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Government advisers call for an overhaul of domestic heating systems and suggest airfares could riseView the full article

The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more. For the last decade, chief marketing officers (CMOs) haven’t felt as appreciated and necessary as they once were. But that may be changing—I should stress “may.” I’m thinking of the 2024 CMO Tenure Study by marketing consultancy Spencer Stuart. They’ve been issuing this study for two decades. Four years ago, the length of CMO tenure tightened to its smallest interval in more than a decade. In Spencer Stuart’s latest report, the average time spent by Fortune 500 CMOs in that job post in 2023 was 4.2 years, unchanged from 2022. While I wouldn’t say “flat is the new up,” stabilization after years of decline is somewhat positive. A bit more context: Conventional wisdom has suggested that CMOs turn over more often than other C-suite leaders. But Spencer Stuart’s analysis shows that CMO tenure is just under the 4.6-year average for all C-suite leaders such as chief operating officers, chief revenue officers, chief technology officers, etc. Still, CMOs are living in an “era of less,” according to a Gartner Marketing Practice study. Issued in May 2024, around the same time as the Spencer Stuart report, the GMP study notes that “in the four years preceding the pandemic, average marketing budgets were 11% of overall revenue. In the four years since, they’ve dropped to an anemic 8.2%.” The roles of marketing and advertising appear more diminished than ever before. Meanwhile, ad agencies and brand marketing departments are under greater pressure and scrutiny to prove effectiveness. The essential quality of the CMO’s job is akin to an orchestra conductor; but instead of musicians, the role is to make sure companies and individuals act seamlessly and complementary. But it’s not. There are reasons for that, good and bad. Short-sighted efficiency An ethos of efficiency has served as the defining, underlying feature of the advertising business for the last 25 years. The ’60s were about pushing the boundaries of creativity. Advertisers and agencies wanted to impress everybody with the ideas, images, and messages bursting from Madison Avenue. However, that shifted: The 21st century has been about personalization, speed—and above all—cost savings. But it takes a larger advertising team to expertly handle all parts of the marketing funnel from discovery to purchase while simultaneously instilling brand loyalty. The demands are, in fact, too complex for one agency, let alone one individual. As a result, specialists have divided the responsibilities associated with the multiple consumer touchpoints that need to be checked off. So much for efficiency. If only there were a single individual who could organize, synthesize, and prioritize all those crucial tasks. Oh, right. That’s what the CMO does. It’s what the CMO has always done. Marketing’s “ah-ha” moment Companies are increasingly recognizing this. There is solid value in developing marketing leadership from within. In 2023, 74% of CMOs of the top 100 advertisers were serving in their first corporate-level CMO role—the highest percentage since Spencer Stuart began tracking this data in 2016. Moreover, 59% of these CMOs were promoted from inside their companies. This move toward internal promotion signals an “ah-ha” moment as the CMO role is rediscovered as the truly efficient solution to advertising’s largest problems. Institutional knowledge and recognizable authority are virtues worth keeping. We might be witnessing a maturing perspective on marketing leadership. Organizations are investing in succession planning and management development specifically for the CMO role. There’s even a higher opinion for the general marketing and management acumen a CMO possesses, Spencer Stuart data indicates. When external hires are needed, companies are showing greater flexibility, with 43% of CMOs recruited for Fortune 500 companies in 2023 coming from different industries, up from 37% in 2022. Despite facing significant budget constraints—with 64% of CMOs reporting insufficient funds to execute their 2024 strategy per Gartner—there’s optimism about the potential of generative AI to expand marketing’s impact beyond traditional resource limitations. This technological evolution could help CMOs overcome the “era of less” while delivering more value. As companies focus on developing their marketing leadership pipeline, they have an opportunity to increase diversity at the top by identifying high-potential leaders early and creating smoother development paths. Not only would that strengthen the CMO role, it also ensures marketing leadership better reflects the diverse audiences they serve, which helps build brand affection. When consumers associate a brand with trust and other positive qualities, the path to performance and purchases is more immediate and direct. The intersecting lines of technology, branding, advertising, and sales all converge at the CMO’s desk. Perhaps it’s time agencies, platform companies, and the brands themselves showed more trust and value in the CMO role after all. Tim Ringel is global CEO of Meet The People. View the full article

Mullenweg questioned at WordCamp Asia about Automattic's scaled-back contributions to WordPress core The post Mullenweg Rebuffs Plea To Restore Automattic’s WordPress Core Contributions appeared first on Search Engine Journal. View the full article

