkin spice everything!""Autumn skies and pumpkin pies.""Golden leaves and cozy sleeves.""This season is too gourd to be true!"Pumpkin and Halloween captions"Pumpkin kisses and harvest wishes.""I’m just here for the boos!""Squash goals.""I’m hollow inside … just like this pumpkin.""You had me at pumpkin spice.""Creep it real this fall.""Hocus pocus and pumpkin focus!""Fall so hard, trick-or-treaters wanna find me.""Falling leaves and spooky sleeves.""Pumpkin-flavored kisses and Halloween wishes!"Cozy and weather captions"Chilling with my cozy crew.""Sipping cider and living my best autumn life.""Hot cocoa, fuzzy socks, and fall leaves = perfection.""Autumn leaves and lattes, please.""Leggings, boots, and oversized sweaters … fall uniform activated!""Crisp mornings, warm coffee, and endless coziness.""Sweaters, cider, and bonfire nights – my kind of vibe.""This sweater isn’t the only thing oversized – so is my love for fall!""Cuddle weather has officially begun!""Autumn: The season that feels like a warm hug."Playful fall captions"Hay there, fall!" 🌾"I like my fall like I like my lattes – extra spicy!" ☕🔥"Leaf me alone, I’m enjoying autumn." 🍁"You’re never too old to jump in a pile of leaves.""Apple picking > everything else.""Bonfires, sweaters, and everything better.""October is proof that change can be beautiful.""Pumpkin patches + cozy snuggles = happiness.""Falling leaves, hot drinks, and spooky things.""Welcome to the coziest season of the year!"20 winter Instagram captionsWinter is all about hot cocoa, roaring fires, and frosty fun. Here are some cool captions to match the season! "Cold hands, warm heart.""Winter magic is in the air.""Frosty mornings and cozy nights.""Sweater weather is better weather.""Happiness is hot cocoa on a cold day.""Winter is proof that endings can be beautiful.""Catching snowflakes and making memories.""Snowy days and warm drinks.""The world changes when it snows.""Let it snow, let it glow."Cozy and holiday season captions"Bundled up and loving it.""Home is where the fireplace is.""Cuddle season is officially here.""Fuzzy socks, warm blankets, and holiday movies.""Eat, drink, and be cozy.""Making memories one snowfall at a time.""Winter nights, twinkling lights, and festive delights.""Tis the season to be cozy.""Winter days, warm hearts.""Chasing winter sunsets and holiday lights."AI Instagram caption generator Buffer's AI Assistant is social media smart, meaning our specialist engineers have trained it to understand the nuances of each platform. So, with the right prompting from you, it can help you generate the perfect Instagram captions for your target audience. If you're a Buffer user, you'll find the AI Assistant ready and waiting to help in the post composer window. To find it, just tap the + New Post button, then Use the AI Assistant. A window will open to the left of the composer where you can prompt the AI. Not a user? No sweat. You can use Buffer's AI Social Media Post Creator to help you write your Instagram captions without signing up. Whichever route you choose, be sure to get specific about a) the subject of your Instagram post and b) who your target audience is when prompting an AI tool to help you generate captions for Instagram. Don't be afraid to include more details! The more specific you are, the better your AI-generated Instagram captions will be. You can ask for the caption to be in a specific tone, a certain number of characters, and even include target keywords or hashtags. Here's a prompt to get you started: For example: Write a [tone] Instagram caption for [target audience] related to [topic]. The caption should be at least [number] words long and include the keywords or hashtags [target words]. 10 AI Instagram caption promptsNeed more inspiration? Here are some more caption prompts to get you started on the road to great Instagram captions. Remember, copying and pasting these will only get you so far. The better you prompt the assistant, the better your Instagram captions will be. Write an Instagram caption that includes a list of [number] tips for [target audience] on [topic].Write an Instagram caption that showcases [number] ways to [achieve a specific goal related to the topic].Take this [other social media] post and transform it into a caption for Instagram: [paste the text from the old post]Write an Instagram caption that debunks common myths about [topic] for [target audience].Write a funny Instagram caption for [target audience] that will help them feel better about [specific challenge]Write an Instagram caption that promotes our new product/service [description of product or service] that includes a call-to-action to encourage [taget audience] to [take specific action]. Write an Instagram caption that breaks down [complex topic] into simple steps for [target audience].Write an Instagram caption that shares [number] interesting facts about [topic] for [target audience].Write an Instagram caption that breaks down the benefits of using our product or service for [target audience]. Some of the benefits are [list benefits here].Write an Instagram caption that contains a motivational message that encourages [target audience] to do [specific action].Maybe you don't have an overarching social media marketing goal or social media strategy right now — you may just be looking for something simple and clever to accompany your next post. If that's the case, this is the section for you. Here are a host of different Instagram captions to steal for your next selfie or photo dump carousel, whether you're after funny Instagram captions, one-word Instagram captions, beach Instagram captions, and more. What makes a good Instagram caption?A clever Instagram caption supports your photo or video, offers a window into who you are, educates, prompts your followers to engage, or all of the above. How does it fit into your creator or marketing goals for Instagram? Is it prompting follows, creating awareness, encouraging engagement, or sales? Does it come across as authentic to your brand identity? Not every brand is witty, and not every brand is super serious. Closely tied to authenticity is brand consistency in voice and tone. Your audience stays for the type of content you're known for publishing, so a good caption should reflect who you are. Does it encourage user engagement? Engagement is the bread and butter of any social media platform — your likes, retweets, shares, and more, show that your account resonates with your audience. It's a great idea to focus on getting users to engage with your post in your Instagram captions. Ultimately, however, your captions for Instagram should be relevant to your images. Is there an object you want to highlight? Is there a theme you can run with? Stephanie Gutierrez, a Senior Social Media Strategist at Online Optimism recommends using playful puns to keep your caption light or clear and concise CTAs to drive your desired results. Examples of accounts with great Instagram captionsSome of the best Instagram caption ideas come from Instagram itself. I love scrolling through my Instagram feed to see what clever captions other brands and creators have come up with. With that in mind, here are some of the best Instagram captions I've seen on the app lately: Tessa Hughs: The 'reel' value is in the caption Experimenting with including the real value from your Instagram post in your caption rather than giving it all away in the video could boost reach. Tessa Hughs (@spatialawareness____) does it masterfully in the video below. Two bonuses for this strategy: Your audience doesn't need to tap and hold your reel to review advice they may have missed. A short reel than contains only the ‘hook' of your post will be much easier to film and edit!National Park Service: Longer Instagram captions with great engagement We first discovered the wonder of the National Park Service's Instagram account when it was featured in Link in Bio, a newsletter about social media. Their account often defies the convention of keeping Instagram captions between 150-300 characters with long, humorous, and engaging captions. The account often starts Instagram posts with a funny sentence (as seen in the post below) or a CTA that encourages readers to continue reading the post, which follows through on the engaging introduction. We're Not Really Strangers: Connecting to your audience through short but engaging Instagram captions The Instagram account for the We're Not Really Strangers card game has great engagement — over 5.6%, which is a lot for its audience of 5 million followers. The Instagram captions on the posts tend to be short, but in tandem with the post, they always encourage conversation in the comments. In the post below, the brand's audience shares their "little things that aren't little" in the comments. Jeannette Aranda: Mixing long and short Instagram captions as the post calls for Jeanette Ogden, who runs @shutthekaleup, is an Instagram influencer who posts a lot about motherhood, fitness, and food on her account. She mixes caption length up depending on the post and sees a lot of engagement from her audience. People seem to resonate with her and enjoy it when she goes more into detail. Jeanette's account is a great example of understanding your audience and knowing when to go in-depth. Less is more when it comes to Instagram captionsTreat your Instagram captions like you would a press release, and look for ways to remove anything unnecessary. “Less is more” doesn't just refer to the length of the post but also to the number of hashtags or emojis you include. Or, instead of tagging someone in the caption, use Instagram's tagging feature instead. You have up to 3,000 characters for every caption, though you don't have to fill that space. But this doesn't mean your Instagram captions can't be long, either. It means you're communicating the most important information and not adding filler. Also, using a character counter can help ensure your social media captions stay within platform-specific character limits. 💡Not ready to post just yet? Save your Instagram caption ideas for later in Buffer's Create space. You never know when inspiration will strike! Bonus: you can color-code and organize them, too. Here's how → View the full article

