There is a nationwide talent war for frontline, skilled workers, and unfortunately, too many companies are losing. Turnover among deskless workers, who account for about 80% of the workforce globally, is high, and they are notoriously difficult to train through traditional training programs. Corporate training solutions that work for someone sitting behind a desk rarely work for someone on a job site or factory floor.  HR professionals cited employee engagement, retention, and recruitment as the top management challenges within the deskless workforce, according to a Society for Human Resource Management study. Unlike office workers with predictable schedules and easy access to digital tools, deskless employees are mobile and harder to reach. As a result, 79% of HR leaders cite learning and development as the biggest talent challenge for deskless teams, followed by retention and onboarding cited by 75%.  Training can address each of those issues, but even when available, it’s often disconnected from actual business outcomes and lacks measurable value. Why? Because training frontline workers is fundamentally different from training office-based employees. Training and onboarding in-the-field workers is complicated and complex, so many companies are slower to invest in it.  Recruit, Ramp, and Retain  And yet, the frontline workforce is a business-critical system. Executives love to say, “People are our most important asset.” However, when asked what systems they use to recruit, ramp, and retain employees, most stumble, which tells you everything. The workforce isn’t always treated like the strategic system it is.  To connect training to business value, we need to view the entire employee journey—recruit, ramp, retain—as an integrated pipeline. Of those three stages, ramp is the most important. It’s the anchor. Companies that invest heavily in ramping programs find it easier to recruit and are more successful at retaining. When you invest in frontline workers early, they stay longer. This is especially true for skilled and industrial workers.  Studies show that the majority of employees say training programs positively affect their engagement, and 94% say training encourages them to stay at a company longer.  In contrast, lack of career progression is one of the top reasons employees leave.   So what does ramp look like for most frontline workers today? Most often it is job shadowing. There’s value in that, especially when mentorship is involved, but the challenge is that it doesn’t scale. Not every employee is a good trainer. As experienced workers retire, mentorship will become harder to deliver consistently, especially in industries facing labor and skills gaps.  Digital Training Allows For Customization  The goal, then, is to build a digital training system that can act as a mentor but can scale. Simulations have already been proven in aviation, medicine, and the military. They offer the closest thing to hands-on training and will become even more accessible as spending on technology for deskless workers increases.  When digital learning is done well, it mimics great teachers by not just showing people how to do their jobs but also challenging them to understand why it’s done that way. It also provides assessments, which is critical in ramping programs. A strong system meets new workers where they are, quickly understanding their current capabilities and tailoring training accordingly.  Digital training also supports personalized learning plans, delivering key lessons in short, targeted bursts that can teach what’s needed to improve job performance and support career advancement. Too often, training is treated as a one-size-fits-all solution without alignment to the business strategy. AI will bring even more customization to learning, making it more relevant. But to tie it back to business outcomes, companies must use data to track progress and impact and then align it to company goals.  Retain Frontline Talent  Companies that see real results are those that define success, design training programs that build the skills to get there, and actively measure how training improves operations. We’re already seeing this investment mindset emerge in places like private equity-backed roll-ups of skilled trades companies. These firms are building standardized, scalable training systems across dozens of operating companies to drive profitability. In doing so, they’re setting a model that others can follow.  Winning the war for frontline talent requires a shift in thinking. Leaders need to ask themselves:  Do we treat workforce development like other critical business systems?   Can the knowledge gained translate to measurable business outcomes?  Do we have a learning and development foundation that is connected to the business?   Can our existing training system leverage the power of AI to deliver personalized, engaging training that derives even more value for employees and the company?  Those who can answer yes to these questions are creating a system that recruits faster, ramps better, and retains longer, all of which help transform workforce development from a cost center into a competitive advantage.  Doug Donovan is CEO and founder of Interplay Learning. 

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. It’s been made clear in the past few months that the uncertainty we’re facing as a country has impacted almost every level of society. And it’s not lost on me that there is an overwhelming amount of pressure on our state leaders in the current political and economic environment. Unfortunately, I’m not confident that these leaders are using their power to tackle the deep-rooted issues that our country continues to face—like the growing wealth gap.   In my home base of Albany, New York there are over 1,000 abandoned properties with the number of unhoused people rising 38% since 2022. Governor Hochul claims to have plans to reinvent New York City, the Finger Lakes and the Hudson Valley—recently announcing a $412 million proposal—but despite budget approvals, we’ve yet to see a concrete plan and timeline that will move the investment forward.  Take it a step further. The wealth gap in America isn’t just growing, it’s accelerating. And the reality is, we can do something about this. According to the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, from 1981 to 2021, income for the top 20% of earners in the U.S. jumped 165%. For the middle and lowest earners? Just 33% and 38%. Why leaders should be frustrated I’ve grown tired of waiting for government leaders to step up and fight. I no longer expect sweeping reform from the top. So, I’ve focused on what I can do from the ground up. Four years ago, my wife Lisa and I started Business for Good in New York’s Capital Region. Our mission is to close the wealth gap. We invest directly in communities: supporting small businesses, affordable housing, offering marketing and HR resources, mentoring entrepreneurs, and creating ecosystems that allow people to rise—and stay—out of poverty. It’s working. But it’s not enough. Not unless more of us get off the sidelines. That’s why I’m calling on other leaders to join me in replicating the model that we’ve used for Business for Good. All it takes is simple, powerful steps that any business leader can follow to use their privilege for good. These are not theoretical—they work. And they’re built on a belief that I hold deeply: Privilege can be shared, but only by those who have it. The courage to act is contagious. Here’s where we start Change starts with one simple but powerful action: listening. We must be willing to actively hear from those who are directly impacted by the growing rise of uncertainty and inequity.   Next, do your homework. Deepen your understanding of inequities and the impacts of rising uncertainty and systemic exclusion. Be courageous, as individual learning and growth is required to drive real change. Then, confront—and speak up. Acknowledge your own biases as well as share information and resources. If you have a platform, use it—your voice, your company, your community, social media, etc. Remember that if words matter, actions speak louder.  We also need to partner with local government leaders and policy makers who are committed to dismantling barriers and fighting for each and every member of our communities. For us, at Business for Good, we work with local leaders in the Albany/New York Capital Region as part of our pilot program. Showing up matters. Leverage your privilege for good by sharing your opinion, engaging in activities that support belonging, starting a conversation, and connecting within your local community. Engagement is key. That means having hard conversations with colleagues, friends, and family. Be brave enough to speak up. We each have a role to play in breaking the silence and building awareness. Finally, invest. Real impact takes resources. Actionable ways to drive change At Business for Good, we’ve put our money where our mission is, fighting for our neighbors and communities. We’ve invested over $1 million to help create the Albany Black Chamber of Commerce—a hub for community leaders, entrepreneurs, and small businesses to thrive. We’ve supported a local community center focused on improving the lives of those in need from youngest to oldest. We’re working with like-minded leaders in the private sector to tackle issues that our local government is not: housing and employment to name a few. Other leaders and cities can and should take this approach to replicate the progress we’ve seen in our community. I recently read a set of community values posted in Dubai. And while this was halfway across the world and it wasn’t my own community, one message struck me: A successful society is one that lifts everyone up. Let’s bring that idea home. Ed Mitzen is cofounder of Business for Good.

White smoke poured from the Sistine Chapel chimney Thursday at 6:07 p.m. local time, signaling the end of the conclave and the election of a new pope to lead the Catholic Church. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost of the United States is now the 267th pope, taking the name Pope Leo XIV. Just a minute later, the folks behind Pope Crave broke their silence: “We don’t claim him,” they posted to their 93,000 followers, beating even the Vatican News portal to the update. “His views better have changed since 2012 to be more in line with Papa Francis or else . . . apostasy!” they added. If you’re late to the party, Pope Crave is a parody account modeled after celebrity news sources like Pop Crave and Pop Base that’s been posting updates on the papal vacancy with a mix of on-the-ground reporting and “diva sightings.” “We don’t have official press credentials, but we are very determined people,” admins of the account told Time in a recent interview. The account began as an X fan page devoted to Conclave, the 2024 film starring Ralph Fiennes and its heavily memed awards season run. Pope Crave is run by Susan Bin, an artist from Dallas, and Noelia Caballero, a lawyer based in Ontario, Canada. Since launching, the account has grown into a broader community, spawning a dedicated Discord server and a charity zine that has raised more than $50,000 for the Intersex Human Rights Fund, the Freedom Fund, and Librarians and Archivists with Palestine—charities Bin and Caballero say reflect “the views of the film.” When news of Pope Francis’s death broke in late April, Pope Crave quickly shifted focus, offering real-time updates and explaining the conclave process through memes. (The account even managed to fact-check Politico.) The last conclave happened in 2013—before TikTok existed. This time, with social media fully embedded in everyday life, the papal succession became a fandom event and a platform to support the most progressive candidates. Pope Crave officially endorsed Cardinal Tagle, who gained a viral following on TikTok for his resurfaced rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and his pro-LGBTQ+ stance. Another fan favorite was Cardinal Zuppi, dubbed “the pope of the people.” Now, with the conclave concluded and Pope Leo XIV installed, the question remains: What’s next for a papal meme account? “Pope crave im scared is it over,” one X user asked. The official reply: “No my friend the time to meme is now when times are dark.”

White smoke at the Vatican can only signal one thing: A new pope has been elected. But online? A flurry of memes are roasting the traditions of the Pope’s midwestern roots. Just hours after the conclave concluded, electing Chicago-born Cardinal Robert Provost as pontiff (who will now go by the name Leo XIV), users all over social media are taking part in stereotype-laden antic, associating the Pope with deep pizza, sports, and, of course, Malört. New Chicago Pope byu/mikraas inchicago The r/Chicago Reddit thread is flooding with papacy-related memes. In one post, an image of a Catholic priest holding the sacramental bread has been edited to turn the wafer into a Chicago-style deep dish pizza. The post’s caption reads, “Coming this Sunday to a Vatican near you.” (Never mind that most Chicagoans prefer thin crust.) the communion wafers are deep dish now— Armand Domalewski (@ArmandDoma) May 8, 2025 Another user made a similar joke on X, saying “the communion wafers are deep dish now.” Da Pope byu/StinkStar inchicago Another X post poked fun at Malört, a self-punishing spirit popular among Chicago bars, saying “Cannot wait for holy water & wine to be replaced by Malort & Old Style.” AI images that feature the pontiff sporting Chicago Bears merchandise are widely circulating social media. In one image posted on Reddit, a user commented, “Chicago produced a pope before a 4000 yd passer.” On TikTok, one user posted a skit pretending to be the new Pope. “I just got a call from God, saying that deep dish pizza is real pizza,” he said. A user commented on the video saying, “Blessed be the children of god across the entire world, except those who live in Green Bay.” An American Pope from Chicago. God help us all.pic.twitter.com/b8VmtR7O9R— chefkids (@girlflopping) May 8, 2025 Many users on X also likened the Pope to the fictional Chicago-native protagonist of The Bear, featuring clips from the TV show. A post featuring Chef Carmy screaming is captioned, “An American Pope from Chicago. God help us all.” the pope from chicago receiving a message from god pic.twitter.com/leYJd6liu9— patrick. (@imPatrickT) May 8, 2025 Another post, referencing stills from the show’s season 1 finale, was captioned “the pope from Chicago receiving a message from god.” The message in question? “I love you dude. Let it rip.” As memes continue to flood social media, the internet’s reaction might best be described by one user on X: “Announced to my office (we live in chicago) about the new pope and the immediate millennial reaction was “oh the memes are gonna be amazing.”

