Fast Company

Seven major oil-exporting countries agreed Sunday to keep production steady in November at a time when the Iran war has driven the price of benchmark Brent crude oil above $100 a barrel.

The so-called OPEC+ subgroup — Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria and Oman — will meet again on Nov. 1 to review conditions in the oil market.

The fighting with Iran, which began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Feb. 28, has disrupted global oil supplies and driven prices higher.

The Group of Seven wealthy democracies said Friday that they plan to release 100 million barrels of oil and fuel products in the coming weeks, starting with “substantial” amounts of diesel. Diesel prices recently hit record highs in the United States, squeezing farmers, truckers and consumers who depend on the fuel.

The G7 promised a “frontloaded substantial release” of diesel within the next 20 days and the rest over four months.

—Associated Press

U.S.-listed shares of Brazilian fintech and financial services companies rose by double digits in premarket trading on Monday following news that South America’s largest country is heading into a runoff election. 

Right-wing candidate Flávio Bolsonaro managed to win 47% of the vote, surprising some poll watchers, while incumbent left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva received 45%, the Rio Times reported.

The two will face off again later this month as neither candidate scored the 50% needed for a full victory.

Bolsonaro, a senator and the son of imprisoned former president Jair Bolsonaro, campaigned on a fiscal adjustment and spending cuts seen as being more investor friendly, though some have wondered if “he would ultimately prove more fiscally responsible than Lula,” as Reuters reported.

At 80, Lula is serving his third non-consecutive term, having defeated then-incumbent president Jair Bolsonaro in 2023 after serving as president during an earlier stretch between 2003 and 2011.

Either way, the markets are reacting.

Nu Holdings (NYSE: NU), owner of Latin America’s largest digital bank, saw its stock price jump more than 12% in premarket trading as of this writing. 

Shares of Brazil’s Banco Bradesco (NYSE: BBD) likewise rose by over 12%. 

PagBank, a payments platform and financial services company based in São Paulo, saw its U.S.-listed stock price (NYSE: PAGS) jump more than 15%. 

Brazil’s runoff election will take place on October 25.

We are in a moment of AI anxiety, plagued with the knotty and draining problems raised by the technology’s ever-growing capabilities. What will we do when AI launches massive cyberattacks that might target a government—or destabilize the global stock market? Do we need a kill switch to ensure that AI systems can’t take over the world, and is building one even possible? Should we come to terms with the prospect that AI might be a posthuman species due to inherit the earth? Could artificial intelligence kill us all?

These quandaries have now burst out of Silicon Valley circles, where they’re even raised by the very AI executives building this technology, and are circling in the mainstream media. Skeptics, meanwhile, continue to question the technology’s prowess, or dismiss all this worry as just marketing hype, a bid to boost future stock prices and shape regulation, masked in the language of existential doom.

But the move to dismiss the prospect of ever-more-powerful models and what they might be able to do in the future might distract us from what we already know.  AI does not need to become superintelligent, conscious, or even especially reliable to be dangerous. The systems we already have—the B-tier AI we already live with—are capable enough to cause serious harm, especially when they can be deployed cheaply, repeatedly, and at enormous scale.

Consider some of the tasks that publicly available AI is enabling. There’s Grok, which has been used to spread nonconsensual sexual images of minors and AI-enabled child sexual abuse material. There’s ChatGPT, which appears to have convinced people to engage in self-harm or worse, and even advised people on how to enact violent events, including school shootings. Another chatbot egged on a man in the U.K. in an assassination attempt. There is the broader democratization of cyberattacks: Anthropic, for instance, reported that just one individual was able to use Claude to target European political parties and other organizations, accessing 14 institutions and more than 100,000 political profiles. And just this week, we learned that Chinese hackers used AI to engage in an impersonation scheme that involved seeking information on American AI policy experts. 

This is not to mention that we now know that AI can break out of testing environments and into the world, as the Hugging Face incident and subsequent AI-related breach exemplify. Some of these agents have already shown a proclivity for interacting with government websites, and they’ve even figured out how to mask their intentions. 