In a forum Tuesday, Senate Democrats railed against President Trump and Elon Musk's efforts to shutter the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as anti-consumer and illegal. View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. We’ve all been there: You find the perfect product, the chair or skin cream that will solve all your problems through the liberal application of capitalism—but it doesn’t fit into your budget. You have three choices: You can spend the next few months (years?) saving diligently toward the glorious day when you can afford to pull the trigger; you can put that purchase on a credit card and deal with the interest charges—or you can find a dupe. Dupes—short for “duplicates”—are having their moment. While knockoffs are nothing new, as anyone who has ever bought a “designer” handbag on the streets of New York City can attest, dupes are a little different. Knockoffs are trying to fool people that they’re the name-brand product, but dupes are their own thing—they’re not pretending to be the expensive item, they just replicate its look and function at a lower price point. Finding dupes can be as easy as a Google image search or a quick trip to Target or Lidl—but it can sometimes be a challenge. Thankfully, there are a variety of apps you can use that make locating dupes a lot easier, and companies that make their own dupes for specific items. How to scour the web for dupesIf you’re looking for duplicate furniture and housewares, you could spend hours digging through subreddits and Facebook pages, but luckily there tools and sites that make it a lot easier. Some of the most useful include: TikTok. The social media behemoth is kind of dupe central these days. You can type the name of what you’re looking for with hashtags like #dupe or #dupefinder to see what’s out there. What’s good about using TikTok is that most of the results will show people actually using and discussing the dupes, which can help you figure out if they’re truly worth buying. Dupe.com has been getting a lot of press of late thanks to the love it gets from social media. Its interface is pretty simple: You paste in the URL of an item (furniture, housewares, or clothing) or drag an image into the search bar, and Dupe searches the internet for lookalikes. For example, if you want an Eames Lounge Chair and Ottoman from Herman Miller—which sells for anywhere from $6,000 to $8,000 new—Dupe.com quickly leads you to Walmart, where you can buy this leather lounge chair with a very similar look and vibe. (There’s also an app.) Spoken.io works very similarly: Paste in a URL or drag/upload a photo, and it will scan the web and point you to a list of discounted dupes. For example, it turned up this $1,899 Eames-like chair—not quite as cheap as the Walmart version, but still a significant savings over the original. Dupeshop focuses on skincare and makeup products, and it doesn’t just point you at purchase links—it pulls together detailed comparisons, reviews, videos, and other information so you can feel confident that the dupe product will perform as expected. SkinSkool distinguishes itself by offering a list of potential dupes organized by a similarity score and labeled with a dollar sign icon indicating how expensive the dupe is. This makes it easy to cross-reference your budget with the available options. The site explicitly states that it bases its choices solely on the publicly available ingredient lists of the products, so it doesn’t offer any kind of hands-on review. A few companies that make their own dupesSome companies have made a name for themselves because they make and sell their own high-quality dupes, so you don’t have to search the entire internet trying to find them. A few examples include: Brandefy was founded to exploit the fact that name-brand beauty and skincare products at every price point are largely manufactured in the same facilities using the same ingredients. It creates “inspired by” products that are often indistinguishable from the pricier versions. Brandefy is more oriented toward its app than the website, however, so it’s a good choice if you want to check something on your phone while you’re out shopping. The Essence Vault and Dossier both offer up perfume dupes. Perfumes are expensive to develop, to manufacture, and to package—but you can’t actually copyright a fragrance, so dupe perfumes tend to be uncannily like the expensive brand they’re copying. That being said, you may notice a quality difference between the good stuff and the dupes. But if your budget is dupe-sized, both The Essence Vault and Dossier offer scents explicitly inspired by designer fragrances (Dossier also sells their own original scents). Element Brooklyn offers soaps, lotions, and other products that dupe brands like Aesop or Le Labo with an environmentally friendly twist: Its products are refillable, so you aren’t dumping plastic bottles into landfills all the time. Quince takes the same approach as Brandefy, but for clothing, claiming to use the same factories and manufacturers as the high-end luxury brands it's replicating. Italic is a Los Angeles-based company that sells clothing, jewelry, and accessories that closely resemble luxury brands. Its prices aren’t as low as literal dupes, but you can still find fashion that looks just like the top-tier brands at a much lower cost. Some caveats to keep in mindKeep in mind that it can be difficult to judge whether a dupe is going to be worth buying even at a drastically lower price point. It can be very difficult to tell from a photo whether a piece of furniture or clothing is going to be anywhere near the quality of the real thing, for example. That’s where apps like TikTok that offer endorsements from folks who have actually used the dupes can be super valuable. Another option for doing your dupe due diligence on beauty and skincare products is SkinSort, which has a useful comparison tool. You can compare a dupe to the brand it’s replicating and SkinSort will show you a list of ingredients in each (along with explanations for what each does) and reviews from people who have actually used the dupe. Finally, if you want to save some money without risking a downgraded experience, you can also look for name-brand items at secondhand places like Poshmark, which sells clothes, skincare, perfume, and beauty products. A lot of sellers on these platforms have access to name-brand stuff (some work for retailers where they get deep discounts, giving them room for resell profits, for example—look for folks who have a lot of a specific product on hand and you’re probably looking at a hustling sales associate) and you can find some real bargains that way. This gives you the main benefit of a dupe (lower prices) without compromising in any way. View the full article

Unilever surprised investors on Tuesday by ousting chief executive Hein Schumacher and replacing him with finance chief Fernando Fernandez, who will focus on speeding up the execution of the consumer group’s turnaround strategy. Unilever’s board, which includes billionaire activist investor Nelson Peltz, was unified in its decision to oust CEO Schumacher, a source familiar with the board’s thinking told Reuters. Schumacher was surprised by the move, but the decision involved “nothing untoward”, the person said. In an email to associates, Schumacher defended his approach and record as CEO and said he regretted leaving the company earlier than anticipated. “The board is eager to step up the pace of our strategy execution and realise swift value creation underscored by a change in leadership,” he said in the email, which was shared with Reuters. The CEO’s sudden departure after less than two years in the job hit Unilever’s shares, which fell as much as 3.4% on Tuesday. They had gained more than 9% since Schumacher took the helm on July 1, 2023. The consumer goods industry has had a difficult time coping with a supply chain crunch triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, plus sky-high commodity prices and an energy crisis after Russia invaded Ukraine. Profit margins have been squeezed and sales volumes hit by consumers switching to cheaper options. Unilever, which gave no specific reason for the CEO change, is facing pressure from investors to revitalise its fortunes and the top management upheaval comes just weeks after Unilever announced underwhelming full-year earnings. Nestle CEO Mark Schneider was ousted last year after several quarters of weak sales volume growth. Unilever’s management change was made after a board meeting on Monday, another source familiar with the matter told Reuters. The board concluded that Fernandez, who has been with Unilever for nearly 40 years, was the right person to execute the company’s strategy, the source said. Schumacher’s appointment and strategic changes had been welcomed by Peltz, who built a stake in the company in 2022 and sits on Unilever’s board. “We are gobsmacked at the news that Unilever’s very highly regarded CEO Hein Schumacher is to step down,” RBC Capital analyst James Edwardes Jones said in a note. When Schumacher became CEO, analysts and investors had applauded the choice of an external candidate as CEO. Schumacher reset the group’s strategy to address years of underperformance and laid out cost cuts last year, including plans to separate its ice cream division and cut thousands of jobs. The company has tried to step up the pace of asset sales, although some categories, like plant-based meat, are proving hard to exit. Chairman Ian Meakins said the board was impressed by Fernandez’s “decisive and results-oriented approach”, and had given him the task of executing the growth strategy. “There is much further to go to deliver best-in-class results,” Meakins said in a statement. Execution Analysts and investors said the news was unexpected, but Fernandez was a good choice to lead Unilever’s turnaround strategy. “We agree with the board that Fernandez is best placed to accelerate the value unlock,” Barclays analyst Warren Ackerman said in a note. UBS analyst Guillaume Delmas said “execution is key” in the new phase of the company’s strategic journey. Fernandez, 58, has been with Unilever since 1988. Before he became CFO last year, he held a number of roles such as President Latin America and CEO Brazil and President of the Beauty & Wellbeing business. Harsharan Mann in the Global Equities team at Aviva Investors, a Unilever shareholder, said: “We were surprised by the announcement but have a positive view of the CFO … He is a 30-year veteran of the business who ran the Beauty and Wellbeing division very well.” In January, Fernandez took up extra responsibilities including overseeing supply chain and procurement. Unilever, which owns Hellmann’s mayonnaise, Dove soap and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, said there was no change to its 2025 outlook or medium-term forecast and the board was committed to “further accelerating” Schumacher’s growth plan. Schumacher, 53, will step down as CEO in March and leave the company on May 31. He is leaving by mutual agreement, the company said. He will be treated as a “good leaver” and will continue to get his 1.85 million euros ($1.94 million) fixed pay until he leaves the business, the company said. He will then get an undisclosed payment for the remainder of this notice period, it said. Srinivas Phatak, currently Unilever’s deputy chief financial officer and group controller, will become acting CFO, while the company looks for a permanent replacement. ($1 = 0.9549 euros) —Yadarisa Shabong and Josephine Mason, Reuters View the full article