In the run-up to the annual U.N. climate conference, set to take place in Brazil’s Amazon in November, the construction of a road is drawing attention, with critics arguing it will lead to environmental degradation. Before the talks, called COP30, the state government of Para is building a 13-kilometer (8-mile) avenue designed to ease traffic on a major highway that runs parallel. The road was planned long before Belem, a metropolitan area of 2.5 million people that sits on the edge of the Amazon, was chosen as conference host. That hasn’t spared it sharp criticism, however, because the road is expected to cut across the last remnants of rainforest in Belem. Road building in the Amazon, which historically has often led to deforestation and development of surrounding areas, also stands in stark contrast to a central aim of climate conferences, and in particular this one: conservation of biodiversity. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has made the slowing of deforestation a central focus of his administration, has frequently boasted that this will be the first such conference in the Amazon rainforest. The Amazon is key to regulating the climate, because trees absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that heats the planet when released into the atmosphere. “We will hold the best COP in history because the topic of all the ones held in other countries was the Amazon,” Lula said while visiting Belem worksites in February. “This one will be in the Amazon.” An official project map shows a straight line dividing a green area through the city’s outskirts. This protected area is slightly larger than Manhattan. It was designated in 1993 to protect two lakes, a river basin and to restore a degraded rainforest. However, its rules allow private properties, government-approved deforestation and public works. Two university campuses are located within its limits. “Even with measures to reduce the damage, there are tough issues to address,” said Roberta Rodrigues, a professor of architecture at the Federal University of Para. “It’s hard to imagine a road being built along the banks of the Guama River without it leading to illegal development. It may lead to the end of this protected area.” The project dates back to 2020. Construction began in mid-2024, despite criticism over its impact on one of the city’s few remaining green areas. The project drew wider attention in March, when the BBC reported that the avenue was “being built for COP30.” As the story was picked up by news outlets around the world, Brazil’s government issued a statement saying the avenue wasn’t among the 33 infrastructure projects planned for COP30. In a statement to The Associated Press, the state government of Para said that the avenue, named Liberdade, or Freedom, will be an expressway and development around it won’t be permitted. The chaotic growth of Brazilian cities, however, suggests it’s a promise that will be hard to keep. Countless public areas have been occupied for the irregular construction of housing — from modest structures to luxury condos — with the expectation that they will eventually be legalized, which often ends up happening. Belem is the capital of Para, which is run by Gov. Helder Barbalho, a politician from a traditional family who is an ally of Lula. Both support oil drilling in the nearby mouth of the Amazon River, likely a point of contention during COP30. The road is scheduled to be inaugurated just before the conference kicking off on Nov. 10. ___ 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. —Fabiano Maisonnave, Associated Press

Japanese video-game maker Nintendo on Thursday reported a 43% decline in profit for the fiscal year through March, but promised a turnaround as its Switch console upgrade goes on sale in June.Nintendo Co.’s profit for the fiscal year through March totaled 278.8 billion yen ($1.9 billion), down from 490 billion yen the previous fiscal year.Annual sales slipped 30% to 1.16 trillion yen ($8 billion) from 1.67 trillion yen, according to the Kyoto-based maker of the Super Mario and Donkey Kong games.The fortunes of game companies tend to decline somewhat as time passes after a new game machine goes on sale since many people have already bought the machine, although new hit software helps boost the results.Much anticipation has been building over the rollout of the so-called Switch 2, which goes on sale June 5.Nintendo said it expects to sell 15 million Switch 2 consoles for the fiscal year through March 2026.Demand has dwindled for the current Switch, now in its eighth year after its debut. The number of Switch players around the world remains above 128 million people, according to Nintendo.Nintendo said attractive software was coming for the Switch 2 later this year, including “The Legend of Zelda” games, a Pokemon title and a Kirby game, as well as offerings from outside software companies.Also adding to the momentum is the opening of a Nintendo store in San Francisco and the Super Nintendo World amusement facility opening in Orlando, both set for this month, according to Nintendo.Nintendo is projecting a 300 billion yen ($2.1 billion) profit for the fiscal year ending in March next year, a nearly 8% improvement from the fiscal year just ended, on sales of 1.9 trillion yen ($13 billion), up 63% on-year. Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama —Yuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer

The United States and Britain are expected to announce a trade deal on Thursday that will lower the burden of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs and deliver a political victory for U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer.Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that a deal due to be announced at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) will be a “full and comprehensive one that will cement the relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom for many years to come.”It’s the first bilateral trade deal announced since Trump began slapping tariffs on U.S. trading partners. He said: “Many other deals, which are in serious stages of negotiation, to follow!”Starmer’s office said the prime minister would give an “update” about U.S. trade talks later Thursday.“As you know, talks with the U.S. have been ongoing and you’ll hear more from me about that later today.” Starmer said at a defense conference in London.The agreement is likely to fall short of a full free trade deal, but will provide tariff relief to certain sectors.The president has imposed a 10% tax on imports from Britain, as well as 25% tariffs on autos, steel and aluminum on the premise that doing so would foster more factory jobs domestically.A major goal of British negotiators has been to reduce or lift the import tax on U.K. cars and steel. The U.S. is the largest destination for British cars, accounting for more than a quarter of U.K. auto exports in 2024, according to the Office for National Statistics.Britain has also sought tariff exemptions for pharmaceuticals, while the U.S. wants greater access to the British market for agriculture products. Starmer’s government has said it won’t lower U.K. food standards to allow in chlorine-rinsed American chicken or hormone-treated beef.The British government will see a deal it as a vindication of Starmer’s emollient approach to Trump, which has avoided direct confrontation or criticism. Unlike the European Union, Britain did not announce retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods in response to Trump’s import taxes.A trade deal with the United Kingdom would be symbolically important, and a relief for British exporters. But an agreement would do little to address Trump’s core concern about persistent trade deficits that prompted him to impose import taxes on countries around the world.The U.S. ran a $11.9 billion trade surplus in goods with the U.K. last year, according to the Census Bureau. The $68 billion in goods that the U.S. imported from the U.K. last year accounted for just 2% of all goods imported into the country.The U.S. is much more important to the U.K. economy. It was Britain’s biggest trading partner last year, according to government statistics, though the bulk of Britain’s exports to the U.S. are services rather than goods.Trump has shown a desire to strike a trade agreement with the U.K. since it voted in 2016 to leave the European Union. Yet as recently as Tuesday, Trump showed no awareness of the possible terms of the deal when asked about its possibility.“They’re offering us concessions?” Trump told reporters. “I hope so… They do want to make a deal very badly.”Trump has previously said that his leverage in talks would be U.S. consumers, but he appeared to suggest that the U.K. would also start buying more American-made goods.“I think that the United Kingdom, like every other country, they want to … go shopping in the United States of America,” he said.A trade deal with the U.S. is one of several that Starmer’s government is seeking to strike. On Tuesday, Britain and India announced a trade after three years of negotiations. The U.K. is also trying to lift some of the barriers to trade with the EU imposed when Britain left the bloc in 2020. Jill Lawless reported from London. Josh Boak contributed to this report from Washington. —Zeke Miller and Jill Lawless, Associated Press

BROOKWOOD, Ala.—The Trump administration has announced it will aim to fast-track the permitting and environmental review of a major coal mine expansion in central Alabama as part of a larger effort to accelerate the construction of what the government has labeled “critical mineral” infrastructure.  While administration officials said the change is aimed at “significantly reduc[ing] our reliance on foreign nations,” coal produced as part of Warrior Met’s expansion in Alabama is almost entirely exported overseas to support foreign steelmaking markets, according to the company.  Warrior Met’s Blue Creek mine expansion, set to be one of the largest coal build-outs in Alabama history, is one of 20 planned developments deemed “transparency projects” by the administration over the last two months. The mine expansion will be placed on the federal government’s permitting dashboard as it moves its way through the regulatory and permitting process.  The projects’ inclusion on the dashboard authorized under the 2015 Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST) will, according to the Trump administration, “make the environmental review and authorizations schedule for these vital mineral production projects publicly available and allow all of these projects to benefit from increased transparency. “The public nature of the dashboard ensures that all stakeholders, from project sponsors and community members to federal agency leaders, have up-to-date accounting of where each project stands in the review process,” the administration said in its announcement. “This transparency leads to greater accountability, ensuring a more efficient process.” During the Biden administration, the so-called FAST-41 dashboard was used to fast-track projects aimed at benefiting tribal nations, as well as various projects advancing renewable energy, coastal restoration, broadband, and electricity transmission sectors. The program was created as a means “to enhance transparency and increase the efficiency of the permitting process,” the Biden administration said at the time. With a new president, though, the programs designated to participate—and the policy priorities they represent—have now changed.  The Trump administration has already signaled its support of the Alabama project. In April, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum visited an existing Warrior Met mine outside Tuscaloosa and took a windshield tour of the Blue Creek facility currently under construction.  During that visit, Burgum emphasized the administration’s stated commitment to fossil fuel production and said that its actions would “unleash American energy.” He did not acknowledge Warrior Met’s checkered safety and environmental record or that nearly all of its product—metallurgical coal—is shipped overseas for foreign steelmaking operations, not used in the U.S.  “We sell substantially all of our steelmaking coal production to steel producers outside of the United States,” a recent Warrior Met corporate filing said. “For the three months ended March 31, 2025, our geographic customer mix was 37% in Europe, 43% in Asia, and 20% in South America.” The planned expansion of Blue Creek involves a major build-out of Warrior Met’s ability to mine for underground coal using the longwall method, a particularly destructive form of mining in which large machines shear walls of coal, leaving vast, empty expanses in their wake. Land above those empty caverns sinks, causing what is often permanent damage to the surface and structures there.  Longwall mining has devastated communities in Alabama and beyond. In March 2024, an Alabama home exploded above a longwall mine with a different owner after methane—a gas released during mining—seeped into the residence and ignited. The resulting blast killed an Alabama grandfather and seriously injured his grandson. Since then, the community above the Oak Grove mine in western Jefferson County has continued to crumble, with homes’ foundations cracking as the longwall mine expands below. Earlier this year, just as President Donald Trump was announcing efforts to promote “clean, beautiful coal,” a West Virginia woman was hospitalized after a methane explosion in her home atop a longwall mine left her seriously injured. Workers from the mine beneath her home had stood behind Trump during his White House announcement.  Once completed, Warrior Met’s Blue Creek expansion will increase the company’s coal production by 60%, providing additional supply for overseas steelmaking markets hungry for metallurgical coal that can meet production needs. Taxpayer-funded support for the facility may top $400 million. The company has also asked the federal government to allow it to mine publicly owned coal as part of the Blue Creek project. The federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced last year that it would conduct an environmental assessment related to Warrior Met’s Blue Creek project and, specifically, its proposal to mine 14,040 acres of federal minerals underlying privately owned land in Tuscaloosa County. Warrior Met’s applications to lease the coal rights propose the extraction of approximately 57.5 million tons of recoverable public coal reserves. Initial government scoping documents indicated that any environmental assessment of the Blue Creek project would include an analysis of its impact on climate change, both direct and indirect. Since those initial documents were released, however, federal guidance on the inclusion of climate change considerations in government decision-making has been in flux.  A day-one executive order by Trump, for example, disbanded the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases, which was established pursuant to a Biden executive order. The order said “any guidance, instruction, recommendation, or document issued by the IWG is withdrawn as no longer representative of governmental policy.”  That guidance had emphasized the importance of government analysis of the social cost of carbon, a way of putting a dollar figure on the economic damage that comes from emitting a ton of carbon dioxide. The Trump White House has said without evidence that the concept “is marked by logical deficiencies, a poor basis in empirical science, politicization, and the absence of a foundation in legislation.” Public comments on the project already submitted to BLM included concerns around greenhouse gas emissions and Warrior Met’s contribution to the climate crisis.  “Please do not approve any new or expanded coal mining,” one commenter wrote. “The climate crisis is already deadly and rapidly getting worse. There is an overwhelming international consensus on the severity of this crisis and the urgent need to phase out the use of harmful fossil fuels.” The draft environmental impact statement for the Blue Creek project, originally set to be released sometime in the fall, is now scheduled to be published on May 30, according to BLM.  — Lee Hedgepeth, Inside Climate News This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News. It is republished with permission. 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The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. When architects constructed the Notre-Dame Cathedral in the 13th century, they reinforced its structure with 28 flying buttresses. These famous buttresses are credited with saving the entire roof from collapse during the devastating 2019 fire. Today, as nonprofit organizations brace against shifting economic winds, I’m reminded of these critical architectural supports when I consider the wraparound services many philanthropies provide their grantees. Leadership development, training, and networking opportunities are like flying buttresses: They strengthen organizations and provide added structural stability in an unpredictable and unchartered funding environment.  Pairing holistic support with financial contributions is especially critical for nonprofits at a time when “traditional” philanthropic sources are uncertain. Providing opportunities for nonprofit professionals to strengthen their leadership skills and abilities is an increasingly valuable benefit that philanthropies can help make possible, particularly at a watershed moment when groups that deliver critical programs and services must pivot as necessary on a variety of fronts.  Building nonprofits’ capacity for impact  According to the T. Rowe Price Foundation’s 2024 Learning Report leaders of small and mid-size organizations find that workshops, seminars, and personalized advice and insights are prized opportunities to build organizational capacity, and notably when the nonprofit lacks the resources to provide these opportunities to its staff.  For instance, Goodyear Tire hosts an annual global week of volunteering that includes professional development workshops for nonprofit professionals on topics like leadership development and project management. Similarly, the American Express Leadership Academy provides skills training for emerging social purpose and nonprofit leaders around the world. In addition, the Allstate Foundation Nonprofit Leadership Center has provided free online management training for nonprofit professionals in partnership with Northwestern University’s Center for Nonprofit Management at the Kellogg School of Management since 2014.   Local and regional philanthropies can also support nonprofits’ capacity-building efforts, especially since they deeply understand the unique needs of the community and can act as an anchor in the nonprofit ecosystem. For instance, the Greater New Orleans Foundation (GNOF) provides robust civic leadership training and opportunities that include six-month training programs to boost nonprofit professionals’ leadership skills and foster peer learning to help better ensure a strong talent pipeline. Independently, GNOF also provides routine trainings and workshops to bolster community nonprofit success.  At the Ares Charitable Foundation, we surveyed our grantees and found that our partners would benefit from capacity-building resources and strategies that help them increase their expertise in measurement, storytelling, and fundraising. Earlier this year, we launched a Learning Community program for our U.S. grantees that brings organizations with similar goals together for collaborative learning, peer networking, and shared problem solving. Part think tank, part idea incubator, and part professional development institute, our Learning Community program, which we intend to scale globally, was inspired by our staunch belief that philanthropies can—and should—help nonprofits increase their reach and impact in ways that extend beyond monetary support alone.   Safeguard nonprofits for the future  Leadership training, community partnerships, and peer networking are our nonprofits’ flying buttresses. These kinds of supports can shore up fiscal contributions and provide practical resources to help undergird organizations as they strive to execute day-to-day operations and remain stable as the funding landscape continues to evolve. Notre-Dame thankfully continued standing following the historic 2019 fire and with the help of philanthropic wraparound supports, organizations that communities have come to rely on and trust can, too. If funders recognize and commit to providing resources that, in truth, can be just as valuable as cash, then nonprofits can survive in the wake of the unknown and continue to make the difference they have long sought.   Michelle Armstrong is president of Ares Charitable Foundation. 

