ResidentialBusiness

Microsoft is testing shading the site names, the brand names, of retailers in the Bing Shopping search results. So the name Amazon is in a blue shaded background color as opposed to just saying Amazon.com.View the full article

It has been an odd few weeks for generative AI systems, with ChatGPT suddenly turning sycophantic, and Grok, xAI’s chatbot, becoming obsessed with South Africa. Fast Company spoke to Steven Adler, a former research scientist for OpenAI who until November 2024 led safety-related research and programs for first-time product launches and more-speculative long-term AI systems about both—and what he thinks might have gone wrong. The interview has been edited for length and clarity. What do you make of these two incidents in recent weeks—ChatGPT’s sudden sycophancy and Grok’s South Africa obsession—of AI models going haywire? The high-level thing I make of it is that AI companies are still really struggling with getting AI systems to behave how they want, and that there is a wide gap between the ways that people try to go about this today—whether it’s to give a really precise instruction in the system prompt or feed a model training data or fine-tuning data that you think surely demonstrate the behavior you want there—and reliably getting models to do the things you want and to not do the things you want to avoid. Can they ever get to that point of certainty? I’m not sure. There are some methods that I feel optimistic about—if companies took their time and were not under pressure to really speed through testing. One idea is this paradigm called control, as opposed to alignment. So the idea being, even if your AI “wants” different things than you want, or has different goals than you want, maybe you can recognize that somehow and just stop it from taking certain actions or saying or doing certain things. But that paradigm is not widely adopted at the moment, and so at the moment, I’m pretty pessimistic. What’s stopping it being adopted? Companies are competing on a bunch of dimensions, including user experience, and people want responses faster. There’s the gratifying thing of seeing the AI start to compose its response right away. There’s some real user cost of safety mitigations that go against that. Another aspect is, I’ve written a piece about why it’s so important for AI companies to be really careful about the ways that their leading AI systems are used within the company. If you have engineers using the latest GPT model to write code to improve the company’s security, if a model turns out to be misaligned and wants to break out of the company or do some other thing that undermines security, it now has pretty direct access. So part of the issue today is AI companies, even though they’re using AI in all these sensitive ways, haven’t invested in actually monitoring and understanding how their own employees are using these AI systems, because it adds more friction to their researchers being able to use them for other productive uses. I guess we’ve seen a lower-stakes version of that with Anthropic [where a data scientist working for the company used AI to support their evidence in a court case, which included a hallucinatory reference to an academic article]. I obviously don’t know the specifics. It’s surprising to me that an AI expert would submit testimony or evidence that included hallucinated court cases without having checked it. It isn’t surprising to me that an AI system would hallucinate things like that. These problems are definitely far from solved, which I think points to a reason that it’s important to check them very carefully. You wrote a multi-thousand-word piece on ChatGPT’s sycophancy and what happened. What did happen? I would separate what went wrong initially versus what I found in terms of what still is going wrong. Initially, it seems that OpenAI started using new signals for what direction to push its AI into—or broadly, when users had given the chatbot a thumbs-up, they used this data to make the chatbot behave more in that direction, and it was penalized for thumb-down. And it happens to be that some people really like flattery. In small doses, that’s fine enough. But in aggregate this produced an initial chatbot that was really inclined to blow smoke. The issue with how it became deployed is that OpenAI’s governance around what passes, what evaluations it runs, is not good enough. And in this case, even though they had a goal for their models to not be sycophantic—this is written in the company’s foremost documentation about how their models should behave—they did not actually have any tests for this. What I then found is that even this version that is fixed still behaves in all sorts of weird, unexpected ways. Sometimes it still has these behavioral issues. This is what’s been called sycophancy. Other times it’s now extremely contrarian. It’s gone the other way. What I make of this is it’s really hard to predict what an AI system is going to do. And so for me, the lesson is how important it is to do careful, thorough empirical testing. And what about the Grok incident? The type of thing I would want to understand to assess that is what sources of user feedback Grok collects, and how, if at all, those are used as part of the training process. And in particular, in the case of the South African white-genocide-type statements, are these being put forth by users and the model is agreeing with them? Or to what extent is the model blurting them out on its own, without having been touched? It seems these small changes can escalate and amplify. I think the problems today are real and important. I do think they are going to get even harder as AI starts to get used in more and more important domains. So, you know, it’s troubling. If you read the accounts of people having their delusions reinforced by this version of ChatGPT, those are real people. This can be actually quite harmful for them. And ChatGPT is widely used by a lot of people. View the full article

Google is testing a "Shuffle" button in some of its AI generated answers within the Google Search results. When you click the shuffle button, it seems to redo or change up the response Google's AI gives you.View the full article

President says Washington lacks capacity to strike deals with every nationView the full article

When Nicholas Bloom, the William Eberle Professor of Economics at Stanford University in California, started studying working from home in 2004, “it was hard to get anyone engaged,” he says. Even in 2018, “no one had any interest whatsoever.” In 2025, that’s hard to fathom. Between the pandemic and technological advancements, WFH has become a norm among white collar workers. Not only has it normalized; it’s also destigmatized. The act that used to generate memes of Homer Simpson on the couch, prodding a distant computer with a stick has gained “positive connotations,” says Bloom. Working from home is seen as a privilege. It’s also here to stay. For their latest study, “Working from Home in 2025,” Bloom and his collaborators analyzed responses from 16,000 college graduates across 40 countries and discovered that WFH levels appear to have stabilized as of 2025, but its embrace hasn’t been universal. WFH rates vary by location: highest in English speaking regions—the U.S., UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand—the rate dips a little across continental Europe, then dips a lot across Africa and Central and South Americas. WFH is least prevalent in Asia. To be clear, when Bloom says WFH, he’s mostly talking about those on hybrid work schedules. “Sixty percent of people work fully in-person, 30% are hybrid, and 10% are fully remote,” he says of those countries where the policy has stuck. Hybrid typically means Tuesday through Thursdays in the office—a schedule Blooms values at “about 8% more pay…because it saves two to three hours a week of commuting [and] enables people to live further away” from their offices, often to where real estate is cheaper. Companies also benefit from hybrid policies, Bloom’s study found, since fewer employees tend to quit. With all these advantages, you’d think bosses would have embraced WFH worldwide. “Why on earth does, say, Japan have a third the work from home rates of the U.S.?” Bloom says. After looking at factors including development (Japan is about as developed as the U.S.), population density, industrial structure, and connectivity (no big differences there), it left Bloom and fellow researchers with one notable variable. “The big factor is cultural,” he says, “and it’s around individualism.” In conversation with Fast Company, which has been edited for length and clarity, Bloom elaborated on how individualism drives working from home, how much the pandemic really increased at-home work rates, and why people still tend to think we’re returning to the office even though the data says otherwise. Fast Company: What inspired you to look globally for your latest study? Nicholas Bloom: If you look at the data, there was clearly a return to office movement from summer 2020 onwards after the lockdown in the U.S. But from Spring 2023 onwards, the return to office seems to slow down. People seem surprised by that. They’re like, “Isn’t the media full of stories of Zoom canceling [WFH], Amazon canceling [WFH]?” Yes, there are a bunch of high-profile firms canceling or reducing work from home. Turns out there are just as many on the other side, because their leases expire. If you’re Goliath National Bank and your lease expires, it’s a perfect opportunity to reduce days in the office and save a chunk of money. What we’ve seen over the last couple of years in the U.S. is like a war, and it’s been fought to a standstill. That sparked the big question for us: What on earth does this look like globally? We last collected global data in 2023, so I really didn’t know. It turns out, globally, work from home has also stalled out. There has been no change since 2023. Globally, we’re in a new norm. Folks saying “when we return to the office” at this point are dreaming. This is the future. One of your findings I found particularly interesting was that WFH rates are higher in individualistic societies than in collectivist ones. Can you unpack that? In individualistic societies, managers typically aren’t micromanaging their employees. The U.S. setup is: A manager tells an employee what to do and gives them strong incentives, like performance evaluations and bonuses. In Japan, there’s much more micromanaging, because there’s much less hiring, firing, and bonuses. Managers want to see employees there. In Japan, you can’t leave the office until the boss has left. This long-hours culture exists for everyone. When the boss leaves, their junior leaves, then their junior leaves, etcetera. That is very problematic for work from home. If you talk to folks working for American firms in Japan, they’re typically on a hybrid setup. If they work for Japanese firms in Japan, often doing the same job, they’re required to come into the office every day. Culture seems to have a huge explanation for this difference across countries. To what extent do you think this comes down to bosses trusting their workers, or not? It is kind of trust, although in the U.S., it’s “trust but verify.” Bosses don’t just trust workers—they trust them, but then they monitor. Should companies without a WFH policy reconsider? The big selling point is that it’s profitable. In my paper in Nature in June 2024, we did a massive, randomized control trial at a big company called Trip.com. They’re a publicly listed company worth about $40 billion. They randomized whether you got to work from home two days a week or come in all five days—the former if your birthday fell on an odd day, the latter if it fell on an even day. For 24 months, we tracked 1,600 employees working in finance, marketing, computer engineering—professionals with college degrees. There was no effect on performance. However, quit rates fell by 35% for people allowed to work from home two days a week. For Trip.com, every person that quits costs about $50,000. If someone quits, you have to advertise, re-interview, re-recruit, get them up to speed, and take managers off activity to train them. By reducing quit rates by 35% with no effect on productivity, that’s increasing business profits by like $20 million a year. That is ultimately why work from home has stuck. On the flipside, an Economist article that mentions your study cited JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon’s worry that the “young generation is being damaged” by increased working from home. To what extent do you agree or disagree with that statement, and why? I advise my Stanford undergrads, particularly in their first five years of work, that it’s a good idea to go into the office four days a week, because Jamie Dimon is exactly right. It is easier to mentor, learn, and build connections in person. Typically, when I poll students, that’s what they want—they want to socialize, be mentored, and they don’t have a lot of space at home. As people get to their 30s and 40s, they’ve moved up that learning curve, but they still benefit from coming in, maybe three even two days a week. Another interesting data point from your study was the similar WFH rates for men and women across regions. What do you think accounts for that? They want to. You see a slightly higher preference for women to work from home. The main decider in the U.S. is: Do you have kids? A man with children under the age of 12 has a higher preference to work from home than a woman without kids, for example. Having a disability is also a huge driver, but gender doesn’t matter that much. What you see in countries like India is gender matters a lot more, because for women, there’s assault risk and massive sexism in the workplace. In lower income countries, the gender gap grows. What was the most surprising takeaway from your study? Working from home has stabilized globally. I did an online presentation for Australia last week, and people there are under the same view as in the U.S., that big companies were banning it. We just don’t see that in any data set. Fact and opinion are about as divergent as people’s views on crime—they always think crime is rising. On average, it’s tending to decline. Everyone thinks work from home is ending, but you don’t see it globally. View the full article