"Red flags are emerging for the US economy," said Elias Haddad, senior market strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman. "Another month or two of poor US economic data would deliver a blow to the US exceptionalism narrative." View the full article

Small business owners felt more uncertain about the future in January, as they continue to deal with labor challenges and lingering inflation. According to a monthly poll of small business owners from the National Federation of Independent Business, the uncertainty index in January rose 14 points to 100 – the third highest recorded reading, after two months of decline. The NFIB said small business owners are feeling less confident about investing in their business due to uncertain business conditions in the coming months. The response mirrors overall consumer confidence, which plummeted in February, the biggest monthly decline in more than four years, with inflation seemingly stuck and a trade war under President Donald Trump seen by a growing number of Americans as inevitable. In the NFIB poll, optimism fell by 2.3 points in January to 102.8, but remained high. Optimism surged after the presidential election, and the index still topped the the 51-year average of 98 for the third month in a row. “Overall, small business owners remain optimistic regarding future business conditions, but uncertainty is on the rise,” said NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg. “Hiring challenges continue to frustrate Main Street owners as they struggle to find qualified workers to fill their many open positions. Meanwhile, fewer plan capital investments as they prepare for the months ahead.” Eighteen percent of owners reported that inflation was their single most important problem in operating their business, down two points from December and matching labor quality as the top issue. Labor remains a top headache. A seasonally adjusted 35% of all small business owners reported job openings they could not fill in January, unchanged from December. Of the 52% of owners hiring or trying to hire in January, 90% reported few or no qualified applicants for the positions they were trying to fill. And fewer small businesses are planning capital investments to expand their business. Twenty percent plan capital outlays in the next six months, down seven percentage points from December. —Mae Anderson, AP business writer View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. The Pixel 9 Pro is the latest, most premium model in the Pixel lineup. It was released in August 2024, and already the unlocked 128GB Google Pixel 9 Pro XL is discounted to $799 (down from $1,099). That's the lowest price it has yet reached on Amazon, according to price-tracking tools. Google Pixel 9 Pro XL Operating System: Android 14, Ram Memory: 16 GB, Memory Storage: 128 GB, Screen Size: 6.8 Inches. $799.00 at Amazon $1,099.00 Save $300.00 Get Deal Get Deal $799.00 at Amazon $1,099.00 Save $300.00 This Pixel 9 Pro XL comes with 16GB of RAM, 128GB of memory storage, a 120 HZ refresh rate, and the Android 14 operating system. As Michelle Ehrhardt explained in Lifehacker's review of the Pixel 9 Pro, the phone's hardware is the best Google has produced, but its AI features aren't quite there yet. The XL version is bigger than the regular Pro size, but smaller than previous XL versions at 6.4 by 3.0 by 0.3 inches. If you have the Pixel 8 Pro, you might not notice a huge difference. However, if you're upgrading from an older phone or switching from a non-Pixel phone, the 9 Pro XL has a lot to love, especially if you prioritize good cameras. One of the best aspects of Pixel phones is their future-proofing: They tend to receive ongoing support for many years. My Pixel 6A still gets all of the updates and tons of AI features that make the phone feel fresh many years later. With the Pixel 9 Pro XL, you'll be getting a quality phone that will receive software updates for some time (as long as seven years). View the full article

Denny’s is the latest restaurant chain to add a temporary egg surcharge due to the rising cost of eggs caused by a nationwide shortage and the current bird flu outbreak. Last month, Waffle House added an upcharge of 50 cents per egg. Meanwhile, many supermarket chains, including Trader Joe’s, Market Basket, and big-box retailers including Walmart, Costco, and Sam’s Club, have raised prices and limited the number of cartons shoppers can buy. “This pricing decision is market-by-market, and restaurant-by-restaurant due to the regional impacts of the egg shortage,” Denny’s told Fast Company in a statement. “We will continue to look for ways to provide options on our menu, including our $2 $4 $6 $8 Value Menu.” The restaurant said it would not specify which of its 1,500 locations would see the surcharge as the situation is “fluid.” Once an inexpensive food staple, eggs have soared in price in recent months. As of last week, a dozen white eggs was $8.07, according to CNBC. Bird flu, or avian influenza, has had a crippling effect on the nation’s egg supply, resulting in the death of 18.9 million birds in just the past 30 days, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). This is a double whammy for Denny’s, which announced more store closings earlier this month as part of the restaurant chain’s plan to jumpstart its waning growth. Like many fast-food and casual-dining chains, it has been struggling in recent years due to inflation, changing customer habits, and skyrocketing food prices. “We have taken a close look at every restaurant in our domestic portfolio; and as a result, at the end of last year, we announced the decision to close approximately 150 restaurants by the end of 2025,” Denny’s previously told Fast Company. “We began the closing process last year, and we are continuing to work through our plan. More than half of these locations have already closed.” Denny’s said the closures will enable its franchises to open “upwards of 20 new locations in 2025 . . . and remodel some current locations.” View the full article