Researchers in a highly regarded Department of Defense program called the Minerva Research Initiative recently received word that grants already awarded by the Defense Department are being terminated, potentially putting their work—and in some cases even paychecks for their students and lab staff—in peril. Since 2008, the Minerva program has funded university social science research projects related to U.S. national security. Created under the George W. Bush administration and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the program has backed research into subjects like Russian propaganda campaigns, overseas effects of U.S. military deployments, and modern maritime piracy. As recently as August, the program announced a new round of $46.8 million in multiyear grants to teams studying topics like organized crime in Colombia, the impact of AI technology, and population movements amid climate change. “In a rapidly changing world, social science is essential for making sense of human behavior, guiding informed decisions, and understanding societal progress,” David Montgomery, director of social science in the Defense Department’s Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, said at the time. “We need to explore and better understand the complex social dynamics that shape our world and provide insights useful to policymakers and others concerned with the social context of security.” But under the Trump administration, priorities appear to have changed. A March 2 report in Science found that “dozens” of researchers are affected, and that applicants for the next round of Minerva funding received word that the Department of Defense was “no longer offering” the program. It’s a decision that left grant recipients and other scientists baffled, since the program previously received support under presidents from both major parties, appears to align with the Trump administration’s focus on national security, and cost relatively little. A 2020 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine found the program typically received between $20 million and $22 million in annual federal funding. Total annual defense spending is typically more than $700 billion per year. “There’s an aspect of this in which we’re removing an investment in the efficacy of future national security policy for short-term cost savings,” says Jacob Shapiro, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University. The Department of Defense didn’t respond to an inquiry from Fast Company. The Trump administration has gone after a wide array of scientific programs, probing grants related to disfavored topics like climate change and gender, pausing research funding through the National Institutes of Health, and cutting the jobs of hundreds of weather forecasters and other employees at agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has pursued cuts throughout the federal government and cancelled contracts and grants throughout the government. Defense Department spokesman Sean Parnell cited a Minerva-funded study of “Vulnerability and Resilience to Climate Hazards in the African Sahel” in a video posted on Monday to X discussing allegedly “wasteful spending” highlighted by DOGE. “This stuff is not a core function of our military,” he said in the video. But scholars familiar with the Minerva program say the cuts there still came as somewhat of a shock, since the program supports research in national security-related areas that otherwise seem to be White House priorities. “It just seems tremendously short-sighted to cut support from a program that has absolutely transformed research and practice on counterterrorism,” says John Horgan, a professor in Georgia State University’s psychology department and an expert on the psychology of terrorism. “It makes no sense.” In addition to traditional peer-reviewed research papers, scientists receiving Minerva grants have generated write-ups in mainstream publications like The New York Times and Scientific American, interactive mapping tools for visualizing climate change and disaster issues, social network analysis software, and numerous relevant data sets, according to the National Academies study. “Over the past decade, Minerva grants have produced a substantial body of research in a variety of areas of importance to national security,” the report found. Horgan received Minerva funding between 2014 and 2018 to study religious conversion and converts who commit acts of terrorism. He says the program was valuable not only for the grants it provided but for connecting researchers with DOD officials. Those connections helped officials understand researchers’ insights and put them into practice around the world. They also helped scientists learn to better communicate their results to public officials, he says. Minerva funding has also supported new scholars in national security-related fields, particularly in today’s academic environment, where graduate students, undergraduate researchers, and early-career professors depend on external grants to finance their work. Horgan says Minerva funds made it possible to recruit up-and-coming researchers with newly minted doctorates in fields related to national security and “give them the time and space and resources to shine” as their careers take off. “It really is about figuring out how to support and pave the way for success for the next generation of terrorism scholars,” he says. “That’s what Minerva allowed me to do.” The sudden apparent shutdown of the program will likely leave some scholars scrambling for new sources of funding for existing projects and workers. “Many of us cut our teeth as assistant professors with support from the Minerva Initiative, which allowed us to support students and carry out field work,” writes Josh Busby, a public affairs professor at the University of Texas at Austin, in an email to Fast Company. “We were able to develop innovative new datasets and methods including geospatial mapping and conflict event data. We explored important new areas of risks to U.S. national security from emergent problems like climate change.” The loss of a major funding source for the social sciences is a significant setback for academic research, he says, and may weaken the government’s ability to comprehend and address threats facing the nation, he says. The Trump administration has already made several high profile about-faces around funding cuts and personnel decisions, so it’s still possible the Minerva program could be restored in some form. It’s unclear whether the administration has the authority to terminate existing Minerva grants, which means the cuts could face legal challenges. Also still up in the air is how budgets across the federal government will be affected by votes in Congress, which faces a March 14 deadline to pass a spending bill for the rest of the fiscal year or face a government shutdown. But, researchers say, if the funding isn’t restored, the lack of research into security-related topics and the failure to cultivate up-and-coming scholars and their relationships with the Defense establishment may cost more down the line. Recent decades have seen plenty of successful research into what sorts of programs actually work to promote international security and development, from cash transfers for poor people to various kinds of public health interventions, says Christopher Blattman, a professor of global conflict studies at the University of Chicago who has received Minerva funding for research involving organized crime in Colombia. “The unfortunate thing is the toolbox for the next 20 years not only will be more poorly funded, but it won’t be as effective, because we won’t be continuing to build on what actually works,” he says. Blattman’s work has included looking at ways to offer young people alternatives to gang membership. He says he and his colleagues had been “cautiously optimistic” that the Trump administration’s focus on countering drug smuggling could lead to more funding for that sort of work. “Why this was on the chopping block?” he says. “I don’t know.” Blattman, who also saw other government funding from sources like the U.S. Agency for International Development dry up, says his team will likely be able to “sweep by on fumes” and continue existing projects, though they may not be able to do as detailed measurement as would have been possible if the grants continued. “Nothing shuts down, but we definitely are maybe less ambitious in our scope of what we can do,” he says. In general, says Princeton’s Shapiro, the Minerva program has funded research with practical applications into civil wars in Africa, Islamist extremism, drug-related conflict in Mexico, and why people join terrorist organizations and how best to demobilize them, among other topics relevant to U.S. defense efforts. And while it’s a tiny fraction of overall U.S. defense spending, the research that has come out of Minerva has helped officials make decisions about how to effectively allocate funds and personnel to actually make a difference, Shapiro says. “There’s tremendous value for money in this program,” he says. View the full article

The question came innocently enough: What do you want to be when you grow up? Lindsay’s daughter, after a brief pause, looked up and confidently replied, “I want to be a client.” The simplicity of the answer hid the complexity of what she had observed: The clients always seemed to get the very best version of her mother. In her daughter’s young mind, being a client meant holding a special place—one that commands focus, care, and an unwavering commitment. As two mothers navigating full-time legal careers, that moment was not lost on either of us. It reveals a truth that is often glossed over in the narratives about working women, especially those of us balancing professional intensity with parenting. Beneath the thin veneer of “having it all,” we know all too well the quiet sacrifices and compromises that characterize our balancing act. The spotlight may be on our professional accomplishments, but in the shadows our children wait patiently for our attention, often competing with the demands of a profession that do not easily relent. The Weight of Expectation Too often the complexities of ambition, motherhood, and professional duty are distilled into stereotypes that seek to diminish rather than dignify. It’s a familiar story—the notion that a woman with power and responsibility must inevitably be lacking elsewhere. Or that her identity as a mother or partner is somehow contrary to her professional persona. These narratives, however veiled, carry weight. But let’s say what that really means. It means that the diligence and tenacity we bring to our careers and our clients are identical to the dedication we offer to our families. It means that the long hours spent advocating for clients are juxtaposed with the quiet moments at home, where the stakes are equally high, even if measured in hugs rather than verdicts. It means that, despite the portrayal of women in leadership as one-dimensional, we are more. We are multifaceted, resilient, and deeply invested in both our professions and our roles as mothers. Living with the Tension The path of a working mother demands a constant recalibration of priorities where both career and family vie for equal attention and each carries its own form of guilt. The notion of “balance” is a fallacy. At least that’s what we’ve learned from years of trying to juggle our careers and motherhood. Instead, it’s a constant series of trade-offs and compromises leading us to understand that each day is unique. There’s no neat division between “work” and “life” anymore. Mornings usually start early, working before the rest of the house wakes up. We often work with one eye on the clock, calculating the minutes until we sprint from the office to catch a school or sport event. Or days when there’s a sick child and no available caregiver, the idea of balance seems laughable. This has forced us to rethink how we define success—not by perfection but by flexibility and resilience. It’s about being okay with the days that feel like controlled chaos and accepting that sometimes one part of life will have to be put on pause for the other. When our daughters see us in action—they don’t just witness the power, grace, and poise required of our profession; they see the weight of that responsibility and the effort and dedication it takes to give both our clients and our children the best of us. The Lessons We Teach As children we dreamed of becoming lawyers, mothers, or both, imagining these roles as ultimate markers of success and happiness. Our daughters, however, have grown up watching us navigate the realities of those choices and their dreams for us are different. If a child believes happiness comes from being in a position where others give their full attention, then maybe that’s a mirror to our own internal narratives—the idea that to be happy we must be fully attended to, in control, or on the receiving end of care. But our journey has taught us that happiness, real happiness, isn’t about being a client. It’s not about receiving—it’s about the pursuit itself, the constant striving to give our best to both our careers and our children. So while our daughters might want to be “clients” today, we hope they understand, over time, that true fulfillment comes not from being at the center of attention, but from living and thriving with the tension. View the full article

Donald Trump’s turn to Moscow is restoring the geography of the cold warView the full article

Where there is a will (to boost military capabilities), there is a wayView the full article