AI has enabled deepfake-generated cyberbullying and allowed people to develop voice-controlled guns. A top bank in Italy was recently scammed out of the equivalent of $100 million due to AI. AI has designed toxic compounds that evade the very detection mechanisms designed to stop these bots from sharing these kinds of formulas. It’s also been used to generate a list of tens of thousands of potential biological weapons. Rebel groups in Yemen appear to have used the technology to develop missile guidance software. 

We already know that AI can manipulate people, break into systems, and lie to us. AI doesn’t need to be particularly superintelligent—or even be thinking or desirous in the human sense—to do damage, nor does that damage need to be existential to be potentially destabilizing. To do bad, AI just needs to be good enough to do damage, sometimes. That’s because AI can be iterated again and again at scale, and overwhelm whatever ability we have to fight it. 

You don’t need to know whether AI will become superintelligent to know whether or not to be scared. You should be.

Mere decades ago, children would quench their thirst with sugary, neon-colored Hi-C, Kool-Aid, and Capri Sun, and in more desperate moments, even the backyard garden hose was sufficient.

But recently, there’s been a proliferation of new children-focused beverage innovations from mainstay brands like Kraft Heinz’s Capri Sun and Kool-Aid and Nestlé’s Gerber, as well as startups founded by Jennifer Garner, the actress, and Michelle Obama, the former first lady, that come with stronger hydration and electrolyte claims. These drinks are frequently made with more natural ingredients and are free of artificial dyes and sweeteners, but retain popular kid flavors like tropical punch and berries.

[Photo: Once Upon A Farm]

This week, Garner’s organic children’s nutrition company Once Upon a Farm debuts a new lineup of refrigerated pouches called Electrolyte Blends in flavors like strawberry kiwi and guava strawberry. The launch comes mere weeks after Gerber unveiled a rehydration-focused line called Gerberlyte. Capri Sun’s electrolyte-focused Hydrate line and Kool-Aid’s electrolyte packets launched earlier this year.

These brands are aiming their better-for-you hydration products at Generation Alpha children and the 47% of U.S. guardians who report they are looking for electrolytes, B-vitamins, or prebiotics when buying drinks for children between the ages of 6 and 12, according to Once Upon a Farm. It cited data from the wellness-focused retail market researcher Spins.

“Everyone’s paying more attention to what kids are drinking and to hydrating in general,” Garner tells Fast Company. “What’s available for kids is often a grown-up product in a smaller container, or really full of artificial flavors and colors.”

Sally Lyons Wyatt, an executive vice president at Circana, says the market researcher has found that 43% of consumers seek hydration benefits from their beverages. “We really are seeing that increasingly, families with kids are expecting their beverages to provide additional benefits,” Lyons Wyatt tells Fast Company.

[Photo: Kool-Aid] Do kids actually need more electrolytes?

The digitally immersed members of Generation Alpha—the oldest of whom are in their mid-teens—are also more aware of food and beverage health claims. But some experts warn that the functional benefits new drinks are touting aren’t always necessary. Malina Malkani, a registered dietitian nutritionist, tells Fast Company that almost all children have a diet that’s naturally packed with electrolytes, which include minerals like potassium and calcium.

“Anything that is being marketed as a way to displace water is concerning,” says Malkani. “We don’t have an electrolyte deficiency in our children. We have a water habit that hasn’t been adequately built yet in a vast majority of kids.”

“We’re very careful about making firm health claims,” says John Foraker, Once Upon a Farm’s CEO, who tells Fast Company that messaging frequently focuses on the use of organic fruit and vegetable ingredients. The brand’s new Electrolyte Blends are pitched as supporting “daily hydration and electrolyte balance.” Adds Foraker, “We don’t want to overstate.”

[Photo: Capri Sun] Kids’ brands are growing up

Founded in 2015, Once Upon a Farm made its debut on the New York Stock Exchange in February and has since expanded its lineup with new meat and bone broth, snack bars, and smoothies. “Part of our strategy is to continue to age our business up so that we’re holding consumers in the brand longer,” says Foraker.

The Obama-founded Plezi Nutrition is also aiming to expand its reach. When the public benefit company debuted in 2023, it focused on promoting healthier sports drinks and carbonated beverages, especially those targeted at kids. Plezi was an extension of Obama’s efforts to improve children’s health during her time in the White House. 