Order a Coke to wash down some hummus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank these days and chances are the waiter will shake his head disapprovingly — or worse, mutter “shame, shame” in Arabic — before suggesting the popular local alternative: a can of Chat Cola. Chat Cola — its red tin and sweeping white script bearing remarkable resemblance to the iconic American soft drink’s logo — has seen its products explode in popularity across the occupied West Bank in the past year as Palestinian consumers, angry at America’s steadfast support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza, protest with their pocketbooks. “No one wants to be caught drinking Coke,” said Mad Asaad, 21, a worker at the bakery-cafe chain Croissant House in the West Bank city of Ramallah, which stopped selling Coke after the war erupted. “Everyone drinks Chat now. It’s sending a message.” Since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack triggered Israel’s devastating military campaign in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian-led boycott movement against companies perceived as supportive of Israel gained momentum across the Middle East, where the usual American corporate targets like McDonald’s, KFC and Starbucks saw sales slide last year. Here in the West Bank, the boycott has shuttered two KFC branches in Ramallah. But the most noticeable expression of consumer outrage has been the sudden ubiquity of Chat Cola as shopkeepers relegate Coke cans to the bottom shelf — or pull them altogether. “When people started to boycott, they became aware that Chat existed,” Fahed Arar, general manager of Chat Cola, told The Associated Press from the giant red-painted factory, nestled in the hilly West Bank town of Salfit. “I’m proud to have created a product that matches that of a global company.” With the “buy local” movement burgeoning during the war, Chat Cola said its sales in the West Bank surged more than 40% last year, compared to 2023. While the companies said they had no available statistics on their command of the local market due to the difficulties of data collection in wartime, anecdotal evidence suggests Chat Cola is clawing at some of Coca-Cola’s market share. “Chat used to be a specialty product, but from what we’ve seen, it dominates the market,” said Abdulqader Azeez Hassan, 25, the owner of a supermarket in Salfit that boasts fridges full of the fizzy drinks. But workers at Coca-Cola’s franchise in the West Bank, the National Beverage Company, are all Palestinian, and a boycott affects them, too, said its general manager, Imad Hindi. He declined to elaborate on the business impact of the boycott, suggesting it can’t be untangled from the effects of the West Bank’s economic free-fall and intensified Israeli security controls that have multiplied shipping times and costs for Palestinian companies during the war. The Coca-Cola Company did not respond to a request for comment. Whether or not the movement brings lasting consequences, it does reflect an upsurge of political consciousness, said Salah Hussein, head of the Ramallah Chamber of Commerce. “It’s the first time we’ve ever seen a boycott to this extent,” Hussein said, noting how institutions like the prominent Birzeit University near Ramallah canceled their Coke orders. “After Oct. 7, everything changed. And after Trump, everything will continue to change.” President Donald Trump’s call for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, which he rephrased last week as a recommendation, has further inflamed anti-American sentiment around the region. With orders pouring in not only from Lebanon and Yemen but also the United States and Europe, the company has its sights set on the international market, said PR manager Ahmad Hammad. Hired to help Chat Cola cash in on combustible emotions created by the war, Hammad has rebranded what began in 2019 as a niche mom-and-pop operation. “We had to take advantage of the opportunity,” he said of the company’s new “Palestinian taste” logo and national flag-hued merchandise. In its scramble to satisfy demand, Chat Cola is opening a second production site in neighboring Jordan. It rolled out new candy-colored flavors, like blueberry, strawberry and green apple. At the steamy plant in Salfit, recent college graduates in lab coats said that they took pains to produce a carbonated beverage that could sell on its taste, not just a customer’s sense of solidarity with the Palestinians. “Quality has been a problem with local Palestinian products before,” said Hanna al-Ahmad, 32, the head of quality control for Chat Cola, shouting to be heard over the whir of machines squirting caramel-colored elixir into scores of small cans that then whizzed down assembly lines. “If it’s not good quality, the boycott won’t stick.” Chat Cola worked with chemists in France to produce the flavor, which is almost indistinguishable from Coke’s — just like its packaging. That’s the case for several flavors: Squint at Chat’s lemon-lime soda and you might mistake it for a can of Sprite. In 2020, the Ramallah-based National Beverage Company sued Chat Cola for copyright infringement in Palestinian court, contending that Chat had imitated Coke’s designs for multiple drinks. The court ultimately sided with Chat Cola, determining there were enough subtle differences in the can designs that it didn’t violate copyright law. In the Salfit warehouse, drivers loaded “family size” packages of soda into trucks bound not only for the West Bank but also for Tel Aviv, Haifa and other cities in Israel. Staffers said that Chat soda sales in Israel’s predominantly Arab cities jumped 25% last year. To broaden its appeal in Israel, Chat Cola secured kosher certification after a Jewish rabbi’s thorough inspection of the facility. Still, critics of the Palestinians-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, say that its main objective — to isolate Israel economically for its occupation of Palestinian lands — only exacerbates the conflict. “BDS and similar actions drive communities apart, they don’t help to bring people together,” said Vlad Khaykin, the executive vice president of social impact and partnerships in North America for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization. “The kind of rhetoric being embraced by the BDS movement to justify the boycott of Israel is really quite dangerous.” While Chat Cola goes out of its way to avoid buying from Israel — sourcing ingredients and materials from France, Italy and Kuwait — it can’t avoid the circumstances of Israeli occupation, in which Israel dominates the Palestinian economy, controls borders, imports and more. Deliveries of raw materials to Chat Cola’s West Bank factory get hit with a 35% import tax — half of which Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians. The general manager, Arar, said his company’s success depends far more on Israeli bureaucratic goodwill than nationalist fervor. For nearly a month last fall, Israeli authorities detained Chat’s aluminum shipments from Jordan at the Allenby Bridge Crossing, forcing part of the factory to shut down and costing the company tens of thousands of dollars. Among the local buyers left in the lurch was Croissant House in Ramallah, where, on a recent afternoon, at least one thirsty customer, confronting a nearly empty refrigerator, slipped to the supermarket next-door for a can of Coke. “It’s very frustrating,” said Asaad, the worker. “We want to be self-sufficient. But we’re not.” —Isabel Debre, Associated Press View the full article

Decision strips power from news organisations and upends decades-old precedent View the full article

