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Hunton Andrews Kurth explores what makes an attractive shell entity. View the full article

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos announced Wednesday that the newspaper’s Opinions section would now essentially become a mouthpiece for his own beliefs on personal and economic freedoms. In response to this shift, opinion editor David Shipley decided to “step away” from his role. In an announcement shared to the Post staff and online via X, Bezos wrote that the section would now publish opinion pieces in support and defense of personal liberties and free markets. The billionaire Amazon founder added that the Post will no longer publish op-eds opposing those viewpoints, saying that newspapers in the internet era need not reflect diverse opinions. “There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views,” Bezos wrote. “Today, the internet does that job.” Reactions range from critical to baffled But journalists, including those on the Post’s staff, are already expressing criticism and bewilderment over this change. Bezos reportedly offered Shipley the opportunity to lead this reimagined Opinions section, and Shipley instead chose to leave his position. Jeff Stein, a reporter for the Post, called Bezos’s new direction a “massive encroachment” in an X post, adding that Bezos “makes clear dissenting views will not be published or tolerated.” He further threatened to quit if “Bezos tries interfering with the news side.” Ostensibly responding to the news, Philip Bump, a columnist at the paper, posted on Bluesky: “what the actual fuck.” NBC news editor Ben Goggins wrote that he thinks Bezos is using the Post as “a personal mouthpiece.” And Matthew Chapman, a reporter with progressive news site Raw Story, wrote that it appears “the paper must take sides in favor of policy that makes Jeff Bezos rich.” The Post has not yet responded to Fast Company’s request for comment. Heavy meddle Bezos promised editorial independence when he acquired the D.C.-based outlet in 2013. In a meeting with reporters at the time, he had said that he would defer to the editorial board’s positions, saying: “I don’t feel the need to have an opinion on every issue.” But recently, the billionaire has started to meddle with the paper’s output. During the 2024 election, Bezos reportedly made the decision to kill an already-written endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. He framed it as a decision to end all Washington Post presidential endorsements. The paper reportedly lost a quarter million subscribers after this announcement. And in January, cartoonist Ann Telnaes quit the Post after the paper rejected publishing her political cartoon that depicted Bezos, among other billionaires, worshiping at the feet of President Trump and holding a money bag. A correspondent for left-leaning magazine The Nation wrote online that Bezos could have made his 250-plus-word announcement about the Opinions section change much shorter: “The Opinions section will now be my opinions only, but written by others because I am a shit writer. Who wants to be my new sock puppet?” View the full article

While companies can use a variety of incentive programs and bonuses, businesses with staff longevity frequently rely on a more personal touch. View the full article