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. The speed and breadth of the changing political/cultural status quo in the U.S. has been breathtaking and disorienting for brand leaders across the tech/business community. Some leaders ​​have gone all in to kiss the ring of the new status quo. Many more are wrestling with the question “How do I continue to support the ideals my brand believes in without causing serious self-sabotage?”   This article is intended as a conversation starter, not a neat solution, and is informed by decades of experience of building the most influential brands as well as a series of 2025 interviews with leading founders. It puts forward a set of three principles and concrete actions to help leaders get on the front foot again.   1. Rebrand initiatives for minimum drama, maximum impact   Inspiration: The rebranding of progressive finance  We can learn from the example of the progressive finance community, which is in the process of rebranding its entire category, swapping trigger words such as ESG for terms like “energy security.” Surveying fund managers and analysts, the ​​FT noted, “The new world of sustainable investment will have a greater focus on energy transition, better regulation, and less virtue signaling…ESG as a synonym for sustainable investment is likely to disappear but the trend, in its revamped form, will continue.”  This is a great example of reframing language to focus on the nondebatable goal of ensuring our energy suppliers’ resilience, no matter what your view on the causes and speed of climate change.   2. Stick to your values, but focus on outcomes: The Flo Health approach  Flo Health, a leading women’s health app, successfully navigated the post-Roe v. Wade landscape by focusing on science-backed healthcare outcomes rather than political rhetoric. Instead of engaging in ideological debates, the company stayed true to its mission—improving women’s health—by highlighting established medical research demonstrating the negative impact of restricted reproductive care.  This wasn’t just talk; it sparked tangible innovation. Flo Health introduced Anonymous Mode, a game-changing feature that allows users to track their menstrual cycles without fear of their data being misused. The move resonated deeply with users, addressing concerns about digital privacy at a time of heightened vulnerability.  The results speak for themselves. By keeping the focus on action rather than controversy, Flo Health experienced ​​​​​​a 55% surge in paid subscribers, solidifying its position as Europe’s first femtech unicorn. In the U.S., the app has become an essential tool for reproductive health, with an estimated 40% of women who were trying to conceive, relying on it.  Flo Health’s approach underscores a key lesson: Brands can stand by their values and drive meaningful impact without performative statements, earning both community trust and business success.  3. Adopt an adaptive Day One mindset focused on current needs over historical wrongs  This mindset has long been advocated by innovative CEOs, treating each day as if it’s the first, willing to let go of the past with a focus on excellence and opportunity. I believe that now is the time for brand leaders to apply the same lens in a new world with a new set of rules. Reduce​​ talk of correcting historical injustices and focus more on actions that drive the maximum benefit for the majority of people.   ​​​​​Example: Rocket’s blockbuster Super Bowl activation  Rocket, a leading provider of mortgages in the U.S., returned to the Super Bowl in 2025 with a goal to unite a divided nation around the principle that everyone deserves a shot at home ownership. The campaign was intentionally crafted to find common ground from the choice of music (one of the U.S.’s most beloved country tracks) to representative, authentic casting from young families to veterans, ​​​​to the topic with 94% of Americans believing that homeownership is part of the American dream. With two million people visiting Rocket.com within an hour and the largest brand lift of any Super Bowl advertiser, the impact illustrates the power of the approach with feedback showing that people from both sides of the political spectrum saw themselves in it.   Final word  Navigating this complex landscape requires courage and a commitment to acting with intention, orienting towards inclusive solutions over rallying against partisan problems. There is no one-size-fits-all formula but adopting a Day One mindset offers a way forward where values drive decisions but outcomes drive communications. A blend of purpose and pragmatism to achieve maximum impact with minimum drama.   The examples above illustrate how this strategy can yield significant benefits, from strengthening community trust to driving commercial success.  We’re all writing the new playbook for purpose-driven performance in real time, and I remain stubbornly optimistic that this evolution will, over time, elevate the industry’s ability to create lasting cultural and business impact  Neil Barrie is cofounder and global CEO of TwentyFirstCenturyBrand. 

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. While virtual doctor visits were available prior to 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic kicked them into overdrive: From 2018-2022, the percentage of American hospitals offering telehealth jumped over 14% to 86.9%. In 2021, McKinsey reported that the use of virtual care had stabilized at 38 times higher than before the pandemic. That same year, 85% of doctors offered it and 37% of adults surveyed had used it in the past year. In less than a decade, telehealth has gone from care alternative to industry staple. But with patients and providers increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of care, is this a positive development?   It can be. As the CEO of Sollis Health, a 24/7 concierge medical membership, I’ve seen how telehealth can be leveraged alongside features like premium tech-based services, healthcare personalization, and powerful proactive care to prioritize patient experience, support providers, and boost health outcomes—because “high-tech” and “human-centered” don’t have to be mutually exclusive.   Premium tech-based services  More than ever, time is a luxury for both patients and healthcare providers: Patients are waiting longer for care while overworked providers are slowed down by administrative burdens and staffing shortages. This lack of time contributes to burnout on both sides, with a 2022 poll revealing that fewer than half of Americans feel that the healthcare system is “generally handled well.” On the provider side, a 2024 survey showed that 48.2% of physicians reported experiencing at least one symptom of burnout.  Tech-based services could help fill these gaps, alleviating these pressures on both sides. AI is just one example. By automating administrative tasks, streamlining preventive care, and even playing a role in diagnostics—like reading MRIs or X-rays—a smart rollout of AI could free providers to spend more intentional time with patients while making care more efficient and effective by finding cancer sooner and making precision medicine more comprehensive.  Healthcare personalization  Women are more likely to die from heart attacks—and yet, because of medical biases, they are also more likely to be misdiagnosed.   While a one-size-fits-all approach to healthcare has long been the norm, care that tailors medical treatments and interventions to the unique needs of individual patients not only improves health outcomes, but streamlines them, too. From simply making sure patients are comfortable before, during, and after exams, to providing access to wearables like Zio patches, targeted cancer diagnostics, and seamless care navigation, personalized healthcare can save time and money by enhancing prevention and refining diagnostics. It can also improve engagement and compliance: Healthcare strategies specifically tailored to an individual’s needs makes patients feel more understood and cared for overall.   Powerful proactive care  You’re probably already familiar with preventive care, which research shows could reduce premature cancer deaths by about 40%. Proactive care broadens preventive care’s reach by deepening the connection between patients and providers with more and better communication while encouraging traditional preventive measures like health education, lifestyle changes—like quitting smoking or balanced eating habits—and screenings for conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.   Unfortunately, in the United States only slightly more than half of recommended healthcare interventions are provided during the course of normal care, often due to a lack of time. Technological advances in preventive care have so much to offer, especially in terms of access. Thanks to the time-savings of telehealth, AI-driven diagnostics, app-based medical education and care, wearables, and more, proactive care becomes more accessible to those who need it, including at-risk patients, patients managing chronic conditions, and others who would benefit from the convenience of higher-tech care.   The future of healthcare is human-centered  Finding solutions to a healthcare system that’s become too complex, transactional, and onerous doesn’t mean ignoring technologies like telehealth—it means striking the delicate balance between the human touch and the cutting edge. Whether it’s as simple as a warmer bedside manner or as advanced as AI-driven predictive analytics, human-centered healthcare is not just possible, but necessary, in this evolving landscape.   Brad Olson is CEO of Sollis Health.  

One of the worst parts about flying might just be, well, the fellow passengers. In fact, a 2023 Fast Company-Harris poll even found that 62% of airline customers are most dissatisfied with other travelers. Now, that might just be backed up by the new 2025 North America Airline Satisfaction Study from J.D. Power. The study noted that the volume of fliers has decreased in the first quarter of 2025. But surprisingly, customer satisfaction is slightly up compared with last year, which potentially means that people think overcrowding is one of the worst elements of air travel. The study is based on feedback from 10,224 passengers, all of whom had flown on one of the major airlines within a month of completing the survey. Since the study was conducted from March 2024 through March 2025, it’s worth noting that the responses were collected before President Trump announced sweeping tariffs that caused airline stocks to fall as the U.S. Consumer Expectations Index reached its lowest level in 12 years. Even still, they reflect a reduction in consumer travel that’s likely a result of overall market uncertainty. The study based satisfaction scores on seven different elements of travel, and broke down passenger responses into three segments by seating class, including first/business, premium economy, and economy/basic economy. On the study’s 1,000-point scale, consumers reported a six-point overall uptick in satisfaction compared with the prior year—a number that was largely influenced by the eight-point increase in passengers flying in the economy and basic economy classes. (Satisfaction for customers in premium economy experienced a seven-point decline, and first class passengers reported a one-point decline.) All of the passengers were asked to rank their experiences across seven categories: airline staff, digital tools, ease of travel, level of trust, onboard experience, pre-/post-flight experience, and value for price paid. While the bump in satisfaction could be partially due to the general decrease in ticket prices as airlines scramble to entice passengers, customers also reported positive experiences with airline staff. Overall rankings show JetBlue Airways ranking the highest for first/business class satisfaction, followed by Delta Air Lines and Alaska Airlines. Delta won the customer satisfaction survey in the premium economy segment for the third year in a row, followed by JetBlue and Alaska. For the fourth year in a row, Southwest Airlines took home the win for the economy/basic economy segments, followed by JetBlue and Delta. As airlines face a challenging year for the travel industry, it will be interesting to see if and how they manage to prioritize consumer satisfaction in the face of economic challenges.