Tens of thousands of U.S. government workers have been fired in recent weeks, according to a Reuters tally of announcements tracking President Donald Trump’s plan to shrink the federal workforce. So far, few indications of those lost jobs have appeared in the various formal measures of the U.S. job market. Economists will be keeping an eye on the data because federal government hiring has been a steady contributor to overall U.S. employment growth as the pace of private-sector hiring has eased. Over the last two years through January, the ranks of non-U.S. Postal Service federal workers as a share of overall payroll employment has edged up to 1.52% from 1.47%. Despite that rise, the federal civilian worker share of total U.S. employment is near its historic low of 1.4% from late 2000. The federal workforce share peaked at just over 4% in the early 1950s. Also, Trump’s cuts – being carried out under the direction of Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency – have not just been aimed at those directly on government payrolls but also at private companies and individuals performing contract work for the government. A 2020 Brookings Institution study estimated that for every one federal employee there are two contractors. With that in mind, Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, estimated that with a “consensus” estimate of ultimately 300,000 DOGE-related federal job cuts, the total employment reduction could be closer to 1 million. So when will these reductions start to materialize in the official data? Here’s a guide: Weekly jobless claims Each Thursday, the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration reports the number of people who the previous week had filed for state unemployment benefits for the first time. The report includes a running tally of all those who continue to collect benefits beyond one week, a figure called “continued claims” and reported with a one-week lag. Federal employees who have lost their jobs, though, are not included in the state claims data. They are tracked separately under the Unemployment Compensation for Federal Employees (UCFE) program, and the data is reported with a one-week lag. In the latest week ended February 8, 613 initial claims had been filed by former federal workers, and that figure has not climbed above 1,000 in more than two years. It also remains below the level typically seen during comparable seasons in the years immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic. In the previous week, 7,110 former federal workers were receiving continued benefits, around the same number seen at this time of year in the last two years. Moreover, those continued claims tended to be much higher during comparable times of year before the pandemic. Since the Trump and Musk cuts are not aimed only at those earning a government paycheck, some indications of the extent of job losses may start appearing soon in data from individual states with high concentrations of jobs supported by federal government activities. Washington and the neighboring states of Maryland and Virginia are home to hundreds of thousands of workers whose employers perform work under federal contracts, making them key locations to watch. Only Washington has shown an uptrend in new benefits filings. In the latest week ended February 15, the advance number of new filings was about 1,700 and the highest in nearly two years. It is also well above the level typically seen in the years just before the pandemic, with the exception of a short-lived spike in January 2019 due to a government shutdown over a budget impasse. New claims in Maryland and Virginia, meanwhile, have both averaged about 2,800 per week since Trump took office on January 20, both within the trend range over the last year. Texas, Florida, California and Georgia also have high numbers of federal workers and associated contractors. There are some caveats. Not everyone who loses a job is eligible for jobless benefits, and this includes certain contract workers. So some job losses will never appear in the weekly claims data. Also, not everyone files for benefits immediately after losing a job – or at all. Many people don’t file for a week or more after their job was eliminated, and some among them will find new work promptly and never have a need to seek government support. That said, a generally slowing job market may mean that final dynamic is less at play this time around. Nonfarm payrolls Each month, typically on the first Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the U.S. employment situation, which updates the unemployment rate as well as the total level of employment and levels and changes by sector, including local, state and federal government employment. The next report is due on March 7, covering February. It is based on a survey conducted during the week when the 12th day of the month falls. In this case, that was a week when news reports about firings within the federal government began circulating widely, so there is a chance that the level of non-USPS civilian employment was affected by that development. Net federal hiring outside the postal service totaled 3,700 in January. It has averaged about 5,700 a month over the last two years and has shrunk in just one month in that span. It is unclear whether the reports of firings that surfaced during the week of February 9-16 would have been made official and reported in that week’s BLS survey. Trump shrunk federal civilian employment by about 17,000 workers in his first year of office during his first term, including about 13,000 in his first three months. But it began growing again, and by the time the pandemic struck he had overseen an expansion in the federal workforce of 60,000 people. Job openings and labor turnover survey The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) measures the number of posted job vacancies on the last day of each month, and also estimates the monthly number of gross hirings and job separations, including people who quit, are laid off, or leave for another reason such as retirement. It is not as timely as the payrolls report. The next report, for instance, will be issued on March 11, covering January. As a snapshot of where things stood at the end of the month, it could reflect Trump’s January 20 hiring freeze order, which directed that all job postings be removed and many job offers rescinded. The latest figure, for December, showed 140,000 federal government job vacancies, roughly in line with the monthly average over the term of former President Joe Biden. Monthly federal openings totaled about 110,000 during Trump’s first term from January 2017 to January 2021. Gross federal hiring, meanwhile, totaled 30,000 in December – unchanged for three months and the lowest number since May 2018. State and local payrolls reports The BLS also provides monthly state and local employment reports. The next State Employment and Unemployment report will be issued on March 17, covering January. This report shows employment levels, job gains and losses and unemployment rates across all 50 states, Washington, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It shows government employment levels but combines state, local and federal government figures. Still, it will be another resource for indications of government contractors shedding jobs, especially in areas of high concentrations of these employers. However, it is not likely that this will make itself evident before the report for February is issued in mid-April. The Metropolitan Area Employment and Unemployment Summary, meanwhile, tracks employment across nearly 400 metropolitan areas across the U.S. This has an even longer delay, of two months, and shows payroll employment levels, changes and jobless rates but does not show employment sector activity. The earliest this might be expected to reflect the effects of federal firings at the local level will be in late April when the report for February is issued. —Dan Burns, Reuters View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. As tech reviewers get their hands on the latest TVs and write their reviews, a picture starts to take shape on which are the best TVs for every category. For those looking for the best bang-for-your-buck a tier above "budget TVs," the jury is still out between TCL's QM7 and Hisense's U7N. Really, it comes down to preference or a good deal—and right now, Hisense's U7N lineup is seeing great discounts. The best one is the 75-inch U7N currently going for $859.99 (originally $1,499.98) after a 43% discount, its lowest price ever, according to price-tracking tools. Panel Type: QLED, Screen Size: 55 inches, Resolution: 3,840 by 2,160, Refresh Rate: 144Hz. 55-inch Hisense U7N $498.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $798.00 Save $300.00 Get Deal Get Deal $498.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $798.00 Save $300.00 Panel Type: QLED, Screen Size: 65 inches, Resolution: 3,840 by 2,160, Refresh Rate: 144Hz. 65-inch Hisense U7N $698.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg Get Deal Get Deal $698.00 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg Panel Type: QLED, Screen Size: 75 inches, Resolution: 3,840 by 2,160, Refresh Rate: 144Hz. 75-inch Hisense U7N $859.99 at Amazon $1,499.98 Save $639.99 Get Deal Get Deal $859.99 at Amazon $1,499.98 Save $639.99 Panel Type: QLED, Screen Size: 85 inches, Resolution: 3,840 by 2,160, Refresh Rate: 144Hz. 85-inch Hisense U7N $1,297.96 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $2,199.99 Save $902.03 Get Deal Get Deal $1,297.96 at Amazon /images/amazon-prime.svg $2,199.99 Save $902.03 SEE 1 MORE The U7N came out last summer and has been head-to-head with the QM7. The U7N is a QLED TV, which is the best technology for a TV before crossing over to OLED. The U7N is bright for a midrange QLED, reaching levels of over 1,500 nits, and the colors are accurate, according to PCMag's "excellent" review. I like Google TV's interface, since I get to cast my phone directly onto the screen, and all the free channels never hurt. Of course that also means you can use Google Assistant and Apple AirPlay to control your TV. If you're a gamer, you'll enjoy the U7N's 6.2 millisecond input lag when you switch to Game mode. The 144Hz variable refresh rate (VRR) with AMD FreeSync Premium Pro will make games look smooth (as well as sports). For those who like to know if you're getting what you're paying for in specs, the Google TV has a Game Bar feature that shows you specs like frame rate and resolution, as well as quick access to other settings gamers use. The main complaint on the U7N is that details on shadows can look a bit washed out, but this isn't something most people will notice. At the current price, this U7N is a better deal than the QM7 and the value QLED TV you can buy right now. View the full article