As a lifelong pop culture aficionado, I have a tendency to connect my favorite media to whatever I’m currently doing. When I purchased a secondhand easy chair a few weeks ago, my husband and I spent a sweaty 30 minutes struggling to get it up the stairs. With the chair still wedged at an impossible angle, we paused to catch our breath and I said, “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.” Similarly, anytime I use up the last of the milk or take the last cookie from a package, my brain always bellows “FINISH HIM!” But the pop culture in my head is more than just a running commentary on mundane moments. My favorite entertainment has also been an excellent teacher. In particular, the pop culture of my childhood taught me a number of financial lessons that I’ve never forgotten—including instruction on how to be an investor. Here are the timeless investing lessons I learned from 1980s pop culture. Lemonade Stand: the risk of playing it safe While the majority of my fellow late Gen Xers have deep and visceral memories of dying of dysentery on the Oregon Trail, my early childhood gaming trauma stemmed from the lesser-known Apple II game Lemonade Stand. This simple game teaches the basics of business planning by simulating a child’s lemonade stand. The player receives a weather report for the day and has to decide what to spend on lemonade ingredients and advertising as well as determine the price for each glass of lemonade. As a frugal and business-minded 7-year-old, I invested heavily in lemons and sugar when the game predicted a hot summer day on my first turn. I also set a reasonable per-glass lemonade price, knowing that it was folly to overcharge my customers. Though it seemed unnecessary on such a beautiful, 8-bit sunny day, I also splurged on a single advertising poster. Once my preparations were complete, I leaned back in my chair, ready for profits to rain down on me. To my shock, I only had two customers all day. I didn’t even make back the money I spent on cups. Pop culture lesson: know where to invest To little Emily, it made sense to spend money on ingredients, since you can’t sell lemonade without them. But I balked at the expense of advertising, which seemed unnecessary compared to lemons and sugar. I couldn’t predict or measure advertising’s return on investment, so I assumed it was a waste of money. (Unfortunately, I continued to make this mistake into adulthood. When I first started freelancing, I only owned a desktop computer. Investing in a laptop seemed like an unnecessary expense with no potential upside for my fledgling writing career—except that I traveled at least once a month and had to move heaven and earth to either work ahead or find a computer at my destination every single time.) The shock of losing my Lemonade Stand money taught me that playing it safe can’t protect you from loss. There is a risk to investing—whether you’re investing in advertising, a new laptop, or in the stock market—but there’s also a risk to playing it safe. You could lose your business because no one knows about it, lose your time (and your mind) because you don’t have the equipment you need, or your uninvested money could lose buying power over time because of inflation. There is no such thing as a risk-free financial decision, and playing Lemonade Stand in second grade taught me that better than anything else. The Westing Game: invest independently Ellen Raskin may as well have written her 1978 Newbery Medal winning book The Westing Game specifically to appeal to me. The novel begins after Westing Paper Products tycoon Sam Westing is found dead. Westing’s lawyer invites his 16 heirs—who all happen to be the only tenants of the newly constructed Sunset Towers—to the reading of the will. Once there, the heirs are paired off and given $10,000 and an envelope of mysterious clues written on paper towel scraps. They are invited to figure out who has taken Sam Westing’s life, and the winner will receive his $200 million estate. As much as that set up is more than enough to get my attention, it was the character of Turtle Wexler that really established this book as one of the pop culture giants of my childhood. This 13-year-old budding entrepreneur and investing genius captured my heart by being smart, funny, and financially confident beyond her years. Turtle and her partner, a 60-year-old dressmaker named Flora Baumbach, receive the incomprehensible clues SEA, MOUNTAIN, AM, and O, which the teen girl believes to be stock symbols. Since Westing was known to be a business wizard, Turtle thinks the stocks indicated by the clues must be clear winners. The pair invests the $10,000 in the clue stocks and in Westing Paper Products (stock symbol WPP). The clue stocks don’t perform as well as Turtle had hoped. Her daily perusal of The Wall Street Journal indicates that the Westing Paper Products stock is likely to go up, so she dumps the clue stocks and puts all their money in WPP. By the end of the game several weeks later, Turtle and Flora’s $10,000 stake has grown to $11,587.50. Pop culture lesson: lean into your knowledge Turtle taught me the importance of investing based on my own knowledge, expertise, and instincts, rather than following someone else’s lead. She starts her investing journey with the knowledge that Westing was a remarkably astute investor. She assumes the clue stocks must have been handpicked by Westing. But when the clue stocks don’t do well, she pulls her money from them and invests in something she has direct understanding of, rather than doubling down on her assumption that Westing must have known better. She changes her investing tactics once she has new information. Turtle also shrugs off Flora repeatedly asking if she is sure about her investing choices. She doesn’t let the concerns of her 60-year-old partner sway her, because she knows Flora doesn’t understand the stock market as well as she does, even though she is much older. All together, Turtle’s example made it clear to me that successful investing requires knowledge and a willingness to trust yourself. It’s helped me avoid following the crowd into decisions that don’t fit my investing strategies. Trading Places: anatomy of an investing scheme I loved the 1983 film Trading Places for Eddie Murphy’s brilliant comedic timing, but I was even more fascinated by the movie’s portrayal of revenge via short sale. It took me several rewatches to fully understand how the investing scheme resulted in financial doom for the film’s villains, the Duke brothers. To exact their retribution, Murphy’s character Valentine and Dan Aykroyd’s Winthorpe show up to the New York Commodities Exchange ready to trade. Their goal: sell as many orange juice concentrate futures as they can before the U.S. Department of Agriculture report on the nation’s orange crop. Meanwhile, the Dukes are buying as many OJ concentrate futures as they can before the report, essentially trying to corner the market. Between the heroes feverishly selling and the Dukes feverishly buying, OJ future prices skyrocket until the moment trading pauses for the crop report—which reveals the orange harvest will be strong. In the aftermath of the announcement, the Dukes are stuck with all the futures they purchased at inflated prices. To fulfill the margin call, they must pay $394 million. At the same time, Valentine and Winthorpe busily purchase futures from everyone but the Dukes at a greatly reduced price. This allows them to fulfill the orders they sold before the report dropped—and make a ridonculous profit. This scene fascinated me as a kid, but it also confused me. I knew that successful investing was about buying low and selling high. But I couldn’t understand how the characters could sell high then buy low. How could you sell something before you bought it? Pop culture lesson: stock sales aren’t always linear After many years of catching the movie on TBS reruns, I finally grasped that stock and commodities sales don’t have to follow a linear progression of cause then effect. It’s possible to buy low after selling high, provided you plan your investment strategy carefully. That’s because you don’t have to own something you sell. You can borrow a stock (or an OJ future, for that matter) for a fee. As long as you return it or an identical asset before the margin call, you can sell the borrowed asset even though you don’t own it. This is what Valentine and Winthorpe did to ruin the Dukes. They took their pooled money to pay the borrow fees of the futures, sold those futures at inflated prices before the crop report, then bought back the futures at the rock-bottom price afterwards so they could return the borrowed assets. While short sales like the one in Trading Places are unlikely to ever be part of my own investment strategy, understanding the fluid nature of ownership in stock and commodities trading has made me a better investor. It broke me out of the rigid cause-and-effect thinking that limited my investing creativity. Learning through story Despite being a lifelong money nerd, stories are my first love. So it’s no wonder the most enduring lessons I learned about finance come from the pop culture I loved as a child. Playing Lemonade Stand in my elementary school computer lab disrupted the story I’d told myself that it was possible to make a profit without risking an investment. Reading The Westing Game gave me the story of a confident financial heroine to remember when I’m tempted to follow the crowd. And Trading Places folded a satisfying revenge story into a creative investing scheme, which helped me feel smart and savvy when I finally wrapped my head around the details. View the full article

On weekdays, you could easily walk right past Knockdown Center, housed on an industrial stretch of road in Maspeth, Queens. The only thing that sets it apart from the neighboring auto body shops and wholesale warehouses is a rust-colored fence and a beat-up marquee that looks like it’s announcing a church rummage sale. But when Knockdown Center opens its gates at night and on summer weekends when its outdoor stage is set, the crowds of clubgoers streaming through its gate and pouring out of taxis, rideshares, and city buses is impossible to miss. The three-acre venue can accommodate up to 3,200 people inside and another 1,200 in its outdoor space, called the Ruins. This year has been especially busy. The nine-year-old Knockdown Center is hosting the fourth installment of its three-day Wire Festival from May 16 through 18, bringing together 55 artists for more than 50 hours of music across four stages indoors and outside. It will be the biggest iteration of the event yet and comes on the heels the venue’s recent hosting of the first U.S. installment of the C2C Festival, a 24-year-old dance and experimental music event held in Italy. Electronic music is booming, and everyone from tiny clubs to mega-festivals wants a piece of the action. At Coachella this year, 39% of the artists on the bill were electronic acts—nearly double the representation of indie-rock artists and almost four times the proportion of pop and hip-hop/rap acts each. At the 20,000-seat Sphere in Las Vegas, DJ Anyma sold out eight shows for a residency that began New Year’s Eve 2024, then added four more dates to accommodate demand. Later this year, storied Dutch EDM festival Tomorrowland will bring Unity (a joint effort with promoter Insomniac) to Sphere for a 12-date run, a length that doubled after the initial slate of shows sold out. @weirdhours Knockdown Center is proof that not every venue has to be on the same scale as Sphere to thrive in the electronic world. In 2024, it hosted 470,000 guests, says Tyler Myers, cofounder and executive director, adding that the venue has been profitable since 2019. After the standstill of live events in 2020 and 2021, Knockdown’s ticket sales grew 144% between 2022 and 2024. The venue has sold many of those tickets on a steady roster of global electronic artists. Operating a club in New York is not for the faint of heart: The rewards are high, but so are the risks. (Many are closing, and the nearby Brooklyn Mirage is struggling to open after ambitious renovations.) But by filling its lineup with a mix of recognizable acts and budding DJs and bands from around the world, Knockdown Center is pulling in steady audiences and a building a loyal community. “We’ve always been the right size for the business we’re doing,” Myers says. “We’ve worked really hard to get ourselves into a position where riskiness is less risky.” @weirdhours From Doors to DJs Opened in 1903 as a glass factory, the space became the home of the Manhattan Door Factory some three decades later. (In the 1950s, Manhattan Door owner Michael Sklar invented the knockdown-style door frame that gives the venue its name.) Myers and his two cofounders, working with owner David Sklar, took over the 50,000-square-foot space in 2016, renovating it into an events space. It’s since become a showcase for an ascendent electronic music scene that’s less akin to the over-the-top spectacle of the longstanding American EDM festival Electric Daisy Carnival—and more like the no-frills approach of Berlin’s legendarily cavernous techno club Berghain. “I had worked for a large entertainment company before this, and we’d always been looking for venues [this size] in New York City—and over the course of five years we never found one,” says Myers. “So with this space, it was like, holy shit this is unusual—and wouldn’t it be nice if we could figure out a sustainable way to support people who were taking risks with this kind of space.” @weirdhours After early efforts to showcase dance performances, theater, art installations, and murals, Myers and fellow organizers saw an opportunity to pair the venue’s scope with an ambitious music scene. “Some of the natural things we picked up early on were things that aspired to a sort of Detroit nostalgia for warehouse parties,” he says, adding that DIY festivals focused on electronic music were cropping up around the same time. In particular, he highlights Dripping and Sustain-Releaase—annual events that take place in the woods outside of New York—as upstarts that have grown by centering music and inspired Knockdown Center’s approach. “A lot of the innovation—a lot of the punk rock attitude in New York and globally—is in electronic music right now,” he says. “Our program is a reflection of [that] world.” @weirdhours An International Outlook Over the course of nine years, the venue has had its share of notable headliners—LCD Soundsystem played a 12-night residency in December; Fatboy Slim is set to reprise a 14-hour day-to-night set at the outdoor Ruins stage at the end of May. But a big part of Knockdown Center’s appeal has been built on its ability to bring a wide range of international acts to its stages. That’s been helped by events like Wire Festival. By design, the festival has included a growing number of international artists. Téa Abashidze, cofounder of Wire, says different collectives are invited to curate the festival’s second stage each year. “It’s about creating spaces where different communities can meet, share experiences, and start building new collaborations and ideas,” she says. This year, the stage is curated by Amsterdam’s queer techno organizers Spielraum and Berlin’s queer-focused art collective Pornceptual (don’t worry, that link is mostly SFW). Beyond Wire, Abashidze has played a key role in bringing international artists to Knockdown Center year-round. In 2019, she cofounded Basement, Knockdown Center’s underground, European-style nightclub that can hold up to 600 people. The space’s steady mix of local and international talent has been popular enough that Basement opened a second room in 2022, allowing for two performances to happen simultaneously. Wire Festival was initially an offshoot of the Basement project and its global vision. But when that vision involves crossing international borders, things can get complicated for artists given the expense and time required to get the proper visas—something fans don’t realize impacts their ability to see the artists they want to. “[Attendees] can be frustrated that they’re not getting access to events with some of the younger talent that’s coming up in Europe,” Myers says. “And are simply unaware that to do so legally is substantially expensive, time intensive, and risky.” @weirdhours The visa headache In April, British avant-garde artist FKA Twigs canceled her tour—which included two sold-out dates at Knockdown Center—due to visa issues. Though it was due to her team not submitting her documents with enough time for the application to clear, the episode underscored the way a complex process can keep even well-known artists from playing global shows. Myers wants Knockdown Center to be a resource for the artists who don’t have teams to assist in going international. “We continue to look for less resource-intensive ways that people could get a shorter visa or some other kind of visa to come play legally in the United States with less risk.” Myers says. “President The President’s policies and platform menace the artists we book from abroad, just as they do the artists we book at home, just as they do to the community we serve, and the employees we count on. But the process itself hasn’t suddenly become worse. It’s a big problem, but not a new problem.” Last summer, to make the process of getting a visa more straightforward, Wire and Basement partnered with online music and community site Resident Advisor—to launch Artist Visa Guide, a site that helps demystify what’s required to obtain an O-1 artist visa. @weirdhours To give smaller international artists exposure—and to help them offset the cost of a visa—Knockdown Center’s events that feature eclectic bills, even acts that might be unfamiliar to the venue’s audience. Since 2021, Jeff Klingman, Knockdown Center’s lead talent buyer, has curated Outline, a series of single-day festivals that bring together slates of performers from different genres and with different reach. “Broad programs like C2C and Outline are a nice way to showcase artists who need to go through that expensive visa process but aren’t necessarily going to sell 3,000 tickets on their own,” Klingman says. “But you need a broader framework to allow it—and that’s not going to happen at a bigger festival where you want your opening act to have 50K Instagram [followers] minimum.” @weirdhours Klingman has programmed 15 Outline events so far. The most recent installment, held in April, was headlined by established American post-rock band Explosions in the Sky, who shared the bill with Icelandic electronica act Múm, Guatemalan cellist and vocalist Mabe Fratti, Philadelphia shoegazers They Are Gutting a Body of Water, Danish electronic artist Upsammy, and Mexico City experimental band Diles Que No Me Maten. “Putting together the artists combinations that we do has become a beacon to the international community.” Klingman says. “It allows us to take modest chances in the spirit of art that we really believe in.” View the full article