Read Part I of this story here. YUKON, Pa.—When government inspectors arrived at the hazardous waste landfill here in 2023, they found themselves in a barren and alien landscape carved from western Pennsylvania’s green countryside. As they documented operations at Max Environmental Technologies, they climbed fields of blackened waste and photographed pits, mud, debris, stained walls, and unlabeled storage containers. Their images offer a startling—and largely hidden—juxtaposition to the rolling hills, horse paddocks, and chicken coops around the 160-acre site. What the inspectors captured confirmed the worst fears of Yukon’s residents, who have blamed the landfill for serious health impacts and called on regulators to intervene for years. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found rusted open containers of waste, clogged pipes, and a containment building used to store untreated hazardous waste “in pretty significant disrepair.” They watched as rainwater mixed with that waste and flowed from the damaged building. Government inspectors conducted sampling at the Max Environmental landfill in October 2023. [Photo: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection] “There was a hole in the roof and it was raining during the inspection,” said Jeanna Henry, chief of the air, RCRA and toxics branch in the enforcement and compliance assurance division of the EPA’s Mid-Atlantic Region. RCRA is the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which regulates hazardous waste. The landfill accepts industrial waste like contaminated soils, acids, and dust, as well as waste generated by the oil and gas industry that contains heavy metals and radioactive materials. Pennsylvania is the country’s second-largest producer of natural gas, and much of the industry’s solid waste ends up at landfills such as this one. After its March 2023 inspection, EPA alleged Max Environmental had failed to “minimize the possibility of a release of hazardous waste” at its Yukon site; failed to submit 26 required discharge monitoring reports; failed to report all sampling results of the waste the company had processed, or “treated,” to make it non-hazardous; failed to provide adequate training for employees; and failed to properly operate and maintain the facility in general, including leaks, damage and deterioration. “The treated hazardous waste was not meeting the land disposal restriction requirements. It was actually still a hazardous waste, and samples that we took out of the landfill showed the same thing,” Henry said. “That’s very significant. So we have concerns that the treatment that Max is performing is not adequate.” Carl Spadaro, the environmental general manager at Max Environmental, said initial testing of its treated waste showed compliance “about 90% of the time,” which he called “consistent” with historical results in a statement to Inside Climate News. “Any treated waste that does not pass initial testing has always and continues to be re-treated until it meets required standards. This kind of practice is common in the hazardous waste management industry,” Spadaro said. During EPA’s March 2023 visit to the landfill, inspectors found that treated samples exceeded standards for cadmium, lead, and thallium, a tasteless, odorless metal that was once used as a rodenticide but was banned because of its toxicity. Thallium can come from materials released by the oil and gas industry and a few other sectors. Tall trees shroud most of the Yukon landfill’s operations from public view. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] In 2024, EPA issued administrative orders under RCRA and NPDES, the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, that require Max Environmental to fix problems inspectors found. The RCRA order temporarily halted disposal of hazardous waste on the site—that work has now restarted—and mandated that the company hire an approved third-party contractor to make repairs and test treated waste. In a November interview, Henry said the landfill was meeting its deadlines under the RCRA order but was not yet in compliance with its permit under the hazardous-waste law. Spadaro told Inside Climate News in late December that the company is “in compliance with our permits.” But on January 16, the EPA said that was not the case: “Max is not currently in compliance with either RCRA or NPDES permits related to the Yukon site.” “We take this very seriously. There are significant violations at this facility,” Henry said. “Our mission is to protect human health and the environment. We do want to ensure that the residents have access to clean drinking water and their land is not being contaminated.” Lauren Camarda, a spokesperson at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, said the state agency has “worked collaboratively” with the EPA on compliance and enforcement actions related to Max Environmental. “DEP will continue to support the EPA, which is the lead environmental agency on the consent orders, and will continue to inspect the facility to ensure MAX is in or comes into compliance with applicable laws and addresses the issues identified in the consent orders,” she said in a statement. Since those orders were issued in April and September 2024, residents have noticed a change in the landfill’s operations. “They have these great big spotlights that light up the facility. I haven’t noticed lately that they’ve been turned on,” said Debbie Franzetta, a longtime Yukon resident. She said she has observed less noise, dust, and light in the last year. This is not the first time the government has cited the company and its predecessor for wrongdoing. From the late 1980s onward, the DEP noted violations at the site on more than 110 occasions, but little seemed to change. Given this history, residents are skeptical of the government’s commitment. As the Trump administration lays off hundreds of EPA employees and plans to roll back environmental regulations, what will happen to the agency’s orders for the Yukon landfill is a question mark. “I think they should close it,” Franzetta said of the site. But she worries about what would come next. “One of my greatest fears is that if that happens, they’re just going to get out of Dodge, is my comical way of saying things. But it’s not any laughing matter, believe me.” A Continuous Hive of Industry A few minutes from the tangle of off-ramps where the Pennsylvania turnpike meets I-70 about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh, Yukon emerges as a cluster of homes and farms set on sloping Appalachian hills. Big yards are filled with tractors and trampolines. “This is really the heart, the fire hall back there,” said Stacey Magda, the managing community organizer at the Mountain Watershed Association, a local nonprofit that works to protect the Youghiogheny River watershed and has fought for stricter enforcement of the regulations governing the Max Environmental landfill. Magda sat in the passenger seat as her coworker, Colleen O’Neil, steered the MWA truck past the volunteer fire department’s nondescript building where they often hold meetings and through the area’s winding roads, the tree line bright with the copper foliage of October. Stacey Magda, managing community organizer at the MWA, rides along Sewickley Creek near the Yukon landfill. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] Magda describes herself as someone with “roots stretched deep in the Pennsylvania dirt.” She grew up in a small town in the central part of the state and came to love the rivers and trails of the Laurel Highlands, a region of southwestern Pennsylvania that includes this county, Westmoreland. The drive through the community took her past heaps of coal spoil, where she said kids liked to ride bikes, and the ancient-looking stone ruins of the old coal company. Mining gave the town its name; one of the mines the landfill was built on top of is called “Klondike.” Yukon once lay at the center of a “continuous hive of industry”; a local history from 1906 describes a valley of hamlets in Westmoreland County where “manufacturing of almost all kinds is carried out” and “from almost every hill, coal mines, shafts, tipples may be seen in every direction.” Hundreds of coke ovens, burning coal, filled the horizon with smoke. Yukon has a long history of coal mining. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] In the early 20th century, the valley was roiled by a mining strike that lasted for more than a year and involved 10,000 miners protesting for better wages and an eight-hour workday. The strikers, many of them Slovakian immigrants, were defeated. In the Catholic cemetery next to the landfill, you can see this heritage in generations of chiseled Eastern European names. Except for the distant rumble of truck traffic on the highways, the valley was quiet as O’Neil and Magda drove, the sky a sharp blue. But that extractive past isn’t truly gone; it’s buried in the layers of the Max Environmental landfill. From coal mining and steel manufacturing to oil and gas drilling, the story of the landfill mirrors Pennsylvania’s. “There’s a lot of pride in this town about being a town where industry and coal mining is a part of their heritage,” Magda said, “but having Max Environmental come to town has been a whole different kind of side of industry that’s been really brutal on the people that live here. And it’s been going on for so long, over 40 years now.” A home beside the cemetery has two banners hanging out front. One is crammed with red and black text. “No more hazardous waste in our backyards,” it says, listing the violations found at Max Environmental by the EPA and the DEP in recent inspections. “No more excuses! No more chances! Shut down Max and clean it up!” The second sign is more concise: “Trump 2024: F— Your Feelings.” Conservative yard signs are displayed on a small farm in Yukon, Pa. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] Some days the landfill’s outfall at Sewickley Creek, a tributary of the Youghiogheny River where treated wastewater is released, is barely dripping. But on other days, it foams and smells. “When the pipe is really full and running, it has a very yellow tinge and has a very strong effluent smell,” said Eric Harder, the Youghiogheny Riverkeeper at the MWA. “The most noticeable change is the amount of foam that is created where the discharge dumps into Sewickley Creek.” A sign opposing Max Environmental is displayed next to a Catholic cemetery by the landfill. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] To Harder, his observations at the outfall and the monthly testing done by the MWA show that Max Environmental is still not doing enough to meet the standards outlined in its permits. EPA’s testing also shows violations for four of Max Environmental’s 10 total outfalls at Yukon between 2021 and 2024. As of January 2025, Outfall 001, the one at Sewickley Creek, was listed as non-compliant or in violation for more than 15 kinds of water pollution, including oil and grease, zinc, cyanide, and cadmium. “If you have a polluter like Max who is handling some of the most dangerous solid waste you can create in the eastern part of the United States, they should really be on top of their wastewater treatment system,” Harder said. The danger to residents and the environment isn’t just from one exceedance, he added, but from “the cocktail of all those exceedances mixed into one outfall.” Harder said he has seen toy shovels and pails on the shoreline downstream of the pipe. “Personally, I wouldn’t let my kids play in the water there.” [Image: Paul Horn/Inside Climate News] John Stolz, a professor of environmental microbiology at Duquesne University, echoed Harder’s concerns. Stolz has accompanied Harder to Sewickley Creek to sample the water. “I was shocked at what the discharge was,” he said. Conductivity is used as an indicator of water quality, measuring how electricity moves through liquids, and changes can indicate increases in pollution. Stolz’s reading of 20,000 microsiemens was far beyond the EPA’s typical range for rivers in the U.S. of 50 to 1,500. It’s double the number the EPA gives for typical industrial water. After an October 2023 inspection, Spadaro emailed Sharon Svitek, program manager at DEP’s Bureau of Waste Management, to ask if the visit was prompted by “a request from the Mountain Watershed Association.” “Can you shed some light on why DEP sent a small army of people to conduct waste sampling at our Yukon facility today?” he asked in an email later released through a public records request. Spadaro called the inspection “unnecessarily disruptive to our operations” and said the company should have been given a “heads up.” Spadaro also asked why DEP had given the association a copy of the EPA’s July 2023 report about an earlier inspection of the landfill. “We don’t know why DEP would do that especially since it is an EPA document,” he wrote. A view of Sewickley Creek in Yukon, Pa. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] DEP’s Svitek explained that the Mountain Watershed Association had obtained the document through an informal file review and the department was required to comply because it is a public record. The MWA later published the document on its website. Svitek clarified that the inspection was requested by DEP’s central office and had been used as a training opportunity for new employees. When news of the EPA’s inspection and consent orders reached the Mountain Watershed Association and Yukon residents, there were mixed feelings. “Everyone was validated. It was this moment of, ‘My gosh, every single person’s instinct was right,’” Magda said. “And that was horrifying.” The Concerned Residents of the Yough The MWA is only the most recent local group to call for change at the landfill. “Prior to us, residents in Yukon have been working on the issue of Max Environmental for many years, and they’ve been saying the same thing over and over and over again,” Magda said. In the 1980s, residents worried about the health impacts of the landfill, then known as Mill Service and under different ownership, formed a grassroots citizens’ group called CRY, for Concerned Residents of the Yough. Diana Steck was one of the founding members. When she moved to Yukon in 1978, she didn’t know about the landfill’s existence, though she noticed an orange glow in the sky near her house on some nights, and sometimes the air outside smelled terrible. Steck said she began to get frequent respiratory infections, coughs, and hives. She developed joint pain and muscle weakness. Her infant son was stricken with nosebleeds, ear infections, and asthma. Her daughter had seizures. Her husband came down with a chronic rash. Steck’s childhood asthma returned. She would later be diagnosed with myasthenia gravis, an autoimmune disease. Many residents in Yukon have signs in their yards protesting the landfill and Max Environmental. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] It was only after reading a newspaper article about the landfill that she wondered if the health problems she and her family were experiencing could be connected to pollution. Steck was a nurse, and she set out to investigate the possible impacts of chemical exposure from the site. What she read convinced her that it was the cause of her family’s problems since coming to Yukon. Later, going door to door in her neighborhood with a petition about the landfill, Steck discovered she wasn’t alone. “One street, almost every home, somebody had cancer. There were so many kids that were sick with asthma, chronic rashes, the nosebleeds, frequent infections, a lot of neurological problems, Parkinson’s, seizures, things like that,” she said. “I just couldn’t believe it.” Steck and the members of CRY held demonstrations and press conferences, requested state records, traveled to the state capital, fundraised, and wrote letters to regulators and politicians. They sought help from environmental and public health experts outside Pennsylvania, including Lois Gibbs, the organizer who fought to raise awareness about pollution at her home in Love Canal, where her children’s elementary school had been built on top of a toxic landfill. None of it seemed to make a difference. “It was so frustrating,” Steck said. “I thought in my heart that if somebody elected to public office heard a mother telling them that this facility was making her kids sick, that they would shut it down, clean it up, and that would be the end of it. I was raised to think that the government’s there to protect you. Well, so much for that.” Steck said she was told by an EPA official in the 1980s that Yukon had been “deemed as expendable.” “She told me, ‘The waste has to go somewhere.’ Those were really hard words to hear,” she said. In 1990, members of CRY filed a lawsuit against the then-owner of the landfill alleging that residents “have suffered severe and substantial impairments to their health, property damage, damage to their livestock and pets.” According to CRY’s litigation records, housed at the University of Pittsburgh, the lawsuit was abandoned by the group in 1994 for financial reasons. Eventually, Steck said, her declining health forced her to move about 10 miles away from Yukon and resign from the group she had helped to found, but she continues to advocate for change at the landfill. “I was a 30-year-old mom when I was the most active, and I fought so hard and almost died. I never, ever thought that, here I am, at age 70, I’d still be in this fight.” She paused. “I just want to see justice done.” In 2022, at a hearing related to the company’s permit application to expand the landfill site, the testimony of resident Misty Springer transported Steck to when she was also a young mother trying to persuade the state government to acknowledge her family’s struggles. Springer said she had suffered six miscarriages after being exposed to runoff from the landfill. She had a question for the DEP: “How many people on your block have cancer? How many people in your town? Because I bet your town is bigger than mine, and I bet you my town has more people with cancer than yours.” The Yukon landfill sits behind a locked gate. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] Driving on Millbell Road, a narrow street that runs along the northern boundary of the landfill, Magda ticked off the cancers and illnesses of each home’s inhabitants. At least one of the houses sat empty. The MWA’s involvement has brought some residents a renewed sense of optimism. “I kind of gave up on the whole deal, until these kids from the Watershed got involved,” said Craig Zafaras, who has lived in Yukon for decades. “I commend them for their effort.” There is an easy affection between Magda, who is in her 30s, and the older residents she’s come to know through her work. She looks out for them, jokes with them, walks them to their cars. But rallying the town to speak out against Max Environmental has been difficult. Distrust in any information about the landfill is high. Residents are unconvinced of the government’s promises, and wary of hope. For so many of them, it has been a very long road. When Magda knocks on doors to tell residents about the next meeting or hearing, just as the women of CRY used to do, she has been laughed at by people who ask her, “What are you going to do about it?” Debbie Franzetta lives near the Max Environmental landfill in Yukon, Pa. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] “People have gotten older, and a lot of the community has died, and people just get discouraged,” said Debbie Franzetta, the longtime Yukon resident. “It’s kind of like banging your head against the wall. You knock on doors to try to get people to come to meetings. You spend the time to go and write letters, and nothing really comes of it.” Despite the obstacles in her path, Magda remains resolute: “I can tell you, we’re never going to give up.” ‘Our Battle Against the Dump’ Residents wonder what will happen to the site and its six decades’ worth of waste. In 1985, the state shut down disposal at the Yukon site because of leaks and failure to abide by new rules governing waste, but the next year, Pennsylvania’s environmental protection agency approved a permit for expansion. Opened in 1988 and covering 16.5 acres, the Yukon site’s Landfill 6 is the last active impoundment and is nearing capacity. In 2024, the company estimated the impoundment would be filled by 2026. Max Environmental had planned a new expansion that would add space for more than 1 million tons of waste, but in 2023 it withdrew the permit application following resistance from residents and environmental groups, saying it would resubmit the application “at a later date.” Spadaro said the company withdrew because it did not have enough time to respond to comments from state regulators. “DEP has a very restrictive review timeline for new commercial hazardous waste treatment and disposal permits,” he said. Spadaro said Max Environmental has “not scheduled any other plans for expansion at this time.” “We are focused on addressing all items in EPA’s consent orders,” he said. “EPA has no plans of going anywhere,” said Henry, the official at the EPA. “We’re going to be focused on this facility for quite some time.” Photographs taken by government inspectors in October 2023 reveal what the Yukon landfill looks like behind the fenceline. [Photo: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection] She gave that interview in the waning months of the Biden administration, and it’s unclear how the EPA will approach regulating Max Environmental and sites like it under the new Trump administration. EPA funding and staff have been early targets of its efforts to dismantle federal agencies, and 388 employees were cut in mid-February amid a push for large-scale layoffs and resignations. All of that could make it more difficult for the EPA to keep its focus on Max Environmental. In a 1998 scholarly article, Dan Bolef, an academic and activist who was involved with CRY, described the “torments” of Melbry and Tony Bolk, whose farm lay across the road from the landfill. The Bolks saw “their health deteriorate, their herd of cows strangely sicken and die, their rural world of peace and security shattered by the noxious effects of the dump,” he wrote. For Bolef, who died in 2011, Yukon’s experience had become a “horror story,” an endless montage of people who tried to fight back but got sick, moved away or gave up, defeated by the intractable landfill. “What, then, is one to do? How are we to react when our community suffers?” he asked. “There is nothing left for us to do but continue the struggle.” A view from the kitchen of a home near the Max Environmental landfill in Yukon, Pa. [Photo: Scott Goldsmith/Inside Climate News] By 1998, the site had been open for more than 30 years. Bolef echoed a sentiment that would sound familiar to Yukon’s residents today, 27 years later. Despite the impression locals had been given that the landfill would soon run out of space, he wrote, it increased its operations, even as the number of residents dwindled around it. “In our battle against the dump,” he wrote, “the dump usually wins.” This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News. It is republished with permission. Sign up for their newsletter here. View the full article