Keir Starmer’s government warns of further sanctions unless Kigali withdraws troops from its east African neighbourView the full article

Texas Capital is arguing against summary judgment, saying prior assertions about reverse mortgages' initial and subsequent draws need to be examined in court. View the full article

CAVA hopes to expand its physical footprint after a year of financial success, CEO Brett Schulman announced in the company’s fourth quarter earnings call Tuesday. Over the 2024 fiscal year—CAVA’s first full calendar year as a public company—the Mediterranean fast-casual restaurant chain saw a revenue growth of 28.3% and delivered four straight quarters of free cash flow. And after opening 58 new restaurants this past year, the company anticipates new market openings in Detroit, South Florida, Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis. “We’re very excited to continue to grow those markets and build upon the presence we have in existing regions,” Schulman tells Fast Company. The anticipated launches in these four new markets come after a successful launch in the greater Chicago metropolitan area, where three new CAVA locations opened in 2024. Schulman says that was “our best market opening ever.” The Maryland-based chain currently operates inside 25 states and Washington, D.C. as the demand for health-conscious dining continues to grow. ‘You can’t discount your way to prosperity’ In the last fiscal year, CAVA experienced 8.7% traffic growth, while many industry competitors saw negative traffic growth. Schulman says that around two in three customers enter CAVA’s physical spaces to place an order, speaking to the chain’s emphasis on “Mediterranean hospitality.” Much of this success, Schulman says, comes from an increased focus on providing value, rather than price discounting. “You can’t discount your way to prosperity with guests,” Schulman says. “We look at value as a combination of quality, relevance, convenience and experience.” He claims that all of his decisions are guided by CAVA’s mission of bringing “heart, health and humanity” into food, from importing olive oil from Greece to putting fresh dill in the tzatziki dip. In a difficult economy, especially for fast-casual restaurants, CAVA appears to be bucking industry norms. Roti, a different Mediterranean-style fast-casual chain, filed for bankruptcy in August. Buca di Beppo and Red Lobster also both filed for bankruptcy in the past year. According to Schulman, CAVA stands out from the fast-casual chains that may be struggling because it “looks at people as assets, not expenses.” “The demise of the dining room is greatly exaggerated,” he says. “People are feeling a void of human connection, and they’re craving it. And brands that are able to deliver that are the ones that are gaining market share and gaining brand affinity.” Cava’s success in a struggling industry After its “blockbuster” IPO in June 2023, the build-your-own-bowl chain has only seen success. Its stock price has soared 158% since the IPO, and Yelp named CAVA its fastest growing brand of 2024. And according to fast-casual competitor Chipotle’s most recent earnings report, sales growth in the past fiscal year for its set of comparable restaurants only increased by 7.4%—a little over a quarter of CAVA’s revenue growth. Another large factor in last year’s success is CAVA’s reimagined loyalty program—a system similar to Chipotle’s points-based program. Frequent customers can exchange points (ten are awarded for every dollar spent) for free drinks, cookies, and even entrees. Since the new loyalty system rolled out nationwide in October, CAVA has seen a 2.3% increase in revenue going through the pool, hitting a record high revenue from loyalty transactions last year. In the coming year, CAVA hopes to add rewards that are brand centric rather than food based. “We’ve expanded our audience,” Schulman says. “We’ve got our audience more highly engaged, which allows us to have much more personalized one-to-one communication.” View the full article

The eyes might be the window to the soul, but how their overall health impacts our own souls is rarely discussed. VSP Vision Care, an eye insurance company, partnered with Workplace Intelligence to survey 800 HR leaders and 800 full-time employees in the United States about the state of their eye health. Here are the key findings: We live on our screens: In a typical week, employees report spending 97 hours on screens, which translates to 210 days a year. Thirty-four of these hours are on a computer for work, 17 on a computer for personal use, 23 hours watching TV, and 23 hours on a cellphone. The majority of people have at least one eye problem: 63% of respondents reported at least one eye issue, an increase from last year’s 50%. Meanwhile, 73% reported wearing contacts or glasses, an increase from 67% last year. The most common issues were blurred vision (41%), dry or itchy eyes (24%), and eye strain or fatigue (23%). This is taking a toll on work and personal life: 69% of respondents said that eye problems are impacting their ability to be productive, 60% said eye problems impacted their ability to focus, and 46% said the problems took a toll on their mental health. The survey included a range of employees across generations and types of work arrangements, including on-site, hybrid, and remote work. All survey participants used a computer or laptop for work at least “sometimes,” according to the study’s methodology. As Kristi Cappelletti-Matthews, chief human resources officer at VSP Vision, noted in the report, “[When] you consider the importance of our vision and its link to our health and day-to-day work, it’s imperative that there’s a collective effort to support better workplace health through exceptional vision care.” View the full article