Since President Donald The President took office, one of his fondest pastimes has been firing off randomly capitalized social media posts lambasting various laws as—and this is a technical term—too woke to be legal. Among his targets last week was the Digital Equity Act, which he deemed “RACIST,” “ILLEGAL,” and “totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL.” He wrapped by promising to (attempt to) end the program immediately. “No more woke handouts based on race!” he wrote. Other than the name of the Digital Equity Act, basically everything about The President’s post is wrong. Overall, the vast majority of Americans use the internet—96% of adults, according to Pew Research Center data. Yet there remains a persistent “digital divide” in this country, which breaks down on lines that will be unsurprising to anyone with a passing familiarity with its history. As recently as 2019, for example, only 71% of people who didn’t graduate from high school said they used the internet, and less than half—46%—subscribed to home broadband. In 2021, 85% of households making less than $25,000—nearly 23 million households—had a computing device (desktop, smartphone, or tablet) at home, compared to over 99% of households earning $150,000 or more, per U.S. Census Bureau data. Among those households making less than $25,000 a year, 16% had internet access only through a smartphone, compared to just 5% of households at the other end of the income spectrum. The Digital Equity Act, introduced in 2019 by Washington state senator Patty Murray, a Democrat, and passed as part of President Joe Biden’s bipartisan infrastructure law two years later, aims to narrow these gaps, if not close them altogether. The law established a trio of grant programs that allow states, Tribes, and other organizations to apply for money they can use to get people online and provide them with the tools necessary to make safe, effective use of the web. (The ability to log on is not especially useful if, for example, you are unfamiliar with the hamfisted phishing scams that will start landing in your Gmail inbox two minutes after you create it.) By passing the DEA, Congress acknowledged the simple fact that it is more or less impossible to find jobs, do homework, obtain healthcare, apply to college, pay taxes, and otherwise fully participate in modern society with limited and/or unstable internet access. The law set aside a total of $2.75 billion over five years for its purposes, which, in the context of the federal budget, is roughly analogous to a thimbleful of Evian poured into the infinity pool on a megayacht. Why, then, is The President so incensed about the Digital Equity Act? Regrettably, the answer is as stupid as it is cynical: It has the word “equity” right there in the title, and he and his fellow Republicans are constitutionally incapable of understanding the term outside of the context of the right-wing culture wars they are obsessed with fighting at every turn. His preoccupation with ferreting out “racial handouts” via clumsy CTRL+F search is now so all-consuming that he is trying to cut government spending that has nothing to do with race, and that would meaningfully improve the lives of millions of voters, many of whom cast their ballots for him six months ago. Some DEA funding recipients have already received notices purporting to cancel their grants. But as is the case with all of The President’s unilateral threats to revoke duly enacted federal laws, “ending” the DEA is not as simple as the president doing a post on a social media network he controls. Federal judges have spent the last several months blocking many of his illegal attempts to withhold congressionally appropriated funding from those who are entitled to it. Here, too, any would-be recipient of DEA funds who takes the administration to court should have a decent chance of prevailing. But the mere fact that The President is attacking the DEA—a modest, targeted, flexible attempt to extend an essential service to people who do not yet have it—demonstrates just how uninterested he is in doing anything resembling the basic work of governing. In a press release, Senator Murray described The President’s attempts to withhold “resources meant to help red and blue communities…[to] close the digital divide” as “absolutely insane.” A good rule of thumb in politics is that when a 74-year-old Democratic senator is angry enough to use phrases like “absolutely insane” in their official communications, the characterization is probably accurate and more than appropriate. The text of the DEA acknowledges that the digital divide, like many problems in this country, affects members of racial and ethnic minority groups, and frames digital equity as “a matter of social and economic justice.” But the law does not define the concept solely (or even primarily) in terms of race, as The President asserts. Instead, it emphasizes that the law is intended to cover lower-income people, veterans, people with disabilities, and people living in rural areas, among other demographic groups whose members face systemic barriers to getting on the internet. It is not different from any number of federal programs that identify the intended beneficiaries with specificity; doing so is, one might say, efficient. To the extent that the DEA touches on race, it does so only in the sense that, as is the case with every multibillion-dollar grant program Congress creates, some number of people whom the money helps will, in fact, not be white. The Digital Equity Act should be the sort of policy that conservatives, who treat any invocation of diversity as a form of illegal discrimination, nevertheless enthusiastically support: The law doesn’t aim to provide some greater, privileged level of internet access to anyone, but only to establish a baseline level of internet access for everyone. Already, deep-red states like Alabama, Indiana, Arkansas, and Iowa have completed their digital equity plans, which repeatedly affirm the urgent need for federal intervention, especially in rural areas. Alabama’s plan, for example, notes that 14.3% of its residents who do not have broadband at home say the service still isn’t available where they live—nearly twice the national figure. Other states are even further along in the process. During the last few weeks of the Biden administration, the Department of Commerce approved a total of $85 million in funding for initiatives to educate users about the basics of cybersecurity and digital privacy in North Carolina; to make internet access more affordable in Kansas; and to provide web devices and skills training in Mississippi. In 2024, these states voted for The President by 3, 16, and 23 points, respectively. Republicans who supported the DEA in 2021 had no problem with its basic premise. For example, at the time, Ohio Senator Rob Portman emphasized the impact of limited web access on “overlooked and underserved communities,” and touted the potential for “comprehensive digital equity plans” and “digital inclusion projects” to close these “access gaps”—a quote that might get him run out of the party on a rail if the White House finds out about it. Four years later, GOP lawmakers are happily seizing on the The President administration’s ongoing anti-integration crusade to rail against the DEA for its state-sanctioned anti-white bigotry. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, for example, hailed The President for ending the DEA’s “impermissible discrimination,” which he described as part of the “Biden-Harris administration’s woke spending spree.” For him, preserving the availability of $55 million in federal funding allocated to his state is less important than complimenting his party’s leader in public. Conservatives often criticize diversity, equity, and inclusion principles by focusing on ostensibly zero-sum resources: well-paying jobs, prestigious college admissions offers, and so on. But this framework makes absolutely no sense in the context of the DEA, which does not “deny” anything to anyone on the more online side of the digital divide. A wealthy suburban family with four laptops, four smartphones, and a tablet or two does not need more resources to use the internet; the provision of government-subsidized mobile hotspots for rural middle school students won’t affect the ability of white-collar employees living in major cities to get online and do their work. Calling the DEA “discriminatory” because it benefits people without internet access is like a person with 20/20 vision complaining because their optometrist didn’t write them a new glasses prescription: Sure, technically, you aren’t getting something that others are getting, but that’s only because you can see perfectly well already. In a functioning democracy, the Digital Equity Act would be obscure because it is uncontroversial—the product of a bipartisan consensus that making the internet available to everyone is a simple, efficient, and inexpensive method of ensuring greater equality of opportunity. If The President gets his way, people who remain marginalized by their limited internet access will remain that way for the foreseeable future, all because a reactionary octogenarian encountered statutory language that he didn’t understand, and that made him upset. View the full article

Like most humans, I generally prefer to surround myself with people who like, value, and respect me. You know, it’s quite a nice and simple way to boost my self-esteem. And yet, after studying human behavior for many years, I am fully aware that the tendency to indulge in this self-enhancing habit is intellectually debilitating: while it feels nice to hang out with people who appreciate you, it is also a way to develop blind spots and ignore opportunities to get better, improve, and develop new skills and ideas. Montaigne warned of this in his Essays, cautioning against surrounding oneself with flattering mirrors that reflect only our vanity, not our flaws. Shakespeare dramatizes this danger repeatedly—think of King Lear, who banishes the only daughter who speaks honestly, choosing instead the empty praise of those who tell him what he wants to hear. In The Iliad, Achilles withdraws from battle in part because his ego isn’t sufficiently stroked, with devastating consequences. And Orwell, in 1984, shows us a world where intellectual isolation—being surrounded by only one narrative—becomes the ultimate mechanism of control. Growing Divided Beyond the personal level, this habit fuels tribalism and polarization: when we curate our social and intellectual circles to exclude dissent or difference, we don’t just grow more complacent—we grow more divided. What begins as a harmless preference for affirmation becomes a breeding ground for intellectual stagnation and collective delusion. Conversely, increasing the time you spend with people who don’t like or value you, particularly when they think different from you, may sound like a masochistic activity, but it can reveal important gaps between the person you are and who you would like to be. Indeed, even when people underestimate you, they can be an important source of negative or critical feedback that alerts you to the possibility that you may actually not be as good as you think—and especially not as good as your inner circle thinks. This is an essential ingredient of self-awareness: coming to terms with your limitations, knowing what you don’t know, and accepting the fact that other people may not see you as positively as you see yourself, or as your close friends and fans do. But first, let’s understand the likely reasons other people may underestimate you: 1) It is a way to protect their own self-esteem Bringing other people down is the most common way to feel good about yourself (pathetic, I know—but very human). This phenomenon is often referred to as the Crab Barrel Syndrome, the psychological process where individuals attempt to hinder the progress of others perceived as competitors. When people feel threatened, envious, or insecure, they often cope by diminishing the value of others. It’s less effortful than self-improvement and more immediately gratifying. So, when someone underestimates you, it may say more about their fragile ego than your actual potential. In other words, their low opinion of your talents might just be a defense mechanism they’re using to avoid facing their own inadequacies—a mix of jealousy, insecure narcissism, and self-pity that is expressed as a derogatory view of you. In Joseph Mankiewicz’s All About Eve, the aging stage actress Margo Channing becomes increasingly threatened by the seemingly innocent and adoring Eve Harrington, a young fan who slowly infiltrates her life and career. Margo’s initial condescension gives way to paranoia and defensiveness, while Eve’s ascent is lubricated by subtle manipulation and strategic modesty. Here, the envy runs in both directions—Eve envies Margo’s fame and legacy; Margo resents Eve’s youth and promise. Each woman underestimates the other as a means of preserving her own sense of value, which makes the film a masterclass in how admiration curdles into rivalry when identity feels fragile. 2) You may actually be a high performer—but surrounded by other high performers If you’re consistently underestimated despite strong output, consider the context. Being in an environment full of exceptional people—like elite academic programs, competitive companies, or high-performing teams—can distort perceptions. Just watch Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash, where gifted jazz drummer Andrew Neiman is pushed to his limits at a prestigious music conservatory. In that hypercompetitive setting, even brilliance isn’t enough—every success is met with silence or scorn, because greatness is simply expected. When excellence becomes the baseline, even impressive contributions may be overlooked. Meanwhile, others who are objectively less capable may shine simply because they operate in low-stakes environments where mediocrity passes for brilliance, and enjoy being a big fish in a small pond. So being underestimated may be a function of your high-performing context, not your low ability. 3) You may not be as good as you think Self-enhancement bias is real. Research shows that most people overestimate their abilities, especially in ambiguous domains. Even if you’re talented, that doesn’t guarantee you’re making your value visible. Are you communicating clearly, aligning your work with others’ goals, or just expecting people to “get it”? Being underestimated might be your cue to refine how you showcase your strengths—clarify your contributions, seek feedback, and build a brand that matches your actual impact. (And yes, that means leaving the Dunning-Kruger zone.) So, what are the best strategies for winning your critics over? 1) Focus on them, not you Dale Carnegie 101: take a genuine interest in others. The irony is that people who underestimate you often care more about being seen than about seeing you. So, just play the game: ask them about their work, their opinions, their ideas—convincingly faking appreciation for them. Make them feel important. To be sure, flattery works best when it’s believable, which means you need to pay attention, listen, and reflect their values back to them. Call it effective impression management, strategic empathy, or just good politics: contrary to popular belief, it’s one of the key ingredients of career success. 2) Quantify your achievements People are less likely to ignore results when they’re staring at hard numbers. Share outcomes, metrics, and results that demonstrate your impact. Be specific: revenue increased, error rates decreased, engagement improved. You don’t have to brag—just document. Some people may still dismiss the data because they favor charisma over competence, but those aren’t the people you should be trying to impress anyway. Let the results speak, and if they don’t listen, speak louder with your results. 3) Change your behavior Maybe they’re right. Or at least not entirely wrong. Being underestimated can be a gift disguised as insult: a wake-up call that motivates you to adapt, grow, and become harder to ignore. If you’ve been coasting, this is your cue to sprint. If you’ve been misaligned, recalibrate. The good news is that people revise their judgments when they see genuine effort and improvement. There’s nothing more satisfying than disproving someone’s low expectations—especially when you do it without gloating (at least not outwardly). A final consideration: at times, the most effective way to win over the people who underestimate you may require you to care less about whether you actually win them over—especially if your goal is merely to inflate your ego. Focus instead on learning from them. Just as failure is a better teacher than success, critics and adversaries often teach us more than friends and fans. Nietzsche, for instance, argued that we owe our greatest growth to resistance and struggle, not comfort: “What does not kill me makes me stronger” is not just a gym slogan, but a blueprint for character development. Similarly, in The Republic, Plato has Socrates sharpen his thinking through constant dialectical combat with hostile interlocutors—because truth, like steel, is forged through friction. Even in literature, consider Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice: it is precisely through misunderstanding, misjudgment, and critical feedback that Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy evolve into better versions of themselves. In the end, you cannot expect everybody to appreciate your talents—but those who don’t may be more valuable than your supporters. Their underestimation can sting, yes, but it also serves as a psychological spur to refine, improve, and prove—not just to them, but to yourself—what you’re truly capable of becoming. View the full article

Branded is a weekly column devoted to the intersection of marketing, business, design, and culture. With economic uncertainty, inflation, and high interest rates lingering, consumers who can’t decide whether to spend now or hold off until later are increasingly doing some of each. And that’s good news for the “buy now, pay later” business. Buy now, pay later (BNPL) options—including those facilitated by major BNPL services like Klarna, Afterpay, and Affirm—have been growing increasingly commonplace. According to an April survey from LendingTree, for example, 25% of BNPL users have spent the loans on groceries, up from 14% last year. And the services are becoming more widely known through linkups with familiar brands. Klarna—which filed IPO paperwork in March but reportedly put those plans on hold when the markets swooned last month—recently announced a partnership with DoorDash to enable customers to pay for deliveries in installments. And Affirm has a new deal with Costco that will give approved customers monthly payment options. Interest in BNPL is likely to grow as tariffs cause prices to rise (Walmart, for instance, just warned of price hikes). This builds on a steady rise of BNPL spending that goes back several years. This past holiday season, such spending hit an all-time high of $18.2 billion, up nearly 10% over the prior year, according to data from Adobe, which listed popular categories such as electronics, apparel, and video games. Research from EMarketer found that the “per user spend” on BNPL services topped $1,000 in 2024, and forecast the category will make up 1.4% of all retail sales this year. BNPL firms position their steady move into everyday spending categories as a matter of convenience and household budgeting flexibility. The loans are generally interest-free to consumers, with the services charging merchants a small percentage (ranging from an estimated 1.5% to 7%) of the total transaction. The merchant benefits from increased sales from consumers who presumably feel more open to spending if they can spread out the impact, and avoid adding to credit card debt. Of course there’s a flip side to that. Critics argue that the services exploit consumer psychology, underscoring the instant gratification of buying something new at just a fraction of the total price now—a temptation that overwhelms the reality of continuing to pay it off for months. While BNPL offerings are fundamentally similar to old-school layaway plans and the like, they’re much easier to qualify for, and often pop up as seamless options on e-commerce sites. Moreover, the services make money from late fees if an overextended consumer falls behind. Roughly 41% of BNPL users copped to paying late in the past year, compared to 34% a year ago. Most were only a week or so late, and many of the laggards were in higher-income categories, but that’s a notable trend at a time when total consumer debt stands at a record $18.2 trillion. Either way, the expanding popularity of BNPL options for quotidian purposes like takeout and groceries is seen by many as a bad economic indicator: Surely an increased interest in alternative payment schemes to fund pizza night sounds like a sign of a skittish consumer. And while the use of BNPL options has been growing for some time, it has done so at a somewhat slower pace in the relatively positive economy of the past few years; by comparison, adoption spiked during and in the aftermath of the pandemic downturn. And there’s no question that services like Affirm and Klarna are becoming an increasingly routine part of the consumer-spending landscape. Recent fears of tariff-fueled inflation, shortages in some retail and grocery categories, and perhaps even a recession actually make the idea of buying now—before things get even worse—sound particularly appealing, and rational. Ultimately, both assessments of BNPL can be true at the same time: It’s a convenient and potentially sensible option, and a worrisome trend. Discussing his firm’s latest data, Matt Schulz, LendingTree’s chief consumer finance analyst, told CNBC that the popularity of BNPL reflects economic headwinds and uncertainty that has lots of consumers “struggling” and looking for ways to extend their budgets. “For an awful lot of people, that’s going to mean leaning on buy now, pay later loans,” he said, “for better or for worse.” View the full article