US president’s comments come as countries prepare to sign deal on critical mineralsView the full article

The Academy Awards ain't everything. Sometimes the movies that win truly represent the best films of their years; sometimes they reflect a trend or a zeitgeist that winds up looking a little backward after some time has passed; sometimes they're just completely inexplicable. But let's focus on the times the Academy has awarded movies that are actually pretty good, or that at least reflect their eras enough to be interesting. Here are 25 of the best award winners currently streaming on Netflix (keeping in mind that some of the streamer's buzziest awards contenders—think The Irishman and Maestro—got lots of nominations but no wins). Barbie (2023) The pink-drunk optimism of the summer of Barbenheimer feels impossibly distant at this dark point in the. winter of 2025, so why not recapture a little of that magic by revisiting the movie that made feminism palatable to the masses for a little while (at least until it was rudely shoved back under the bed in late 2024). I shouldn't need to sell you on it: A star-making turn from Margot Robbie as Barbie, a delightfully egoless supporting turn from Ryan Gosling as her Ken, and a message of female empowerment that seemed a little trite until I realized that a lot of people apparently still haven't absorbed it. Oscar for: Best Original Song The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar (2023) Audiences and critics had mixed reactions to Wes Anderson's other 2023 release, the feature-length Asteroid City, but there was little division over this short film, an adaptation of the Roald Dahl story, and it finally earned Anderson his first Oscar—not that he was there to collect it. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as the pseudonymous Henry Sugar, a man who uses his inherited fortune to fund his gambling habit. When he learns of a secret means of winning by seeing through the eyes of others, he comes to perceive more than he, perhaps, bargained for. It's a cute and sweet, and among one of Anderson's most visually inventive works (which saying quite a bit). And, at 40 minutes (39, actually), it never has time to wear out its welcome. Ralph Fiennes, Dev Patel, Ben Kingsley, and Richard Ayoade also star. Oscar for: Best Live Action Short Film Roma (2018) Stepping back from the cerebral science-fiction of Children of Men and Gravity, Alfonso Cuarón won his second Best Director Oscar for this semi-autobiographical drama inspired by his own childhood in Mexico City of the 1970s, in the middle of Mexico's long, violent Dirty War. Yalitza Aparicio plays Cleo Gutiérrez, a Mixtec live-in maid for an upper-middle-class couple with four children whose marriage is slowly disintegrating. When husband Antonio leaves with his mistress, wife Sophia and the pregnant Cleo bond over their unexpected situations. Cuarón is wonderfully adept at creating a sense of time and place, and the performances are indelible. Roma won Best Foreign Language Film, but was also nominated for Best Picture, and it's a far stronger work than the year's actual winner, Green Book. Oscars for: Best Director (Alfonso Cuarón), Best Foreign Language Film (Mexico), Best Cinematography (Alfonso Cuarón) Marriage Story (2020) Nominated for six Oscars, Noah Baumbach's sensitive, devastating story of a crumbling marriage feels like a modern American update of Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage, and earns the right to be mentioned in the same company. As warring couple Nicole and Charlie Barber, Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver give emotionally raw performances, but the real story is Laura Dern as Nicole's lawyer Nora Fanshaw; she's one of our finest actresses, with decades of excellent work, and it was high time she won her first Oscar. Driver and Johansson were also nominated, as was Baumbach for his original screenplay Oscar for: Best Supporting Actress (Laura Dern) Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) More Oscar love for Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth, The Shape of Water). Ho hum. Yet, as in the past, it's well-deserved. Set in Fascist Italy between the World Wars, this longtime passion project for the director boasts gorgeous stop-motion animation. More importantly, it embraces the darkness inherent in Carlo Collodi's original fantasy novel—del Toro recognizing that a children's story need be neither cloying nor condescending, and that kids recognize, as well as anyone, that sometimes the only way to the light is through the dark. The talented, but not distracting voice cast includes Ewan McGregor, Christoph Waltz, Tilda Swinton, and Cate Blanchett. Oscar for: Best Animated Feature Film All Quiet on the Western Front (2022) A second adaptation of the 1929 anti-war novel from Erich Maria Remarque, this version didn't take home Best Picture nor Best Director as the original 1930 version did, but still, All Quiet wound up being the second-most awarded film on Oscar night 2023, behind Best Picture winner Everything Everywhere All at Once. If it doesn't have quite the impact of the earlier adaptation, it's still a powerful film about the futility of war, set amid the trenches of World War I. Oscars for: Best International Feature (Germany), Best Original Score (Volker Bertelmann), Best Production Design (Christian M. Goldbeck and Ernestine Hipper), Best Cinematography (James Friend) My Octopus Teacher (2020) Filmmaker Craig Foster spent a year forming a relationship with a wild common octopus in a South African kelp forest, transferring some of the lessons learned to his relationship with his own son. If Foster could form a bond with such an alien intelligence in its own natural (and naturally dangerous) environment, surely there's hope for humanity? Maybe? Oscar for: Best Documentary Feature Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020) One sweaty, blues-filled afternoon in the Chicago of 1927, the great Ma Rainey (Viola Davis) shows up at the studio to make a new album. She's been contracted by white promoters, and she's fully aware that their deference to her is entirely dependent on her bankability as a singer. Over the course of the session, tensions rise and conflicts erupt, particularly between Ma Rainey and Chadwick Boseman's Levee Green. Davis earned a Best Actress nomination, and is so good that she's practically channeling the take-no-shit blues legend, while Chadwick Boseman was seen as a near-lock for a posthumous Best Actor award. Unfortunately, the Academy's notorious stinginess when it comes to Black acting seems to have won out—there's been exactly one Black Best Actress winner in 95 years of awards (Halle Berry), and only five Black acting winners overall. Oscars for: Best Costume Design (Ann Roth), Best Makeup and Hairstyling (Sergio López-Rivera, Mia Neal and Jamika Wilson) Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) While the long-awaited prequel/followup Furiosa undeservedly bombed at the box office and with Oscar voters, it in no way tarnishes the reputation of this 2015 action masterpiece. In retrospect, director George Miller's magnum opus would have been a far better Best Picture pick than the actual winner (when is the last time anyone thought about, let alone watched, The Revenant?), and it's always a good time to revisit the road rage mayhem alongside Max, Immortan Joe, the War Boys, and, of course, the Doof Warrior himself. Oscars for: Costume Design (Jenny Beavan), Film Editing (Margaret Sixel), Makeup and Hairstyling (Lesley Vanderwalt, Elka Wardega, and Damian Martin), Production Design (Colin Gibson, Lisa Thompson), Sound Editing (Mark Mangini and David White), Sound Mixing (Chris Jenkins, Gregg Rudloff, and Ben Osmo) RRR (2022) It's wild that RRR wasn't nominated in more categories, given its epic scope, sharp commentary, and crowd-pleasing style—but taking home India's first Original Song Oscar was no small feat either, especially given that the competition included numbers from the likes of Rihanna and Lady Gaga. The movie itself is a blockbuster done right, with brilliantly choreographed action sequences and rousing musical numbers buttressing a strong "f*ck colonialism" message. Hopefully Hollywood was taking notes. Oscars for: Best Original Song ("Naatu Naatu") Erin Brockovich (2000) Julia Roberts finally took home an Academy Award for her irresistible turn as the title character, a feisty small town paralegal who manages to bring a massive corporation to its knees with a lawsuit over toxic pollution. Given the rapid dissolution of government agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency and an increasingly corporate-friendly judiciary, it kinda plays like a beautiful fairytale these days, thanks in no small part to lively direction from Steven Soderbergh (who won the Oscar the same year for directing a different movie altogether—and while Traffic is a good too, spending time with Erin Brockovich is a lot more fun.) Oscars for: Best Actress (Julia Roberts) The Power of the Dog (2021) Like Brokeback Mountain, much of the press around Jane Campion's film had to do with its queer themes (gay cowboys? what's next!?), but its power lies in its deliberate, unhurried direction from Campion (a rarity these days), and also in its beautiful cinematography. Benedict Cumberbatch stars as one of two very different brothers, whose tenuous peace is shattered by the arrival of newcomers at their Montana ranch circa 1925. Oscar for: Best Director (Jane Campion) Period. End of Sentence. (2018) The short (around 25 minutes) film follows a group of women in the Indian village of Kathikera, about 50 miles from Delhi, who work to overcome centuries of shame associated with menstruation. Learning that sanitary pads can be made with local materials, local women start a factory to manufacture and sell their own pads, starting a quiet but needed revolution in menstrual health. Oscar for: Best Documentary Short Subject The Last Days (1998) In the last year of World War II and the Holocaust, the Nazis in occupied Hungary accelerated their program of deportation and extermination, even at the cost of war strategy. This documentary follows five survivors—and naturalized American citizens—traveling back to the camps they narrowly escaped. Oscar for: Best Documentary Feature The White Helmets (2016) It's easy to lose sight of documentaries dealing with war and crisis amid the many of that style that have received Oscar nominations and wins, but there are standouts even in that very particular crowd. The White Helmets documents the story of the Syrian Civil Defense, an all-volunteer group of Syrians who perform search and rescue operations in response to bombings. The real draw of this (relatively) short film is in the interludes with volunteers discussing their everyday lives, before and during the war; those moments make clear the cost of the ongoing conflict. Though seven years old, the Syrian Civil War continues, tragically, as does the work of the SCD. Oscar for: Best Documentary (Short Subject) American Factory (2019) The first film from Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company, Higher Ground Productions, goes and wins an Oscar. The film looks at an abandoned GM plant in Ohio purchased by a Chinese billionaire for his company, glass manufacturer Fuyao. The plant came to employ 2,000 American workers, but the complicated dynamic between the Chinese leadership and working-class American employers quickly points to potentially insurmountable problems. The movie takes a fly-on-the-wall approach, without any narrative beyond what we’re seeing and hearing inside the factory itself; there’s no overriding sense that there are heroes or villains here—just a lot of people trying to figure it all out. Oscar for: Best Documentary Feature Apollo 13 (1995) Ron Howard's all-star astronaut docudrama is not only a better film than the one that won Best Picture in its year (Braveheart), it's also a better picture than the one the director took home the Oscar for (A Beautiful Mind). Simultaneously heart-stopping and subdued, the true story of the aborted moon mission generates tension without going overboard on the histrionics. Oscars for: Best Film Editing (Mike Hill and Daniel Hanley), Best Sound (Rick Dior, Steve Pederson, Scott Millan and David MacMillan) The Sting (1973) Very much the kind of movie they don't make anymore, and not merely because it's a depression-era period piece. George Roy Hill, who had directed Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid just a few years earlier, reunited Paul Newman and Robert Redford in a similarly good-natured caper film. The two play a couple of con men with an elaborate scheme to get revenge on the crime boss who murdered their friend. The period details are as meticulously crafted as the movie's central scheme, and it's ultimately an all-time great crowd-pleaser. Oscars for: Best Picture, Best Director (George Roy Hill), Best Original Screenplay (David S. Ward), Best Art Direction (Henry Bumstead and James W. Payne), Best Costume Design (Edith Head), Best Film Editing (William Reynolds) Best Scoring (Marvin Hamlisch) Dallas Buyers Club (2013) While it's not exactly the best example of trans rep—casting a cis actor as a transwoman, and Jared Leto, no less—a more or less well-intentioned queer story with big name stars, including Matthew McConaughey in an Oscar-winning role, feels like...something anyway, given trans folks have become a major target for hate in the decade since. Set amid the AIDS crisis, this story of a struggling community fighting to survive might even remind you that better times are possible, in theory. Oscars for: Best Actor (Matthew McConaughey), Best Supporting Actor (Jared Leto) Godzilla Minus One (2023) Produced on a shoestring budget (at least by blockbuster terms), the thirty-third installment in the venerable Japanese sci-fi franchise (not counting the Hollywood entries) is both a supremely entertaining kaiju romp and a touching story about the impact of war on those "lucky" enough to survive it. And extra kudos for characterizing Godzilla as basically a giant, angry cat. Oscar for: Best Visual Effects (Takashi Yamazaki, Kiyoko Shibuya, Masaki Takahashi, and Tatsuji Nojima) Parasite (2019) The 2020 Oscars were handed out just weeks before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, making the Best Picture win for Parasite—South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's darkly comic story of class warfare and the cruel hand of fate—feel like some kind of demarcation between "Then" (a time when a foreign film speaking truth to power could come out on top in Hollywood) and "Now." Oscars for: Best Picture, Best Director (Bong Joon-ho), Best Original Screenplay (Bong Joon-ho), Best International Film Whiplash (2014) Miles Teller plays Andrew Neiman, an ambitious and talented jazz musician in his first year at the prestigious Shaffer Conservatory in New York City. He’s come to the school with big dreams, and quickly gets noticed by the conductor of the conservatory’s studio band, Terence Fletcher (a terrifying J. K. Simmons). Fletcher is obsessive and cruel, which only feeds Neiman’s overwhelming desire to succeed. Oscars for: Best Supporting Actor (J. K. Simmons), Best Film Editing (Tom Cross), Best Sound Mixing (Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins, and Thomas Curley) Schindler's List (1993) Steven Spielberg shed his reputation as a maker of popcorn entertainments with this sobering true-life story of a German factory owner (Liam Neeson) who risked his own safety to protect Jewish workers in his employ during the darkest days of the Holocaust. It's not exactly an "entertaining" choice, but then again, it's always good to have something to point to when you need a reminder that, yes, fascism is bad. And Nazis? No good. Oscars for: Best Picture, Best Director (Steven Spielberg), Best Adapted Screenplay (Steve Zaillian), Best Cinematography (Janusz Kaminski), Best Art Direction (Allan Starski, Ewa Braun), Best Film Editing (Michael Kahn), Best Original Score (John Williams) Mank (2020) David Fincher's film about screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman) and the development of Citizen Kane is impressively dramatic, and even occasionally harrowing. It also did a bit better at Oscar time than the movie whose making it dramatizes: Kane received nine nominations and one win, while Mank picked up 10 nominations and won two of them. Oscars for: Best Cinematography (Erik Messerschmidt), Best Production Design (Donald Graham Burt and Jan Pascale) If Anything Happens I Love You (2020) The very short (under 15 minutes) film, with a fairly simple animation style, manages to generate more emotion than many films many times its length. The movie follows two parents, grieving the death of their daughter in a school shooting, as they find themselves growing apart in the aftermath. Oscar for: Best Animated Short Film View the full article