Trump imposed tariffs this week on the country’s three biggest trade partners—including 25% on all goods from Canada and Mexico and an additional 10% on Chinese imports—which will ripple across the U.S. economy. One particular area where the impacts will be felt is housing, since construction relies on metal, lumber, and machinery heavily imported from those three countries. “This will result in higher costs, intensifying already excruciating affordability issues,” says Joe Brusuelas, Chief Economist for RSM, a global consultancy. It’s too early for analysts to have exact figures on just how much housing costs will be impacted, and much of the predicted increases have already occurred, as a fearful industry priced in trade disruptions in recent months. But overall, tariffs are expected to increase prices on raw materials, extend project timelines, raise uncertainty and make building more expensive. One estimate found the measures would potentially raise material costs by a few billion dollars a year. It’ll put a dent in the construction industry, which represents 4% of the nation’s GDP. And finding domestically made substitutes will prove incredibly difficult in the short term—if not impossible, due to the substantial cost and challenge of building up manufacturing capacity or reopening shuttered factories. Nearly a third of all wood used for homes comes from Canadian forests, says Brusuelas, and those costs will be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices. Commercial developments, from skyscrapers to apartment buildings to factories, will also feel the pinch due to their reliance on steel and aluminum. Even though the U.S. currently makes 80% of the steel used domestically, prices will still be impacted, according to Tom Park, national strategic supply chain vice president at Skanska. Just the threat of tariffs has pushed steel prices up 15% since January 1, and contributed to a sharp rise in material prices in February. Park predicts “single-digit” total price increases in commercial construction due to tariffs, a small figure but enough to make projects economically infeasible, or end up pushing up rent on finished apartment buildings. Projects with smaller margins, especially affordable housing developments, will be challenged to make financing work with additional material costs. The latest round of tariffs hits right where it hurts for builders. Canada produces much of the lumber used in our country’s stick-built, single-family homes, as well as roughly a quarter of the aluminum used in curtain walls and building facades. Mexico supplies much of the machinery and appliances used in apartments and offices, as well as finished goods and heating, ventilation and cooling (HVAC) supplies. And China also contributes manufactured goods, especially switchgear and other electrical equipment that’s vital to larger offices, buildings, and commercial warehouses and factories. Projects in pre-construction, a phase during which designs are decided, can still make some alterations to decrease the use of steel or alter layouts to mitigate some of this increased cost. But there simply isn’t enough slack to alter the overall shift in costs, especially if these tariffs remain in place for months. Morningstar analysts predict a significant number of planned projects will be delayed or canceled. Many suppliers tried to stockpile goods after the November election, in anticipation of the tariff threat. Brusuelas said orders for industrial supply materials from overseas spiked by $22 billion between December and January. But even that anticipatory buying can only go so far. “Certain firms stocked up on materials and have clauses in their contracts for these issues,” said Nicholas Pantuliano, co-founder and chief operating officer of developers PTM Partners. “But it won’t change the fact that certain projects won’t happen, and more projects will go by the wayside. Even perceived cost increases will create palpitations throughout the industry.” And more tariffs may be on the way. President Trump has threatened an additional 25% tariff on aluminum and steel, set to come online March 12. That would mean tariffs on aluminum from Canada, for instance, would total 50%. And trying to resuscitate domestic production by opening or reopening an aluminum smelter would take years, and require both substantial electrical power and a team of trained workers. “It’s such a global market,” said Mike Putnam, head of delivery at Unispace, a global design and construction firm. “Everything is impacted by goods coming from overseas, and it’s hard to find a true domestic product. View the full article

Fila is looking to Hailey Bieber to help its struggling brand. The South Korea-based sports apparel company is today launching a 13-piece spring/summer 2025 collection made in collaboration with Bieber, who is the founder of Rhode beauty. The pieces, which include a baby tee, sweatpants, and an oversized pullover, are designed to be “wardrobe staples,” according to the company, and are now available on FILA’s website and select Urban Outfitters stores. It’s clear the Hailey Bieber x FILA Collection is geared toward athleisure rather than performance activewear based on the campaign photography, which in one photo shows Bieber spilling an iced coffee. [Photo: Fila] Fila’s North American division said last year it would downsize in the U.S., and in January it laid off 130 employees at its headquarters and warehouse in Towson, Maryland. The rise of activewear accelerated by the pandemic has been great business for athletic apparel brands like Lululemon and Alo Yoga, which catered to spendy customers with clothes for everyday wear. Fila, however, failed to make similar gains. Last year, the brand partnered with Bieber for a retro-inspired collection also designed for everyday wear. This Bieber collaboration is another push to capture share of the growing female athleisure market. The collaboration follows a marketing strategy that’s becoming more common among athletic brands looking to expand their consumer base: securing celebrity rather than performance athlete brand ambassadors. Nike took this approach most recently when it partnered with Kim Kardashian’s shapewear brand Skims on a new women’s brand called NikeSkims. (Of course, Skims also has the appeal of a $4 billion valuation.) While Fila is better known for its partnerships with athletes and tennis players, including a sponsorship announced earlier this year with New Zealand’s Lulu Sun, just like the NikeSkims deal, teaming up with Bieber gives the brand access to a celebrity who sells a lifestyle, rather than an athlete who sells performance. [Photo: Fila] “If I wouldn’t wear it, I wouldn’t put it out into the world,” Bieber says in a promotional video for the collection. Considering the popularity of tenniscore fashion last summer and fall, the Hailey Bieber x FILA Collection is well timed. The collection also includes a lightweight twill pleated skirt and oversized knit sweater meant as a modern take on a tennis classic. For Fila, the Bieber collaboration is about more than just selling clothes, it’s about defining the brand’s place in an athleisure market dominated by competitors who already cemented their place in it. By tapping a celebrity and model, the sports apparel brand could better appeal to consumers more interested in aesthetic and versatility than athletic performance. View the full article

Tariffs have caused lots of headaches for business owners around the world, especially as they’ve become a hot topic in the political landscape. Just this week, President Donald Trump enacted 25% import taxes on Mexican and Canadian goods, causing the S&P 500 to plummet. Businesses struggling with these complex tariffs may have a newfound appreciation for a tool that promises to simplify the process: Agentforce, Salesforce’s AI-powered agent platform that was launched in October 2024. Agentforce enables users to create AI agents that can analyze and make decisions based on the Harmonized Tariff Schedule, a 4,400-plus page document that sets tariff rates for over 20,000 imported items. Agentforce users can create an “Import Specialist Agent” that will analyze the lengthy schedule and will automatically adjust pricing or create business plans accordingly. What once took businesses months to adapt to can now be handled in minutes, according to Paul Tatum, Salesforce’s EVP of Solution Engineering. Tatum tells Fast Company that the Import Specialist Agent is one of the many ways that AI can make convoluted, labor-intensive tasks easier. “Governments around the world are overworked and outstretched,” says Tatum. “Technology has helped with that over the years, but digital labor is going to transform the level of service and capabilities of the government.” The Import Specialist Agent responds to each business’s unique data, taking into account the size of a business, what products it sells, and previous sales history. This technology is applicable across the board for small businesses, large businesses, and government employees, says Tatum. Since 2018, the schedule has been updated around 11–30 times each year. Changing policies and pricing to align with each individual schedule change can be a laborious process without the help of AI, Tatum says. And although other AI software exists that can analyze the tariff schedule, Salesforce’s may be the only one that can automatically take action that fits a business’s specific needs, says Tatum. “A lot of the AI technology focus has been around developing large language models, and you see those come out every day. They’re an important part of the puzzle,” Tatum says. “But we believe that the most impactful part of the puzzle is making agents practical, like a digital employee working alongside and augmenting your human employee.” Agentforce currently has about 3,000 paying customers who have created over 5,000 unique AI agents for different purposes—with the Import Specialist Agent being just one of the many. Customers pay $2 per conversation, but this pricing sometimes will vary based on the scale and complexity of the work being performed, according to Salesforce. The tariff schedule isn’t the only lengthy government document that Tatum wants to see Agentforce tackle. He says these capabilities can be transferred to parse through dense language surrounding social security or Medicare. Government documentation is thorough, but often impenetrable, Tatum says. “I open up the IRS website and say: ‘What in the world is going on?’” he adds. “This is where digital employees can help us. View the full article

Murray Auchincloss’s share awards drop sharply to £2.75mn, compared with £4.36mn in 2023View the full article

Europe’s backing for Kyiv faces resistance from Orbán as Trump turns US-EU relations on their head View the full article