In recent years, brands have changed their entire marketing approach in order to attract the new breed of so-called eco-conscious consumers. This is unsurprising considering the mountain of research showing the majority of people saying they care about sustainability when it comes to their purchasing decisions. But the notion of an eco-conscious mass consumer who is willing to sacrifice their own personal comfort for the planet is largely a myth. This is because, while people might “say” they support sustainable practices, their actions tell a different story. Our own research reveals that almost six in 10 (57%) American consumers say sustainability shouldn’t come at the expense of their personal experience. It’s easy to read a stat like that and feel annoyed at people’s selfishness. At the same time, we’ve probably all been in a situation where, despite our best intentions, we realize too late that once again we’ve forgotten our reusable shopping bags at the grocery store. Or tried farmer-owned, regeneratively produced coffee beans only to go back to our old brand because it just doesn’t taste as good. Subconscious decision-making So why this disconnect? People tend to shop in a “hot state”—task-focused, time-pressured, hungry, distracted—rather than in a logical, deliberative mindset. In these moments, the subconscious mind drives decision-making, and high-minded intentions often fall by the wayside. Tasks that impede instant gratification, like cleaning up or sorting waste for recycling, are perceived as chores and routinely avoided without consciously realizing it. That’s why a halo of sustainability isn’t going to convince consumers to accept an inferior experience. It’s not that people don’t care about the environment, it’s that they’re human, and their subconscious priorities often override their conscious values. Brands that boast about their eco credentials often come off as authoritarian or preachy. Meanwhile, the rise in greenwashing has fueled deep-seated consumer scepticism over eco claims. A performance-based approach It can be much more effective for brands to talk up the superior performance or enhanced user experience of a product before getting to the sustainability aspect of it. And, for a topic as complex and divisive as the environment, sometimes the best approach is not to shout about sustainability at all. Ford took this approach with its “Frunk” campaign, which shows EV owners popping their hoods and putting the added space normally taken up by a combustion engine to imaginative new uses, from a pop-up kitchen to a tattoo shop. Meanwhile, the iconic anti-littering campaign “Don’t Mess with Texas” plays on state pride rather than guilt. User-unfriendly Sustainability efforts also fall short because services aimed at getting people to recycle or be more sustainable are not user-friendly. In fact, many systems are unknowingly designed to elicit the opposite effect. For example, in many food outlets and retail spaces, the recycling bin is next to the rubbish bin. Both involve throwing items into a black hole, never to be seen again, and so the semiotics unintentionally cue waste, anonymous disposal, and ultimately, the death of the product. Our study found 72% of consumers believe they’re responsible for clearing and sorting their rubbish in cafes and quick-service restaurants, like McDonald’s or Starbucks, but only 29% of them actually do so. Avoiding Rebellion Neuroscience shows that we subconsciously rebel when we feel forced to do something, so retailers should focus on making us actually want to take action. This is why the gamification of coin-spinning machines collecting charitable donations works so well. Kids love them for the fun factor; the philanthropy part is incidental. Retailers and quick service restaurants should swap “black hole” rubbish chutes for playful and rewarding alternatives that encourage people to recycle. To trigger behavior change, small nudges like these are much more effective than lofty messaging in marketing campaigns. There has also been a shift toward eco-led design, with branding and packaging featuring earthy, neutral colors and worthy messaging. But this pared-back, functional design takes a lot of the joy out of the experience and turns people off subconsciously. The vegan “meat” category is a great example, with a number of the biggest brands opting for dull, utilitarian packaging and earnest messaging that prioritizes ethics over appetite—making the products feel more like a compromise than a craveable choice. Effortless and indulgent Almost three-quarters (72%) of those surveyed said they love innovative brands that invest in product development and deliver pride and excitement. The question brands should ask is not just “how can we make this sustainable?” but “how would Silicon Valley design this?” Sustainable solutions should feel effortless and even indulgent—think eco-hedonism, not eco-consciousness. Brands need to stop passing the burden of sustainability to the consumer. If you can create a product or experience that is pleasurable, joyful, and rewarding, but also happens to be good for the planet, you will be able to sell sustainability to even the most selfish of consumers. View the full article

On Running has hit 2025 at full speed, reporting Q1 earnings on Tuesday that saw the company grow sales by 43% year-over-year. It’s a reflection of the overall growth trajectory the Zurich-based athletic lifestyle brand has been on since it launched in 2010. With a healthy direct-to-consumer business, growing retail footprint (with 53 stores around the world), and cutting edge product innovation, On has built its brand around its product quality and sleek, simple design. But cofounder and executive cochairman Caspar Coppetti says that despite the healthy numbers, the brand still has plenty of room to grow, and it’s using its own unique combination of culture and athletics to do it. “Our global brand awareness last year was only 20%, while Nike is at 95%,” says Coppetti. “We’re not trying to be the next Brand X or Brand Y. We’re writing our own script, and that script is: We want to be the most premium brand in sports, really elevating the whole brand experience.” Zendaya Premium culture Every athletic shoe company has its own approach to building out its audience. Nike has recently rejuvenated its swagger aimed at competitive athletes; Adidas has leaned on big names like Patrick Mahomes, Jude Bellingham, and Anthony Edwards; and Hoka is going all-in on runners. On, meanwhile, has built its brand around a unique combination of innovative design and elevated fashion sense. Elmo “That’s something we’ve always had in the brand,” says Coppetti says. It began with its foundational cushioning technology, Cloudtech, an engineered solution to absorb impact that looked distinct from any other sneaker. That was combined with a Swiss design ethos that’s very reductionist and clean. “Our products always look different and also quite fashionable,” says Coppetti. “And when performance and fashion collide, that’s when magic happens.” This year, the brand took that magic in some compelling directions. While some athletic brands have steered toward competition and the athlete mentality, On’s brand work went in a different, pretty damn quirky direction. In February, On dropped a Super Bowl ad featuring Roger Federer and Sesame Street’s Elmo debating the brand’s logo. Subsequent spots in the “Soft Wins” campaign had Elmo talking about running for fun as opposed to competitive fire. Then in April, the brand launched a trailer for a fake sci-fi movie starring Zendaya (who signed as a brand ambassador last year) to hype its new lifestyle bodysuit. With a new FKA Twigs partnership inked earlier this year, On has squarely positioned itself as the workout gear of choice for people who care about art and style. In its Q1 earnings report, On credited its Zendaya partnership as one of the driving forces of the brand’s impressive momentum. “These kinds of things have the potential to go viral,” says Coppetti. “Consumers are also not seeing us as just another brand shoving advertising in their face, but seeing that it’s actually kind of cute and clever, and that resonates.” Looking ahead to the rest of 2025, the brand is looking to open 25 more stores around the world, and continue to hype it’s Lightspray shoe technology, and its expanding apparel line. Coppetti says that the challenge is to make sure people see On as a head-to-toe brand, as opposed to just sneakers. “Now we’re expanding our market share from the feet up.” View the full article

Look closely at your mobile phone or tablet. Touch-screen technology, speech recognition, digital sound recording and the internet were all developed using funding from the U.S. National Science Foundation. No matter where you live, NSF-supported research has also made your life safer. Engineering studies have reduced earthquake damage and fatalities through better building design. Improved hurricane and tornado forecasts reflect NSF investment in environmental monitoring and computer modeling of weather. NSF-supported resilience studies reduce risks and losses from wildfires. Using NSF funding, scientists have done research that amazes, entertains and enthralls. They have drilled through mile-thick ice sheets to understand the past, visited the wreck of the Titanic and captured images of deep space. NSF investments have made America and American science great. At least 268 Nobel laureates received NSF grants during their careers. The foundation has partnered with agencies across the government since it was created, including those dealing with national security and space exploration. The Federal Reserve estimates that government-supported research from the NSF and other agencies has had a return on investment of 150% to 300% since 1950, meaning for every dollar U.S. taxpayers invested, they got back between $1.50 and $3. However, that funding is now at risk. Since January, layoffs, leadership resignations, and a massive proposed reorganization have threatened the integrity and mission of the National Science Foundation. Hundreds of research grants have been terminated. The administration’s proposed federal budget for fiscal year 2026 would cut NSF’s funding by 55%, an unprecedented reduction that would end federal support for science research across a wide range of discipines. At my own geology lab, I have seen NSF grants catalyze research and the work of dozens of students who have collected data that’s now used to reduce risks from earthquakes, floods, landslides, erosion, sea-level rise, and melting glaciers. I have also served on advisory committees and review panels for the NSF over the past 30 years and have seen the value the foundation produces for the American people. American science’s greatness stemmed from war In the 1940s, with the advent of nuclear weapons, the space race and the intensification of the Cold War, American science and engineering expertise became increasingly critical for national defense. At the time, most basic and applied research was done by the military. Vannevar Bush, an electrical engineer who oversaw military research efforts during World War II, including development of the atomic bomb, had a different idea. He articulated an expansive scientific vision for the United States in “Science: The Endless Frontier.” The report was a blueprint for an American research juggernaut grounded in the expertise of university faculty, staff and graduate students. On May 10, 1950, after five years of debate and compromise, President Harry Truman signed legislation creating the National Science Foundation and putting Bush’s vision to work. Since then, the foundation has become the leading funder of basic research in the United States. NSF’s mandate, then as now, was to support basic research and spread funding for science across all 50 states. Expanding America’s scientific workforce was and remains integral to American prosperity. By 1952, the foundation was awarding merit fellowships to graduate and postdoctoral scientists from every state. There were compromises. Control of NSF rested with presidential appointees, disappointing Bush. He wanted scientists in charge to avoid political interference with the foundation’s research agenda. NSF funding matters to everyone, everywhere Today, American tax dollars supporting science go to every state in the union. The states with the most NSF grants awarded between 2011 and 2024 include several that voted Republican in the 2024 election—Texas, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania—and several that voted Democratic, including Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, and Colorado. More than 1,800 public and private institutions, scattered across all 50 states, receive NSF funding. The grants pay the salaries of staff, faculty and students, boosting local employment and supporting college towns and cities. For states with major research universities, those grants add up to hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Even states with few universities each see tens of millions of dollars for research. As NSF grant recipients purchase lab supplies and services, those dollars support regional and national economies. When NSF budgets are cut and grants are terminated or never awarded, the harm trickles down and communities suffer. Initial NSF funding cuts are already rippling across the country, affecting both national and local economies in red, blue, and purple states alike. An analysis of a February 2025 proposal that would cut about $5.5 billion from National Institutes of Health grants estimated the ripple effect through college towns and supply chains would cost $6.1 billion in GDP, or total national productivity, and over 46,000 jobs. An uncertain future for American science America’s scientific research and training enterprise has enjoyed bipartisan support for decades. Yet, as NSF celebrates its 75th birthday, the future of American science is in doubt. Funding is increasingly uncertain, and politics is driving decisions, as Bush feared 80 years ago. A list of grants terminated by the The President administration, collected both from government websites and scientists themselves, shows that by early May 2025, NSF had stopped funding more than 1,400 existing grants, totaling more than a billion dollars of support for research, research training, and education. Most terminated grants focused on education—the core of science, technology and engineering workforce development critical for supplying highly skilled workers to American companies. For example, NSF provided 1,000 fewer graduate student fellowships in 2025 than in the decade before—a 50% drop in support for America’s best science students. American scientists are responding to NSF’s downsizing in diverse ways. Some are pushing back by challenging grant terminations. Others are preparing to leave science or academia. Some are likely to move abroad, taking offers from other nations to recruit American experts. Science organizations and six prior heads of the NSF are calling on Congress to step up and maintain funding for science research and workforce development. If these losses continue, the next generation of American scientists will be fewer in number and less well prepared to address the needs of a population facing the threat of more extreme weather, future pandemics, and the limits to growth imposed by finite natural resources and other planetary limits. Investing in science and engineering is an investment in America. Diminishing NSF and the science it supports will hurt the American economy and the lives of all Americans. Paul Bierman is a professor of natural resources and environmental science at the University of Vermont. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. View the full article