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager. A reader writes: Recently, my company hired someone who was extremely racist. He worked with me on his first day, where he dropped an awful racial slur six times. I was shocked so did a little social media sleuthing and found his horrifying Twitter page full of xenophobic and racist tweets and posts. We fired him. However, after speaking to a friend who is in HR, she said we couldn’t simply fire him for being racist. Now, obviously our lawyer and HR rep disagreed with that because he was fired. But what say you? Are racist posts and hate speech enough to fire someone? She seems to think we should have put him on an improvement plan first. I think at that point it’s too late and having a racist employee puts our employees of color at risk unnecessarily. I am proud of the way the company handled it, but she thinks we opened ourselves up to legal liability. She said his racism was apart of his “political opinion” and you can’t fire someone over their political opinion. But “racist” is hardly a political opinion, it’s hate speech. So, I won’t ask if we were “wrong” to fire him, but could we have potentially opened ourselves up to legal issues by firing him based solely on racist tweets and his racist comments said to me but directed at other people? I answer this question over at Inc. today, where I’m revisiting letters that have been buried in the archives here from years ago (and sometimes updating/expanding my answers to them). You can read it here. View the full article

Social media, be it Twitter, Facebook or YouTube, have become the most popular platforms by hundreds of millions of users across the world. This has opened up opportunities for businesses to connect with customers, allowing them to maximize the income of their business. In addition, you can use social media sites to also make some money on the side. There are also opportunities to make money through social media without the need to sell anything. In this article, we show you things that can help you make money on social media. Why Small Businesses Should Use Social Media to Increase Income As part of a marketing strategy, social media can help your small business interact with customers. With social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest you can build brand awareness, increase your customer base, increase sales, and connect with current and potential customers. The following points further delve into the power of social media: You expand your reach through social media: with an estimated 4.2 billion social media users, companies are capitalizing on it. You can use Instagram or Pinterest to showcase your products or even advertise your products and services. More and more people are buying on social media: By adding ‘buy’ buttons on their social platforms to generate more sales. This is because customers can buy directly without ever leaving the social media platform they are on. Help create real connections with your brand: Through social media, you can create real human connections with your brand. With it, you can introduce your customers to your brand story as well as showcase the benefits of your products and services. Drive traffic to your website/online store: Through social media posts and ads, you can drive traffic to your website or your online store. By sharing some great content from your website to your social channels you can encourage click-throughs. Generate leads: Through social media, you can help increase lead generation by increasing interest among potential customers. Here’s a quick word from Learn from Shopify that helps you: ‘Learn How to Make Money on Instagram (Whether You Have 1K or 100K Followers).’ The Best Ways to Make Money on Social Media Before you start exploring the details of the list, here is a handy table you can reference that summarizies the most effective methods for earning money on various social media platforms. #Way to Make Money on Social MediaDescription 1Promote Your Small Business Products and ServicesUse your social media accounts to interact with your audience, promote your brand, and sell your products and services. 2Sell Digital ProductsLeverage your social media channels to sell digital products such as templates, software, eBooks, and more. 3Join Networks and Promote Affiliate ProductsExpand your reach by joining affiliate network programs and earning commission for new leads or sales from your posts. 4Sell Your Music on SoundcloudUse your creative skills to sell your original music on Soundcloud and earn from plays and audience insights. 5Collaborate with BrandsUse your unique niche and large following to collaborate with brands and influence their target audience. 6Sell Coaching ServicesOffer your unique skills and knowledge as coaching services to those interested in self-development or learning new skills. 7YouTube Partner ProgramUnlock your YouTube channel's earning potential by joining the YouTube Partner Program and earning from ads on your content. 8Sell Rights to Your ImagesLeverage your social media account to sell rights to your digital artwork or photographs. 9Join Influencer NetworksUse your influence to market products for brands in an authentic way and earn income from sponsored posts and paid social sharing opportunities. 10Run a Facebook GroupCreate and manage a Facebook group to reach your target audience and build a community around common interests or goals. 11Manage a Social Media Account for Another BusinessUse your social media management skills to help other businesses in their social media outreach and earn an income from it. 12Charge for Sponsored PostsCreate sponsored content for companies and brands in need of social proof to market their goods and services. 13Advertise as a Blog Content WriterUse social media advertising to offer your services as a blog content writer. 14Become an InfluencerBuild a reputation for your knowledge and expertise on a specific topic, become an influencer, and earn from promoting products for brands. There is a lot of money to be made through employing social media business ideas. People are making a living without selling a single product. Those who have a large social following can use their profiles to get paid by brands, sell their knowledge, offer consultations, and more. Below are some ways where you can learn how to make money on social media. Promote your Small Business Products and Services on Social Media Social media accounts can help you interact with others by sharing and creating content through communities. With it, you can promote your brand and business, tell customers about your goods and services, find out what customers think of your business, attract new customers, and build stronger relationships with existing customers. Promoting your business through social media platforms is cost-effective. You can use it to promote and drive traffic to your online store and also supplement sales to your brick and mortar sales. Sell Digital Products Using Your Social Media Channels Besides promoting your business social media can be used to sell digital products as well. A nifty way to make money is through selling digital products simply through social media. Unlike websites, social media platforms are designed to help you sell digital products with little fanfare within just a few minutes. Plus, if the product you sell is digital you don’t have to worry about shipping or even inventory. With digital products such as templates, software, eBooks, photography, music and so you can sell them an unlimited number of times with little effort. Join Networks and Promote Affiliate Products You can also expand your reach to potential customers by joining networks and making money through affiliate marketing. Through affiliate marketing, you can earn money by just adding tracked affiliate links to the text of your social media content. By joining affiliate network programs, you stand to get paid in commissions for new leads or sales you bring when visitors click on the links. Sell Your Music on Soundcloud If you are creatively inclined you can sell your music through SoundCloud. Here you can sell your original music through SoundCloud if you sign up on the platform’s SoundCloud Pro or Pro Unlimited subscriptions. You get unlimited upload time, get paid for your plays, access to advanced audience insights, and more. Collaborate with Brands Social proof is the new word of mouth, more and more consumers today trust influencers over paid advertisements. Thanks to their huge following, bloggers today can talk directly to a company’s target audience. From posting product reviews to hosting video tutorials, bloggers have the power to influence large segments of consumers. If you have a unique niche, you can showcase your expertise to make your blog stand out while also collaborating with brands that might be tied to your niche in the process. Brands will benefit as their customers yearn for honest messages that speak to them from a user’s perspective. Earn Money Through Selling Coaching Services If you have a unique set of skills or are passionate about something, perhaps you can offer coaching services. Many people are looking for self-development or learning new skills. You can tap into this demand if you have a specific niche that is of value to other people. Make Money with the YouTube Partner Program Through blogging, you can unlock your YouTube channel’s earning potential as well. By joining the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) you not only get a strong platform but also access YouTube’s resources and features which includes getting access to ads being served on your content. However, you will need to keep in mind that you will need to get lots of views and clicks on YouTube to make meaningful revenues from your content. Sell Rights to the Images on Your Social Media Accounts If you have some great pictures or digital artwork of yours that people are interested in purchasing then you can use social media account to connect with people interested in purchasing your creations. Join Influencer Networks There are many ways to make money on social media. Sponsored posts are just one way that bloggers can earn an income from their blogs. Brands today are looking for influencers to market their products to their followers in an authentic way. Here, influencer networks are a great way to start with sponsored posts and paid social sharing opportunities. If you are early on in your blogging experience, it might be easier for you to start with using influencer marketing, which are third-party agencies that will do the hard work for you. These networks serve as intermediaries, connecting you with brands without requiring direct contact. This can create opportunities for you and provide valuable experience with sponsored posts, which you can showcase on your blogger resume. Influencers or bloggers can register to collaborate with a network, and brands associated with that network can access analytics for campaigns conducted within that group of influencers. Some networks might demand exclusive collaboration. Some examples of influencer networks include: izea CreatorIQ Upfluence AspireIQ Linqia Run a Facebook Group Facebook offers you a huge reach complements to its over 2 billion active monthly users. By creating Facebook groups of your own can be an inexpensive and effective way to reach your target audience. It helps you build a community around common interests or goals and drive can even help drive traffic to your blog or website. Manage a Social Media Account for Another Business In today’s marketplace, no business can ignore the importance of social media in achieving success. If you are a successful blogger who creates content that attracts a large audience, you can leverage this to assist other businesses with their social media outreach. By utilizing your skills, you can earn a decent income on the side by providing social media management services, with potential earnings ranging from $14 to $35 per hour. Charge for Sponsored Posts Companies and brands are ever more looking for social proof to market their goods and services. You can help them achieve these by producing sponsored content. This could be by way of product reviews, promotions, or backlinks to a sponsor’s website, but always remember to let your audience know that you are offering paid content. In terms of payment, several factors can play out, including your reach, your niche, and whether your posts include images, videos, and audio. Advertise as a Blog Content Writer You can also offer your services as a blogger by opting for social media advertising as well. For example, Google and Facebook ads offer an inexpensive option to get your targeted advertisement for your marketing needs as a blogger. Become an Influencer You can also try your hand as an influencer. An influencer is someone who has the skill set to influence people’s purchasing decisions through his or her authority, knowledge, or relationship with his or her audience. social media Influencers are people who have built a reputation for their knowledge and expertise on a specific topic and offer regular posts. Brands are more than willing to pay social media influencers as they help create trends and encourage their followers to buy products they promote. Top Tips to Get More Social Media Followers and Drive Sales It can be difficult to gather a huge following. As a blogger, you can only monetize your content when you have a huge following. When done right, you can easily generate a good following and build a reputation of a captivated audience. Below are some tips to get more social media followers and drive sales. Choose a Specific Niche and Target Audience Your blog’s success depends on you finding your passion and creating compelling content. Not only that your niche should not have too much competition as your blog will need to compete against highly rated sites. You should also avoid focusing on a smaller niche with little or no demand, as it will impact your potential following. Look to strike a balance between an overdone niche and one with little room for growth. Choose a subject that you are knowledgeable about and one that people can take insights from. Here you will also need to get an accurate picture of your target audience are whether in terms of age, level of knowledge of the subject matter, and other factors to make an impact. Focus on a Single Social Media Platform To start, you will need to focus your content on a single social media channel or risk not capturing the right amount of followers to make your blog worth looking into. You will need to identify your target readers and then identify the social networks that they prefer. If your blog post is geared more towards professionals and businesses, you might want to consider using LinkedIn. If your target followers are more visual you may sway towards Instagram or Pinterest. Increase Engagement Rates Part of increasing your fan base is to get more engaged followers. Make sure that your content is important enough or interesting enough that people share, link to, like, and even comment on it. Make sure to reply to comments as well as collaborate with other content creators Build Trust Building trust takes time. For readers, it is the little things that get them to trust you. It falls on your track record of creating useful content that serves them, and the consistency and reliability of your content. Offer Free Products Nothing attracts people more than free stuff. Offer up promotional coupons, free templates, how-to guides, and other useful stuff to integrate yourself with your audience. Create Content Regularly to Build a Social Media Presence You must consistently create content that your audience finds valuable. Establish a content production calendar and ensure that you produce content regularly and reliably. Use the Right Hashtags Hashtags are important as it helps direct more followers to your blog. Posts with hashtags have higher rates of engagement. Makes sure that the hashtags are funny, interesting, easily recalled, and in good taste. Provide Valuable Content Never forget that readers come to you because you offer them something that they need. So create content that is of value to your reader and an easy way to do this is to think from your readers’ perspective. Use Analytics to Understand Your Audience Use social media analytics to understand your audience. Through it, you get insights on who your followers are to tweak your content to align with their needs. Also, use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) technics to maximize your audience and income with ad sales. Have a Social Media Strategy You will need a social media strategy to help drive more traffic to your own website or blog. If done right a huge bulk of your readers can come from social media networks as such formulate a social media strategy that helps boosts your traffic. What social media platforms can you make money on? Twitter: You can earn money by ghostwriting tweets for individuals or brands looking to keep their accounts active, engaging in affiliate marketing by promoting products for a commission, selling your own products directly to your followers, or acting as an influencer where brands compensate you for promoting their products or services. Instagram: On this platform, you can learn how to make money on social media by collaborating with brands as an influencer, promoting affiliate links in your posts or bio to earn a percentage of the sales generated, or generating income from ads shown on your IGTV videos—this option is available to users with a significant follower count. Pinterest: On Pinterest, you can make money by promoting a brand’s pins to your followers, promoting affiliate products within the platform where you’ll earn a commission on any sales, or selling your own products directly to users who discover your pins. Facebook: You can make money on Facebook by promoting other brands through sponsored posts or your own Facebook page, engaging in affiliate marketing where you get a percentage of any sales made through your affiliate links, or selling your own products directly to your followers through a Facebook shop. LinkedIn: On LinkedIn, you can earn money by running advertisements for brands as part of their marketing strategies, incorporating affiliate links into your posts or articles, and directly selling your own products or services to fellow professionals within your network. YouTube: You can monetize this platform by posting video content and earning ad revenue once you reach a certain number of subscribers and watch hours, engaging in affiliate marketing by promoting products in your videos for a commission, making sponsored posts where brands pay you to feature their products, or collaborating with brands on video content. TikTok: On TikTok, you can make money through brand partnerships, live stream gifts, the TikTok Creator Fund, affiliate marketing, or selling your own products or services. TikTok also provides an opportunity for influencers to get paid for sponsored posts. Snapchat: Snapchat offers opportunities for monetization through Snapchat’s partner program, where creators can earn a share of the revenue from ads shown in their stories. Influencers can also make money by partnering with brands for sponsored posts. Reddit: While it may not be as conventional as other platforms, you can still learn how to make money on social media through Reddit by promoting a brand, engaging in affiliate marketing, or directing traffic to your own website or product. Keep in mind that Reddit has stringent rules regarding self-promotion, so it’s crucial to provide valuable content and adhere to community guidelines. Twitch: On Twitch, users can earn money by becoming a Twitch Partner or Affiliate, which allows them to earn a share of the revenue from ads shown on their streams. Users can also receive direct donations from their viewers, get a cut from the sale of games promoted on their page, or earn money from sponsored streams. How many followers do you need on social media to make money? To start monetizing from your social media, you will need to have a huge following. For example, with Instagram, you need a minimum of 5,000 Instagram followers and 308 sponsored posts a year to generate $100,000. Youtubers will need at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year to start earning. With Facebook, you will need to have at least 10,000 followers and 30,000 +1 minute views. Image: Depositphotos This article, "How to Make Money on Social Media: Tips for Small Businesses" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Social media, be it Twitter, Facebook or YouTube, have become the most popular platforms by hundreds of millions of users across the world. This has opened up opportunities for businesses to connect with customers, allowing them to maximize the income of their business. In addition, you can use social media sites to also make some money on the side. There are also opportunities to make money through social media without the need to sell anything. In this article, we show you things that can help you make money on social media. Why Small Businesses Should Use Social Media to Increase Income As part of a marketing strategy, social media can help your small business interact with customers. With social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest you can build brand awareness, increase your customer base, increase sales, and connect with current and potential customers. The following points further delve into the power of social media: You expand your reach through social media: with an estimated 4.2 billion social media users, companies are capitalizing on it. You can use Instagram or Pinterest to showcase your products or even advertise your products and services. More and more people are buying on social media: By adding ‘buy’ buttons on their social platforms to generate more sales. This is because customers can buy directly without ever leaving the social media platform they are on. Help create real connections with your brand: Through social media, you can create real human connections with your brand. With it, you can introduce your customers to your brand story as well as showcase the benefits of your products and services. Drive traffic to your website/online store: Through social media posts and ads, you can drive traffic to your website or your online store. By sharing some great content from your website to your social channels you can encourage click-throughs. Generate leads: Through social media, you can help increase lead generation by increasing interest among potential customers. Here’s a quick word from Learn from Shopify that helps you: ‘Learn How to Make Money on Instagram (Whether You Have 1K or 100K Followers).’ The Best Ways to Make Money on Social Media Before you start exploring the details of the list, here is a handy table you can reference that summarizies the most effective methods for earning money on various social media platforms. #Way to Make Money on Social MediaDescription 1Promote Your Small Business Products and ServicesUse your social media accounts to interact with your audience, promote your brand, and sell your products and services. 2Sell Digital ProductsLeverage your social media channels to sell digital products such as templates, software, eBooks, and more. 3Join Networks and Promote Affiliate ProductsExpand your reach by joining affiliate network programs and earning commission for new leads or sales from your posts. 4Sell Your Music on SoundcloudUse your creative skills to sell your original music on Soundcloud and earn from plays and audience insights. 5Collaborate with BrandsUse your unique niche and large following to collaborate with brands and influence their target audience. 6Sell Coaching ServicesOffer your unique skills and knowledge as coaching services to those interested in self-development or learning new skills. 7YouTube Partner ProgramUnlock your YouTube channel's earning potential by joining the YouTube Partner Program and earning from ads on your content. 8Sell Rights to Your ImagesLeverage your social media account to sell rights to your digital artwork or photographs. 9Join Influencer NetworksUse your influence to market products for brands in an authentic way and earn income from sponsored posts and paid social sharing opportunities. 10Run a Facebook GroupCreate and manage a Facebook group to reach your target audience and build a community around common interests or goals. 11Manage a Social Media Account for Another BusinessUse your social media management skills to help other businesses in their social media outreach and earn an income from it. 12Charge for Sponsored PostsCreate sponsored content for companies and brands in need of social proof to market their goods and services. 13Advertise as a Blog Content WriterUse social media advertising to offer your services as a blog content writer. 14Become an InfluencerBuild a reputation for your knowledge and expertise on a specific topic, become an influencer, and earn from promoting products for brands. There is a lot of money to be made through employing social media business ideas. People are making a living without selling a single product. Those who have a large social following can use their profiles to get paid by brands, sell their knowledge, offer consultations, and more. Below are some ways where you can learn how to make money on social media. Promote your Small Business Products and Services on Social Media Social media accounts can help you interact with others by sharing and creating content through communities. With it, you can promote your brand and business, tell customers about your goods and services, find out what customers think of your business, attract new customers, and build stronger relationships with existing customers. Promoting your business through social media platforms is cost-effective. You can use it to promote and drive traffic to your online store and also supplement sales to your brick and mortar sales. Sell Digital Products Using Your Social Media Channels Besides promoting your business social media can be used to sell digital products as well. A nifty way to make money is through selling digital products simply through social media. Unlike websites, social media platforms are designed to help you sell digital products with little fanfare within just a few minutes. Plus, if the product you sell is digital you don’t have to worry about shipping or even inventory. With digital products such as templates, software, eBooks, photography, music and so you can sell them an unlimited number of times with little effort. Join Networks and Promote Affiliate Products You can also expand your reach to potential customers by joining networks and making money through affiliate marketing. Through affiliate marketing, you can earn money by just adding tracked affiliate links to the text of your social media content. By joining affiliate network programs, you stand to get paid in commissions for new leads or sales you bring when visitors click on the links. Sell Your Music on Soundcloud If you are creatively inclined you can sell your music through SoundCloud. Here you can sell your original music through SoundCloud if you sign up on the platform’s SoundCloud Pro or Pro Unlimited subscriptions. You get unlimited upload time, get paid for your plays, access to advanced audience insights, and more. Collaborate with Brands Social proof is the new word of mouth, more and more consumers today trust influencers over paid advertisements. Thanks to their huge following, bloggers today can talk directly to a company’s target audience. From posting product reviews to hosting video tutorials, bloggers have the power to influence large segments of consumers. If you have a unique niche, you can showcase your expertise to make your blog stand out while also collaborating with brands that might be tied to your niche in the process. Brands will benefit as their customers yearn for honest messages that speak to them from a user’s perspective. Earn Money Through Selling Coaching Services If you have a unique set of skills or are passionate about something, perhaps you can offer coaching services. Many people are looking for self-development or learning new skills. You can tap into this demand if you have a specific niche that is of value to other people. Make Money with the YouTube Partner Program Through blogging, you can unlock your YouTube channel’s earning potential as well. By joining the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) you not only get a strong platform but also access YouTube’s resources and features which includes getting access to ads being served on your content. However, you will need to keep in mind that you will need to get lots of views and clicks on YouTube to make meaningful revenues from your content. Sell Rights to the Images on Your Social Media Accounts If you have some great pictures or digital artwork of yours that people are interested in purchasing then you can use social media account to connect with people interested in purchasing your creations. Join Influencer Networks There are many ways to make money on social media. Sponsored posts are just one way that bloggers can earn an income from their blogs. Brands today are looking for influencers to market their products to their followers in an authentic way. Here, influencer networks are a great way to start with sponsored posts and paid social sharing opportunities. If you are early on in your blogging experience, it might be easier for you to start with using influencer marketing, which are third-party agencies that will do the hard work for you. These networks serve as intermediaries, connecting you with brands without requiring direct contact. This can create opportunities for you and provide valuable experience with sponsored posts, which you can showcase on your blogger resume. Influencers or bloggers can register to collaborate with a network, and brands associated with that network can access analytics for campaigns conducted within that group of influencers. Some networks might demand exclusive collaboration. Some examples of influencer networks include: izea CreatorIQ Upfluence AspireIQ Linqia Run a Facebook Group Facebook offers you a huge reach complements to its over 2 billion active monthly users. By creating Facebook groups of your own can be an inexpensive and effective way to reach your target audience. It helps you build a community around common interests or goals and drive can even help drive traffic to your blog or website. Manage a Social Media Account for Another Business In today’s marketplace, no business can ignore the importance of social media in achieving success. If you are a successful blogger who creates content that attracts a large audience, you can leverage this to assist other businesses with their social media outreach. By utilizing your skills, you can earn a decent income on the side by providing social media management services, with potential earnings ranging from $14 to $35 per hour. Charge for Sponsored Posts Companies and brands are ever more looking for social proof to market their goods and services. You can help them achieve these by producing sponsored content. This could be by way of product reviews, promotions, or backlinks to a sponsor’s website, but always remember to let your audience know that you are offering paid content. In terms of payment, several factors can play out, including your reach, your niche, and whether your posts include images, videos, and audio. Advertise as a Blog Content Writer You can also offer your services as a blogger by opting for social media advertising as well. For example, Google and Facebook ads offer an inexpensive option to get your targeted advertisement for your marketing needs as a blogger. Become an Influencer You can also try your hand as an influencer. An influencer is someone who has the skill set to influence people’s purchasing decisions through his or her authority, knowledge, or relationship with his or her audience. social media Influencers are people who have built a reputation for their knowledge and expertise on a specific topic and offer regular posts. Brands are more than willing to pay social media influencers as they help create trends and encourage their followers to buy products they promote. Top Tips to Get More Social Media Followers and Drive Sales It can be difficult to gather a huge following. As a blogger, you can only monetize your content when you have a huge following. When done right, you can easily generate a good following and build a reputation of a captivated audience. Below are some tips to get more social media followers and drive sales. Choose a Specific Niche and Target Audience Your blog’s success depends on you finding your passion and creating compelling content. Not only that your niche should not have too much competition as your blog will need to compete against highly rated sites. You should also avoid focusing on a smaller niche with little or no demand, as it will impact your potential following. Look to strike a balance between an overdone niche and one with little room for growth. Choose a subject that you are knowledgeable about and one that people can take insights from. Here you will also need to get an accurate picture of your target audience are whether in terms of age, level of knowledge of the subject matter, and other factors to make an impact. Focus on a Single Social Media Platform To start, you will need to focus your content on a single social media channel or risk not capturing the right amount of followers to make your blog worth looking into. You will need to identify your target readers and then identify the social networks that they prefer. If your blog post is geared more towards professionals and businesses, you might want to consider using LinkedIn. If your target followers are more visual you may sway towards Instagram or Pinterest. Increase Engagement Rates Part of increasing your fan base is to get more engaged followers. Make sure that your content is important enough or interesting enough that people share, link to, like, and even comment on it. Make sure to reply to comments as well as collaborate with other content creators Build Trust Building trust takes time. For readers, it is the little things that get them to trust you. It falls on your track record of creating useful content that serves them, and the consistency and reliability of your content. Offer Free Products Nothing attracts people more than free stuff. Offer up promotional coupons, free templates, how-to guides, and other useful stuff to integrate yourself with your audience. Create Content Regularly to Build a Social Media Presence You must consistently create content that your audience finds valuable. Establish a content production calendar and ensure that you produce content regularly and reliably. Use the Right Hashtags Hashtags are important as it helps direct more followers to your blog. Posts with hashtags have higher rates of engagement. Makes sure that the hashtags are funny, interesting, easily recalled, and in good taste. Provide Valuable Content Never forget that readers come to you because you offer them something that they need. So create content that is of value to your reader and an easy way to do this is to think from your readers’ perspective. Use Analytics to Understand Your Audience Use social media analytics to understand your audience. Through it, you get insights on who your followers are to tweak your content to align with their needs. Also, use Search Engine Optimization (SEO) technics to maximize your audience and income with ad sales. Have a Social Media Strategy You will need a social media strategy to help drive more traffic to your own website or blog. If done right a huge bulk of your readers can come from social media networks as such formulate a social media strategy that helps boosts your traffic. What social media platforms can you make money on? Twitter: You can earn money by ghostwriting tweets for individuals or brands looking to keep their accounts active, engaging in affiliate marketing by promoting products for a commission, selling your own products directly to your followers, or acting as an influencer where brands compensate you for promoting their products or services. Instagram: On this platform, you can learn how to make money on social media by collaborating with brands as an influencer, promoting affiliate links in your posts or bio to earn a percentage of the sales generated, or generating income from ads shown on your IGTV videos—this option is available to users with a significant follower count. Pinterest: On Pinterest, you can make money by promoting a brand’s pins to your followers, promoting affiliate products within the platform where you’ll earn a commission on any sales, or selling your own products directly to users who discover your pins. Facebook: You can make money on Facebook by promoting other brands through sponsored posts or your own Facebook page, engaging in affiliate marketing where you get a percentage of any sales made through your affiliate links, or selling your own products directly to your followers through a Facebook shop. LinkedIn: On LinkedIn, you can earn money by running advertisements for brands as part of their marketing strategies, incorporating affiliate links into your posts or articles, and directly selling your own products or services to fellow professionals within your network. YouTube: You can monetize this platform by posting video content and earning ad revenue once you reach a certain number of subscribers and watch hours, engaging in affiliate marketing by promoting products in your videos for a commission, making sponsored posts where brands pay you to feature their products, or collaborating with brands on video content. TikTok: On TikTok, you can make money through brand partnerships, live stream gifts, the TikTok Creator Fund, affiliate marketing, or selling your own products or services. TikTok also provides an opportunity for influencers to get paid for sponsored posts. Snapchat: Snapchat offers opportunities for monetization through Snapchat’s partner program, where creators can earn a share of the revenue from ads shown in their stories. Influencers can also make money by partnering with brands for sponsored posts. Reddit: While it may not be as conventional as other platforms, you can still learn how to make money on social media through Reddit by promoting a brand, engaging in affiliate marketing, or directing traffic to your own website or product. Keep in mind that Reddit has stringent rules regarding self-promotion, so it’s crucial to provide valuable content and adhere to community guidelines. Twitch: On Twitch, users can earn money by becoming a Twitch Partner or Affiliate, which allows them to earn a share of the revenue from ads shown on their streams. Users can also receive direct donations from their viewers, get a cut from the sale of games promoted on their page, or earn money from sponsored streams. How many followers do you need on social media to make money? To start monetizing from your social media, you will need to have a huge following. For example, with Instagram, you need a minimum of 5,000 Instagram followers and 308 sponsored posts a year to generate $100,000. Youtubers will need at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year to start earning. With Facebook, you will need to have at least 10,000 followers and 30,000 +1 minute views. Image: Depositphotos This article, "How to Make Money on Social Media: Tips for Small Businesses" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Survey respondents have specific suggestions. By CPA Trendlines Research Go PRO for members-only access to more CPA Trendlines Research. View the full article