Eva Rodriguez has earned minimum wage at a Subway franchise in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles for more than a decade. She has stocked ingredients, wiped down tables, and served thousands of meals in the strip mall shop that’s sandwiched between an optical store and a Mediterranean restaurant. Often, she worked 70-hour weeks so her family could afford the basics. “I’m not someone with a lot of money. I have to fight to eat everyday. I have to fight to have a place to live,” Rodriguez said in Spanish. Only last year did she learn that she didn’t have to labor under those conditions—a revelation that led her to accuse the franchise’s owner of violating numerous labor laws. Rodriguez claims her boss forced her to work under two names to avoid paying overtime rates, denied her sick pay, skimmed her tips, and threatened her residency status. She is seeking nearly $100,000 in back pay and punitive damages, according to a complaint she filed with the California labor commissioner against the owner, Amarjit Singh, known to workers as “Ms. Happy.” “I’ve been a victim of every kind of theft you can imagine,” said Rodriguez, who is 58 and a grandmother of seven. Singh declined repeated requests to comment, including one made in a letter hand-delivered to her restaurant. Subway did not respond to requests for comment. While wage theft is common in low-wage industries, Rodriguez’s case is “particularly egregious” due to the sheer scope of alleged violations, according to Daniel Rojas, one of the lawyers representing her. It is especially prevalent in industries with significant numbers of immigrant workers, like construction, healthcare, and food services, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In 2023, more than 1.5 million low-wage workers in California were victims of minimum wage violations, more than double the figure of just a decade earlier, according to a report from Rutgers University. Advocates say foreign-born workers like Rodriguez may now be at higher risk of exploitation. The Trump administration is leading a crackdown on undocumented immigrants that many say is threatening immigrant communities more broadly. They say raising awareness about existing worker protections may provide the best defense against a rising tide of anti-immigrant sentiment and workplace abuses. Early last year, an organizer with the California Fast Food Workers Union visited the Subway where Rodriguez works and invited her to join the union, a moment she described as “a light from God that appeared on my path.” That encounter made her aware of her rights in the workplace. Formed last February, the California Fast Food Workers Union is the first statewide fast-food workers union in the country, and is focused on raising wages and improving working conditions for the more than 750,000 fast-food workers employed in the state. Although Rodriguez has the backing of the union, she hasn’t had an easy time challenging her employer. She alleges that after she delivered a letter to her managers demanding proper pay and an end to the violations, Singh retaliated by reducing her hours dramatically. Rodriguez detailed her claims in the complaint she filed in Los Angeles Superior Court against Subway, Singh, and Singh’s company, Guardashan & Happy Inc. Over the course of three years, Rodriguez claims that she was denied nearly $54,000 in wages, most of which she attributed to thousands of hours of unpaid overtime. Though Rodriguez claims the wage theft has been ongoing for most of her time working at Subway, she is only seeking to reclaim three years of lost wages because the statute of limitations on earlier alleged violations has expired. But Rodriguez finds some of the violations that she alleges occurred before then to be particularly galling. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Singh allegedly convinced Rodriguez to work more than 1,400 hours without compensation, saying the shop might otherwise close due to low traffic. During that same time, Singh’s Guardashan & Happy Inc. received more than $850,000 in paycheck protection loans, restaurant revitalization fund grants, and employee retention tax credits—all designed to keep her business open and workers paid, according to the complaint Rodriguez filed with the California labor commissioner last August. Upwards of $300,000 of Singh’s PPP loans have since been forgiven. Some of the alleged violations highlight the way in which even immigrants with legal residency are vulnerable to exploitation. After injuring her foot and back during a fall inside Subway’s freezer in 2023, Rodriguez filed a workers’ compensation claim to cover the costs of treatment. When Singh learned of the filing, Rodriguez was pressured to drop the claim, according to the complaint she filed with the California labor commissioner. Singh allegedly warned her that the federal government would investigate her, and once officials discovered she had worked under two names, her legal residency would be at risk, the complaint stated. Rodriguez eventually dropped the claim after Singh also allegedly offered to pay her $30,000 and arrange for her to have medical care. But after weeks without the promised treatment or funds, Rodriguez found a workers’ compensation lawyer and resubmitted the claim to the state. Millions of workers across the country regularly experience similar violations, amounting to tens of billions of dollars in illegally withheld wages every year, according to an Economic Policy Institute report. The average minimum wage violation in California as of 2015 amounted to about $3,400, a small fraction of Rodriguez’s claim. The Washington, D.C.-based think tank also found that the country’s 32 million foreign-born workers were especially likely to be the victims of that crime. Kent Wong, project director for Labor and Community Partnerships at the UCLA Labor Center, said foreign-born workers are particularly vulnerable to wage theft because they are often “unaware of their rights, either as workers or as immigrants.” “When workers are informed of their rights as workers, their rights as immigrants, they’re in a better position to exercise those rights. In nonunion workplaces where exploitation is rampant, they are much more vulnerable because they are unaware of their rights,” Wong said. The California Fast Food Workers Union, which is affiliated with the Service Employees International Union, has pushed for cities across the state to adopt mandatory know-your-rights training. In 2024, Los Angeles City councilmembers Hugo Soto-Martinez and Katy Yaroslavsky introduced a motion to direct the city attorney to draft an ordinance requiring employers to provide paid time off for fast-food workers to attend such training. The union has pushed for similar measures in Santa Clara County by launching strikes with the support of local lawmakers. (Disclosure: SEIU is a financial supporter of Capital & Main.) For more than a decade, SEIU has been seeking to organize fast-food workers into a union, securing significant victories along the way. Last year, it successfully pushed California lawmakers to establish a fast food council tasked with setting workplace standards and wages. The formation of the California Fast Food Workers Union earlier that year marked another milestone. But despite those gains, CAFFWU lacks the collective bargaining power of more traditional unions. With Trump as president, many fear working conditions for immigrant workers may become even more perilous. In early January, scores of farmworkers were detained by U.S. Border Patrol agents during immigration raids in Bakersfield, California, sending shockwaves of fear through immigrant communities. Tom Homan, Trump’s choice for “border czar,” has pledged to launch similar raids across the country and has directly criticized know-your-rights training. The Trump administration is now also seeking to expedite deportations for more than a million migrants who arrived during the Biden administration by denying them court hearings. “We are entering a very dangerous period for immigrant workers, their families, and communities. . . . Many, many millions will be negatively impacted if Trump makes good on his promise to launch the largest mass deportations in U.S. history,” Wong said. In the meantime, Rodriguez’s newfound understanding of her rights and experience of working with the California Fast Food Workers Union have emboldened her. “I’m not afraid anymore because I have a union that defends me. . . . I am not fighting to win some money, I am fighting for my rights and the rights of all other workers,” Rodriguez said. —By Jeremy Lindenfeld, Capital & Main This piece was originally published by Capital & Main, which reports from California on economic, political, and social issues. View the full article

The L.A.-based fashion brand Lisa Says Gah just teamed up with Polly Pocket for a new limited-edition collection, and it appears to be a sign that Mattel is already gunning to recapture the marketing magic of the Barbie movie. Polly Pocket Says Gah! is an assortment of cardigans, baby tees, accessories, and PVC slingback kitten heels, all rendered in a pastel palette and topped with playful details like ruffled edges and quilted stitching. Prices range from $50 to $198. It debuts today exclusively on the Lisa Says Gah website. [Photo: Lisa Says Gah] A Polly Pocket film has been in the works with MGM since 2021, but it faced a bump in the road last July when Lena Dunham, who was going to write and direct the movie, ultimately dropped out of the project. Communications on the status of the Polly Pocket film have been quiet since then—but the movie is still in the development, Mattel confirmed to Fast Company. The studio has yet to share a release date. On the design side, the collaboration merges an ongoing interest in coquette aesthetics and Y2K nostalgia. But more broadly, it’s also harbinger that Mattel’s next blockbuster marketing campaign is launching sooner than we thought. [Photo: Lisa Says Gah] Coquette core meets ’90s nostalgia The seed for Polly Pocket Says Gah! was first planted when Mattel reached out to the fashion brand with an Instagram DM. Lisa Says Gah founder Lisa Bühler felt the partnership would be a natural fit. “Growing up in the ’90s, Polly Pocket was such a core memory—playing with those tiny outfits, mixing and matching looks—it was all about creativity and self-expression,” says Bühler. “LSG has always had Polly Pocket undertones in our playful cuts, graphic tees, and vibrant energy.” [Photo: Lisa Says Gah] The limited collection represents an evolution of the coquette core trend that emerged last winter: An aesthetic that fully embraces feminine touches like bows, ribbons, and lace. For the past year or so, this look has come to encompass a cultural movement online toward accepting the trappings of “girlhood” (e.g., “girl dinner” and “girl math”) that some women say they previously felt compelled to repress. Coquette core has enjoyed a longer-than-usual trend cycle thanks to the influence of rising stars like Sabrina Carpenter, whose Brigitte Bardot-esque look highlights soft, flirty touches and light pastels. According to Pinterest, the trend is expected to continue into 2025: per the site’s Pinterest Predicts 2025 report, searches for both “ultra-feminine,” rococo-inspired looks and “doll-like” makeup are on the rise. [Photo: Lisa Says Gah] It makes sense that the Polly Pocket Says Gah! collab would incorporate nods to coquette fashion (like heart-shaped jacket pockets and tiny ribbon bows on handbags) given that Polly Pocket was created as a line of miniature doll toys for young girls. The collection adds its own spin to the trend, though, by fusing its whimsical details with recognizable ’90s Polly Pocket IP as a nod to grown-up fans—building on a current Y2K resurgence that’s popped up everywhere from the cereal aisle to music and tech. [Photo: Lisa Says Gah] Lisa Says Gah’s life-size Polly Pockets Instead of incorporating the Polly Pocket brand’s current logo, the Lisa Says Gah collection uses the brand’s original logo, which ran from 1989 to 1998. It also takes clear inspiration from the packaging of vintage Polly Pocket toys, which recently began selling for upward of $1,000 due to a burgeoning market of collectors. In fact, one of Polly Pocket Says Gah’s signature prints is made up of various Polly Pocket compacts, a must-have portable toy in the ’90s that was meant to mimic real makeup packaging but contained a whole tiny dollhouse. “This was a true collaboration,” Bühler says, noting that Mattel provided her team with ’90s Polly Pocket images and prints from its archives for inspiration. “Our goal was to bring Polly Pocket’s tiny, magical world to life in a way that feels fresh, wearable, and true to LSG and its community.” That comes through in the apparel. Each detail of the new collection seems crafted to allow ’90s babies to dress like life-size Polly Pocket dolls. [Photo: Lisa Says Gah] The first sign of a ‘Polly Pocket’ movie Long before the Barbie movie debuted in theaters on July 21, 2023, the world had already been introduced to more than 100 Barbie-based brand tie-ins, including a signature XBox console, a line of Ruggable rugs, a Hot Wheels car, and a collection at Gap. Mattel and Universal’s wide-reaching marketing effort made the Barbie brand virtually unavoidable (and forced Fast Company to issue a moratorium on any new Barbie collabs.) It was such a smash hit that it arguably changed the way that major movie studios approach adapting recognizable IP, as in the case of 2024’s Wicked, which similarly engaged in a months-long brand collab blitz. Now it looks like Mattel is gearing up for an even more drawn-out movie marketing play. Alongside the Lisa Says Gah collab, Polly Pocket has also recently debuted collaborations with The Office, Cotton On, and Funko (the latter two also use the brand’s ’90s logo.) For now, it’s unclear whether there is a Polly Pocket summer on the horizon—but if there is, we can be sure to expect plenty more collaborations to come. View the full article