CrowdStrike reiterated its fiscal 2026 first quarter and annual forecasts on Wednesday and announced a plan to cut about 500 roles, roughly 5% of its workforce, to streamline operations and reduce costs. The cybersecurity company will incur about $36 million to $53 million in charges related to the layoffs, of which about $7 million will be recognized in the first quarter ended April 30, it said in a regulatory filing. Austin, Texas-based CrowdStrike said the rest of the charges will be seen in the second quarter. The charges primarily consist of future cash expenditure related to severance payments, employee benefits, and related costs. The company’s shares were down nearly 4% in morning trading. CrowdStrike had 10,118 full-time employees as of January 31, according to its annual report. “While we will continue to prudently hire, primarily in customer-facing and product engineering roles, we are reducing roles in some areas of the business,” CEO George Kurtz said in a note to the company’s employees. Cybersecurity remains a priority for businesses and governments at a time when high-profile hacking incidents have hit companies such as Microsoft, UnitedHealth Group and Walt Disney. Analysts have said CrowdStrike’s prompt handling of the Windows outage last year, which disrupted internet services globally, helped the company maintain customer trust. CrowdStrike reiterated its full-year 2026 revenue forecast to be between $4.74 billion and $4.81 billion and reaffirmed its annual adjusted profit-per-share estimate of $3.33 to $3.45. The company’s forecast for first-quarter revenue was between $1.10 billion and $1.11 billion. “This will likely spark debate on if this announcement is coming from a place of weakness or strength—to which we broadly believe it is the latter,” multinational financial services company Piper Sandler said in a note. CrowdStrike will release financial results for its first quarter on June 3. —Jaspreet Singh, Reuters

A hearing Wednesday before Nevada’s high court could provide the first public window into a secretive legal dispute over who will control Rupert Murdoch’s powerful media empire after he dies.The case has been unfolding behind closed doors in state court in Reno, with most documents under seal. But reporting by The New York Times, which said it obtained some of the documents, revealed Murdoch’s efforts to keep just one of his sons, Lachlan, in charge and ensure that Fox News maintains its conservative editorial slant.Media outlets including the Times and The Associated Press are now asking the Nevada Supreme Court to unseal the case and make future hearings public. The court is scheduled to hear arguments in the afternoon in Carson City, the capital.Murdoch’s media empire, which also includes The Wall Street Journal and New York Post, spans continents and helped to shape modern American politics. Lachlan Murdoch has been the head of Fox News and News Corp. since his father stepped down in 2023.The issue at the center of the case is Rupert Murdoch’s family trust, which after his death would divide control of the company equally among four of his children — Lachlan, Prudence, Elisabeth and James.Irrevocable trusts are typically used to limit estate taxes, among other reasons, and can’t be changed without permission from the beneficiaries or via a court order.Rupert Murdoch has attempted to alter the trust, however, and Prudence, Elisabeth and James have united to try to stop that. James and Elisabeth are both known to have less conservative political views than their father or brother, potentially complicating the media mogul’s desire to keep Fox News’s political tone.The dispute has had many twists and turns, including a probate commissioner ruling against Rupert Murdoch in December.In a 96-page opinion, the commissioner characterized the plan to change the trust as a “carefully crafted charade” to “permanently cement Lachlan Murdoch’s executive roles” inside the empire “regardless of the impacts such control would have over the companies or the beneficiaries” of the family trust, according to the Times.Adam Streisand, a lawyer for Rupert Murdoch, told the newspaper at the time that they were disappointed with the ruling and intended to appeal. Another evidentiary hearing is scheduled for this month. —Associated Press

The Real ID requirement goes into effect today (Wednesday May 7, 2025). The deadline has been 20 years in the making, and its implementation today could cause some headaches—or at least some confusion—for those trying to fly domestically. Here’s what you need to know about today’s Real ID deadline and what it means for you. What is Real ID? A Real ID is the name given to an updated form of driver’s licenses and state IDs that have enhanced security measures. The federal government sets these standards, even though Real IDs are issued by individual states. From May 7, a Real ID will be required in most circumstances to board a domestic flight in America, enter certain federal facilities in the country, or enter nuclear power plants. However, while the Real ID requirements are going into effect today, the federal legislation mandating Real IDs was actually passed 20 years ago in 2005. The Real ID Act of 2005 was passed in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and aimed to strengthen the requirements needed to enter facilities or vehicles that terrorists were likely to target. However, over the past 20 years, the Real ID requirement has been delayed multiple times. But those delays are now a thing of the past, and the Real ID requirement is now in effect. How do I get a Real ID? Though Real ID is a federal requirement, it is issued by individual states. A Real ID can take a few different forms, the most common one being a state driver’s license. However, it may also be another form of state identity card. The usual way to get a Real ID is to go to your state’s driver’s license agency and apply for a new driver’s license. This new license will now be Real ID-compliant. And yes, though the Real ID deadline is today, you can still apply for one at any time in the future if you don’t already have one. How do I know if I have a Real ID? Some states have been issuing Real IDs for years. The easiest way to tell if you have a Real ID or not is to look at your identity document. “REAL ID-compliant cards will have a star marking on the upper top portion of the card,” according to a U.S. Department of Homeland Security FAQ. You can view examples of Real ID stars here. What is an Enhanced ID? To make this situation more confusing, some states offer “enhanced IDs,” which are identified with a flag instead of a star. Both are considered Real ID compliant, according to DHS. What if still I don’t have my Real ID? Though the Real ID requirement was 20 years in the making and finally goes into effect today, the fact of the matter is that the federal government knows that many Americans still do not have a Real ID. In April, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) told CBS News that about 19% of travelers showing up at airports still did not have the new identification. Most Americans who fly domestically are used to boarding the plane with nothing more than their driver’s license. But while technically the Real ID requirement goes into effect today, the United States Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, says people with non-Real ID driver’s licenses will still be able to use them to board a domestic flight. Noem confirmed to a congressional committee that people without Real ID-compliant identification will still be able to fly—for now, reports the Associated Press. Noem said that those without a Real ID “may be diverted to a different line, have an extra step,” but added, “But people will be allowed to fly.” “We will make sure it’s as seamless as possible,” Noem told lawmakers. However, while non-Real ID holders will still be able to board flights with additional checks, it’s not clear how long this grace period will last. That means that if you don’t have another acceptable form of identification that will get you on a domestic flight, it’s best not to delay getting your Read ID-compliant identification. Are other forms of identity still valid for air travel in the United States? While the Real ID requirement is now in effect to board a domestic flight, you don’t need a Real ID document to get through security as long as you have a valid passport. Even if the flight is domestic only, you can still simply show a passport to board the plane in the United States. No other form of document is required—provided you have a passport—not even a Real ID.  According to the AP, Noem also told lawmakers that tribal identification will be accepted at security checkpoints. Can I use a Real ID to travel internationally? One important thing to note is that while you can board domestic flights with your passport, things don’t work the other way around. That is, you cannot use your Real ID to board an international flight. While a Real ID will allow you to get around via plane within America’s borders, other nations will still require a passport to enter their country. Finally, it’s worth pointing out that the Department of Homeland Security has a lengthy FAQ answering dozens of questions about the transition to Real ID, which is worth checking out.

Ever wondered what happens when you add random household items to the same bowl every day for 100 days straight? Well, you’re in luck. One TikTok account has made it their mission to find out—so you don’t have to. The anonymous account, known simply as Bowl of Danger, adds “random stuff” to a bowl each day until they “get in danger.” @bowlofdanger The experiment began in January with a dollop of sunscreen. Each day, something new entered the mix: sugar, whipped cream, deodorant, lit firecrackers, batteries, nail polish, vodka, a whole pizza, a Big Mac. “Can’t imagine how bad that reeks,” someone wrote in the comments. “I just unlocked a new facial expression,” added a second. Another warned, “No cuz I genuinely think we’re making a pandemic” (check out day 25 at your own risk). For every person who scrolls past in horror, plenty are invested. Some of the most viral Bowl of Danger videos have racked up millions of views, with fans suggesting new items to add. As for Day 100? The video was taken down, but according to the comments, it involved a firecracker and an explosion. Since Bowl of Danger went viral, a number of copycat accounts have emerged. There’s The Danger Bowl, naturally, and Bowl of Living—an organic version of the original series. “Mold is just a simple form of life,” the creator says. “I want to create something more—like a new species.” If you prefer your bowl of rot with an educational edge, there’s also Bowl of Science. “While other bowls waste food or resources, we mix a bowl with things that only physically or chemically react,” the creator said in one video, taking a swipe at the competition. “Where you actually can learn from.” A theory is also circulating that the different anonymous accounts may be run by the same person under different aliases. Warning: If you’re considering making your own bowl at home, remember that mixing random stuff can have harmful, even deadly, side effects. (Ever heard of mustard gas?) But if you missed the first round, good news: Season 2 of Bowl of Danger just started.

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here. Recently, I shared the tools that power my mornings. Now let’s explore what I rely on from lunch to bedtime. Below you’ll see sites, apps, and gadgets that carry me from noon to night. From a niche workshop platform to my quirky ‘invisible’ clock, these are the tech companions that help me wrap up a fruitful day. 2 p.m.: Lunch and thinking break I often abandon screens for my midday pause. Other times I use apps like these: Healthy Minds: Short audio pieces help guide me through mindfulness practices. I like the 5-10 minute “active” lessons that work well for a walking meditation. The app is free and well designed. If I’m feeling anxious, I sometimes use the Headspace meditation app, which I also use for focus music when working. Libby: is my beloved source of free library audiobooks. I listen when I’m walking to lunch or commuting. Resy and OpenTable: Handy for quick lunch reservations. Too Good To Go: It’s fun to try heavily discounted local restaurant food, though the quality varies. I used MealPal for a while for local lunch deals when I wasn’t as often bringing lunch from home. The Infatuation: Helpful lists of tasty new local restaurants. 1 to 3 p.m.: Preparing to teach After lunch, I develop teaching plans, prepare to lead workshops, or work on other school-related projects for my job as Director of Teaching and Learning at the CUNY Newmark Graduate School of Journalism. Craft: My go-to for creating visually engaging digital handouts. It’s easy to use and works wonderfully on mobile or desktop. [Why Craft is so useful.] Text Blaze: When I’m typing a lot, keyboard shortcuts help. I use snippets for signatures, AI prompts, addresses, and commonly typed phrases. Raycast also works well for these shortcuts. Tangible notes: I like writing notes away from my laptop periodically to get my eyes off the screen and to change my brain mode. I alternate between: I use a Rocketbook reusable notebook for lists and reminders. A $20 VersaTiles memo board is great for jotting passing thoughts. A giant whiteboard helps me draw connections. My reMarkable Paper Pro tablet hosts notes I will return to repeatedly. Arc Browser: I create custom spaces for specific classes or projects, with bookmarks and account settings tailored to that context. Kahoot, Padlet, and Slido: I rely on this trio of teaching tools to power activities that promote active learning in classes or workshops—rather than passive listening. Here are more of my favorite apps for teaching. Protecting my afternoon focus Raycast Focus Mode: Blocks email and distractions during short, focused, deep work sprints. Time Out: I set this app to remind me to give my eyes a screen break every 15 minutes. It pulses over the screen to nudge me to look out the window. Paper book: I sometimes take a short midafternoon reading break to relax, breathe, recharge my brain, and detach from my screen. Here’s the book stack I’m dipping into this month, reflecting a mix of my interests. 3 to 5 p.m.: Meetings I try to schedule meetings for late afternoon. When they’re fruitful, it’s great to conclude the day with collaboration. Granola: My favorite new app for transcribing and summarizing meetings. Its three best features: 1. Since it records locally on my laptop, there’s no awkward bot joining the Zoom. 2. I can incorporate my own notes during the meeting, which get blended into the AI-powered summary. 3. Granola can draft helpful follow-up emails or Slack messages, or I can query it afterward about a meeting topic. Butter: My favorite tool for leading live online workshops, including live demos for Wonder Tools paid subscribers. It’s thoughtfully designed for facilitators and teachers. It lets me easily incorporate interactive elements, from polls to collaborative brainstorming. If a meeting has to be hosted on Zoom or another platform, I can use Butter Scenes for interaction. Camera tools: Camo lets me modify my camera to zoom in, adjust lighting, or add an overlay during video calls. Prezi Video and Mmhmm enable lower-thirds, annotations, and overlay visuals I occasionally use for presentations. Sony UX570 voice recorder is my reliable $80 hardware backup for recording audio. I like that it doesn’t require an open laptop or running phone. I often transcribe the audio files with MacWhisper. 6 p.m.: After work Evening and nighttime tools help with relaxation, family time, and better sleep: Snipd: This smart podcast app lets me triple-tap my AirPods to save highlights to Readwise, which syncs to my digital notebook. (Recent favorite: Shell Game by Evan Ratliff. Season 1 is terrific, about AI voice clones.) Nex: I love playing the sports and workout games on this family video game system. They’re all active games played with your body, not your thumbs, and there’s no violence. I play solo or with my wife and daughters. It’s like a next-generation Nintendo Wii, which we also still play—especially tennis, skiing, and the Wii Fit balance games. We also enjoy these family tabletop games. 11 p.m.: Bedtime Glocusent rechargeable reading light: This little $13 light clips onto any book or magazine for nighttime reading. One battery charge lasts for months. Yogasleep Dohm white noise machine: This $50 gadget masks random night sounds in noisy New York City, making it easier to sleep. Sony Noise Cancelling Headphones: I bought my WH-1000XM3 pair seven years ago, and still rely on them for listening to music before bed and focus sounds while working. I’m planning to buy a new XM6 model when they’re released this summer. Peakeep “invisible” alarm clock: I turn off the display on this $12 bedside clock so it’s hidden at night. I can tap the top to see the time if I need to. I mainly use it for its gentle morning alarm, so I can keep my tempting phone out of my bedroom. This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps. Subscribe here.