One of the annoying things about using PowerShell in Windows, if you're used to Linux, is having to run it as an admin in order to make system changes. The simplest way to do this is right-clicking the application in the start menu and clicking "Run as administrator," which isn't exactly elegant. It's particularly frustrating because most Linux distributions fixed this a long time ago: the sudo command. Basically, on Linux, if you need to run a single command as an administrator you can just put "sudo" at the beginning and run it—you're asked for an administrator password and the process runs. It's such a useful feature that it even inspired one of the most famous XKCD comics. Someone at Microsoft apparently noticed: sudo is now included in Windows. Sort of. A feature that allows you to run single commands as an administrator, called sudo, is now included in Windows, but this feature is not technically related to the sudo included on Linux systems (Microsoft, as always, is using a confusing name). Anyway: this pseudo-sudo feature is included with Windows 11 version 24H2, released in October 2024 and still rolling out to Windows users as of February 2025. You can check whether you have access to the feature by opening System Settings and heading to System > For developers. Scroll down and you'll see the option to enable sudo (if you don't see the option, you're not using 24H2). Credit: Justin Pot There are three options here regarding how sudo runs. By default, command will run in a new window. There are two more options: Inline, which will run the command in the same window; and Input closed, which runs the command in the same window but without input from other commands in the window. The official documentation heavily recommends leaving the default setting for security reasons, though Inline is much closer to the Linux-style sudo command. Using the feature is straightforward: when running a command that requires administrator privileges, start with sudo. You will see a pop-up asking to confirm. Credit: Justin Pot Click Yes and the command will run as administrator. That's really it: just put sudo at the beginning of your commands to run as administrator. Credit: Justin Pot Try it with your usual commands and see how you like it. If the answer is that you don't, that's fine: go back to opening Powershell as administrator. There are reasons Microsoft's sudo may not work for you. Maybe you're not yet using the 24H2 version of Windows. Maybe you can't get sudo working with the applications you're trying. Or maybe you just want to quickly change your current session into an elevated session. If so, gsudo might work better for you. This open source tool is recommended in Microsoft's documentation as offering features more similar to the Linux version of sudo and can quickly be installed using the winget package manager. View the full article

Scientists have finally given the all-clear to Earth from a newly discovered asteroid. After two months of observations, scientists have almost fully ruled out any threat from the asteroid 2024 YR4, NASA and the European Space Agency said Tuesday. At one point, the odds of a strike in 2032 were as high as about 3% and topped the world’s asteroid-risk lists. ESA has since lowered the odds to 0.001%. NASA has it down to 0.0017% — meaning the asteroid will safely pass Earth in 2032 and there’s no threat of impact for the next century. Paul Chodas, who heads NASA’s Center for Near Earth Objects Studies, said there is no chance the odds will rise at this point and that an impact in 2032 has been ruled out. “That’s the outcome we expected all along, although we couldn’t be 100% sure that it would happen,” he said in an email. But there’s still a 1.7% chance that asteroid could hit the moon on Dec. 22, 2032, according to NASA. Chodas expects the odds of a moon strike will also fade. The world’s telescopes will continue to track the asteroid as it heads away from us, with the Webb Space Telescope zooming in next month to pinpoint its size. It’s expected to vanish from view in another month or two. Discovered in December, the asteroid is an estimated 130 feet to 300 feet (40 meters to 90 meters) across, and swings our way every four years. “While this asteroid no longer poses a significant impact hazard to Earth, 2024 YR4 provided an invaluable opportunity” for study, NASA said in a statement. The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content. —Marcia Dunn, Associated Press aerospace writer View the full article

The Justice Department said in a legal brief that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will continue to exist, but said instead that the agency will have fewer employees and a reduced budget under the Trump administration. View the full article

Recent housing trends more favorable to buyers will ease some of the pressure for higher down payments in order to secure a winning bid, Redfin finds. View the full article

It’s no exaggeration to say that Nvidia (Nasdaq:NVDA), to many people, is the most important stock on Wall Street these days. Last year, the company was responsible for more than 20% of the S&P 500’s total return, and it’s a stalwart in a wide swath of 401(k) and IRA investment accounts. That alone would be reason enough for the company’s fourth-quarter-earnings report to receive widespread interest on Wednesday after the market close. But recent slowdowns in Nvidia’s growth as well as artificial intelligence breakthroughs in China have raised questions about how the tech giant can remain on top. Analysts expect Nvidia will report revenue of $38.1 million and net income of $19.6 billion for the quarter ended in January. Earnings are expected to come in at $0.85 per share. NVDA shares, as of midday Tuesday, were trading at about the same level as last October. While Nvidia has seen its NVDA share price jump more than 61% in the past 12 months, the stock is down about 6% so far in 2025. The stock was down 1.8% in midday trading Tuesday. Investors, analysts, and even casual watchers of the stock market will be combing the earnings results to see if demand for Nvidia’s chips is waning—and, if so, how it plans to continue growth. Barclays called this earnings report a “crucial moment,” and Fundstrat head of research Tom Lee says the earnings will show whether the current market pullback is only a “flesh wound” or something more serious. Nvidia has become the second-largest company on Wall Street, guiding major market indices, which makes Wednesday’s earnings relevant to many investors, even those who don’t care about AI. Here are some of the things Wall Street will be paying particular attention to once the numbers are released. Blackwell chip supply Volume production of Nvidia’s newest chip will be in the spotlight Wednesday. Investors are curious if the manufacturing issues that previously impacted the next-generation Blackwell line (which delivers a lot of power with higher efficiency) are now in the past—as well as how strong demand is looking. Last quarter, Nvidia told the Street it expected “several billion dollars” in revenue from Blackwell this quarter. Analyst firm Jefferies, in a note to investors, said it expects Nvidia will beat expectations and raise projections for future quarters. Tariff impacts Nvidia is unlikely to address any impact from Donald Trump’s tariffs in its earnings release, but it’s a topic that could come up on the conference call. Nvidia has said it gets the majority of its products from North America, however it’s looking to widen its sources. A trade war, meanwhile, could hurt sales of Nvidia chips in other countries, especially as Trump considers tariffs of “25% or higher” on chips, which could lead to retribution from trade partners. Big tech spending A report from TD Cowen late last week that Microsoft was set to slow its spending on data centers stoked fears that the recent market boom, which has been fueled by AI stocks, could be slowing. If accurate, that could indicate a dip in demand for Nvidia’s chips. (Microsoft, on Monday, said it still plans to spend $80 billion on infrastructure this year.) CEO Jensen Huang is likely to face questions about orders from key customers, including not just Microsoft, but also Meta, Alphabet and Amazon, despite those companies saying they planned to either stick with preannounced levels or increase their capital expenditures related to AI. New markets Most of Nvidia’s chips are currently used in data centers, but investors will be looking for the next growth area. That could come from autonomous vehicles or robots. Currently, both are a drop in the bucket, revenue-wise, but Huang has spoken enthusiastically about autonomous vehicles, saying that revenue will hit $5 billion in annual sales in the next fiscal year. “We’ve been working on self-driving cars now for some time,” Huang said at his keynote at CES. “If it’s already a $5 billion business for us, imagine how big it’s going to be when we have 100 million new [self-driving] cars per year. This is likely going to be one of the largest robotics industries in the world and one of the largest computing industries in the world.” The DeepSeek impact NVDA shares took a steep dive on January 28 (losing $600 billion in market value in a single day) after DeepSeek was revealed, performing ChatGPT-like functions at a fraction of the cost of existing AI models. The maker of the Chinese AI system said it had spent just $5.6 million on the computing power for the chatbot. NVDA shares today remain about 10% below where they stood prior to DeepSeek’s debut. On Wednesday’s earnings call, Huang will have a window to explain why AI companies will continue to need more of the company’s chips as the market grows. As Huang said in an interview with DDN’s Alex Bouzari last week, “The market responded to [DeepSeek’s model] as in, ‘Oh my gosh, AI is finished’ . . . [that AI doesn’t] need to do any more computing anymore. It’s exactly the opposite,” adding that the need for more computing is “intensive.” View the full article