Survey respondents have specific suggestions. By CPA Trendlines Research Go PRO for members-only access to more CPA Trendlines Research. View the full article

Netflix's March slate has plenty of variety, from reality TV to true crime docs to sci-fi comedy. John Mulaney is back this month with a new live weekly talk show, Everybody's Live with John Mulaney, a sequel to his 2024 live event Everybody's in L.A. The show, which will include on-screen guests and live calls from the audience, will premiere on March 12 at 10 p.m. ET with 12 weekly episodes on consecutive Wednesdays. Netflix also has new comedy hours in March from Andrew Schulz (LIFE, March 4), Bert Kreischer (Lucky, March 18), and Chelsea Handler (The Feeling, March 25). For reality TV fans, there's a new installment of Love is Blind: Sweden (March 13) as well as the follow-up to the first season, After the Altar (March 6). Netflix is also taking over Temptation Island (March 12), which originally aired in 2001 and was revived in 2019 for five seasons. The new competition show Million Dollar Secret (March 26) is Netflix's response to Peacock's popular series The Traitors, putting strangers through a series of games to figure out the identity of the millionaire. Netflix has a handful of true-crime documentaries this month, starting with the film Chaos: The Manson Murders (March 7), based on the 2019 titular book by Tom O'Neill and directed by Errol Morris. At the end of the month, Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer (March 31) will look at the Gilgo Beach murders from the perspective of the victims. The series is directed by Emmy winner Liz Garbus. Finally, The Electric State (March 14) is a new sci-fi comedy film directed by the Russo brothers and starring Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt. The film is adapted from Simon Stålenhag's graphic novel of the same name and follows an orphaned teen's quest to find her brother after a robot rebellion. Here's everything coming to Netflix in March—including the next installment of Formula 1: Drive to Survive (March 7) and lifestyle show With Love, Meghan (March 4)—and everything that's leaving. What's coming to Netflix in March 2025Available soonKhakee: The Bengal Chapter—Netflix Series Available March 1The Potato Lab—Netflix Series SAKAMOTO DAYS—Netflix Anime 50 First Dates Annie (2014) Beginners Black Hawk Down Blade Runner: The Final Cut Blood and Bone Cell 211 Do the Right Thing Friday High-Rise The Holiday Ma National Security Next Friday Pride & Prejudice Runaway Jury See No Evil, Hear No Evil Sicario Ted Vampires Wedding Crashers Available March 3Hot Wheels Let's Race: Season 3—Netflix Family Available March 4Andrew Schulz: LIFE—Netflix Comedy Special The Graham Norton Show: Best Bits: Week of February 21, 2025 With Love, Meghan—Netflix Series Available March 5Just One Look—Netflix Series The Leopard—Netflix Series Medusa—Netflix Series Available March 6Barbie & Teresa: Recipe For Friendship Tyler Perry's Beauty in Black: Season 1 Part 2—Netflix Series Larissa: The Other Side of Anitta—Netflix Documentary Love is Blind: Sweden: Season 1: After the Altar—Netflix Series Power Rangers Available March 7Chaos: The Manson Murders—Netflix Documentary Delicious—Netflix Film Formula 1: Drive to Survive: Season 7—Netflix Documentary Nadaaniyan—Netflix Film Plankton: The Movie—Netflix Family When Life Gives You Tangerines—Netflix Series Available March 8SAKAMOTO DAYS—Netflix Anime Available March 10American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden—Netflix Documentary Available March 12Everybody’s Live with John Mulaney—Netflix Live Event Temptation Island—Netflix Series Welcome to the Family—Netflix Series Available March 13Adolescence—Netflix Series Love is Blind: Sweden: Season 2—Netflix Series Available March 14Audrey The Electric State—Netflix Film Available March 15SAKAMOTO DAYS—Netflix Anime Available March 17CoComelon Lane: Season 4—Netflix Family Inside: Season 2—Netflix Series The Walking Dead: Dead City: Season 1 Available March 18Bert Kreischer: Lucky—Netflix Comedy Special Love & Hip Hop New York: Seasons 3-4 The Outrun Available March 19Twister: Caught in the Storm—Netflix Documentary Woman of the Dead: Season 2—Netflix Series Available March 20Bet Your Life—Netflix Series Den of Thieves 2: Pantera The Residence—Netflix Series Wolf King—Netflix Family Available March 21Go!—Netflix Series Little Siberia—Netflix Film Revelations—Netflix Film Available March 22SAKAMOTO DAYS—Netflix Anime Available March 25Chelsea Handler: The Feeling—Netflix Comedy Special Available March 26Caught—Netflix Series I Survived a Crime: Season 2 Million Dollar Secret—Netflix Series Available March 27Gold & Greed: The Hunt for Fenn's Treasure—Netflix Documentary Survival of the Thickest: Season 2—Netflix Series Available March 28The Lady's Companion—Netflix Series The Life List—Netflix Film Available March 31Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer—Netflix Documentary Promised Hearts—Netflix Film Rhythm + Flow Italy: Season 2—Netflix Series What's leaving Netflix in March 2025Leaving March 121 Bridges A Haunted House A Haunted House 2 Aloha Blended Cinderella Man Due Date Free State of Jones Green Lantern In the Heart of the Sea Inception Legends of the Fall Little Mr. Peabody & Sherman Oblivion Scooby-Doo Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed Seven Years in Tibet Sixteen Candles Stand by Me Still Alice The Angry Birds Movie The Other Guys Leaving March 3Ravenous Leaving March 15The Autopsy of Jane Doe Leaving March 16A Walk Among the Tombstones Leaving March 23The Machine Leaving March 24Oldboy Leaving March 25No Escape Leaving March 27Happy!: Seasons 1-2 Leaving March 30Godzilla vs. Kong Mad Max: Fury Road Leaving March 31The Windsors: Seasons 1-3 View the full article

Let them do the selling for you. By Jody Padar Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA Go PRO for members-only access to more Jody Padar. View the full article

Let them do the selling for you. By Jody Padar Radical Pricing – By The Radical CPA Go PRO for members-only access to more Jody Padar. View the full article

Tax pros handling 41% of e-filings. By Beth Bellor Go PRO for members-only access to more Beth Bellor. View the full article

Tax pros handling 41% of e-filings. By Beth Bellor Go PRO for members-only access to more Beth Bellor. View the full article

The good news: they’re preventable. By Ed Mendlowitz Tax Season Opportunity Guide Go PRO for members-only access to more Edward Mendlowitz. View the full article

The good news: they’re preventable. By Ed Mendlowitz Tax Season Opportunity Guide Go PRO for members-only access to more Edward Mendlowitz. View the full article