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. At the Exceptional Women Alliance, we enable high-level women to mentor each other to achieve personal and professional happiness through sisterhood. As the nonprofit organization’s founder, chair, and CEO, I am honored to interview and share insights from thought leaders who are part of our peer-to-peer mentoring program.  This month, I’m pleased to introduce Roslyn Schneider, MD, a physician, and driver of person centeredness in healthcare, medical education, and the biopharmaceutical industry. She has practiced medicine as a pulmonologist, launched blockbuster medicines while at biopharmaceutical companies, and worked with companies and coalitions to embed patient and community involvement across the medical product development and commercialization lifecycle. Here is some of what we talked about. Q: What inspired you to focus on human-centered design in healthcare, research, and medical product development?  Roslyn Schneider, MD: My personal and family encounters with our healthcare system, clinical practice during the height of the AIDS epidemic, and seeing the value of partnerships with patients as lived experience experts, have been my greatest influences.   As a child I was misdiagnosed, in large part, because physicians dismissed concerns from my parents who were immigrants with little formal education, but who knew there was something wrong.   As an adult, I practiced and taught at a New York City hospital in the 1980’s and 90’s when we had limited treatments for HIV infection. People who were in the prime of their lives were dying, battling a poorly understood, devastating illness, and the community challenged the pace of medication development and access. I saw the power of their advocacy and activism with businesses, health authorities, and researchers, at the intersection with medical practice and science. That power resulted in transformation of a uniformly fatal illness, to a chronic illness in much of the world today, and it forever changed how medical products are developed, approved, and accessed.  These experiences were front and center for me, as my teams have partnered with patients and patient organizations in an intentional, iterative manner, from the early stages of development and at key points in its lifecycle, for as long as a particular product is available. Q: What’s the role of physician and community engagement in precision medicine?   Schneider: During my four decades since graduating medical school, medicine has become increasingly precise. Deliberately engaging with patients who are lived experience experts, will help us ensure that these treatments are not only precise, but personal. Precision therapies, whether in clinical trials or commercially available, are specifically aimed toward genetic or other targets. We must be careful not to fall so in love with the science, that we don’t consider how participation in the clinical research or use of these products may or may not fit with people’s health goals and life goals. Maintaining community relationships, active listening to understand care gaps and preferences, co-creation, and prioritizing outcomes that matter most to patients are critical as we develop all types of medicines and medical technologies.  Q: You’ve been a leader in and a consultant for small, medium, and large-sized global companies. Where is the industry compared to its patient-centric goals, and what might we expect in the next decade?  Schneider: It’s tempting to be satisfied with how much more patient engagement there is in medical product development now compared with earlier days, but we are not yet where we need to be. In periods of resource constraints and economic pressures, companies might, shortsightedly, consider reducing their engagement with patients as partners to achieve savings. There’s a regression of thinking that this is somehow non-essential to successful outcomes for patients and for businesses. That happens despite the financial models of the value of patient engagement, and many real-life examples of shortened business timelines, reduction of costly, avoidable amendments to clinical research protocols, and more favorable product labeling, and more effective patient support programs.   Data from the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development are consistent with what I hear from professionals and patients in relevant working groups I participate in. Data show that most companies today are piloting or sometimes implementing patient-centered elements in clinical development, yet the minority are doing so routinely.   “Patients are waiting” is an outdated slogan. I have confidence that lived experience experts and professionals across the globe will continue to find innovative ways to embed patient engagement into standard processes and utilize metrics that will resonate with stakeholders and decision makers at the grassroots level, the executive suite, and in the boardroom.  Larraine Segil is founder, chair, and CEO of The Exceptional Women Alliance. 

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. Have you ever wanted to break up with your doctor—not because of the practitioner, but because of the difficulty in engaging with their practice? You’re not alone. I’ve left doctors for that reason and McKinsey has found that nearly 25% of consumers have delayed care because they hate everything about the process. System complexity is not doctors’ fault, but making the care experience easier for patients is now their—and their teams’—burden. And that burden is only increasing. With generative AI reaching a tipping point, practices that can’t adopt the technology to engage patients with a consumer-grade experience will soon face an existential crisis.    In virtually every other aspect of our lives—from banking and shopping to transportation and vacation planning—technology has dramatically improved the consumer experience, catering to convenience and access. But not in healthcare, where the experience of being a patient still differs widely from practice to practice. There are offices where booking a routine medical appointment can feel more stressful than booking a flight to Melbourne or negotiating insurance approval for a standard treatment feels out of reach.   While healthcare’s digital revolution has stubbornly lagged other industries, that is now shifting. Patients are beginning to flex their consumer muscles, demanding digital convenience that enhances human connection. And they’re increasingly starting to vote with their feet when they don’t get the digital attention they need. We see this with the uptick in patients turning to urgent care clinics for more than just colds, because of the flexibility and digital access they provide.   At the same time, much of the technology aimed at improving patient experience has, so far, created more work for doctors. These compounding factors are pushing an already burdened ecosystem towards its limits.   But there is a way forward. And it’s based on understanding that the ability to deliver a consumer-grade patient experience requires a better practice experience, one where physicians and administrators alike can spend their time on what matters most: delivering patient care.   An AI “aha” moment  Until recently, many physicians have struggled to realize the value of AI in their practice. The introduction of ambient listening technology has changed the equation, creating an industry-wide revelation. This AI-based voice recognition technology has quickly proven its ability to shave off hours of time on notetaking, documentation, and entering preliminary information to assist in billing patient encounters. Doctors who were previously plagued by “pajama time”—hours spent catching up on patient documentation work at home—feel liberated by AI-powered ambient listening.    And the research supports that the optimism is more than anecdotal. athenahealth’s annual Physician Sentiment Survey found a positive shift in physicians’ opinions of AI. This year, only 27% of surveyed physicians believe AI to be overhyped or unable to meet expectations (down from 40% a year ago), and the majority of physicians who previously reported using AI in their practice (68%) are using it more frequently to generate clinical documentation.   Beyond the important work to streamline operations, AI is also increasingly working as an intelligence layer that enables doctors to spend less time hunting for facts and more time acting on insights at the moment of care, allowing their practices to offer a better experience for patients and staff.   The rise of AI agents  What am I excited about seeing in 2025? AI applications on the horizon that can deliver on the promise of a more consumer-friendly, human experience—one that shifts physicians’ attention away from the computer screen and back toward their patients. Recently, I was at the HIMSS conference, an annual gathering of healthcare technology leaders. While last year’s conference centered on generative AI hype, with few applications in sight, this year showed real world impact and a more tangible roadmap of coming applications—including agentic AI.   AI agents have been operating behind the scenes in many industries for years, but large language models are giving them the ability to perform more complex tasks, such as answering certain patient questions and managing front office work. We are already seeing these agentic AI applications in our app store Marketplace of partner tools (for instance Salesforce’s Agentforce for Health), and are exploring agentic AI throughout our solutions, such as in improving the revenue cycle management process. As the technology enables practices to function more efficiently, those improvements will be felt by their patients, whose needs can be met faster and more directly.   The benefits are real  As a health tech marketer and executive, I understand both the challenge and the opportunity ahead. As I wrote about AI previously in Fast Company: “Just as important as building and evolving the technology is our ability to market AI’s benefits to physicians and patients alike, to ensure that it’s leveraged to help reclaim what’s at the heart of exceptional care: a meaningful patient-physician relationship.”   I believe the recent AI advances have demonstrated that the benefits are real. That we, as patients, can finally stop checking our consumer expectations at the door of our doctors’ office. And that better care is within our reach—not despite technology, but because of it.   Stacy Simpson is chief marketing officer of athenahealth. 

In the constant hustle and bustle of one of the busiest airports in the United States, a terrifying 90 seconds of quiet had disastrous results.  On April 28, the Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) lost both radar and radio for a minute and a half due to a fried piece of copper wiring, the New York Post reported. This meant that air traffic controllers could not see, hear, or speak to aircraft or pilots around the airport.  The event did not lead to any crashes, but it did cause significant stress on employees working at the time; five FAA employees are reportedly taking trauma leave, according to CNN, making them eligible for 45 days to recover from the event. How has the incident impacted flights? Along with a slew of other problems slowing down the airport—such as the temporary closure of a major runway for repair work and a nearly 30-year low of air controller staffing—last Monday’s incident has led to major delays and cancellations for the airport. And these delays and cancellations have continued to persist: According to the flight tracking website FlightAware, Newark airport has seen over 200 delays and 110 cancellations by 12:30 today. What have airlines said about the situation? Scott Kirby, CEO of United Airlines, wrote in a message on Friday that Newark airport’s technology problems were compounded when “over 20% of the FAA controllers for EWR walked off the job,” putting further stress on already understaffed systems. “Without these controllers, it’s now clear – and the FAA tells us – that Newark airport cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there in the weeks and months ahead,” He wrote. Due to these difficulties, Kirby added, United would cancel 35 round trips per day from Newark beginning this past weekend. “It’s disappointing to make further cuts to an already reduced schedule at Newark, but since there is no way to resolve the near-term structural FAA staffing issues, we feel like there is no other choice in order to protect our customers,” says Kirby. How long is this chaos going to last? While issues like the runway closure will be resolved in June, the severe lack of air traffic controllers and replacing old equipment is a longer-term problem. According to a report by Axios, the New York City region only had around 65% of its target number of certified air traffic controllers as of September 2023.  This is in part because of the relatively narrow window in which people can enter the position. The FAA does not allow anyone to apply to be a controller if they are over the age of 30 and requires all controllers to retire by the age of 56. Additionally, training to become a certified professional controller (CPC) is a long and difficult process spanning 3-4 years and causes around 40% of paid trainees to drop out.  In order to boost the numbers of air traffic controllers, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a press conference on May 1 that the Department of Transportation will roll out incentives such as: A 30% salary increase for new hires A $5,000 bonus for FAA Academy completion Additional resources to help students improve final exam scores Bonuses to controllers nearing retirement age Bonuses to controllers willing to staff less popular locations “We’re hoping in three to four years we can get to full staffing, not 20 years,” Duffy said. Additionally, in a statement on May 5, the FAA said that it is working on speeding up modernization efforts to improve Newark airport’s technology infrastructure. “We are working to ensure the current telecommunications equipment is more reliable in the New York area by establishing a more resilient and redundant configuration with the local exchange carriers. In addition, we are updating our automation system to improve resiliency,” the agency said. What if I’m flying in or out of Newark? Although the FAA and Department of Transportation are promising improvements for Newark airport, the unfortunate reality is that it will take a long time for travelers to see the results from them.  Travelers with flights going through Newark in the coming weeks and months should stay alert and check frequently for possible delays and disruptions and consider backup plans when possible. It also may be a good idea to try to book flights earlier in the day as they are typically less likely to be delayed or canceled. In the case that your flight is cancelled or heavily delayed, the Department of Transportation says that you are entitled to a refund: “If an airline cancels a passenger’s flight or makes a significant change in the flight, regardless of the reason, airlines are required to provide a prompt refund to a ticketed passenger, including those with non-refundable tickets, should the passenger choose not to accept the alternative offered, such as rebooking on another flight.”

The U.S. Justice Department is doubling down on its attempt to break up Google by asking a federal judge to force the company to part with some of the technology powering the company’s digital ad network. The proposed dismantling coincides with an ongoing federal effort to separate Google’s Chrome browser from its dominant search engine. The government’s latest proposal was filed late Monday in a Virginia federal court two-and-half weeks after a federal judge ruled that its lucrative digital ad network has been improperly abusing its market power to stifle competition to the detriment of online publishers. In a 17-page filing, Justice Department lawyers argued that U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema should punish Google by ordering the company to offload its AdX business and DFP ad platform, tools that bring together advertisers, who want to market their products, and publishers, who want to sell commercial space on their sites, to bring in revenue. The government also is seeking other restrictions, including a 10-year ban on Google from operating a digital ad exchange, to undercut the power of a “recidivist monopolist.” Not surprisingly, it’s an idea that Google vehemently plans to oppose when the penalty phase of the antitrust case —known as remedy hearings — begins in late September. Google already has vowed to appeal Brinkema’s ruling that the technology powering the ad network has been breaking the law, but can’t do that until the judge rules on its punishment in a decision expected late this year or early next year. The Justice Department’s proposal “would cause economic chaos and technological dysfunction resulting in harm to millions of advertisers and publishers, and in so doing, degrade the experience of internet users,” Google said in a court filing late Monday. In its counterproposal, Google outlined a plan that it believes will bring more transparency to its ad network and eventually foster more competition. Google proposed the appointment of a trustee to oversee its behavior for three years. The attempt to tear down Google’s ad network comes on top of the Justice Department’s ongoing effort to have the company part with its popular Chrome browser and impose other restrictions to curtail the power of its ubiquitous search engine, which another federal judge branded an illegal monopoly in a ruling last August. The remedy hearings in the search case are scheduled to conclude later this month, with a ruling from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta expected by Labor Day. If the Justice Department is able to persuade the two different judges to order its proposed dismantling of Google, it would be the biggest breakup of a U.S. company since AT&T was forced to spin off its phone service into seven separate regional companies more than 40 years ago. Google’s Play Store for apps running on its Android software that powers most of the world’s smartphones also was declared an illegal monopoly by a federal jury in 2023 and is battling a judge’s order that would require it to overhaul a commission system that generates billions of dollars in annual revenue. But hobbling its search engine and digital ad network would be far bigger blows because they are the key cogs in a business that generated $265 billion in revenue last year. Google is confronting the breakup threats at the same time the advent of artificial intelligence is changing the way consumers are using technology and seeking information online — a shift that could also siphon traffic and money away from a powerhouse that began in a Silicon Valley garage in 1998. Despite the adversity, Google is still delivering robust financial growth to its corporate parent Alphabet Inc., which is currently valued at $2 trillion. Alphabet’s shares dipped slightly during Tuesday’s late morning trading. —Michael Liedtke, AP technology writer