It's not surprising at this point to find out that a company you entrusted your data to turned around and sold it without your knowledge or consent—as antivirus provider Avast did for years through its software and browser extensions. And while monetary compensation doesn't undo the potential damage, nearly 3.7 million Avast customers are eligible for a refund for the trouble. Last year, Avast reached a $16.5 million settlement with the Federal Trade Commission, which includes compensation for users who bought Avast software between August 2014 and January 2020. The FTC found that the company collected information on religious beliefs, health concerns, political leanings, financial status, and location without user consent and sold it through a subsidiary (also without consent). Now, customers can start to claim refunds from the settlement. According to the FTC, customers eligible for a refund from Avast will be notified via email between Feb. 24 and March 7. The notice will include a claim ID—you'll need this to complete the Avast settlement claim form online. If you want more information about the process or need help filling out the application, you can call the refund administrator at 866-290-0165. Your claim must be filed by June 5, 2025 to be eligible for a payment. The FTC expects to mail payments in 2026, and the amount will depend on how many people apply for refunds. View the full article

More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.” “We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.” The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump’s administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them. The mass resignation of engineers, data scientists and product managers is a temporary setback for Musk and the Republican president’s tech-driven purge of the federal workforce. It comes amid a flurry of court challenges that have sought to stall, stop or unwind their efforts to fire or coerce thousands of government workers out of jobs. In a statement, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was dismissive of the mass resignation. “Anyone who thinks protests, lawsuits, and lawfare will deter President Trump must have been sleeping under a rock for the past several years,” Leavitt said. “President Trump will not be deterred from delivering on the promises he made to make our federal government more efficient and more accountable to the hardworking American taxpayers.” The staffers who resigned worked for what was once known as the United States Digital Service, an office established during President Barack Obama’s administration after the botched rollout of Healthcare.gov, the web portal that millions of Americans use to sign up for insurance plans through the Democrat’s signature health care law. All had previously held senior roles at such tech companies as Google and Amazon and wrote in their resignation letter that they joined the government out of a sense of duty to public service. Trump’s empowerment of Musk upended that. The day after Trump’s inauguration, the staffers wrote, they were called into a series of interviews that foreshadowed the secretive and disruptive work of Musk’s’ Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. According to the staffers, people wearing White House visitors’ badges, some of whom would not give their names, grilled the nonpartisan employees about their qualifications and politics. Some made statements that indicated they had a limited technical understanding. Many were young and seemed guided by ideology and fandom of Musk — not improving government technology. “Several of these interviewers refused to identify themselves, asked questions about political loyalty, attempted to pit colleagues against each other, and demonstrated limited technical ability,” the staffers wrote in their letter. “This process created significant security risks.” Earlier this month, about 40 staffers in the office were laid off. The firings dealt a devastating blow to the government’s ability to administer and safeguard its own technological footprint, they wrote. “These highly skilled civil servants were working to modernize Social Security, veterans’ services, tax filing, health care, disaster relief, student aid, and other critical services,” the resignation letter states. “Their removal endangers millions of Americans who rely on these services every day. The sudden loss of their technology expertise makes critical systems and American’s data less safe.” Those who remained, about 65 staffers, were integrated into DOGE’s government-slashing effort. About a third of them quit Tuesday. “We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services,” they wrote. “We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.” The slash-and-burn effort Musk is leading diverges from what was initially outlined by Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign. DOGE, a nod to Musk’s favorite cryptocurrency meme coin, was initially presented as a blue-ribbon commission that would exist outside government. After the election, however, Musk hinted there was more to come, posting to his social media site, X, “Threat to democracy? Nope, threat to BUREAUCRACY!!!” He has leaned aggressively into the role since. Last week he stood on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference gathering outside Washington, where he boasted of his exploits and hoisted a blinged-out, Chinese-made chainsaw above his head that was gifted by Argentinian President Javier Milei. “This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy,” Musk bellowed from the stage. Still, Musk has tried to keep technical talent in place, with the bulk of the layoffs in the Digital Service office focused on people in roles like designers, product managers, human resources and contracting staff, according to interviews with current and former staff. Of the 40 people let go earlier this month, only one was an engineer — an outspoken and politically active staffer name Jonathan Kamens, who said in an interview with the AP that he believes he was fired for publicly endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris, a Democrat, on his personal blog and being critical of Musk in chats with colleagues. “I believe that Elon Musk is up to no good. And I believe that any data that he gains access to is going to be used for purposes that are inappropriate and harmful to Americans,” Kamens said. U.S. Digital Service veterans, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, recalled experiencing a similar sort of shock about how government processes worked that Musk and his team are discovering. Over time, many developed an appreciation for why certain things in government had to be treated with more care than in the private sector. “‘Move fast and break things’ may be acceptable to someone who owns a business and owns the risk. And if things don’t go well, the damage is compartmentalized. But when you break things in government, you’re breaking things that belong to people who didn’t sign up for that,” said Cordell Schachter, who until last month was the chief information officer at the U.S. Department of Transportation. USDS was established over a decade ago to do things like improving services for veterans, and it helped create a free government-run portal so tax filers did not have to go through third parties like TurboTax. It also devised systems to improve the way the federal government purchased technology. It has been embroiled in its fair share of bureaucracy fights and agency turf wars with chief information officers across government who resented interlopers treading in their agency’s systems. USDS’ power across government stemmed from the imprimatur of acting on behalf of the White House and its founding mission of improving service for the American people. Leavitt, the White House press secretary, is one of three administration officials who face a lawsuit from The Associated Press on first- and fifth-amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. —Brian Slodysko and Byron Tau, Associated Press AP video journalist Rodrique Ngowi contributed to this report. View the full article