There’s a good chance that your drinking water contains forever chemicals. PFAS, the type of chemicals used in products like some nonstick pans and waterproof jackets, is present in water systems for nearly half of Americans. But the The President administration now wants to roll back Biden-era rules that would have cleaned up certain types of the chemicals. There’s a catch: an “anti-backsliding” provision in the Safe Drinking Water Act says that any new standard for drinking water safety can’t be less protective than the old standard. “The provision is really simple,” says Dave Owen, a professor at the University of California College of the Law in San Francisco. “The only way they could get around it is to say we have discovered new evidence that clarifies that revising the standard will do nothing to reduce protection of public health. And I’d be shocked if they have evidence that would substantiate that claim.” In 2024, the Biden-era EPA issued a rule with new limits for six types of PFAS (or “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances”), which have been linked to cancer and developmental problems. Under the rule, public water utilities have to monitor water for the six compounds, notify the public of unsafe levels, and treat the water. The rule gave them until 2027 to comply, though it allowed for an extension of an extra two years because of the expense of setting up new treatment systems. This week, the EPA announced that it would rescind the rule for four of the PFAS types on the list (known as PFHxS, PFNA, HFPO-DA or GenX, and PFBS). For two others—PFOA and PFOS—it would delay the requirement for utilities to comply. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin claimed that the agency didn’t necessarily want to weaken the limits for the four chemical compounds, just “reconsider” the rule. (To try to make a change, they’ll also have to go through a long rulemaking process—they can’t simply get rid of the rule automatically.) But water utilities and the chemical industry have been fighting to get rid of the limits, and said the administration’s announcement was a step in the right direction. If the EPA does eventually attempt to loosen the limits, environmental groups could sue under the anti-backsliding provision. There’s clear evidence that the compounds aren’t safe for people’s health. “There are literally hundreds of studies that show that these chemicals are dangerous,” says Erik Olson, senior strategic director for health at NRDC. “The evidence is very strong. That’s why EPA issued those regulations.” In the case of the other two compounds, Olson says the EPA can’t legally extend the deadline for utilities to comply. The Safe Drinking Water Act allows for a maximum of five years for utilities to meet new requirements, and that’s already in place. An EPA spokesperson said that the agency would “follow the legal process laid out in the Safe Drinking Water Act.” But even though the rules are still in place, and the administration shouldn’t be able to roll them back, the current situation means that utilities are likely to delay progress. (The administration has also made it clear that it’s willing to disregard laws.) “It creates a lot of confusion when you’re a water utility,” Olson says. “Utilities get five years to comply because they have to have contracts. They have to get funded. They have to do all this stuff in order to build a treatment plant. And if a utility senses, oh, I may not have to do this, are they going to invest in a new water treatment plant to protect their customers? Or are they going to wait and see and hope that EPA isn’t going to enforce some of these rules?” There’s also a risk, he says, that utilities might invest in treatment systems that only work for PFOA and PFOS, the two older types of “long-chain” PFAS. Those chemicals have mostly been phased out and replaced by newer types of PFAS. Some treatments for PFOA don’t work for newer types of the chemicals. That’s another fundamental problem with the regulation in the first place: There are thousands of different varieties. As certain types get regulated, the industry replaces them with others that often are just as risky. The chemicals should be regulated as a class, rather than by specific type, Olson says. “Big manufacturers in the U.S. agreed to phase out their manufacturer [PFOA and PFOS] many years ago,” he says. “But what they did is they just had ‘regrettable substitutions,’ as we call them. Other new ones popped up, like Gen X . . . It’s a classic [situation] where a chemical company stops making one thing and just jumps to the next.” Water utilities are fighting the rules because of cost. But funding exists for cleanup, including $9 billion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and $12.5 billion in a settlement with chemical manufacturers last year. “There’s $21-plus billion that’s sitting there,” Olson says. Under Biden, the EPA had estimated that PFAS treatment would cost utilities around $1.5 billion a year, though other estimates range up to $3.8 billion a year. “If the utilities want to go ahead and start building this treatment technology, they should be asking for that money, rather than dragging their feet,” he says. “If you think about it, what is a water utility’s job? They have one job. And that is to supply adequate, safe water to consumers. And they’re just fighting, kicking, and screaming, against doing that.” View the full article

America’s fast casual restaurants are almost universally struggling. But a few chains are betting on one universally beloved fried finger food to draw customers back into booths: the humble mozzarella stick. Over the past year or so, the fast casual sector has faced a chilling effect as inflation and rising menu prices continue to drive consumers away. Last year, chains including Red Lobster, Tijuana Flats, Buca di Beppo, and BurgerFi all sought bankruptcy protection. Others, like Dine Brands (the owner of Applebee’s and IHOP) and Darden (the owner of Olive Garden) have recently reported lackluster financial results. Amidst this dreary environment, Chili’s, the fast casual restaurant known for its margaritas and appetizers, is having a shockingly good year. The brand saw a 31% jump in sales in the second quarter of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, alongside a nearly 20% increase in traffic. Chili’s parent company, Brinker International, raked in total sales of about $1.3 billion in the second quarter of 2025 compared to about $1.1 billion in 2024. A good portion of Chili’s success can be attributed to several viral appetizers—most notably, its fried mozzarella sticks—which have boosted the restaurant’s visibility in the cultural zeitgeist. Now, TJI Friday’s seems to be taking a page out of Chili’s book to revitalize its dying brand by putting mozzarella sticks front and center. Chili’s pioneers mozzarella stick-Tok In a January earnings call, Chili’s CEO Kevin Hochman laid out a few of the changes driving Chili’s recent success, including simplifying the menu, upgrading ingredients, and, crucially, investing in a social media marketing campaign centered around appetizers. Back in April 2024, Chili’s partnered with a number of social media influencers to market its Triple Dipper, an appetizer plate that lets customers choose three different dishes (the mozzarella sticks, which were added to the menu in 2002, being one of the most popular choices.) The collabs took off, spawning dozens of TikToks with viewership in the hundreds of thousands of influencers sampling both the Triple Dipper and the mozzarella sticks by themselves. The mozzarella sticks developed a kind of cult online fanbase both for their chunky rectangular form factor and for their cheese-pull properties, a measurement of how stretchy melted cheese is that’s a sought-after characteristic for food-based content creators. The appetizer was so popular among young fans on TikTok that the company introduced two new flavors in 2024, Nashville Hot Mozz and Honey Chipotle Mozz, which, predictably, spawned another wave of Chili’s mozzarella stick reviews. In all, Hochman told investors, interest in the Triple Dipper doubled year-over-year, jumping from accounting for 7% of total sales to 14%. TJI Friday’s goes stick-for-stick with Chili’s It looks like TJI Friday’s is now hoping to dip into the mozzarella stick craze in an effort to revive its business. It’s been a rough several years for TGI Friday’s. In early 2024, the chain abruptly shuttered a series of underperforming stores. Then, in December, it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing financial difficulties from the COVID-19 pandemic as the main factor driving the decision. Today, the company has whittled down its presence in the U.S. to just 85 stores, compared to 600 during its heyday in 2006. Now, under CEO Ray Blanchette, who previously ran the company between 2018 and 2023 and returned again in January, TJI Friday’s is taking a bold risk to turn its fate around. In an interview with CNN this week, Blanchette shared that the company is planning to change 85% of its menu to streamline the available options and attract both Gen Zers and millennials to the chain. To start, the company is paring back on the more out-there items on the menu (at one point, oddly, that included sushi), introducing a new signature sauce, and revamping its cocktail menu. According to Blanchette, the new drink offerings include seven signature cocktails from the company’s early days, now with “eye-catching” colors, and they’re intended to entice Gen Zers who “love speciality beverages.” Chili’s has used a similar strategy for some time, debuting a margarita of the month in neon hues that often take off on socials (like last summer’s Berry Shark Bite Marg and this month’s ‘90s-inspired Radical Rita.) And, of course, TGI Friday’s is introducing its own spin on the saucy mozzarella sticks. Blanchette says that the brand has offered mozzarella sticks for decades, and actually helped turn them into a staple on menus across the industry. On its new menu, the chain will go stick-for-stick with Chili’s through flavors including Franks RedHot Buffalo, Garlic Parmesan, and Whiskey Glaze. “For us, mozzarella sticks are not a trend,” Blanchette told Fast Company. “[. . .] When we saw others leaning into sauced versions, we knew it was time to remind everyone who did it first—and now we’re raising the bar.” To spread the word, TGI Friday’s has a new socials team that’s already jumping on mozzarella stick-Tok, including with a video posted this week of mozzarella sticks getting tossed in sauce to George Michael’s sensual “Careless Whisper.” Chili’s may have paved the way, but TGI Friday’s will be the first testcase of whether mozzarella sticks are enough to save America’s fast casual restaurants. View the full article

Steel has long anchored modern construction, but its environmental toll is staggering: producing a single ton emits nearly two tons of CO2. Steel is also complex to manage in construction processes, which prevents smaller contractors and projects from using it. A material invented at the University of Maryland will soon offer a radical alternative. Called Superwood, it has a 50% greater tensile strength than steel and a strength-to-weight ratio that’s 10 times better. It’s lighter, tougher, and also locks away carbon. After seven years of development, the startup commercializing the technology will begin mass production this summer. “We’ve spent years perfecting our molecular reconfiguration process to maintain the extraordinary properties demonstrated in the lab, while making the process commercially viable,” Alex Lau—cofounder and executive chairman of InventWood—tells me over email. The company was founded in 2016 by Dr. Liangbing Hu at the University of Maryland, after he developed the first transparent wood as a better insulating alternative to glass. “What began as pioneering academic work evolved through several breakthrough iterations,” Lau says. Hu turned his research into Superwood in 2017. The work was documented in a 2018 Nature paper that revealed a method of transforming ordinary wood into a substance rivaling titanium alloys. The discovery held the promise of a sustainable, CO2 negative construction material that was better than steel, but it was far from commercialization. During this time, Dr. Hu focused on further refining the technology and bringing manufacturing costs down. Then, in 2021, Lau recognized that the technology had reached sufficient maturity for full-scale commercialization. “At that point, I helped pull together a complete team to kick off the manufacturing process,” he says. “Since 2021, we’ve been intensely focused on creating a scalable process and ensuring the quality standards necessary to bring SuperWood to market.” How Superwood is made Making Superwood is a complex process, but it requires two primary steps. First, lignin—a polymer that stiffens wood and gives it its brown hue—is partially dissolved using food-grade chemicals. As Orlando J. Rojas, a professor at Finland’s Aalto University, noted back when the discovery came out in 2018, the trick is to remove just enough lignin to maximize hydrogen bonding between cellulose fibers without compromising its structural integrity. Next, the wood is compressed at 150°F, collapsing its cellular structure into a dense matrix. The result is a material five times thinner than the original, but 12 times stronger and 10 times tougher. This molecular reconfiguration eliminates wood’s inherent weaknesses. Natural wood is porous and prone to rot, but Superwood’s tightly packed cellulose fibers create a barrier against moisture, termites, and fungi. Its Class A fire rating—achieved without chemical flame retardants—stems from its density, which starves flames of oxygen. Lab tests proved its ballistic resistance: A projectile pierced untreated wood, but it lodged halfway through a same-thickness Superwood block. Unlike steel or carbon fiber, it requires no energy-intensive smelting or synthetic resins. Initially, it took weeks to make a single plank of Superwood, but Inventwood’s team streamlined the process to just a few hours, enabling bulk production of the material. Lau tells me that the company’s first facility in Frederick, Maryland, will produce one million square feet of Superwood annually starting this summer, focusing initially on interior finishes for commercial and high-end residential projects. A second phase in fall 2025 will introduce exterior-grade panels for siding and roofing. He envisions structural beams and columns within a few years, pending certification. Their plan is to build “a larger facility that will scale to over 30 million square feet, enabling use in infrastructure and large developments,” Lau says. If you are wondering about how architects and crews can actually use this to build, you are not alone: If it’s stronger than steel, does it require special tools? According to Lau, contractors can cut, drill, and fasten Superwood with standard woodworking tools, though its density may demand adjusted techniques. “No specialized tools are required, making adoption straightforward,” Lau says. The material’s stability minimizes warping, and polymer coatings enable outdoor use without sacrificing aesthetics. Its compressed fibers deepen natural grain patterns, yielding finishes akin to tropical hardwoods. It can change everything Lau didn’t disclose information about price, thought he did say Superwood’s initial pricing will be “premium” but competitive with top-notch tropical hardwoods and hybrid woods, which are composite materials that combine wood with other materials like steel or concrete. This means that, pound by pound, it will be much more expensive than steel at this point, more than 10 times in fact: $12.50 to $25 per pound for Superwood as opposed to steel’s $1 to $2 per pound. But then you need to factor in other factors to understand its true cost. If Superwood’s offers 10x superior strength-to-weight ratio, a 10-pound beam could match the load-bearing capacity of a 100-pound steel beam, in theory effectively reducing its effective cost to $1.25 to $2.50 per pound when adjusted for performance. You also need to factor in its resistance to corrosion and rot, plus the fact that you can make a building entirely out of Superwood and eliminate the need for other structural elements and wall materials. Then there’s the economical and environmental cost of fire retardants, since the material naturally retards fire even if it’s wood. Since wood comes from the most effective living carbon sequestration system on the planet—trees!—it will actually suck CO2 out of the atmosphere (the material is made from wood from sustainable tree farms). Clearly, Superwood’s long-term value proposition narrows the gap with steel in relative and absolute terms. The company expects to achieve better economics as they scale up production too, Lau adds. Superwood, in theory, could extend beyond construction. Early research proposed applications in vehicles, aircraft, and furniture, leveraging its moldability and cost savings over carbon fiber. For now, InventWood is focused on buildings, however, where steel and concrete account for a massive carbon footprint, pollution, and economic bill. “We want to get to the bones of the building,” Lau says. He believes that Superwood can transform the construction industry. We will see when the first batches roll out this summer and companies start using them. View the full article