In a small section of Los Angeles’s Elysian Park, which spans the amount of land a single sprinkler head can water, a native plant experiment is underway that could change city parks for the better. It’s called Test Plot. Combining native plant species, volunteer gardeners, and a not insignificant amount of weeding, the experiment is trying to find a new way for urban parks to counter ecological degradation and improve climate resilience. The project launched in 2019 and is now underway in parks across California, and the approach is showing that with the right plants and the right amount of effort, parks can be brought back into sync with the natural tendencies of their environments. [Photo: Terremoto] An experiment to spur native, fire-resistant plant growth The idea came from the landscape architecture firm Terremoto, which formerly had an office just a few blocks from Elysian Park. “We saw that it was in need of some help,” says Jenny Jones, a landscape architect at Terremoto. Sections of the roughly 600-acre park were totally overrun by non-native species that crowd out more drought-tolerant, biodiverse, and fire-resilient species. The city’s overstretched parks department had been managing these issues through annual brush clearance, but the non-natives would always grow back, along with the risks they posed. “It clears for fire, but it also mows down every single native species in its path,” Jones says. “We wanted to just challenge the regime of maintenance that we were seeing in the park.” [Photo: Terremoto] In conjunction with a longstanding community group associated with the park, Terremoto approached the city about using the firm’s landscape architecture skills to try a different approach. They asked if they could run a small experiment, planting native plants and doing some active, volunteer-based gardening. The city agreed, with the stipulation that the project be temporary. [Photo: Terremoto] A way forward for more sustainable parks So in the fall of 2019 Terremoto hooked a hose to a water bib in the park, attached a sprinkler head, and started preparing a plot of land for a new kind of park planting. After a few rounds of watering and weeding, they planted dozens of one-gallon pots of native plants. Then, through regular maintenance and weeding sessions attended by a dedicated group of volunteers and enthusiasts, they simply helped the native plants thrive and stopped the non-native plants from moving back in. “We look to ecological restoration as a guide, but it’s not strict,” says Jones. “We lie somewhere between gardening and restoration.” Within three years the native plants fully established themselves, and no longer required watering, nor much weeding. This one plot, just 30 feet in diameter, proved that the park could be restored to a more sustainable and ecologically balanced state. [Photo: Terremoto] A 30-foot circle in a 600-acre park might seem like a drop in the bucket, but the idea has caught on. Terremoto expanded its Test Plot approach to other parts of Elysian Park and other parks across L.A. There are now about 15 Test Plots, including four or five that have fully established plants. By identifying degraded landscapes within parks, engaging with local groups already connected with those parks, and then asking city officials if they could temporarily intervene by adding native plants to those parks, they’ve been able to rethink planting and maintenance approaches at a larger scale. “There’s a little bit of figuring out how to pierce the bureaucracy and how to get around the otherwise really strict rules about engaging in that kind of work in public spaces,” Jones says. But in the urban context, parks departments often have to deprioritize planting and maintenance in the face of the social issues they also experience, like vandalism, drug abuse, unhoused individuals, and compromised public safety. A volunteer project like Test Plot is a welcome intervention. “[Parks departments] simply don’t have the budget to do what it takes to actually take care of a complicated urban park that faces intense urban problems,” Jones says. [Photo: Terremoto] Test pilot’s appeal for time (and budget)-strapped cities Test Plot is an appealing concept for parks who face such both budget challenges and the relentlessness of invasive species, and many across the state of California have allowed these interventions. Beyond half a dozen parks in L.A., Test Plots are adding native plants to parks in San Francisco, Berkeley, Daly City, Puente Hills, and Catalina Island. Interest in the approach has grown so much that it’s been formally spun off into a non-profit organization by the same name. Jones says the organization has received interest from parks groups across the country, including in Minnesota and Rhode Island. They are also being hired as consultants for new park projects, including a redesign of the Los Angeles River Center and Gardens that will feature an ethnobotanical garden created by the Test Plot organization. Jones says that a central element of all these Test Plots is community involvement. Volunteers are the backbone of the effort, and their ongoing engagement with the planting and weeding that Test Plot involves becomes a kind of reinforcement for the park’s vitality. “We have people come and they form a bond with their park in a way that they didn’t before,” Jones says. “A lot of people love their parks because they take their dogs on walks, it’s where they run, it’s where they walk with their friends. But there’s a whole new layer of bonding when your hands are in the soil and you are taking care of the land yourself.” View the full article

Kendrick Lamar. Drake. Lady Gaga. The charts of music streaming services pretty much all look the same these days, with familiar names dominating the top spots—except on up-and-coming Spotify competitor Audiomack. The current No. 1 album on Audiomack belongs to Nigeria’s Seyi Vibez, whose hypnotic Afrobeats tracks have amassed around 1.8 billion plays on the platform. Vibez is one of many African and Caribbean artists who have found breakout success on the platform. Many of them consistently draw larger audiences on Audiomack than on Spotify or Apple Music, largely due to the platform’s strong presence in local markets. “We are the most-used streaming service in a large swath of Africa,” says Audiomack cofounder Brian Zisook. “We’re No. 1 on iOS and Android in Nigeria and Ghana.” The company boasts 58 billion-plus songs streamed in Nigeria alone. Half of Audiomack’s audience of 40 million monthly listeners comes from the continent. Audiomack’s rise in West Africa was initially unintentional, but it has since become a case study in the potential of emerging markets and how smaller music platforms can thrive alongside industry giants like Spotify and Apple Music. From a mixtape hub to an Afrobeats force When Zisook and Dave Macli founded Audiomack in New York in 2012, they just wanted to make it easier for local hip-hop DJs to distribute their mixtapes. At the time, many DJs relied on questionable file-sharing sites, creating a poor experience for fans. “Those websites were strewn with pop-up [ads] and malware,” Zisook recalls. “If you downloaded a mixtape, you had to worry that you were going to crash your family computer.” Audiomack grew steadily in Western markets, but never really broke through against its much bigger competitors. All that changed seemingly overnight in 2019 when West African musicians and their fans began flocking to the service en masse. “We just took off,” Zisook says. “The growth was a hockey stick.” To adapt, Macli and Zisook hired a local team in Nigeria, gaining valuable insights into their new market. “The mistake that so many in the industry made was to view Africa as a monolith,” Zisook says. “If you are in Tanzania or Liberia, nothing is going to offend you more than only being served Nigerian, Ghanaian, or South African songs.” Betting on Africa as a growth market for music streaming is savvy, believes MIDiA Research senior music industry analyst Tatiana Cirisano. “As Western markets reach saturation, most future streaming growth will come from Global South regions, of which Africa is an important part,” she argues. “It was smart for Audiomack to position itself as a key player here.” Betting on Africa’s music boom Cirisano cautions, however, that business models that work in the West may not easily translate to emerging markets. “African countries have a lower average revenue per user than countries like the U.S. and U.K.,” she says. “Even though Africa’s impact on global music culture and consumption continues to grow, its impact on global music revenue is not matching that growth.” “It’s very difficult to monetize music in Africa,” acknowledges Zisook. “You have a young audience that has limited or no disposable income, and a lack of access to credit and debit cards. They pay for things online using gift cards. So there’s no opportunity for consistent subscriptions. There’s a lot of churn. They have hard capped data plans, and they have unreliable or no Wi-Fi.” Audiomack responded to this by striking bundling deals with local cellphone carriers. The company also integrated alternative revenue streams for musicians: Fans can become direct financial supporters of their favorite artists on the platform, and in exchange get badges and bragging rights. It’s a clever way for Audiomack to differentiate itself from the competition, Cirisano contends, noting, “The traditional streaming business doesn’t monetize fandom, or depth of engagement—it monetizes pure consumption.” Thriving alongside giants like Spotify Scaling a business works for streaming giants like Spotify, which recently reported its first full year of profitability. But it has been much more challenging for second-tier services like Tidal, which reportedly laid off 100 staffers last fall. Audiomack could provide a blueprint for these smaller services to compete with, and prosper alongside the big guys. In addition to further growing its user base in Africa, Audiomack also courts expats across Western markets. “A lot of our growth in Canada, U.K., Germany, and France is diasporic,” Zisook says. “Ghanaians in Germany, Nigerians in France.” At the same time, the company is striking licensing agreements with major labels to gain access to more of their catalogs. This attracts Western listeners familiar with hip-hop while introducing them to Seyi Vibez and other Afrobeats stars. That way, Audiomack can become a complementary service for Western audiences looking to dive deeper into different music genres. “The same folks who listen to Spotify at work might use Audiomack later in the day to more actively discover music, express their fandom, and access a catalog that is not available on mainstream streaming services,” Cirisano says. View the full article