Big Four accounting firm PwC is laying off about 1,500 employees in the United States, a company spokesperson told Reuters on Monday. The workforce reduction equates to approximately 2% of our U.S. firm, the spokesperson said. PwC employs more than 75,000 people in the United States. “This was a difficult decision, and we made it with care, thoughtfulness, and a deep awareness of its impact on our people, appreciating that historically low levels of attrition over consecutive years have made it necessary to take this step”, PwC said in a statement. Last year, Reuters had reported that PwC was considering slashing up to half its financial services auditing staff in China, as a regulatory investigation and an exodus of clients darken business prospects. PwC last month shut operations in nine Sub-Saharan African countries following a strategic review. KPMG, PwC, EY and Deloitte make up the Big Four accounting firms. In November last year, Reuters had reported that KPMG would lay off less than 4%, or about 330 people, of its audit workforce in the United States. —Jaiveer Shekhawat, Reuters

Beleaguered pharmacy chain Rite Aid has officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after weeks of media reports suggesting that it was on the cusp of doing so.  The bankruptcy is Rite Aid’s second in two years, and it leaves a lot of questions for both customers and employees, including whether stores will be closing, if there will be layoffs, and what happens to customers’ prescriptions.  Here’s what you need to know about Rite Aid’s second bankruptcy. Why did Rite Aid file bankruptcy the first time? Rite Aid originally filed for bankruptcy in 2023. It emerged from the process less than a year ago, in 2024, with the hopes of being in a better financial position and on more resilient footing. But with its second bankruptcy filing yesterday, those hopes seem to have been dashed. To understand why Rite Aid is once again filing for bankruptcy, it helps to understand why the company originally filed for bankruptcy in 2023—something Rite Aid has laid out in detail in documents it filed with the United States Bankruptcy Court in the District of New Jersey today. Rite Aid cited multiple factors that necessitated its 2023 bankruptcy filing, including: “suboptimal lease portfolio” of underperforming stores elevated labor costs increased costs from “shrink” (theft) lower credit limits more restrictive payment terms from vendors reduced demand for its non-medication “front end” products “The lack of such inventory,” Rite Aid said, “gave rise to a vicious cycle: high-margin front-end sales declined due to insufficient inventory, and lagging sales depleted liquidity and caused vendors to tighten trade terms even further.” The company’s 2023 bankruptcy was meant to help the struggling pharmacy chain address the financial issues caused by these problems. But that’s not the way things have played out since, which has led to the company filing its second bankruptcy this week. Why is Rite Aid filing for bankruptcy again? In a court document, Rite Aid said that its “post-emergence business plan was based on data-driven projections (and extensive discussions with vendors) that Rite Aid’s front-end vendors would return to their less restrictive prepetition payment terms” as well as assurances from select capital providers that the company would be provided with the needed letter of credit facilities—all of which the company said “was crucial to Rite Aid’s recovery.” But the filing goes on to say that “Those assurances were broken.” Rite Aid said that the letters of credit it did obtain were “materially less than expected” and that many vendors didn’t end up relaxing the more restrictive payment terms to the anticipated levels. Pile on macroeconomic pressures to this and Rite Aid said that “The combined effect of lower-than-expected liquidity from the letter of credit facilities, inventory challenges, strained vendor relations, lower consumer spending, and competitive pressures has ultimately left the Company with insufficient liquidity to operate its business and service its debt obligations in the ordinary course.” Thus, it’s second bankruptcy filing this month. What’s happening with Rite Aid prescriptions? Of course, many customers will be concerned about what will happen to their prescriptions during the bankruptcy process. In a letter to customers dated May 5, Rite Aid said that one of its paramount priorities during the bankruptcy process is to ensure that customers’ pharmacy needs are not interrupted. Rite Aid says that a majority of its stores will remain open “for the next few months” and that during that time pharmacy services “including prescriptions and immunizations” will remain available. In other words, for a few months at least, most customers should be able to still get their prescriptions filled at their local Rite Aid store. However, the company also stated that it’s “working to facilitate a smooth transfer of customer prescriptions to other pharmacies.” This is most likely in preparation for inevitable Rite Aid store closures or sales. Are Rite Aid stores closing? Some already have, and more closures in the months ahead are almost a certainty. According to documents Rite Aid that filed with the court, these 11 locations have already closed or will close soon: Poughkeepsie, NY Redmond, WA Sunnyside, WA Craigsville, VA Costa Mesa, CA Harrisburg, PA Keene, NH Ridgewood, NY Kutztown, PA Neptune, NJ Halifax, PA Rite Aid also says that customers can keep an eye on which stores are open using its online store locator tool. The locator currently states that Rite Aid has 1,240 locations in the United States across 15 states. What’s happening to Rite Aid employees? It is thought that Rite Aid’s bankruptcy will see some store locations closed, while other stores will be sold to other entities that may seek to keep the stores running in some fashion. Indeed, in a press release confirming its bankruptcy plans, Rite Aid CEO Matt Schroeder said that he was “encouraged by meaningful interest from a number of potential national and regional strategic acquirors.” But inevitably, layoffs are to be expected, as Schroeder said that one of the company’s priorities was “preserving jobs for as many associates as possible.”  Yesterday, Bloomberg reported that an internal letter was sent by Schroeder to employees that the company will begin cutting jobs at its corporate offices in Pennsylvania. What will shopping at Rite Aid be like while this is happening? Although the company says most stores will remain open for the next few months, expect to notice changes before then. In a letter to vendors, the pharmacy chain said, “At this time, Rite Aid has generally stopped purchasing goods and services, except for those that it believes are essential to supporting this process.” Customers should also be aware that Rite Aid has posted a banner on its website stating that as of June 5, the company will no longer honor Rite Aid gift cards and will no longer accept returns or exchanges.

Just two years ago, prompt engineering was hailed as a hot new job in tech. Now, it has all but disappeared. At the beginning of the corporate AI boom, some companies sought out large language model (LLM) translators—prompt engineers who specialized in crafting the most effective questions to ask internal AIs, ensuring optimal and efficient outputs. Today, strong AI prompting is simply an expected skill, not a stand-alone role. Some companies are even using AI to generate the best prompts for their own AI systems. The decline of prompt engineering serves as a cautionary tale for the AI job market. The flashy, niche roles that emerged with ChatGPT’s rise may prove to be short-lived. While AI is reshaping roles across industries, it may not be creating entirely new ones. “AI is already eating its own,” says Malcolm Frank, CEO of TalentGenius. “Prompt engineering has become something that’s embedded in almost every role, and people know how to do it. Also, now AI can help you write the perfect prompts that you need. It’s turned from a job into a task very, very quickly.” AI jobs are just jobs now Part of the prompt engineer’s appeal was its low barrier to entry. The role required little technical expertise, making it an accessible path for those eager to join a booming market. But because the position was so generalized, it was also easily replaced. Frank compares prompt engineering to roles like “Excel wizard” and “PowerPoint expert”—all valuable skills, but not ones companies typically hire for individually. And prompt engineers may not be the only roles fading away. Frank envisions a world where AI agents—already taking shape—replace many lower-level tasks. “It’s almost like Pac-Man just moving along and eating different tasks and different skills,” he says. AI has the potential to displace thousands of workers. Its advocates have long argued that it will create as many jobs as it destroys. Prompt engineering once seemed to support that claim—a brand-new job title born from AI. But that optimism may be misplaced. Rather than inventing entirely new roles, AI is largely reshaping existing ones. Tim Tully wasn’t surprised to see prompt engineering decline. As a partner at venture capital firm Menlo Ventures, he’s witnessed the AI boom firsthand, especially through the firm’s investment in Anthropic. He also works closely with software developers—a profession already transformed by tools like Cursor. His view is clear: The real impact of AI lies not in boutique job creation, but in widespread productivity gains. “I wouldn’t say that [there are] new jobs, necessarily; it’s more so that it’s changing how people work,” Tully says. “You’re using AI all the time now, whether you like it or not, and it’s accelerating what you do.”  Did prompt engineers ever exist? It remains unclear whether companies were ever truly hiring for individually titled prompt engineers. They certainly aren’t now, says Allison Shrivastava, an economist with the Indeed Hiring Lab. “It looks to me like prompt engineering is more being combined with, say, a machine learning engineering title or an automation architect title,” Shrivastava tells Fast Company. “It’s probably a part of more job titles, but I’m not necessarily seeing it as a job title in and of itself.”  But that’s always been the case—even in 2023, when LinkedIn was filled with self-described prompt engineers. Asked whether there was any change over time in the number of prompt engineer job postings, Shrivastava notes that it was never a large enough title to track mathematically. Which raises a larger question: Did prompt engineering roles ever truly exist? All experts interviewed for this piece were skeptical. The market itself was real enough: The North American prompt engineering market was valued at $75.5 million in 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 32.8%. But whether that translated into formally titled roles is another matter. “I think the discussion online of [prompt engineering] was probably much bigger than the head count,” says Aline Lerner, CEO of Interviewing.io. “It was such an appealing thing, precisely because it was this on-ramp for nontechnical people into this sexy, lucrative field.”  Where are the AI jobs, then? Lerner has observed a clear trend. While Interviewing.io has never offered mock interviews specifically for prompt engineering, it has offered them for machine learning engineering. The distinction is important: Prompt engineers focus on crafting questions for LLMs, while machine learning engineers build the models themselves. And while demand for the former has declined, demand for the latter is surging. “Demand for mock interviews for machine learning engineers was flat for a while, and then in the last two months, it has hockey-sticked up and grown more than three times,” Lerner says. “The future is working on the LLM itself and continuing to make it better and better, rather than needing somebody to interpret it.” Those easy-access AI jobs may no longer exist. Machine learning engineering roles demand deep technical expertise—skills that take years to develop, unlike the relatively shallow learning curve for prompt engineering. Even basic coding skills are no longer sufficient. Indeed’s Shrivastava notes that while demand for developers is declining, engineering roles more broadly are on the rise. For those without a coding background, becoming a founder is often the most lucrative—though risky—route. Management consulting has also seen a boom. As of February, consulting roles made up 12.4% of AI job titles on Indeed. “As time goes on, we might see [AI] in more variety of sectors overall,” Shrivastava says. “They need someone tasked with really implementing that technology into that company.”