Donald Trump recently surprised the world again by signing an action to end what he describes as the “forced use” of paper straws. Although there is some merit in the argument the White House presents that paper straws simply aren’t fit for purpose, what the paper straw revolution represents is the power of individual change in enacting progressive policy. Much like recent EU legislation which required all plastic bottles to have caps attached by a tether, the removal of items that tend to be easily littered is a way to help people be more environmentally cautious without any extra effort. Unfortunately, the paper straw appears to have failed in this endeavour. We should not stop this trajectory because of one fail, however. Even if paper straws are not a viable option, we mustn’t let their fate undermine all initiatives to reduce the impacts of single use plastics. The story behind the move away from plastic straws began in 2015, when a disturbing video of a turtle having a plastic straw removed from its nose went viral. Unfortunately this appears to be a common occurrence, with a video of a turtle with a plastic fork in its nose posted only a few months later. This shows plastic straws themselves are not the issue and that there is a wider problem that everyone should be aware of: plastic that ends up in the ocean is often mistaken for food and eaten by wildlife. Paper problems Admittedly, anyone who has used a paper straw will agree that they are not a viable alternative to plastic. The obvious complaint is that they get soggy too quickly. But there are several unseen components that show the switch to paper may not be as great as we once thought. To begin with, in an effort to keep them water-resistant, paper straws themselves are coated in plastic. This means they cannot be recycled. As they are an organic material, they release greenhouse gas when they decompose in landfill—they can however safely be incinerated, something that is not widely recommended for their plastic counterparts. As the demand for paper straws skyrocketed, this created a deficit in production, leading to the development of new manufacturing facilities, construction that in itself has a significant environmental impact. Meanwhile, the heavier weight of paper straws can lead to an increase in freighting fuel consumption and associated emissions. Flimsy plastics are more likely to be littered Anything, however, is better than plastic. A somewhat misleading statistic that plastic straws account for a mere 0.025% of ocean plastics has been circulating in the argument to bring them back. Although this is true by volume, it is not a correct representation of the sheer number of individual straws recorded in the environment which is suspected to be as many as 8.3 billion, about one per person on earth. The fact straws are so small and lightweight is a big part of the problem, since smaller and more easily fragmented items are far harder to collect. As litter, they punch above their weight. A child’s plastic beach toy may weigh as much as a few hundred plastic straws, but if littered the straws would do more harm to the environment and wildlife, and would look worse. As straws are made of polypropylene, a flimsier more brittle type of plastic, it doesn’t take much effort for them to break apart into bite-size pieces. Because of this, straws turn into microplastics much quicker than the toy, which has a higher chance of eventually being picked up. To this day, straws continue to be on the top 10 types of plastics found on beaches, and we have yet to see any videos of larger pollutants like those beach toys being pulled from the nose of any animal. Although we could argue indefinitely as to which straw materials are worse (reuseable metal or glass straws require water and a cleaning agent, another potential contaminant) the overarching sentiment is the most alarming component of Trump’s announcement. Paper straw pressure came from below The move towards paper straws was a refreshing direction in environmental preservation, in that it was initiated locally and by producers, not through legislation. In the summer of 2018 Seattle became the first U.S. city to enforce a ban on plastic utensils, straws and cocktail sticks. Soon thereafter, McDonald’s, Starbucks, Alaska Airlines, and many others announced they would stop the sale of plastic straws. Later that year, the U.K. government and European Union began consultations for national bans which came into effect in 2020 and 2021 respectively. In 2019 Canada followed suit with a ban coming into law in 2022. It was not until July of 2024 that the then U.S. president, Joe Biden announced his plan to phase out single-use plastics (although the fact sheet and official press release has now been removed from the White House website). This was several years after the global movement got underway—accompanied by the first complaints from Trump on the topic in 2019. It is important to note that both the EU and U.K. bans on plastic straws included stirrers and cotton bud sticks. However their removal from the market caused little to no controversy, mostly because there are adequate alternatives. Litter producers can drive change What the movement towards paper straws represents is the power of producers to drive change, in a bottom-up approach. A similarly encouraging scenario can be seen in attitudes towards polystyrene. Back in 2019 Dunkin’ Donuts announced it would stop using foam cups in certain U.S. markets, and delivered a full removal of the cups in the U.S. by early 2020, while in January 2025 California introduced a state wide polystyrene ban. Meanwhile, negotiations on a global plastics agreement remain indecisive. In the wake of a pattern of stalemate and regressive policy, it is on the consumers and producers to take action. We must continue to support producers who invest in innovation to address these issues in a way that makes our lives easier and cleaner. Randa Lindsey Kachef is a research affiliate at King’s College London. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

Billionaire owner says overhauled section will focus on ‘underserved’ viewpoints View the full article

Kyiv obtained some concessions from the Trump administration, but no postwar security guaranteesView the full article

Oh, you’re here because you captured the image of someone’s Instagram Story and want to know if they’ll get a notification about the screenshot, à la Snapchat? We’ve all been there, but they’re not going to find out if you took a screenshot of their grid post or story, at least not through a notification. There are a few instances where an Instagram user might be made aware that you’re sharing their content, though, or at least filing it away for later. Here’s everything you need to know about taking screenshots, saving, and sharing in Instagram, so you can lurk in relative peace. Can you screenshot someone's Instagram Story or grid post?If you screenshot someone’s grid or Story post, they do not get a notification. Ditto for screen-recording a video post. For better or worse, I am extremely good at creeping around on the app; I do it all the time. If any of the people whose content I was saving got a notification about it, I’d know by now. And I’d tell you. Can you screenshot Instagram direct messages?This is where things get dicey. In a standard Instagram direct message, you can screenshot with no problems. If you toggle on vanish mode, however, you lose that ability. This is a new change to vanish mode that appears to have only gone into effect within the past few weeks. I saw a few people posting about it and tested it myself. It's true: If someone screenshots your chat thread in vanish mode, you get a notification that says, "@theperson took a screenshot." If you screenshot the thread, you also see the notification that "you took a screenshot." It makes sense because vanish mode is supposed to be more private. When you toggle it on (by holding the bottom of your screen and dragging up within the thread), all the messages you send and receive in that chat disappear when you back out of the screen. The other person you're chatting with is supposed to have a reasonable expectation that their messages won't stick around for long, so it stands to reason they deserve to know if you took a recording. This does not apply to messages that are sent in chat threads without vanish mode turned on. It looks like this: The new way Instagram narcs on you. Credit: @ellefs0n/Instagram Has Instagram ever alerted users to other screenshots of their content?That said, there used to be one other way people could see if you’d taken a screenshot of something on Instagram. It was minor, but that’s what made it insidious: Up until very recently, if someone sent a photo directly to you via Instagram direct messaging, using the in-DM camera feature, and you took a screenshot of it, they would get a notification. It looked like this: The old way Instagram used to narc on you. Credit: @ellefs0n/Instagram To demonstrate how that looked, I asked my recipient to screenshot the first picture I sent and to open and view, but not screenshot, the second. The photos were sent in real time, using the camera icon in the bottom left, next to the typing box. As you can see, a little circle icon (it looks like a camera shutter) appeared next to the first one, which meant a screenshot was taken of it. A photo taken with the regular camera and sent from the camera roll did not produce a screenshot notification. Why am I telling you this? Instagram only recently changed this, but it did so in phases. The last time I checked, three months ago, if you screenshot a photo taken with the in-app camera, there was no longer a notification. Now, Instagram prevents it with a pop-up message that says, "You can't screenshot or record this. It's only meant to be replayed once." If the sender toggles on the "replay" option for the photo taken with the in-app camera and the receiver screenshots that, there is still no notification. That's a major change from just a year ago, when a notification would pop up, so this is clearly something always in flux. If and when it changes again, I'll let you know. Other ways to see if people are sharing your Instagram contentTaking screenshots on Instagram is safe, as we've discovered, but there are other ways a person might be able to figure out if you’re disseminating their content or saving it for future review. Technically, you'll still be anonymous, but it could be traced back to you with a little bad luck. If you have a business account, not a personal one, you have access to some additional features that can come in handy if you want to know whether people are sharing your content among themselves. Under your grid posts, you’ll see a button that says “View insights.” Tapping this will bring you to a page that shows how many accounts were reached, how many were engaged, how many people tapped through to see your profile, how many were following you already, and all kinds of other interesting data. You’ll also see, right at the top, a string of four numbers: How many accounts liked it, how many comments it got, how many shares it got, and how many saves it got. Credit: @ellefs0n/Instagram The shares and saves are important here. The rightward facing arrow that looks like a paper plane is your shares. The rectangle with a triangular cutout that looks like a bookmark is your saves. If you check this, you can’t see who is sharing or saving it, but you can get a sense of how many opps (or fans!) you have. Above, see that nine people shared my post and six saved it. What were their intentions? These are the questions that keep me up at night, but alas, I may never uncover the culprits. Bear in mind that if you save or share a post—meaning you send it to someone else via DM, share it to your own Story, or copy the link to send it to someone off-app—if the person has a business profile, they’ll at least know someone did. Depending on the content of the post and how many followers they have, they could narrow it down to you. (To check if someone has a business account, tap their profile. If there’s a descriptor under their name, like Journalist, Blogger, or Public figure, or buttons like “Contact,” they have a business profile.) If you're the one worried someone has shared your post with ill intentions, don't get ahead of yourself. Ask yourself first if you shared your own post to your Story, which would count as a share and increase the number next to that paper plane icon. Speaking of Stories, anyone with a business profile can also see the data related to their Story posts, both when the posts are active in the 24 hours after they are shared and in the Story archive. Next to the eye-shaped icon that indicates viewers, there will be an icon with three rectangles that looks like a bar graph. It reveals how many accounts were reached, how many engaged with the post, how many replies it got, etc. It also reveals shares. Below is an example of a time one of my Stories got 11 shares. I was able to figure out who shared it by looking through the views and taking note of the viewers who were not my followers. Sensing nasty intentions, I blocked the original sharer. If you share someone’s Story in-app, the accounts with whom you share it will appear on the story’s viewership list, which could easily implicate you. Credit: @ellefs0n/Instagram Does any of this matter? No, we should all launch our phones into the nearest trash can Sabrina van der Woodsen-style and go touch grass. But there are ways people can sniff out whether you’re sharing or saving their Instagram posts, even though they won’t get a notification if you screenshot. View the full article

Information gain in SEO is a metric that Google may use to evaluate the uniqueness of your content. View the full article

Google continues to lose ground among younger generations, with 61% of Gen Z and 53% of Millennials using AI tools instead of Google or other traditional search engines. That’s according to a new Vox Media survey. Why we care. We continue to see early signs that Google search may be starting to slip – from Google’s market share dropping below 90% for the first time since 2015 to other surveys indicating searchers are frustrated with search quality. Things are changing rapidly – from the rise of AI answer engines and generative engine optimization, to the growth of social platforms for discovery (e.g., TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest). Many brands and marketers are still adjusting to these shifts. By the numbers. When it comes to Google Search: 76% said that more than a quarter of Google Search shopping results appear to “be sponsored or promoted.” Only 14% described these sponsored or promoted results as “very helpful.” 42% said Google and search engines are becoming less useful. 55% said they get information from their community more than online search platforms. 52% said they use AI chatbots or alternative platforms (e.g., TikTok) for information instead of Google. 66% said the quality of information is deteriorating, making it difficult to find reliable sources. What they’re saying. According to a Verge slideshow summarizing the survey’s findings: “Legacy tech (e.g. Google) and social platforms are rapidly losing ground as trust and authenticity fades, with more people flocking to AI chatbots, niche communities, and platforms like TikTok. This signals a massive shift and opens the door for disruptive entrants that can offer more authentic, trusted experiences.” About the data. Vox Media partnered with Two Cents Insights to conduct the survey, collecting responses from more than 2,000 U.S. adults in December. The survey. The future of the internet is likely smaller communities, with a focus on curated experiences View the full article

Purchases of new single-family homes decreased 10.5% last month to a 657,000 annualized rate, according to government data issued Wednesday. View the full article