Teenage YouTube users across the world will now get automatic reminders to go to bed and take a break from their screens. YouTube announced this week it was expanding such reminders to minors across the globe, ensuring they are full-screen and toggled-on by default. The feature first debuted in the U.S. seven years ago, and went automatic for minors in 2023. So-called “bedtime” notifications have grown in popularity, buoyed in large part by YouTube and TikTok. But it’s unclear how effective the notifications are in the first place. After all, YouTube users only have to click to close out the banner; on TikTok, it’s even easier to keep swiping past the text. “It will be effective for a small proportion of people, but the onus is still on the user to turn it off,” says Jon-Patrick Allem, a professor of social and behavioral sciences at Rutgers School of Public Health. “These are all cosmetic things that may work for some people, but aren’t really going to shift user behavior.” The rise of ‘stop scrolling’ signs YouTube first introduced their overuse warnings back in 2018. At first, it was a simple opt-in “take a break” notification. By 2020, YouTube revealed that they’d sent more than three billion warnings, and added a “bedtime reminder” to their suite. This is the same year that TikTok also premiered their screentime management ads, headed by popular creators like Alan Chikin Chow and Gabe Erwin. A few years later, parents amplified concerns about their children’s social media usage. More and more data flooded the web about a teen mental health crisis, with an uptick in depression and anxiety. YouTube responded in 2023 by making their “take a break” and “bedtime” reminders more prominent on the screen, and making them mandatory for all American users under 18. TikTok debuted their own “sleep reminder” and silenced push notifications for users under 18 after 10 p.m. Now, YouTube’s changes are global. In a LinkedIn post, Pedro Pina, YouTube’s head of Europe, Middle East and Africa, wrote that the program ensures teens’ “time on the platform is well spent.” (YouTube did not respond to a request for comment.) But these reminders are still just suggestions: Rutgers’s Allem says that users see them as “recommendations for best options,” advice that they’re unlikely to take. “There is no consequence if an individual acts or doesn’t act on this prompt,” he says. “It would probably be just as easy as moving on from the post like anything else you weren’t interested in. The one second that you take determining this isn’t interesting so you keep scrolling, would that really be impactful?” What does it take for us to actually log off? Beyond some limited content moderation, these warnings are the furthest major social media companies have gone to protect teens from addiction and overuse. But, in the wake of Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation and 2024’s great upheaval around internet mental health, every pundit has their own ideas for further steps. The Surgeon General recommended cigarette-style warning labels; the State of New York demanded companies tamp down on their recommendation algorithms for minors. Allem rattles off a list of changes that would be more effective at stopping social media overuse. They could mandate lock-outs for minors during nighttime hours. They could force users to pay for increased hours using their apps. Or, the apps could be redesigned all together. “There’s no natural stopping point for platforms designed with infinite scroll online,” Allem says. “We could consider default settings that were programmed to limit use, rather than allowing for unlimited use.” But none of these changers are likely to happen anytime soon. “All of this can be done quite easily,” Allem says. “It isn’t done because it will tap into and reduce growth and profit.” View the full article

The first thing anyone will notice about the new electric pickup from Telo Trucks is its compact form. Snubnosed and sporty, the five-seater has a bed the size of a typical pickup but an overall footprint the size of a Mini Cooper. When it goes into production next year, it will offer a radical counterpoint to the gargantuan trucks that dominate the U.S. automobile market. Today, Telo is unveiling the first drivable preproduction model of its new truck, the MT1, and Fast Company has an exclusive look at the innovations inside the truck that make its seemingly impossible size possible. [Image: Telo]The key to the Telo truck’s interior design efficiency is its focus on what’s known in the automotive world as the H point—the location of a driver’s hip inside the vehicle—which becomes the main parameter that determines the size of a car’s interior. Telo aimed to get about the same volumetric interior space as a crew cab Toyota Tacoma, the top-selling midsize pickup in the U.S. “A lot of the special sauce as to how we get five people and a 5-foot bed into the footprint of a two-door Mini Cooper is packaging, and people are the most important part,” says Jason Marks, Telo cofounder and CEO. From left: An MT1 compared with a Tacoma; a Mini Cooper [Image: Telo]Telo’s focus on the H-point ended up shaping the entire truck, inside and outside. “We knew we had the right amount of space that people were used to having. And then what the designers did within that space was they had a lot of free reign,” says Forrest North, Telo cofounder and CFO. That led to an exterior design with a short, frunkless nose, and a truck bed that can expand inward into the truck’s cab with an innovative folding midgate. That makes it big enough to haul a sheet of 4-by-8-foot plywood, giving the truck both utility and a compact size for urban settings. [Image: Telo]The interior design of Telo’s cabin space manages to compete with other trucks by repositioning how passengers sit. The driver and passenger seats were designed with an uncommon pedestal base that puts them higher up from the base of the floor. This height, and the lack of the typical twin mounting rails that sit on the floor beneath most front seats, creates more space underneath for the feet and legs of passengers in the back seat. “The way that we built the front seats, it’s almost like they’re hovering in the air,” Marks says. “The angle of your thighs moves down, your back angle wants to be slightly more upright, and so it lets you actually occupy less horizontal room, even though you occupy more vertical room.” [Image: Telo]Ditching the frunk in favor of a larger truck bed and shorter overall vehicle length meant that these front seats are positioned very close to the front of the truck. North equates it to the experience he had driving his first car, a 1975 Volkswagen bus. “One of the great things about that is you know exactly where the front of the vehicle is. Parking and moving around in urban areas is much easier,” he says. [Image: Telo]But to carve every cubic inch of waste out of the interior, the design had to account for the necessary safety features that exist in passenger vehicles, including crash structures, crumple zones, and a firewall. Having the front seats up on a pedestal cleared room beneath them for feet to swing in and out of the vehicle, which allowed those front end safety structures to sit closer to the people inside. “That had to be designed in a very surface contoured, three-dimensional way that optimized for both how you enter and exit the vehicle and how the vehicle performs,” Marks says. “So that was a big part of how we do what we do in our vehicle.” [Image: Telo]Industrial designer Yves Behar’s company Fuseproject led the truck’s design. (Behar is also an equity partner in Telo and serves as its chief creative officer and cofounder.) He says this pedestal seating approach is rare in car design, but has opened more space within the vehicle for human-centric design. “It’s a funny feature to talk about because it’s like talking about the underside of a chair. Nobody ever sees the underside of a chair, but that’s really what this design is about,” Behar says. “It’s about designing the things people can’t see to deliver more comfort, more ergonomics, and more spaciousness in what I would say is an extremely small vehicle overall.” [Image: Telo]Other space-efficient design elements are scattered throughout the cabin, from its two compact glove boxes to a smaller-than-usual center console bin to cupholders that slide out of view when not in use to a specific place to store sunglasses. “It’s actually a lot of storage but that feels more dedicated rather than just a big bin that you put all your random stuff in,” Behar says. Because it’s an electric vehicle, the Telo truck’s battery was also a big design parameter that shaped its interior design. North, who previously built the battery for the Tesla Roadster, says making the battery as thin as possible helped create more space inside the vehicle without compromising aerodynamics and range. “You want to reduce any millimeter you can from your from your roofline,” he says. For Telo, size is everything. But in contrast to most trucks out on the market today, bigger is not better, according to Behar. “What I think pickup trucks have really embraced in the past 20-plus year is this notion of massiveness and masculinity and silly bigness,” he says. “That has essentially turned pickup trucks into dangerous and less utilitarian vehicles.” View the full article