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. “Every accumulation becomes the means of new accumulation.” This is what Karl Marx has to say about capital. He does not get enough credit for being one of the more accurate predictors of capitalism because people understandably do not like his solution. But the truth is, most philosophers do not even present a solution and he understood the problem as well as anyone. We saw more bankruptcies in 2024 than in the last 14 years, and consumer discretionary was the leading bankruptcy sector. This problem will only increase as AI proliferates. And while the linked article cites other reasons, we think the larger reason is Amazon. Amazon has achieved a level of automation and scale through what can only be described as accelerating accumulation. This is the major reason brick and mortar retail has become so tough, and Amazon’s control of the supply chain makes it harder for online businesses to compete. But why do we think this is just the beginning? We are seeing a clear increase in funding and headcount towards AI. Eighty-seven percent of Y Combinator’s latest batch of companies focus on AI—a huge sign we are only scratching the surface of a move towards automation that can threaten small businesses. Soon it will not just be smaller businesses in the consumer cyclical sector threatened by this concerted push towards automation. But it is not just the startup world seeing this trend. Even our most successful companies are slowing down their hiring; at the same time the top 50 AI startups are accelerating at close to a 200% rate.  Big tech hiring slows Live Data Technologies on Big Tech Headcount Growth Source: Live Data Technologies Source: Live Data Technologies Live Data Technologies’ recent analysis offers insight on the growth and profitability trends of these companies. Contrasting Magnificent Seven companies that lean on AI versus more pure AI plays in the AI 50, you can see the scary trend towards more complete automation. Larger commitments to automation could further acceleration reduction in headcount, especially for engineering positions. Google recently announced that over 25% of its code was written by AI. If some of the most talented engineers in the world at Google can no longer compete with their AI, how much longer do small and medium sized businesses have before, at the very least, their funding environment becomes more difficult as a result, and bankruptcy ensues? Traditionally, small caps have lower profitability but higher growth potential, while large caps are the opposite. But here’s what our data found: Companies with a profitability score above 90, typically large or mega caps, are now growing at nearly the same rate as small caps. It’s not just a statistical fluke. This pattern has only emerged during past industrial revolutions, when large companies leveraged new technologies, from railroads to oil, to dominate markets. Today, AI is the catalyst, and it’s the big players like Nvidia that are reaping the benefits. These profitability and growth forecasts are built on analyst predictions and economic simulations, and scaled on a bell curve with about 2,000 other stocks/ETFs. What is even more alarming about these numbers is those of the largest companies. Stocks in the 90th percentile or above in Prospero.ai’s profitability rating are growing more than 80%. This is strong evidence that even the most profitable companies are not being slowed down by their size. Generally it is easier to grow at faster rates if your company is less mature from a profitability standpoint. The fact that the smallest companies < 10 are also projected to grow at slower rates than <20 is perhaps even more shocking. Companies with the smallest revenue should have the easiest time growing at a faster rate. Moving from $1 million in revenue to $2 million from one year to the next is easier than going from, say, $25 million to $50 million. Profit fuels growth If you are looking for the flagship demonstration of this idea, look no further than Nvidia. It generates billions of dollars in profit each quarter, while still achieving massive growth. Revenue from fiscal 2025 was up 114%. Looking for a benchmark number led us to Amazon, one of the greatest growth stories of our time. Amazon posted 60.52% growth when comparing Q4 2024 and Q4 2023 quarterly operating income, and posted its best quarter in the last 15 years. And it did that at roughly half of Nvidia’s revenue. That is what makes the Nvidia story so interesting. In 2023, Nvidia had a 98% market share in data center GPUs. Other domestic and international companies have been trying to compete with them in this market, and they simply cannot. Nvidia’s financial strength allows it to attract the best talent and develop cutting-edge AI technologies, creating a cycle where profit fuels growth, which then drives more profit. Now what does this mean for small caps? I think the implications are pretty clear. We’re seeing the monopolization ramp up, just as we did in past revolutions. Large companies, flush with cash, have the means to capitalize on advantages of scale in ways that small players simply can’t match. This makes it harder and harder for small cap companies to compete on the type of growth metrics it takes to attract the needed capital to compete in ever more competitive spaces. The rich get richer, and the competitive gap widens. So, what’s the bottom line? AI-driven bankruptcy isn’t just a matter of companies failing; it’s a symptom of an economic shift where capital accumulation accelerates faster than ever before. This isn’t just a chapter in bankruptcy law, it’s a chapter in how AI will redefine capitalism itself. George Kailas is CEO of Prospero.Ai.

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. In just a few short years, generative artificial intelligence has begun demonstrating its tremendous business potential. Stanford University’s latest AI Index report reveals that global corporate investment in AI grew nearly 45% in 2024 to reach $252.3 billion. With private investment in generative AI up 8.5 times over 2022 levels, forecasts suggest that AI could soon contribute trillions of dollars to the American economy alone. By 2028, agentic AI, the next stage in AI’s evolution, could be making at least 15% of day-to-day decisions at work and bring greater efficiency, productivity, and innovation.  We’re already seeing how AI is creating new businesses, products and services with the potential to expand access to new quality jobs and build new sources of wealth. Today, workers are using AI to inject creativity into their current jobs and start and grow their own businesses. Two-thirds of small businesses that use AI say their own employees are introducing AI tools to the workplace to improve operations, reduce costs and spark innovation.  Many organizations are understandably focused on the near-term time- and cost-savings this emerging technology brings about. But pure efficiency won’t unlock the true value of AI; that will require tapping into the expertise and creativity of their employees. To fully realize AI’s potential to revolutionize our economy, we need to put workers at the center of the process of deciding where and how it shows up in the workplace.   What does that look like in practice?  AI training  First, organizations should offer more AI training—from basic literacy to implementation. AI usage at work is surging, according to a new study from my team at JFF. Two years ago, only 8% of individuals used AI at work. Today, it’s 35%. Those who use AI say AI is making them more efficient—and their jobs more interesting—by reducing the number of tedious tasks and allowing them to focus on more strategic and creative work. More training means more people experiencing these benefits and contributing to decision making around AI.  Yet our survey also found wide training gaps. Fewer than one third (31%) of workers say their employers provide training on AI fundamentals or specific AI tools and systems. Slightly more than one third (34%) of employees not receiving AI training at work say they want their employer to offer it.   This lack of access to training is creating barriers to the effective implementation of AI at work. Previous JFF research shows that nearly 60% of small businesses cited workforce readiness as the most common barrier to incorporating AI technology into their businesses. To overcome that barrier, organizations can start by providing affordable and practical AI literacy training that help employees learn how to get the most out of AI and become responsible users of this emerging technology.  Employee-driven innovation  Second, organizations should catalyze employee-driven innovation. Workers are already eager to use AI: according to JFF’s recent survey, 20% of employees say they’re taking the initiative to use AI at work in the absence of formal direction from their employers, while nearly 30% of workers are leveraging AI tools for strategic growth and innovation. There’s a good business case to be made for bottom-up transformation. Research suggests that when workers are asked for their input, organizations are more likely to make effective use of AI tools and improve the quality of workers’ jobs.  To unlock growth using AI, businesses should involve their employees in piloting and deploying AI tools and processes across multiple roles and functions throughout an organization. Frontline employees—experts on their own workflows—are often in the best position to help improve and refine development of AI tools and processes. They’re the ones companies should call on to find uses of AI that can create value and drive innovation.   AI and human collaboration  Finally, organizations should reconsider how their employees spend their time, the nature of the work they do, and their unique skills so they can unlock the best parts of collaboration between AI and humans. The immediate goal of AI implementation should be about enabling workers to prioritize work that creates new products, services and value that helps businesses grow.   Collaboration between humans and AI has enormous potential. As a Harvard Business School working paper suggests, AI can help professionals significantly boost performance, expertise, and social connectivity in team settings. As AI becomes more capable of making its own decisions and completing complex tasks, humans will spend more time supervising AI, discerning and evaluating AI outputs, and managing interpersonal and collaborative activities with other humans. We’ve also seen that AI appears to significantly increase the value of human leadership in interpersonal and highly cognitive tasks like staffing organizations, building relationships, and guiding and motivating teams.  Employers have an opportunity to prepare for this shift by designing high-quality jobs—and involving their workers in this process—that can get the best out of collaboration between humans and AI.   The transformation of work is underway. Businesses seeking to navigate it should support employees in their earnest desire to develop AI literacy and skills, catalyze creativity and innovation throughout the organization, and intentionally redesign jobs to unlock the strengths of both AI and humans. Previous technological revolutions have shown that the benefits of progress are not distributed equally. But if companies keep their employees at the center, they can fulfill AI’s potential as a force to expand access to quality jobs and economic opportunity for all.  Maria Flynn is president and CEO of Jobs for the Future. 

The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more. For years, banks have known their customer experience needs to catch up to the digital expectations set by tech and retail giants. Now, with AI dominating the boardroom agenda, the temptation is to bolt on yet another tool and call it transformation. But real progress doesn’t come from piling on more tools—it comes from using AI to intelligently orchestrate smarter, more connected customer journeys.  Recently, I’ve spent time with several banking leaders exploring how they’re applying AI across their operations, from servicing and support to fraud detection and lending. What I’ve seen confirms a pattern: The most successful organizations aren’t chasing hype. They’re focused on orchestration.  What AI is really solving for in banking  For most consumers, banking is about trust, simplicity, and confidence. They want fast answers, frictionless support, and personalized help when it counts, whether they’re applying for a mortgage, reporting a lost card, or just resetting a password.  Too often, those journeys are fragmented. Customers bounce between bots, forms, and phone calls. Agents are left trying to stitch together context. The experience is frustrating for both sides, and every one of those missed moments erodes trust.  AI has the potential to fix this. But only if it’s used in the right way.  The real opportunity isn’t automation for automation’s sake—it’s intelligent orchestration. That means building systems where AI helps guide the customer from start to finish, hands off to a human when it makes sense, and ensures everyone involved—especially the agent—has the context they need.  From automation to orchestration  In one conversation, a financial services team showed how they reimagined the mortgage prequalification journey. What stood out wasn’t just the AI—it was how the experience stayed focused, relevant, and responsive across every interaction. AI agents collected essential details, routed inquiries accurately, and passed full context to human advisors. Customers felt supported. Advisors were prepared. And the whole process moved faster.  The shift was clear: not more technology, but better design. AI used not as a standalone fix, but as connective tissue across the customer journey.  It’s not about replacing people—it’s about designing better systems  There’s still a lot of fear that AI means fewer jobs. In reality, the best implementations are making people better at their jobs. Human agents become “super agents”—equipped with real-time summaries, suggested responses, and full visibility into a customer’s journey.  And this isn’t just about contact centers. Product, compliance, and CX teams are increasingly hands on in designing and refining AI-led experiences—often without writing a single line of code. That’s a meaningful shift in how organizations move from experimentation to execution.  Why connected experiences matter more than ever  Consumers now expect connectedness, not just availability. In recent banking demos, AI agents were able to detect user intent more effectively than traditional natural language understanding systems, guide conversations toward specific outcomes, and seamlessly escalate when needed, all while maintaining continuity.  In one example, a customer exploring refinancing options asked a mix of basic and advanced questions. The AI not only responded accurately, but also captured key qualifying details and facilitated a warm handoff to a human loan officer. The advisor didn’t need to repeat questions—the context traveled with the customer. That’s orchestration in action.  From system of record to system of action  Traditional systems were built to store data, not act on it. But modern platforms must be systems of action, capable of interpreting signals and responding in real time. This means using AI to go beyond logging interactions and instead drive proactive engagement—surfacing insights, anticipating needs, and guiding the next best action.  Whether it’s a lost card or a mortgage inquiry, the most successful brands are rethinking the architecture behind the experience—not just layering AI on top.  This is a window of opportunity  Retail has already started to rethink how it delivers value through AI. Banking is close behind—but with higher stakes, more regulation, and bigger complexity. That makes clarity even more important.  This moment isn’t about racing to launch the next chatbot. It’s about reimagining how every part of the customer journey connects—and whether it delivers the kind of trust, empathy, and outcomes that consumers expect from their bank.  AI is no longer a “nice to have” in the CX stack—it’s becoming the connective infrastructure. But only if it’s applied intentionally, not reactively. The gap between brand ambitions and customer expectations is shrinking. And for banks that act now, with a focus on orchestration, that gap becomes a window of competitive advantage.  The organizations that get this right won’t just modernize. They’ll lead—because customers will follow the brands that make things easier, safer, and smarter.  John Sabino is CEO of LivePerson. 