Gen Alpha, the youngest generation of active consumers in the market, are teetering on the onset of teen angst. For many of them, an unavoidable trigger of it will be those pesky hormonal-triggered breakouts. It’s a moment for the skincare industry to once again swoop in and offer tweens and teens a smorgasbord of problem-skin creams, gels, patches and facemasks treatments. That part hasn’t changed for generations of consumers. What’s evolved are the strategies brands are using today to reach the youngest of them. Previous generations of teens, for instance, would see ads for acne brands in glossy magazines, newspaper inserts, on TV during Nickelodeon commercial breaks and on the radio. None of this will effectively work with Gen Alpha, a fully digitally native cohort. They live and breathe the internet, gaming and social media. So in March, Switzerland-based Galderma, maker of skincare brand Cetaphil and Differin (a popular over-the-counter acne treatment sold in Walmart, Target, Ulta and on Amazon), for the first time took its acne brand to one of Gen Alpha’s most popular hangouts—the gaming platform Roblox. Roblox has about 98 million active daily users, with 80% of them below the age of 25. On average, users spent a total of 21.7 billion hours on the platform just in its first quarter this year, up 30% from a year ago. “The when, the where and the why of [our] effort is very rooted in data,” says Tara Loftis, global president of dermatological skincare at Galderma. “Acne impacts 85% of people between the ages of 12 and 24. Where are tweens and younger GenZers spending most of their time? The answer is gaming.” Loftis and her team partnered with marketing agency Dentsu and “dreamed up what it would look like for Differin to integrate directly into Roblox.” A novel approach for skincare Walmart, Fenty Beauty, Crocs, H&M, PacSun, Nike and e.l.f. Beauty are among dozens of major brands that have created their presence in the Roblox metaverse. However, Differin’s entry, according to industry experts, makes it one of the first brands in the acne-care category to now be on Roblox. It is a novel approach by skincare brands trying to connect with young consumers, says Larissa Jensen, senior vice president and global beauty industry advisor at market research firm Circana. “Cosmetics brands, such as e.l.f, have been turning to Roblox to reach a very specific younger demographic. That isn’t new. But, for skincare [brands], it’s a little bit more challenging to integrate skincare into a gaming platform,” Jensen says. “With makeup, you can engage with the brand through gameplay where you put makeup on your avatar. It’s harder to interact in the metaverse with skincare. If Galderma has success with this strategy, you can bet that other brands will be paying attention.” The Roblox activation for Differin involves three mini games (for players ages 13 and up) as part of the brand’s “Level Up Lobby.” In one game called “Foam Blaster,” the challenge is to use a blaster to clean hovering faces with Differin’s 10% benzoyl peroxide maximum strength foaming cleanser. Players in “Power Patch Splat” launch Differin power patches at the right moment to splat pimples. In “Zit Zapper,” the objective is to zap zits as they appear on hovering faces with Differin’s 10% Benzoyl Peroxide spot treatment. The goal with these roblox games, said Loftis, is to create brand awareness and educate “Gen Zalpa” (Gen Alpha and younger GenZers) about skincare through gamifying acne care and integrating Differin into that experience. Although players can’t buy Differin products on Roblox, they are able to upload their receipt for any Differin purchase to unlock virtual rewards in the games. “What we didn’t want to do was to have this look like ad necessarily, in the traditional sense,” says Loftis. “Two reasons for that. We are not able to target anyone under the age of 13, or to target people specifically that have acne. But what we can do is make that assumption about where 80% of acne sufferers are. They are Gen Zalpa and they’re on Roblox. Chasing the Roblox “Gold Rush” Clay Colarusso, head of TeenVoice, a teen market research and insights company, is very familiar with the “Gold Rush” of brands to the Roblox metaverse as they strive to capture the attention of the youngest shoppers and influence their future spending habits. Marketers trying to unlock the tween and teen markets and the billions of household dollars that they’re either influencing their parents to spend, or the dollars they’re spending directly, has been happening for decades, says Colarusso. “I’m a child of the 80s and I distinctly remember the toy and breakfast cereal commercials that would play one after another as I watched Saturday morning cartoons,” says Colarusso. “Kids back then would go to mom and dad and ask them to put the toy on the birthday wishlist.” The difference today, he says, is that the path to purchase is much shorter through digital marketing than it was with traditional media in the 80s. “If I’m on Roblox and I have an opportunity to buy, and maybe even have my parent’s credit card already preloaded in there, I can purchase immediately. Or, I can influence my parents to buy it for me,” Colarusso says. “It’s a marketer’s dream. But where it gets tricky is on the data side.” Brands have to be careful when they target young consumers. The Federal Trade Commission, through its Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA), prohibits companies, websites and online services from collecting personal information of children under 13 without parental approval. “The concern is really less about brands marketing to this demographic, with certain obvious exceptions, and more about data collection and privacy concerns especially when dealing with consumers under 13,” Colarusso says. “This is why folks get really nervous when they think about marketing or how to market to kids, and rightfully so. They need to behave in a judicious and prudent way.” Roblox says on its website that the platform is “compliant with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule (COPPA) and other international regulatory standards.” For people 13 and older who are eligible to see ads, Roblox said ads “must be clearly and prominently disclosed using simple and understandable language.” “Hate to be sold to” According to Galderma, in less than 30 days after the Differin Roblox games launched, the Differin “Level Up Lobby” campaign (which ends on May 31) has attracted more than three million visits with more than 365,000 mini games and nearly 12,000 hours of brand engagement on the gaming platform. “We know that Gen Zalpha hates being sold to. These are games. If they struggle with acne, we hope to educate them about skincare through gaming that resonates,” says Loftis. “If not, it’s still a fun game.” So far, she says a fairly high number of people playing the games are “playing them completely.” “We went big on our gaming, which means we basically moved away 100% from traditional advertising for Differin,” Loftis says. “Gen Zalpha isn’t going to buy an acne patch because they see an ad. They’re going to buy it because they see a really compelling before and after result that their favorite gamer or TikToker talks about.” View the full article

A question I often get when I train editorial teams on the use of AI is, “Is using AI cheating?” Although it’s a yes or no question, it’s obviously not a yes or no answer. The short answer is sometimes, but the key to figuring out the long answer is using the tools with an open mind. If you’re a professional in a field like journalism, you’ll generally be able to tell when it’s speeding up drudgery and when your judgment and expertise are most needed. However, the recent viral story in New York magazine about how colleges and universities are struggling with rampant, unauthorized AI use from students got me thinking about what’s happening much earlier in the pipeline. After all, those college students who are using AI to cheat on essays and admissions interviews eventually get jobs in the workforce. How will entry-level reporters, editors, and interns regard the use of AI, and how can newsrooms guide them so they develop the critical skills good journalists need? Prioritize people, not just output This highlights an area of AI policymaking that often gets the short shrift. Newsroom AI policies are rightly concerned with the integrity of the information the publication is putting out and transparency with audiences, primarily. What AI might be doing to the skill-building of junior staffers is a tertiary concern, at best. Left unchecked, however, this problem has the potential to be existential: How do you produce competent senior staff when the junior staff is either replaced by AI or—as the New York piece suggests—replacing themselves with AI. You start with the first principles. Most AI policies begin with some kind of affirmation that humans remain at the center of what journalism is about. That lens needs to turn inward in a real way, with a commitment to balance innovation and efficiencies with professional development. In a newsroom, a healthy AI policy also ensures staff in entry-level or junior roles have opportunities to build core journalistic competencies. The policy should be clear to those workers even before they walk in the door. These days a lot of interviews happen over video conference, and many newsrooms that aren’t explicitly local have gone fully remote over the last few years. The fact is, if a candidate is on the other end of a video interview, hiring managers should be assuming they have some kind of AI helping them, even if there aren’t telltale signs like delayed answers and rote wording. And there are still ways to adapt the hiring process to this reality. Where possible, newsrooms should incorporate in-person interviews and testing. For remote workers, real-time teamwork exercises will reveal a lot more than “take home” ones like memos and writing tests. Why junior staff need their “reps” A good AI policy spells out exactly which tasks are allowed to be partially or totally done by AI, while still leaving room to experiment in noncritical areas. (The New York Times’s policy is a good example.) In selecting those tasks, however, efficiency and productivity shouldn’t be the only factors. How that mix of tasks changes between junior and senior staff should be taken into account. A good way to think about this: Just because AI can do a task doesn’t mean it should do it always, in every instance. Yes, an AI tool can now competently turn a three-hour school board meeting into a news story, but reporting and writing “rote” stories like this are a fundamental part of learning the ropes of journalism: taking good notes, finding the story in a sea of information, checking facts, and getting the right quotes. Newsrooms need to ensure this kind of foundational exercise, essentially “getting your reps in,” is still a priority for reporters just starting out. This approach runs the risk of emphasizing newsroom hierarchy and increasing frustration among junior staffers who know that AI could speed up their work. That’s why it’s important to have a clear path out. For instance, new hires might need to complete training modules that emphasize foundational journalistic skills before they gain broader access to AI tools. That would send the message that using AI is a privilege—one earned through demonstrating competence. How to future-proof journalism So, using AI might be cheating in some cases and not cheating in others—even for the same task. That might be confusing, but it also might be a sign of a thoughtful AI policy that doesn’t see increased output as the be-all and end-all of success. Because in the end, an AI policy isn’t just a rule book that allows or forbids offloading certain tasks to robots in the name of efficiency. It should be a map for how a newsroom preserves the integrity of its journalism and the trust of its audience as it navigates one of the most impactful technological changes in history. If you try to sail into the future without thinking about the long-term health of your staff, you risk arriving at the destination with a crew of nothing but robots. View the full article

Istanbul meeting between lower-ranking officials comes after Vladimir Putin snubbed Volodymyr ZelenskyyView the full article

Across the country, nonprofits are confronting a sudden and severe financial shock: federal funding they’ve long relied on is being pulled back—abruptly, and in some cases, entirely. In recent weeks, the The President administration’s spending cuts have triggered frozen contracts, rescinded grants, and stop-work orders across federal agencies. The moment has highlighted the financial vulnerability of many institutions, and underscored the importance of building more resilient, diversified funding models that aren’t solely dependent on federal dollars. Organizations that once built multi-year budgets around government commitments are now rewriting financial plans weekly just to keep up. Delays, backlogs, and revenue gaps have become routine. According to the Urban Institute, between 60% and 80% of nonprofits that rely on public funding would face serious financial shortfalls if that support disappeared. Due to resource constraints, many nonprofits have treated financial management as a day-to-day operational function, with less emphasis on its role as a strategic driver of mission impact. But in today’s environment, that approach is no longer sustainable. Volatility—from elections, markets, and geopolitics—has become a permanent feature of the landscape. Organizations that fail to adapt risk not only missing opportunities but also jeopardizing their ability to weather the next downturn. To meet this challenge, nonprofits must elevate financial strategy to a central pillar of leadership. That starts with three critical shifts: Investment oversight must be proactive, not passive In today’s climate, checking in on financial performance once a year just isn’t enough. Many nonprofits are now reviewing liquidity monthly or quarterly and running scenario planning exercises to stress-test how unexpected shifts—like a delayed government payment or a rescinded grant—would affect their ability to meet payroll or sustain core programs. Boards can support this work by ensuring there’s a clear investment policy aligned with the organization’s real-world cash flow needs and risk tolerance, and by revisiting that policy regularly. Investment committees, in turn, can work with advisors to shift more assets into more liquid investments, giving them flexibility when contract payments are late or major gifts don’t come through. Donor strategy must become a financial strategy. With once-reliable federal funding no longer a given, nonprofits must actively cultivate alternative revenue streams—and that responsibility shouldn’t fall solely to the development team. Donor engagement must be tightly integrated with financial planning. That includes segmenting and expanding donor bases to identify those with capacity to give more, using predictive analytics to anticipate giving patterns and gaps, and aligning fundraising calendars with financial forecasts. Finance and development teams, or external financial partners, should work together to build models that estimate how different donor strategies impact year-end liquidity and long-term planning. In short: Strengthening donor revenue is not just a development goal, it’s a financial imperative. Endowments must be treated as mission-sustaining tools. Endowments are more than rainy-day funds—they’re meant to ensure the perpetuity of the organizations. Over the past two decades, nonprofits have taken important steps to diversify their portfolios. In fact, average exposure to public equity and fixed income has dropped from 70% to 39%, while allocations to alternatives such as private equity and hedge funds have more than doubled. That shift can offer stronger returns, but diversification isn’t a one-size-fits-all strategy. For organizations that depend heavily on government contracts or grants, an overly rigid or illiquid portfolio can create real vulnerabilities in times of stress. Take, for example, some of the nation’s most prestigious universities. Even institutions with multi-billion-dollar endowments have recently moved to sell private equity holdings to increase liquidity, citing political and financial uncertainty around federal funding. When organizations of that scale and sophistication reconsider their exposure to illiquid assets under stress, it’s a clear signal: Alternative investments must be approached strategically, with a careful understanding of both short- and long-term cash needs and risk tolerance. A tiered approach to liquidity—reserving some assets for near-term access while investing the rest for long-term growth—can help organizations stay resilient, especially those that rely heavily on government grants or contracts to fund operations. Ultimately, resilient philanthropic missions require resilient financial models. That means seeking expertise not only in investment performance, but in governance, risk management, and long-range planning. Advisors and teams that understand how to connect financial oversight to mission outcomes can help institutions build confidence internally, with donors, and with the communities they serve. The current crisis has made one thing clear: Static portfolios and static strategies are liabilities. Financial oversight must evolve from a compliance checkbox into a dynamic leadership function, one that safeguards today’s operations and secures tomorrow’s mission. View the full article