For anyone considering buying an EV this year, there’s a looming question: Will the federal tax credits for clean vehicles still be around by the time you file your taxes in 2026? Harbinger Motors, a startup that makes electric delivery vehicles for commercial use, decided to help its customers with what it calls an “IRA Risk-Free Guarantee” (referring to the Inflation Reduction Act). If the tax credit is discontinued, the company will cover enough of the cost to make the EV the same price as the diesel equivalent. “The tax credit is impactful,” says Harbinger cofounder and CEO John Harris. “We built the company around the belief that you have to sell these vehicles at the same price as diesel vehicles for them to make sense for most customers. And when you start to throw all this uncertainty at the customer around, ‘Well, maybe the price is going to be $20,000 higher than you think it is,’ these customers don’t have the margins to gamble like that.” [Photo: Harbinger Motors] Harris believes that the odds of the credit disappearing are low—which is why the company is willing to take its own risk in offering the program. “There’s a lot of noise coming from the White House about electric vehicles,” he says. “It’s mostly focused on mandates . . . but there is no mandate in the IRA. What the IRA really looks like is massive federal support for automotive manufacturing—which last time I checked is a priority for this administration. If there was a 60-40 split in Congress, maybe the IRA would get repealed. But consider that the House margin is three seats. There are a dozen or more elected representatives just from Michigan. What you’re really talking about is, can you convince all the elected representatives from Michigan to vote out the auto industry? I just don’t think they’re going to do that.” Though the political odds may keep the incentive in place, “it’s sort of scary for a lot of customers, and so we’re prepared to just take the uncertainty out of the equation for them,” Harris says. “It’s not the customer’s responsibility to employ a government relations firm and understand all of these political dynamics.” [Photo: Harbinger Motors] Harbinger makes the chassis for delivery vehicles that are roughly the size of FedEx trucks; some preproduction vehicles are in use with its customers now, and around 1,500 are on track to be delivered later this year. One chassis has a list price of around $103,200 (in the standard way that this type of vehicle is built, another company completes the vehicle for additional money). The leading diesel competitor has a similar list price for its own chassis, but dealers usually give discounts, so the typical transaction is $90,000. To make the vehicle truly cost-competitive, Harbinger is offering a $12,900 discount that will help replace the tax credit if it disappears and bring the cost down to around $90,000. If the tax incentive stays in place, customers will make a second payment to cover that discount. But because the tax credit itself is even larger—up to $40,000—customers could ultimately get the vehicles for less than they would have paid for a diesel truck. (Operating an EV, and fueling with electricity instead of diesel, is also much cheaper.) Most commercial EVs are much more expensive up front; the price difference between an EV and a comparable diesel version is often more than the full tax credit, so manufacturers are unlikely to offer a similar program. Harbinger has competitive pricing in part because of its manufacturing process. At its factory in Orange County, California, it builds its own parts—including battery packs and motors—rather than using a complex supply chain. And instead of dealing with multiple layers of suppliers, it buys materials like copper in bulk at commodity prices. The company also has little exposure to the tariffs newly imposed on Mexico, Canada, and China because it builds its own parts. Companies that sell passenger EVs may also be unlikely to offer to cover the cost of the tax credit if it’s revoked, both because automakers are struggling with uncertainty about tariffs and because the vehicles are sold at higher volumes. In many cases, however, those cars and trucks are already close in price to the gas equivalents. View the full article

As a child, Sunita Sah says she learned to be “good.” Growing up in the U.K. in the 1980s as the daughter of Indian immigrants, she was praised for being obedient and studious at home and at school. But she also experienced racial slurs and hostile stares. Sah lived in a place that didn’t always welcome differences—and her family was different. Sah had long considered her mother to be a compliant person. Quiet and deferential, her mom was the model of goodness. But one day that changed. When Sah was 7 years old, she and her mother were accosted in an alley by teenage boys, who shouted at them to “Go back home.” They were alone, vulnerable, and outnumbered. That’s when Sah’s mother did something surprising. Rather than shrink under their threats, she stood up straight and confronted them. “You think you’re clever?” she said to the boys. “You think you’re so strong. Big, tough boys, right?” Then it was the boys’ turn to shrink. They took off, and Sah and her mother continued on. Sah would come to realize that “defiance isn’t a personality trait,” she says. “We can choose.” Sah, a physician, psychologist, and professor at Cornell University’s SC Johnson School of Business, has spent much of her career studying decision-making, including how and when we choose to defy. “Defiance is not reducible to strength or weakness, courage or cowardice. It is not solely for the brave, the strong, or the extraordinary,” she writes in her new book, Defy: The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes. “We all have the capacity to be defiant.” WHY DEFIANCE IS SO DIFFICULT Defiance—the decision to act according to your own values when you’re pressured to do otherwise—may be a matter of choice, but it’s certainly not an easy one. Many people find themselves wanting to stand up for what they believe is right, but unable to access that defiance. Nearly all of us have been rewarded for compliant behavior, over and over again. We get good grades in school if we study; we get positive performance reviews at work if we support the company’s goals. Compliance is so conditioned, that for many it’s an automatic response. So when it’s time to defy and act according to our own principles, it feels unnatural. Compliance can be a good thing, but there is a dangerous side, too, Sah says. We learn quickly that we can keep earning promotions if we go along with shady business practices, or avoid retribution if we look the other way when we see a colleague being harassed. 1. WE DON’T KNOW HOW TO DEFY Even if we want to side with our own values over external pressure, we don’t always know how. If you see a colleague misleading a client, whom do you tell, and what do you say? Will it be enough to gently nudge someone to investigate the problem, or should you confront the person yourself? If we’re accustomed to complying, it’s hard to picture what defiance looks like. 2. WE WORRY ABOUT INSULTING OTHERS Another barrier is what Sah calls “insinuation anxiety,” or the fear that we may appear to insult or undermine someone if we question their decisions or behavior. Rather than speaking up, we say nothing to avoid looking insulting or insubordinate. 3. THE COST OF DEFIANCE IS SOMETIMES TOO GREAT For some, the cost of defiance is too risky. Speaking up at work can cost you your paycheck and your healthcare. We’ve seen corporate whistleblowers fired, dragged through court, and blacklisted in their industries. When the risk of defying is too great, we sometimes have to defer our defiance to another day when the costs are manageable. LEARNING HOW TO DEFY Defiance is a choice, Sah writes in her new book. Defiance is also a process. Two decades of research have shown Sah that “defiance and compliance are not binary, but rather exist on a spectrum . . . encompassing a gradation of understanding, questioning, and action.” She believes her mother had likely encountered those boys several times, perhaps defying them in small ways before putting her foot down. The difference between someone who does defy and someone who doesn’t is preparation, she explains. Surprise can force us into compliance. Defiance can be practiced in small ways. You can envision yourself in the situation and practice saying aloud what you hope you will be able to say in the moment. “The first time we speak up, we might stumble, but with repetition our voice grows more confident,” she says. Practice is good because the best time to decide whether to defy or comply is not in the heat of the moment, Sah writes. Pausing can give you time to calculate the risks of defiance and form a plan to respond. Remember: You don’t have to defy every time. If you’re caught off guard and are unable to respond as you’d like to, prepare yourself for the next opportunity. Most acts of defiance are not historic moments, nor are they necessarily memorable ones. But those small moments of defiance can help us build the muscle we need when it matters most. “The forces that lead to compliance are more complex than they might appear, but they are not insurmountable,” Sah writes. “We may not always know how to defy. But we can learn.” View the full article

Union Home Mortgage claims eight of its managers and an LO transitioned to American Pacific Mortgage, breaching a number of agreements. View the full article