Just beyond a fenced-off access road in fields of tall grass on public land in Pennsylvania’s northwest sits a natural gas well pad that sat idle for close to a decade. The old fracking site suddenly roared back to life in 2022, spewing noise and pollution and rattling residents who were used to hunting pheasant on the quiet, bucolic terrain. Diversified Energy turned on the well pad, known as Longhorn Pad A, to funnel the natural gas into on-site generators powering cryptocurrency-mining supercomputers that churn away at numbers at all hours. The company set up and started the mine without securing a required air quality permit from state regulators, Capital & Main reported last year. Now, after a little more than two years, the company has packed up and left, abandoning the wells and associated crypto infrastructure in violation of state law, according to state regulators. Diversified Energy, which disputes the state’s finding that it abandoned the wells, has billed itself as innovative, giving new life to aging, low-producing gas wells that would otherwise be uneconomical to operate. Cryptocurrency aids that goal: It allows the company to monetize wells that lack pipeline infrastructure that is typically crucial to selling gas. The company has, in just a few years, amassed a portfolio of wells bigger than that of any of its peers in the U.S., many of those wells low-producing, despite evidence that Diversified may not have adequate resources to plug them all at the end of their lives. This has stoked concerns among environmentalists about who will be on the hook for cleanup should the company abandon them. When a wellhead crypto mine suddenly shuts down it raises a host of new concerns, chief among them: What happens when operators decide it’s time to move on without plugging the wells? Worries about the long-term environmental costs have mounted in Appalachian and other oil and gas-producing communities across the country. Diversified appears eager to try to squeeze a few more years’ profits out of old wells by burning the remaining gas to power energy-hungry computers. But they have shown less zeal when it comes to safely closing them, often shirking their obligations to plug them to prevent the ongoing release of greenhouse gas pollution. Companies abandon wells when they walk away from them without plugging them after they’re no longer lucrative, increasing the likelihood that they’ll be left to leak planet-warming methane gas into the atmosphere for years to come. Abandoning wells violates the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act and saddles states with the cost and responsibility of plugging them. Pennsylvania, the birthplace of the U.S. oil industry, has an estimated 350,000 orphaned and abandoned oil and gas wells, more than any other state and responsible for close to 8% of the state’s methane emissions. The wells, which sit atop a pad called Longhorn A on state game lands in rural Horton township, were drilled under the ownership of another natural gas company, EQT, in 2011, but sat inactive for all those years, considered abandoned by regulators. Diversified Energy brought them back to life in December 2022. The company applied for a permit for generators to power cryptocurrency mining equipment atop the pad but didn’t wait to receive them from state regulators before firing up the loud and polluting equipment.  Capital & Main reported last year that the firm was unresponsive to questions from state agencies about its plans with the well pad, even as residents raised concerns about noise and its threat to neighbors and wildlife. The company received its permit to add crypto-mining equipment to the well pad in December 2023. A Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection inspector visited the well pad earlier this year to find the cryptocurrency mining equipment gone. Inspection reports from a March 4 visit show metallic sheds sitting empty on the gravel well pad. The department issued Diversified a notice of violation for abandoning the well on March 10, requesting a response from the company within two weeks.  Daniel O. Frick, a director in the Environmental Health, Safety Regulatory Department at Diversified Energy, told regulators in a March 18 email that “technically the site isn’t abandoned,” and that the company plans to resume pulling gas from the well. Regulators have also accused the Birmingham, Alabama-based company of violating a consent order and agreement when it abandoned Longhorn A. In the 2021 agreement that company representatives signed when it acquired the wells from fracking company EQT, Diversified agreed to plug them and 13 others at the end of their lives. Diversified Energy did not respond to Capital & Main’s requests for comment.  State officials aren’t the only ones concerned. Environmental advocates have warned for years about the environmental risks of Diversified Energy’s large portfolio of low-producing wells across Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Ohio. They now fear abandonment of wells snatched up by the company across Appalachia for short-term windfalls will leave the public with the long-term costs of closure and cleanup. “Diversified must not be allowed to walk away and leave others to clean up its mess,” said Charles McPhedran, senior attorney at Earthjustice, an environmental law nonprofit. McPhedran has previously urged regulators not to issue Diversified a permit for crypto mining at the site, citing noise concerns and the company’s unaddressed environmental violations. Dave Gustafson, deputy executive director of the Pennsylvania Game Commission, which regulates and leases out the state game lands on which Longhorn A sits, said the agency “wouldn’t consider these wells ‘abandoned’” and that the company had “not expressed their plans to move forward with production nor have they indicated they intend to plug the well.”  The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection disagrees. “The wells are not equipped for production,” Tom Decker, a department spokesperson, told Capital & Main in an email. “Diversified’s claim that the wells are still equipped is contrary to the Department’s observations during the recent inspection and has not been further verified by Diversified.” The department has given the company until September to plug the wells.  Plugging a well can cost more than $100,000, so it’s common for operators to try to avoid those obligations, said Ted Boettner, senior researcher at the nonprofit think tank Ohio River Valley Institute. They “lift the well and get it to produce some puffs of gas and say, ‘We’re back in our active status,’ and they won’t check for another 10 years,” Boettner said. A 2022 report by the Ohio River Valley Institute argued Diversified Energy was operating with “a business model built to fail Appalachia” because it relied on obtaining aging wells from other operators and squeezing the value out of them before the end of their useful lives, all without having “enough funds to plug its entire inventory of assets.”  In doing so, Diversified has acquired the largest portfolio of low-producing wells in Appalachia, which the Institute researchers wrote could become a “wave of soon-to-be-orphaned wells that could be offloaded onto the public.”  In recent months there have been new doubts raised about the company’s commitment to well-plugging. In December, Diversified reached a settlement in a class-action lawsuit brought by West Virginia landowners who argued the company had abandoned wells on their properties; it agreed to plug nearly 3,000 wells across Appalachia by 2034. Within the first two weeks of January, the Department of Environmental Protection slapped Diversified with 11 notices of violation for abandoning shale gas wells in Pennsylvania. Boettner said the state should do more to penalize the practice of abandoning wells. Without strong enforcement, he said, “We’re going to end up left with all of these wells to plug. There’s nothing stopping them.”  Meanwhile, even as it is walking away from well pads, Diversified is expanding its offerings. Just days after inspectors visited Longhorn A, Diversified announced a large-scale partnership with fuel cell company FuelCell Energy and energy infrastructure company TESIAC to power a growing industry of off-grid data centers using natural gas from fracking wells and coal mines. It’s one of many natural gas companies throwing its weight behind the coming AI boom, threatening to prolong the life of polluting industries. But the Longhorn A well abandonments raise questions about the company’s ability to care for such projects at the end of their lives, as a broader data boom raises concerns among environmentalists about air pollution. The company has also applied for state grants for well-plugging elsewhere in Pennsylvania, according to records Capital & Main obtained under Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law. Diversified CEO Rusty Hutson Jr. bought his first set of oil and gas wells in 2001 as a personal investment, taking out a home equity loan to afford a package of 35 wells that his father, a third-generation oil and gas worker, found in a deal, he said in a 2023 interview with Mountaineer Media.  “We’d go out in cold, heat, fix leaks, work on wells together,” Hutson said. “And I did that for two or three years before we started really growing the company.”  As it has added new wells to its portfolio, Diversified has written into its balance sheets lower-than-industry-standard asset retirement obligations—or estimates for the cost of plugging and closing off wells at the end of their lives. The strategy has alarmed environmentalists, who fear the company is, at best, giving a lifeline to wells in need of decommissioning and, at worst, creating a massive taxpayer liability should it go under. But Hutson is proud of his firm’s unique strategy. While most oil and gas companies focus on drilling new assets, Diversified keeps its eyes on their leftovers.  “Our game is acquiring existing mature production, operating it more efficiently than everyone else would, driving costs down, enhancing production on wells that hadn’t been given much time, or attention, or capital, driving margins and then paying dividends to our shareholders,” he told Mountaineer Media. The company was listed only on the London Stock Exchange until December 2023, when it went public in the U.S. on the New York Stock Exchange. That same day, House Democrats opened a probe into the firm’s practices and emissions.  “Diversified Energy is responsible for remediating a substantial share of the country’s aging oil and gas wells, but we are concerned that your company may be vastly underestimating well cleanup costs,” members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce wrote in a letter to Hutson. The company responded at the time, saying its business model is based on “stewardship” that includes “delivering well retirement and reclamation efforts.”  Boettner estimates that all but a small fraction of the vast trove of old wells Diversified has acquired in recent years are “totally uneconomical,” and one of his reports found that more than half could, by some definitions, be classified as “inactive.” In 2022, the company offloaded a set of 2,500 of them in Ohio. In January 2024, the company sold another part of its stake in Appalachia.  “They’re able to squeeze out this money in these assets because of economies of scale,” Boettner said. “The only thing they can do is keep buying wells, and as long as they don’t have to be accountable for those liabilities, it works.”  On the ground in Horton township, home to Longhorn A, local supervisor PJ Piccirillo said he’s heard nothing from Diversified staff about their plans to abandon the wells and remove the associated crypto mine. He believes the company stopped running the well pad after the township issued an ordinance setting noise and light pollution limits on Bitcoin mines in 2023, shortly before the state issued Longhorn A its permit. “The generators had been pulled and those big tanks had been pulled out,” he said. Without any communication from the company, Piccirillo is concerned about future industrial development. He runs into abandoned wells in his corner of Elk County often that, he said, “I don’t know if anybody knows about.” The township lacks jurisdiction over well abandonment, so there’s nothing he can do about them from his position as a supervisor.  “All we know is that that property seems to have been abandoned,” he said of Longhorn A. “What might be next?” This piece was originally published by Capital & Main, which reports from California on economic, political, and social issues.

It’s not every day that a Republican from the Trump administration gets a standing ovation, or three, from a roomful of Democrats. But as Mike Pence showed on January 6, 2021, he doesn’t always stick to the party line. According to the former vice president, the attacks on the Capitol four years ago were ultimately unsuccessful and “a triumph of freedom” because “our institutions held that day, not because of any one person, but because leaders in both political parties, Republicans and Democrats, did their duties,” Pence said while receiving the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in Boston at the JFK Library on Sunday. Pence received the award for “putting his life and career on the line to ensure the constitutional transfer of presidential power.”  After repeated pressure to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which Joe Biden won, Pence was to preside over Congress and the certification process, which includes counting the Electoral College votes, when a violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol to stop the process. While the Secret Service urged him to evacuate, Pence, his wife, Karen, and their daughter Charlotte refused to leave the Capitol, coordinating with the military and congressional leaders during the attack. Once the Capitol was cleared, Pence resumed the certification process.   “In these divided times, in these anxious days, I know in my heart that we will find our way forward as one nation,” Pence said, acknowledging the current Trump administration’s agenda, without naming the president specifically. He added: It’s the Constitution that “binds us all together.” Unpopular positions, principled stands The award—named after President Kennedy’s 1957 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Profiles in Courage, which recounts the stories of eight U.S. senators who risked their careers by taking principled stands for unpopular positions—is presented each year to public servants for making a courageous decision of conscience without regard for the personal or professional consequences. Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline Kennedy, and grandson, Jack Schlossberg, presented the award to Pence, acknowledging the new political climate of fear that has taken over in the last four months.   “We are especially grateful for your presence this year, as many are afraid to speak out or show up,” Kennedy said. “It’s hard to believe that attending a black-tie gala could be described an act of courage—but here we are. President Kennedy called his time ‘the hour of maximum danger’ and welcomed the challenge. We are living in a similar moment now.” Just as President Kennedy famously stated, “my fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country,” Caroline Kennedy said, “now is the time to act because, as we have seen in the past 100 days, we can no longer take our democracy for granted.” “Everyone should be speaking their hearts” Those in attendance included Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, who called Pence “a profile in courage [for] standing up against a leader of his own party,” and comedian David Letterman, who said, “In this day and age, courage needs to be identified and celebrated in this way. It didn’t use to be that way.” When asked what Americans can do right now, Letterman told Fast Company: “They should be speaking their hearts. Everyone should be speaking their hearts.”  “This was a moment when the vice president stood up for the constitution, and we have to all remember that today,” U.S. presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin told Fast Company. “History shows that people working from the ground up are what make all the changes. So it’s at your local area, it’s in your state, it’s in your city. Every change—whether it’s civil rights, women’s rights, gay rights—has come from the ground up. That’s what we need to do.” Previous award recipients include former presidents Barack Obama and George H. W. Bush, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney, and former Democratic Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Skywatchers, you’re in for a treat. You’re going to want to look up into the night late Monday, May 5 into the early hours of Tuesday, May 6, to see the debris of Halley’s comet as it lights up the sky with a meteor shower called the Eta Aquarids. Here’s everything you need to know about the Eta Aquarids and the chance to see debris from Halley’s comet in 2025. What are Halley’s comet and the Eta Aquarids meteor shower, anyway? While Halley’s comet itself only travels around the sun every 75 or so years, each time it returns to the inner solar system, it sprays debris (ice and rock) into space, which results in two meteor showers each year: the Eta Aquarids in May, and the Orionids in October, creating what we know as shooting stars. (Halley’s comet was last seen in 1986, and won’t come around again until 2061.) When comets pass by the sun, the dust they emit eventually creates a “dusty trail” around their orbits. Then, when Earth passes through these trails, they interact with our atmosphere, creating those dazzling shows of light in the sky. The Eta Aquarids peak early in the month of May, and are known for their speed; they travel at about 40.7 miles per second into Earth’s atmosphere, according to NASA. That’s important, because fast meteors can leave glowing incandescent “trains” of debris, which last for several seconds to minutes. During the peak of the Eta Aquarids, viewers can see up to 50 meteors each hour, depending on visibility. What’s the best time to see the Eta Aquarids meteor shower in 2025? Peak viewing is this Monday night, May 5 into Tuesday morning, May 6 in the predawn hours, according to NASA’s Bill Cooke, who told the AP that visibility will likely be affected by the moon, which will be two-thirds full. The good news: viewing opportunities will last through the month until May 28. You can view the Eta Aquarids in both the northern and southern hemispheres, but the southern hemisphere is preferable. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, viewers can expect to see about 10 meteors an hour, depending on your latitude and conditions that night. Expect to see “Earthgrazers,” which are long meteors “that appear to skim the surface of the Earth at the horizon,” per NASA. NASA viewing tips for the Eta Aquarids meteor shower Our friends at NASA offer these tips: Find a viewing spot away from city or street lights. Lie flat on your back with your feet facing east. You may want to bring a blanket or a lounge chair. Look up, taking in as much of the sky as possible. After about 30 minutes in the dark, your eyes will adapt and you will begin to see meteors. Be patient. The show will last until dawn, so you have plenty of time to catch a glimpse.