Adam Becker is a science journalist and astrophysicist. He has written for The New York Times, BBC, NPR, Scientific American, New Scientist, Quanta, Undark, Aeon, and others. He also recorded a video series with the BBC, and has appeared on numerous radio shows and podcasts, including Ologies, The Story Collider, and KQED Forum. What’s the big idea? Tech billionaires like to hype up delusional doomsday fantasies in which they are the saviors and overlords of civilization. Many people may just laugh or disregard these outlandish claims, but a closer look reveals the scary truth of how seriously, specifically, and consequentially these thought leaders are committed to their ridiculous visions for the future. They abstain from making meaningful choices to improve the here and now because of their faith in unreasonable techno-solutions. It is important that society stays aware that their nightmares and promised utopias are founded in fiction. Below, Becker shares five key insights from his new book, More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity. Listen to the audio version—read by Becker himself—in the Next Big Idea App. 1. Tech billionaires have ludicrously implausible power fantasies about the future. Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and other tech billionaires have made surprisingly outlandish claims about what a good future for humanity should look like. Elon Musk has spoken repeatedly about the need to set up a colony on Mars. He has said that he’s going to put a million people on Mars by 2050 by sending one rocket launch a day for years, and that the colony needs to be self-sufficient, surviving even if the supply rockets from Earth stop coming. Musk contends that this is vital for the future of humanity, claiming that our species will go extinct if it doesn’t happen soon. He claims Mars is our lifeboat for civilization. This is all pure fantasy: Mars is too inhospitable to allow a million people to live there anytime remotely soon, if ever. The gravity is too low, the radiation is too high, there’s no air, and the Martian dirt is filled with poison. There’s no plausible way around these problems, and that’s not even all of them. Nor does the idea of Mars as a lifeboat for humanity make sense: Even after an extinction event like an asteroid strike, Earth would still be more habitable than Mars. Mammals survived the asteroid strike that killed the dinosaurs, but no mammals could survive unprotected on Mars today. Putting all of that aside, if Musk somehow did put a colony on Mars, it would be wholly dependent on his company, SpaceX, for supplies. That’s one feature that tech oligarchs’ fantasies have in common: they all involve billionaires holding total control over the rest of us. 2. AI isn’t going to be as good (or bad!) as the tech industry claims. Silicon Valley billionaires and thought leaders have been making wild promises about AI. They claim that AI will soon become superintelligent, far outstripping human intellect, and this will lead to a total revolution in human civilization—if these godlike AIs don’t destroy humanity first. Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, says that superintelligent AI is coming within the next four years. He also claims that once we have it, every product and service will halve in price every two years as AI takes over the economy. Bill Gates has made similar claims, suggesting that AI will free us for a life of leisure as it caters to our every need. Other industry leaders claim AI will revolutionize science, ushering in an unprecedented era of discovery and near-magical technology. There’s virtually no evidence for any of this: it is specious reasoning amplified by tech industry money and hype. These are narratives based on science fiction. They fundamentally misunderstand both the nature of intelligence and how current AI systems operate. Even calling something like ChatGPT “AI” is misleading; it’s a marketing term that’s gotten way out of hand. 3. We’re not colonizing space. Tech billionaires like Musk and Bezos have dreamed of colonizing space for decades. Despite their promises, it’s not happening. Musk’s dreams of Mars are modest compared to some of the other specious fantasies spun by tech billionaires and the think tanks they fund. Bezos doesn’t want to put a million people in space—he wants a trillion people living in a fleet of giant cylindrical space stations with interior areas bigger than Manhattan. He claims this is the best way to ensure future generations thrive. Otherwise, he warns, our species will “stagnate” on Earth. Yet such space stations would be staggeringly difficult and phenomenally dangerous to build. And Bezos’s concerns about “stagnation” are based on a mix of faulty reasoning and an attachment to long-discredited ideas about sociology and history. Others in the tech industry (or funded by tech billionaires) have advocated for a future beyond our solar system, pushing humanity to take over the galaxy or the entire universe. This is even more unlikely to work: the distances between stars are too great, and there’s little reason to leave the solar system. The impossible promise of an interstellar empire is held out as a shiny fantasy to justify the actions of tech billionaires. Musk has used the supposed need to colonize Mars as an excuse to ignore details like worker safety at SpaceX. Bezos has said that the pursuit of such a future is the most important thing he could be doing with his fortune, more important than addressing Earthbound problems here and now. 4. How Big Tech gets science wrong and distracts from present threats. Tech industry leaders often present themselves as scientific experts on everything from human biology to astrophysics to nuclear fusion. The truth is that they are business leaders, not scientists, and frequently get in far over their heads when discussing scientific concepts. They believe that their wealth makes them general experts on everything. Musk has repeatedly gotten facts about Mars wrong, even when he’s been publicly corrected. He has repeatedly claimed that Mars can be terraformed (made into a more Earth-like planet) by using nuclear weapons to melt the Martian ice caps. Musk contends this would beef up the Martian atmosphere enough to allow humans to live there, but this isn’t true: There aren’t nearly enough frozen gases in those ice caps to get the job done. When scientists pointed this out to him, he doubled down. He’s not alone in this. Altman has never given good justification for his claims about AI. Bezos’s ideas about space come from old plans from the 1970s that were later shown to be unworkable. These aren’t just careless mistakes about unimportant details. Getting these scientific facts wrong allows these tech billionaires to maintain faith in their power fantasies and gives them an excuse to ignore today’s problems. Altman has said that the AI systems he believes are coming soon will be able to solve global warming quickly and easily, and therefore, he’s not concerned about new AI data centers requiring huge amounts of power. Pushing humanity toward the impossible goals of tech oligarchs will lead to destructive consequences for everyone. 5. The racist origins of the tech industry’s core ideology. Underneath the bizarre proclamations of tech billionaires, there is an ideology that technology can solve every problem, even fundamentally social and political problems like strife in the Middle East or political polarization in the United States. This ideology of technological salvation stems from a toxic mix of misunderstood science fiction, fringe religious movements, and racist pseudoscience. The same online subcultures that spawned the ideas about AI that Altman, Musk, and the rest have swallowed also have connections with the American far-right and a troubling history of promoting scientifically discredited claims about fundamental differences in innate intelligence between different races. This goes hand in hand with their obsession with AI: They believe that AI can become godlike because they believe that intelligence is a single measurable trait corresponding to IQ, and that a sufficiently powerful AI would be able to simply dial up its IQ to an arbitrarily high number. But IQ has always been used for eugenics and institutional racism, and there’s little evidence that it measures anything real about people. It’s mostly just been used to say that some groups of people are inherently better than others. It’s no surprise that such stories are attractive to billionaires who want to justify their desire to remain in power over the rest of us forever. Recognizing the hollowness of these ideas is the first step to taking back our power. They want to set the terms on which we imagine the future, but the future isn’t theirs for the taking. The future is something we all build together. They want us to believe that their promised utopias and nightmares are our only option. But in reality, the future is open. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission. View the full article

Leaders today are stretched to the breaking point. Many managers enter their roles wanting to coach and care for their teams. But in today’s workplace, that vision is colliding with a lengthening list of competing pressures: performance metrics, shifting workplace norms, and the unrelenting emotional labor of guiding teams through crisis after crisis. As one manager told me, “I want to be an empathetic leader and support my team, but we still have to make the numbers. Mostly, I just stay later myself.” Another admitted, “Last year I ended up in the hospital.” Newly released workplace data from Gallup reflects this worrying reality. In 2024, global engagement declined for just the second time in the past 12 years. It fell in 2020, as the pandemic swept across the globe, and it fell again last year. Importantly, Gallup reports, the drop in engagement was not due to worker engagement levels. It was entirely due to declining engagement levels among managers. The rise and fall of manager engagement So why are managers feeling less engaged on the job? Gallup cites workplace disruption over the past five years due to the pandemic, a hiring boom and bust, workplace restructurings, supply chain challenges, and changing expectations around technology and flexible work. The political and social upheaval of recent years has likely also taken a toll, particularly as managers are often tasked to pull teams together through fractious times. In a 2024 survey by mental healthcare provider Headspace, 98% of employees reported that global events affect their mental health at work. According to a recent report by mental health benefits broker Lyra, 85% of human resources leaders agree that managers are “an integral part of our workplace mental health strategy.” Unfortunately, just 39% also agree that they provide those managers with resources to support mental well-being at work. The disproportionate stress that managers face, the report adds, is “due to high expectations for supporting workforce mental health paired with limited resources.” We can observe demographic differences in who is the most impacted, too. Notably, Gallup found the steepest declines in engagement among managers under 35 (down 5%) and female managers (down 7%). In my experience, these are also the managers most likely to absorb emotional labor—taking on additional responsibility for their team’s mental health while struggling to set boundaries for themselves. It’s a recipe for leadership fatigue. How managers can overcome leadership exhaustion So where does that leave today’s leaders, especially those torn between showing up for their teams and preserving their own capacity? The answer isn’t to dial down your empathy: It’s to practice that empathy in ways that are sustainable. That means setting boundaries, protecting your own energy, and modeling healthy leadership. Here are a few ways to start. Stop fixing and start coaching. It’s natural to want to help when a team member brings a problem to you, but jumping in with solutions can create dependency and drain your reserves. Instead, respond with curiosity: “What have you tried so far?” or “What do you think would help?” This approach empowers your team to develop resilience and creative thinking while also preserving your bandwidth. They may even come up with some great solutions that hadn’t occurred to you. Structure routines to preserve your own energy. There’s no rule that says good leaders need an open-door policy or a standing Monday meeting. If your current routines are depleting you, change them. Could you cluster one-on-ones into two days a week? Shift updates to asynchronous channels like email or Slack? Your energy is a finite resource—structure your week to protect it. Interrogate urgency. There are some emergencies, but not everything is an emergency. Preserve your energy for when you really need it. Start asking, “Does this need to happen now?” and “What’s the worst that happens if this waits?” Helping your team (and yourself) reset expectations around urgency can relieve pressure and improve decision-making. Pursue your own goals. Your identity is not just “the person holding everything together.” Leaders need renewal, too. Whether it’s training for a marathon, learning to play the piano, or pursuing a professional certification, make sure you have something on the horizon that’s just for you. These personal goals restore energy and remind you that your needs matter, too. Delegate and celebrate others’ strengths. Delegation isn’t just efficient—it builds trust and engagement. Maybe you’re not great at spreadsheets, or memo-writing, or icebreakers. Somebody on your team probably is. Hand over those responsibilities and praise mightily their superior expertise in the areas you despise, both to them and in front of others, so they’re recognized for that work. Identifying where others excel and delegating effectively can alleviate pressure and allow others to shine. Leading with presence and compassion isn’t easy, but it shouldn’t be unsustainable. Empathy isn’t a blank check on your energy or availability. By setting healthy boundaries, modeling sustainable practices, and protecting your own well-being, you can lead with strength and compassion over the long term. Start with one small shift—say no to a nonessential meeting, delegate one lingering task, or block an hour for something that restores you. Your team doesn’t just need you to care. They need you to last. View the full article

In 2020, following ferocious wildfires across Southern California, Jasmin Singer and her wife, Moore Rhys, decided they had had enough of Los Angeles. They packed their bags and moved to New York state. They debated between Ithaca and Geneva before finally picking Rochester, about a six-hour drive northwest from New York City. Rochester won out in part because of a more stable climate and progressive policies aimed at combating climate change, caused by the burning of fuels like gasoline and coal. “We were all kinds of nutty about climate,” said Singer about picking Rochester. ___ EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is a collaboration between The Associated Press and the Rochester Institute of Technology. ___ One of America’s first boomtowns and a former manufacturing hub, Rochester has captured the eye of some people looking to escape extreme weather events. Other midcentury industrial urban centers such as Buffalo, an hour’s drive from Rochester, and Duluth, Minnesota, have garnered attention in recent years for being known as climate havens. That is because they are less likely to experience events fueled and exacerbated by climate change, such as droughts, hurricanes, and wildfires. Far from coasts, cities like Rochester, Buffalo, and Duluth don’t face hurricanes or storm surges. At the same time, they are connected to large lakes, giving them an ample water supply and helping insulate against drought impacts. Still, while anecdotes abound of people who are moving to such cities for climate reasons, there isn’t yet evidence of a large demographic shift. “There hasn’t been a clear signal that people are leaving to climate [friendly] regions, or regions with an abundant water resource,” said Alex de Sherbinin, director and senior researcher at the Center for Integrated Earth System Information at Columbia University. That is expected to change in coming decades, as climate will increasingly be a factor driving migration. It already is in many places around the world, particularly developing nations that lack the infrastructure and resources to withstand climate shocks. Each year, natural disasters force more than 21 million people from their homes, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Rochester has many draws Originally from New Jersey, Singer said Rochester also appealed to her for a few reasons, even though she had never visited the city before the move—affordable housing, its move toward increasing renewable energy use, and its proximity to eastern coastal cities, among them. It was also important to be somewhere culturally diverse and friendly toward LGBTQ people, Singer said. For Jon Randall, wildfires that hit the Bay Area in 2022 pushed him to leave California. “For six weeks you couldn’t go outside,” said Randall of the fires, adding that he and his wife searched online for potential places to live and retire. They picked Rochester, in part to be closer to family in Long Island, where he is originally from. The average annual temperature in Rochester, which has 200,000 residents, hovers around 50 degrees Fahrenheit (10 degrees Celsius)—warmer than that in the summer and colder in the winter. The city is home to the University of Rochester, a private research institution, and the Rochester Institute of Technology, which sits in the southwest suburbs. Rochester is also known for its “garbage plates”—french fries covered in hamburger meat and baked beans, a favorite local comfort food. The city has adopted several progressive climate plans in recent years, including an initiative to reduce carbon emissions by 40% by 2030. It’s part of a statewide push to build cleaner infrastructure, such as expanding its electric vehicle charging network. In 2019, the city launched an initiative that gives up to $9,000 to new resident homebuyers. Climate is often one of many factors in decision to move Studies have found that people rarely choose where they move based on climate reasons alone. They also weigh other factors such as affordability, family ties, and job opportunities. People move where they think they can maintain a certain quality of life, and Rochester—with its freshwater resources—can make for a more attractive destination compared to other cities, de Sherbinin said. Duluth garnered a climate-friendly reputation after commissioning an economic development package to attract newcomers in 2019. That same year, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown called the city a “climate refuge” in a speech. No such proclamations have been made by local officials recently, including in Rochester. Mayor Malik Evans’ office did not respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment for this story. Rochester has a large Latino population Rochester has welcomed a steady increase of Latinos over the last several years. Today, 61,000 residents in Monroe Country, the largest in the Rochester area, identify as Latino or Hispanic, with 70% Puerto Rican, according to a 2019 report by the Center for Governmental Research, a Rochester-based consulting firm. Arelis Gomez moved to Rochester in 2016 from Puerto Rico in search of work opportunities and better education for her children, following her brother who had moved to New York City a few years prior. Arelis Ayala, her mother, followed her daughter in 2019, finally making the move after wanting to leave since Hurricane Jorge in 1998, which hammered many parts of the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico. “It was a really hard decision,” Ayala said about her move to be closer to her daughter. Ayala and her daughter hope to eventually bring the rest of the family to Rochester. Jonathan Gonzalez and his then-pregnant wife moved to Rochester after another major storm, Hurricane Maria, pummeled Puerto Rico in 2017. “It was pretty difficult to live in Puerto Rico those days,” Gonzalez said, adding that everything, including hospitals, were closed because of no electricity. His mother already had a home in Rochester, which made it a natural place to go. Starting over was hard, though Gonzalez feels at home now. “I love Rochester,” he said. ___ The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. —Toni Duncan of Rochester Institute of Technology and Nadia Lathan of The Associated Press View the full article