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump initiated a trade war with Canada and Mexico, America’s two largest trading partners. Following through on weeks of threats, he imposed 25% tariffs on imported goods from Mexico and Canada and a lower 10% tariff on imports of Canadian energy resources. Leaders in Canada and Mexico quickly struck back. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled an immediate 25% tariff on $20.5 billion worth of goods from the United States and promised to extend the tax to another $85 billion in products in late March. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced she also planned to unveil retaliatory tariffs this coming Sunday. Trump’s tariffs, which are widely expected to raise prices for U.S. consumers, are also poised to upend the American electricity market. All U.S. power grids except for Texas’s have some level of interconnection with grids in Canada, the largest energy supplier to the U.S. Historically, the U.S. has imported roughly twice as much power from Canada as it exports there, though that ratio has started to shift in recent years as climate change-driven drought has slowed the output of hydroelectricity in provinces like Quebec and Ontario. Some 98% of America’s natural gas imports, and 93% of its electricity imports—much of that from hydroelectric dams—come from Canada. America’s reliance on Canadian power is not evenly distributed. Northern energy grids are generally more reliant on Canada’s energy resources than southern grids due to their geographic proximity to Canada. States like New York and Minnesota have also entered into energy market agreements with Canadian provinces to receive their hydroelectricity in order to meet ambitious and rapidly approaching climate change goals. From Canada’s perspective, withholding or taxing energy exports to the U.S. is an effective bargaining chip—perhaps one of the country’s most powerful. “I see energy as Canada’s queen in this game of chess,” Andrew Furey, the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, said in January, when Trump had not yet followed through on his threat of Canadian tariffs. Furey’s province is one of five that supplies the U.S. with hydropower. On the evening before the tariffs took effect, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario, threatened to cut off energy exports to the United States full stop “with a smile” if Trump continues to target Canada with tariffs. On Tuesday, Ford announced a 25% export tax on power Ontario ships via transmission lines to 1.5 million homes in three states—Michigan, Minnesota, and New York—and said a full export ban was still on the table. All three states affected by Ontario’s export tax have climate targets on the books that rely in some measure on hydroelectric power. Minnesota, Michigan, and New York all aim to achieve clean electricity grids by 2040. Michigan is relying in large part on its own hydroelectric facilities, but Minnesota and New York are, to varying degrees, dependent on Canada to reach their targets. Experts told Grist it’s too soon to say what Trump’s tariffs, and Ford’s retaliatory measures, mean for these states’ climate goals—and their residents. “When you’re adding unnecessary friction into the market, of course you’re going to see price increases,” said Daniel A. Zarrilli, who served as chief climate policy adviser to former New York City mayor Bill de Blasio. “Tariffs are going to flow to the consumer, either directly or indirectly.” Zarrilli noted that it’s unclear what those price hikes might look like, and who—ratepayers, utilities, or some combination of actors—will shoulder them. The trade war may be felt especially acutely in New York, where developers are extending a transmission line from Quebec all the way to Queens in order to pump much-needed hydroelectric power into New York City. Once the Champlain Hudson Power Express is operational in 2026, New York City is guaranteed hydroelectric power during the summer months. It is not, however, guaranteed that reliable power during the winter. As the state has electrified its power grid, energy demand has been increasing during the cold weather months. New York power grid operators are preparing for demand during the winter to double over the next 30 years. But whether the state gets the hydropower it needs to provide reliable, renewable power during that peak demand now depends on how the trade war plays out. “The fallout could be actually catastrophic,” said Adrienne Esposito, executive director at the nonprofit Citizens Campaign for the Environment, which has helped push New York City to adopt a climate plan that mirrors the state’s. “It defies logic.” This article originally appeared in Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here. View the full article

Before Donald Trump took office, Memphis-based staff for the environmental advocacy group the Southern Environmental Law Center used a tool called EJScreen to measure air quality in South Memphis. The resource tracked air quality over time, allowing SELC staffers to quantify the cumulative impacts of air pollution in the neighborhood. But when the Trump administration began shutting down federal environmental websites and scrubbing the words climate change from government websites, EJScreen went dark. The disappearance of this resource is just one example of how the SELC’s work has been stymied in recent months, according to geospatial analyst Libbie Weimer. In just the first two weeks of his presidency, Trump’s administration removed dozens of web pages and datasets from the official sites of the Environmental Protection Agency, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Council on Environmental Quality, NASA, and others. At the SELC—which specializes in legal environmental advocacy in the South—many of those pages were part of the organization’s daily efforts to track regional concerns. To address this loss, Weimer and her team have created a guide that preserves archived environmental sites. The guide, published last Friday, includes three main sections: data archives, including suggested places to search for archived raw data, metadata, and scientific papers; a web clone section, which includes links to cloned tools like EJScreen and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Environmental Justice Index; and a web archive, which guides users through the Wayback Machine to find old pages. The whole guide is underpinned by a searchable list that allows users to quickly find specific lost sites. [Screenshot: FC] “Where I work, I serve a staff of over 100 people, plus our dozens of community-based partner organizations across six states,” Weimer says. “Overnight, those people stopped having access to the information they use on a daily basis to protect the air, water, land, wildlife, and people where they live. The guide is my attempt to reconnect folks to the information and data they need.” The guide runs off a website that Weimer maintains by cross-referencing other grassroots lost-site trackers with a list of the sites that are important to her staff. Critically, Weimar notes, she’s not the only person tracking the Trump administration’s culling of federal environmental web pages: The Data Rescue Tracker, Public Environmental Data Partners, and Climate Change Transparency Project have already embarked on a similar mission. “The purpose is simple: We believe that everyone should continue to have access to public information and data,” Weimer says. “These resources belong to us and were created for the public good.” View the full article

In the second season of Severance, there’s an unexpected character: a child supervisor named Miss Huang, who matter-of-factly explains she’s a child “because of when I was born.” Miss Huang’s deadpan response is more than just a clever quip. Like so much in the Apple TV+ series, which has broken viewership records for the streaming service, I think it reveals a devastating truth about the role of work in the 21st century. As a scholar of childhood studies, I also see historical echoes: What constitutes a “child”—and whether one gets to claim childhood at all—has always depended on when and where a person is born. An age of innocence? Americans are deeply invested in the idea of childhood as a time of innocence, with kids protected by doting adults from the harsh realities of work and making ends meet. However, French historian Philippe Ariès famously argued that childhood, as many understand it today, simply did not exist in the past. Using medieval art as one resource, Ariès pointed out that children were often portrayed as miniature adults, without special attributes, such as plump features or silly behaviors, that might mark them as fundamentally different from their older counterparts. Looking at baptism records, Ariès also discovered that many parents gave siblings the same name, and he explained this phenomenon by suggesting that devastatingly high child mortality rates prevented parents from investing the sort of love and affection in their children that’s now considered a core component of parenthood. While historians have debated many of Ariès’s specific claims, his central insight remains powerful: Our modern understanding of childhood as a distinct life stage characterized by play, protection, and freedom from adult responsibilities is a relatively recent historical development. Ariès argued that children didn’t emerge as a focus of unconditional love until the 17th century. Kids at work The belief that a child deserves a life free from the stress of the workplace came along still later. After all, if Miss Huang had been born in the 19th century, few people would question her presence in the workplace. The Industrial Revolution yielded accounts of children working 16-hour days and accorded no special protection because of their tender age and emotional vulnerability. Well into the 20th century, children younger than Miss Huang routinely worked in factories, mines, and other dangerous environments. To today’s viewers of Severance, the presence of a child supervisor in the sterile, oppressive workplace of the show’s fictional Lumon Industries feels jarring precisely because it violates the deeply held belief that children are occupants of a separate sphere, their innocence shielding them from the dog-eat-dog environs of competitive workplaces. Childhood under threat As a child worker, Miss Huang might seem like an uncanny ghost of a bygone era of childhood. But I think she’s closer to a prophet: Her role as child-boss warns viewers about what a work-obsessed future holds. Today, the ideal childhood—access to play, care, and a meaningful education—is increasingly under threat. As politicians and policymakers insist that children are the future, many of them refuse to support the intensive caregiving required to transform newborns into functioning adults. As philosopher Nancy Fraser has argued, capitalism relies on someone doing that work, while assigning it little to no monetized value. Child-rearing in the 21st century exists within a troubling paradox: Mothers provide unpaid childcare for their own children, while those who professionally care for others’ children—predominantly women of color and immigrants—receive meager compensation for this essential work. In other words, economic elites and the politicians they support say they want to cultivate future workers. But they don’t want to fund the messy, inefficient, time-consuming process that raising modern children requires. The show’s name comes from a “severance” procedure that workers undergo to separate their work memories from their personal ones. It offers a darkly comic version of work-life balance, with Lumon office workers able to completely disconnect their work selves from their personalities off the clock. Each is distinct: A character’s “innie” is the person they are at the job, and their “outtie” is who they are at home. I see this as an apt metaphor for how market capitalism seeks to separate the slow, patient work required to raise children and care for other loved ones from the cold-eyed pursuit of economic efficiency. Parents are expected to work as if they don’t have children and raise children as if they don’t work. The result is a system that makes traditional notions of childhood—with its unwieldy dependencies, its inefficient play, and its demands for attention and care—increasingly untenable. Capitalism’s ideal child Plummeting global fertility rates around the world speak to this crisis in childcare, with the U.S., Europe, South Korea, and China falling well below the birth rate required to replace the existing population. Even as Elon Musk frets about women choosing not to have children, he seems eager to restrict any government aid that would provide the time or resources that raising children requires. Accessible healthcare; affordable, healthy food; and stable housing are out of the reach of many. The current administration’s quest for what it calls “government efficiency” is poised to shred safety net programs that help millions of low-income children. In the midst of this dilemma, Miss Huang offers a surreal solution to the problems children pose in 2025. She is, in many ways, capitalism’s ideal child. Already a productive worker as a tween, she requires no parent’s time, no teacher’s patience, and no community’s resources. Like other workers and executives at Lumon, she seems to have shed the inefficient entanglements of family, love, and play. In this light, Miss Huang’s clever insistence that she is a child “because of when I was born” is darkly prophetic. In a world where every moment must be productive, where caregiving is systematically devalued, and where human relationships are subordinated to market logic, Miss Huang represents a future where childhood survives only as a date on a birth certificate. All the other attributes are economically impractical. Viewers don’t yet know if she’s severed. But at least from the perspective of the other workers in the show, Miss Huang works ceaselessly and, in doing so, proves that she is no child at all. Or rather, she is the only kind of child that America’s economic system allows to thrive. Anna Mae Duane is a professor of English at the University of Connecticut. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

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