Parental leave is often treated as a checkbox issue—handled quietly by HR, focused on paperwork, and confined to a narrow window of time. But Amy Beacom, founder and CEO of the Center for Parental Leave Leadership and author of The Parental Leave Playbook, is reshaping that view. With over 25 years of experience in executive coaching and organizational development, Beacom, who has an EdD degree in industrial and organizational psychology from Columbia University, partners with leading companies to transform parental leave into a strategic advantage for retention, equity, and leadership growth. In this conversation, Beacom unpacks some of the biggest misconceptions about parental leave—and shares best practices and innovative strategies for companies of all sizes to better support employees before, during, and after this critical transition. What are some of the biggest misconceptions organizations still hold about parental leave today? First, that parental leave is solely about paid time off, administration, and compliance. When seen only through this limited lens, leave remains siloed in HR, and its broader potential is overlooked. In reality, parental leave can be a powerful driver of talent retention, employee well-being, DEI-B goals, leadership development, organizational culture, brand reputation, risk mitigation, and more. Second, that parental leave begins when a child arrives and ends when a parent returns to work. The full employee experience often spans over a year—starting before leave is announced and continuing long after the return. Without meaningful support across all three phases—preparing for, during, and returning from leave—organizations risk losing talent and falling short of their intended ROI [return on investment]. And third, that parental leave is only about moms. Leave benefits should be offered equally to all parents, not just mothers. Parental leave also impacts managers, teams, clients, and HR. When it’s seen not as a personal issue for moms but as a professional experience many employees will face, it becomes clear that leave is a standard part of the employee lifecycle. What are the core best practices every organization—regardless of size—should follow when it comes to supporting employees before, during, and after parental leave? Treat this time as unique and sacred, because for your employees it is. Begin with generous, gender-neutral paid family and medical leave benefits to create a strong foundation. Create a clear, centralized, and well-communicated intranet webpage that includes anything and everything leave-related. Include your policy, all benefits, expectations, assessments, coaching, training, templates, resources, etc. Provide structured guidance and planning support to both the employee and their manager before, during, and after leave. Train managers to understand the law, but just as importantly, train them how to confidently navigate the leave and return process with intentionality, empathy, and clarity. Normalize parental leave and return as a predictable part of the workplace experience—one that warrants consistent support and unlocks valuable opportunities for learning, growth, and leadership development—not as a disruption. Larger companies often have more resources. What innovative or exemplary approaches have you seen from bigger organizations when it comes to parental leave planning and reintegration? At the enterprise level, we help organizations integrate parental leave into leadership development, link manager support to performance goals, and use data to track and improve leave experiences across teams and regions. In some cases, we’ve scaled manager training across dozens of countries; in others, we’ve leveraged our digital coaching hub to build community and learning at scale. One of the most impactful and growing strategies we recommend is coaching—using certified RETAIN Parental Leave Coaches to support parents through leave and return, administer perinatal mental health screenings, and connect them to resources. We’ve also helped organizations implement peer-based support like leave buddies and return-to-work cohorts to foster connection and ease the transition back to work. One area we’re currently focused on—alongside several large companies—is designing effective leave coverage systems that double as developmental opportunities for high-potential employees or team members. We’re also exploring new ways to structure compensation and performance metrics that feel both fair and motivating. These aren’t just perks—they’re strategic tools for driving retention and performance Smaller organizations often cite resource constraints. What creative or low-cost strategies have you seen smaller employers use to support parental leave well? At the root of it, employees want to know they matter, especially during unpredictable times, and that simple act doesn’t have to cost anything. The smaller employers we work with often shine through personalization and flexibility—they use recognition in ways that feel meaningful and genuine. I also recommend using tools like shared planning templates and checklists for leave transitions, designating an “HR point person” to act as a leave concierge, and holding team-based planning sessions so responsibilities are clearly handed off and reintegrated. A warm, proactive conversation and a culture of support go a long way—even without a big budget. Managers are often the linchpin in a parent’s leave experience. What support or guidance do they need? They need clear expectations, practical tools, and a safe, judgment-free space to ask questions. Most managers have never been trained on how to handle parental leave and return transitions and are afraid to say or do the wrong thing. Our evidence-based trainings provide communication frameworks, timelines, compliance essentials, and emotional intelligence skills. On top of training, the most impactful support we recommend is one-on-one coaching with a certified parental leave coach. When managers have confidential access to expert guidance, they feel more secure, parents feel more supported—and both are more likely to stay engaged and avoid burnout. Given the current political and cultural climate, what trends are you seeing in the future of parental leave policy and practice—and what might organizations need to prepare for? There’s growing recognition that leave is more than a benefit—it’s a driver of long-term organizational health. Thirteen states plus D.C. have passed paid-leave legislation, and momentum is building toward federal standardization, and rising employee expectations are prompting companies to act ahead of mandates. We’re also seeing a shift toward intersectional strategies that connect leave to leadership development, career growth, mental health, and caregiver support. Organizations that treat leave as a core talent strategy—not just a compliance task—will be best positioned for the future. View the full article

PECOS, Texas—Extreme drought has diminished the flows of the Rio Grande and Pecos River, two of the most iconic waterways in Texas. The advocacy group American Rivers recently named the Lower Rio Grande one of its most endangered rivers, describing a “near-permanent human-induced megadrought threatening all life that depends on it.” On the Pecos River, there hasn’t been enough water to distribute to irrigation districts below the Red Bluff Reservoir in recent years. While farmers and cities face increasing water scarcity, oil and gas companies use billions of gallons of water from these rivers annually. An exclusive Inside Climate News analysis found that drillers used more than 31,000 acre feet, or more than 10 billion gallons, of Rio Grande water for drilling and fracking operations in the Eagle Ford Shale between 2021 and 2024. That’s enough water to meet the needs of 113,500 Texas households for an entire year, based on average daily use of 246 gallons per household. At the Red Bluff Reservoir on the Pecos River, Daniel Arrant of Kingsley Water Company reports to have sold more than 75 million barrels of water, or more than 4 billion gallons, for oil and gas operations since 2016. Numerous Texas oil and gas companies have made voluntary commitments to reduce their freshwater use and shift to brackish or recycled water for use in fracking for oil and gas. But the water sales, like those reported by Arrant of the Kingsley Water Company, show that oil and gas drilling is still reliant on surface water from Texas rivers. Surface water sold for drilling and fracking is categorized as “mining” consumption under Texas law. Pumping water underground to drill or frack a well often permanently removes it from the natural hydrologic cycle, given the presence of chemical fracking fluids and natural toxins like arsenic following its use in the extraction process for oil or gas. Inside Climate News obtained Rio Grande water data from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) through a public information request. Kingsley Water Company, an oil field water services firm based in the Woodlands, a Houston suburb, was the top user of Rio Grande water for oil and gas drilling, followed by SM Energy Company, Segundo Navarro Drilling, and Select Water Solutions. Between the Rio Grande and the Pecos River, Kingsley has sold enough water for drilling to meet the needs of more than 100,000 Texas households for a year. Kinglsey and Arrant did not respond to multiple requests for comment. State Representative Vikki Goodwin criticized Apache Corp. for buying water from the Pecos River when, she says, recycled ”produced water” from fracking was available. Inside Climate News independently confirmed the water purchase. “Investments in projects to clean up and recycle frack water will dry up if oil companies don’t opt to use the recycled water,” Goodwin, a Democrat who represents Travis County, said. “My hope is we don’t wait until too late to make better decisions about our water resources in Texas.” A spokesperson for Apache, headquartered in Houston, said the company “minimizes the use of fresh water” and is using “non-fresh, non-potable” water for fracking its oil and gas wells in Loving County near the reservoir. Eagle Ford Drillers Tap Rio Grande Tributaries in Mexico feed the Rio Grande in South Texas. But with Mexico behind on water deliveries to the United States, tensions on the river are high. The Amistad Reservoir, where water delivered by Mexico is stored, hit a historic low in July 2024. Extreme drought in counties like Webb and Maverick, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, is compounding the problem. Groundwater springs and tributaries are feeding less water into the river. Flows have decreased on the Rio Grande by more than 30% in recent decades. The Rio Grande is the sole source of drinking water for the city of Laredo in Webb County. Because of the drought, Laredo has asked residents to reduce water use for several consecutive years. Planners are considering costly alternative water sources to prepare for the day, projected to come around 2040, when the Rio Grande won’t be enough to supply the city. Agriculture consumes the lion’s share of Rio Grande water, followed by municipal use. While groundwater is the primary source for oil and gas drilling, several companies still consume substantial volumes of surface water from the river. Webb County is at the heart of the fracking boom that took off in South Texas’s Eagle Ford Shale formation in 2010. The Eagle Ford Shale is now consistently one of the top three oil-producing basins in the country. Inside Climate News found that between 2020 and 2024, Kingsley Water Company used 12,363 acre feet of Rio Grande water, SM Energy used 11,379 acre feet, Segundo Navarro used 3,979 acre feet, and Select Water used 3,776 acre feet. An acre foot is the amount of water needed to cover one acre of land to a depth of one foot, or 325,851 gallons. The companies did not respond to requests for comment. Rio Grande water rights are overseen by the TCEQ Rio Grande Watermaster. Water rights are adjudicated by the state and then can be bought and sold by private parties. Rights holders are allowed to divert a pre-approved amount of water at a specific location. Most of these rights are held by cities, farmers, and irrigation districts. Oilfield companies hold a small number. Kingsley Water Company is a subsidiary of Kingsley Constructors, headquartered in the Woodlands. In 2011, Daniel Arrant “led the purchase and permitting” of the Rio Grande water rights, according to the website of Voyager, the Houston private equity firm where he is a partner. Arrant entered contracts to resell the water to operators completing wells in the Eagle Ford Shale. These deals have sold more than 235 million barrels, or 9.87 billion gallons, of Rio Grande water, according to the Voyager website. Select Water Solutions, headquartered in Gainesville, Texas, also resells Rio Grande water to drilling companies. The company’s 2023 sustainability report states that it places “the utmost importance on safe, environmentally responsible management of water.” Select Water Solutions reported selling a larger share of recycled water each year between 2020 and 2023. But the total volume of freshwater sold also increased in 2023 to a four-year high of more than 97 million barrels, or more than 4 billion gallons. SM Energy, a Denver-based independent exploration and production company, does not have public sustainability targets for minimizing water use and protecting water quality. Neither does San Antonio-based Segundo Navarro Drilling, a subsidiary of Lewis Energy Group. TCEQ does not collect data on how oil and gas companies use the surface water they purchase. Drilling, well completion, and fracking are all different steps in the lifecycle of a well that require water. TCEQ spokesperson Ricky Richter said that between 2009 and 2023, annual surface water use for mining, which includes oil and gas operations, averaged 40,000 acre feet statewide, or about 13 billion gallons. TCEQ defines “mining” use as “water for mining processes including hydraulic use, drilling, washing sand and gravel, and oil field repressuring.” Martin Castro, watershed science director at the Rio Grande International Study Center (RGISC) in Laredo, analyzed water use in oil and gas operations for a 2021 report. He found drillers used 19 billion gallons of Rio Grande water between 2010 and 2020. “Any reductions of the river’s water supply, when coupled with recurring droughts, will have disastrous consequences for Webb County and South Texas,” Castro wrote at the time. Inside Climate News’s analysis found slightly higher annual rates of water diversions for oil and gas between 2021 to 2024 than rates noted in RGISC’s report spanning the preceding decade. Castro was concerned that drillers are still using large volumes of Rio Grande water. “We’re not doing any better than four years ago,” he said. Castro previously worked for TCEQ and observed water diversions used for fracking. But he said that, without reporting requirements, the true scale is unknown. Castro would like to see TCEQ collect data on how much surface water goes to drilling as opposed to fracking. He has also called on TCEQ to publish Rio Grande water diversion data, which currently is only available through records requests. “There is no transparency,” he said. RGISC collaborated with American Rivers in its campaign that named the Lower Rio Grande one of the country’s most endangered rivers. Castro said improving resilience on the river will require thinking outside of the box and increasing investment. “The only way we’re going to improve conditions on the river is if we make serious federal investments,” he said. Water rights downstream of Amistad Reservoir on the Rio Grande operate on a priority system, which ensures cities get their share of water during times of scarcity. “Priority is given to municipal use, and municipal priority is guaranteed through a municipal reserve,” said TCEQ spokesperson Laura Lopez. “Water for mining use, as with irrigation and recreational use, is allocated to a water right holder’s account based on available storage in the system.” Pecos River Water Sold from Red Bluff Reservoir The Pecos River begins in the mountains of New Mexico and flows through West Texas to meet the Rio Grande. An inter-state compact requires New Mexico to send Pecos River water to Texas, where it is impounded at the Red Bluff Reservoir. Reduced flows on the Pecos have lowered water levels at Red Bluff. On paper, the Red Bluff Power and Irrigation District, which manages the reservoir, holds rights to 292,500 acre feet a year of water. But it’s been a long time since there was that much water in the reservoir. Red Bluff sat at 65,000 acre feet in early May. Because of the low reservoir levels, Red Bluff is often unable to send water downstream to irrigation districts. Kingsley secured the mining water right in 2014 for up to 7,500 acre feet of water a year, about 2.44 billion gallons. The Red Bluff district told Inside Climate News that Kinglsey purchased 1,400 acre feet, or more than 450 million gallons, in 2024. District general manager Robin Prewit said the water sales to oil and gas drillers are “a drop in the bucket.” She said that even if the district did not sell water to Kingsley, because of evaporation and transportation losses, there would not be enough water to send to the irrigation districts. “I’m not having to choose one or the other,” she said. What she said she could really use is more rain in the Pecos River watershed in New Mexico. Salinity is another challenge. The water at Red Bluff is salty enough to be considered brackish. Farmers in the area grow salt-tolerant plants. But to be potable for human consumption the water would have to be treated. Apache, which purchased water from Kinglsey early this year, reported using 98.2% “nonfresh” water in 2023. Water from Red Bluff would be considered “nonfresh” because of the salinity levels. Ernest Woodward, a rancher outside McCamey, opposes the water sales for oil and gas drilling. “It should not be,” he said. “It’s for irrigation.” He gave up farming barley after several years without irrigation water from Red Bluff. “You go to all the labor to get the land prepared, and then you don’t get the water,” he said. Woodward would like to see water flowing in the river again. “We don’t have enough water,” he said. “We’re starving.” This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News. It is republished with permission. Sign up for its newsletter here. View the full article