[Photo: Plezi]

But the brand, which has collaborated with the NBA star Stephen Curry and his wife Ayesha, has “shifted our strategy to more of an age-agnostic approach,” Anup Shah, Plezi’s chief operating officer, tells Fast Company. “We’ve gone to a market that we feel is much bigger and can impact more people.” 

Kraft Heinz’s new Capri Sun and Kool-Aid products align with the food giant’s commitment to remove artificial colors from all of its U.S. products by the end of 2027. The company has also homed in on electrolytes, which Ashley Tople, Kraft Heinz’s VP of marketing for hydration, says has become an especially important benefit claim in the $64 billion functional beverage category.

“What we’ve heard from parents is they have this conundrum of both taste and health, and nothing is being designed specifically for an active kid moment,” Tople tells Fast Company. “That’s a massive white space we took advantage of.” 

Capri Sun Hydrate, which has electrolytes like potassium and sodium, hit retail shelves in April. A month later, Kool-Aid Hydration debuted as a kid-focused product that’s similar to Liquid I.V.

Kool-Aid Hydration contains no sugar, while Capri Sun Hydrate has 50% less sugar than the leading sports drinks on the market. “Whenever you talk to parents, the first question I hear is, ‘What sugar level is this?’” says Tople.

[Photo: Gerber] Even century-old brands are changing

The Kool-Aid innovation debuts just one year before the brand’s 100th anniversary in 2027, the same year that Nestlé’s Gerber celebrates its centennial. Oscar Benítez, president of Nestlé Nutrition U.S., tells Fast Company that the new Gerberlyte formulation is made with organic coconut water, features electrolytes, and is free of artificial dyes or sweeteners. 

Like Kraft Heinz, Nestlé has been reformulating much of its portfolio to adhere to modern health trends, a trend that’s been accelerated, in part, by the Make America Healthy Again movement promoted by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. health and human services secretary.

Benítez says Gerberlyte was developed with feedback from parents and pediatricians, as well as taste testing with kids at the company’s research and development facility in Fremont, Michigan, to find the right balance for flavors like strawberry kiwi and berry blend.

“We see consumers evolving constantly,” says Benítez. “Hydration is now a key element in the parent’s mind. It wasn’t in the past.” 

If following a piece of legislation were only as simple, and pleasant, as School House Rock depicts. Proposed legislation or passed laws can change business as usual. Sometimes for the better, sometimes with negative consequences. Often, business leaders must advocate for or against policies that impact their industry, their customers, or how they do business.

We asked members of the Fast Company Impact Council what industry legislation—state or federal—they’re following right now and why. Below, 30 members weigh in on what they’re watching and why it matters to them.

1. CHEMICAL MANAGEMENT POLICIES

I’m watching chemical management and risk evaluation policies at both the federal and state levels as they directly affect innovation, manufacturing, and the safe use of essential chemistries. What matters most is that regulatory decisions are based on credible science and rigorous research. That’s why we engage with organizations like the American Chemistry Council that help bring scientific expertise and industry insight into policy discussions. Hexion advocates for science-based decision making to ensure regulations protect people and the environment while continuing to support innovation, manufacturing competitiveness, and economic growth. — Michael Lefenfeld, Hexion

2. FEDERAL HEALTHCARE LEGISLATION

I’m following federal healthcare transparency legislation, including the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act of 2026 and the Patients Deserve Price Tags Act. Employers are under real pressure to manage rising healthcare costs, and these policies can give them clearer access to prices, claims, payment, and fee data so they can make better-informed decisions for their people. Transparency is not about taking sides. It is about creating a common foundation for employers, health plans, pharmacy benefit managers, and providers to compete on value, improve accountability, and make quality care more affordable. — Glen Tullman, Transcarent

3. CMS’S KIDNEY CARE CHOICES MODEL

The legislation I’m following right now is the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Kidney Care Choices Model. It is a smart step toward coordinated care, but it only engages patients once they’ve reached stage 4 or 5 chronic kidney disease, or end-stage renal disease, which is like building a fire response plan after your home is already ablaze. Most people with progressive kidney disease go undiagnosed for years, so coordinating care this late misses the window when intervention can change outcomes. To bend the cost and mortality curve, policy needs to shift toward incentivizing preventive screening in primary care, rather than managing patients after the damage is done. — Salvatore Viscomi, Carna Health

4. CYBERSECURITY MATURITY MODEL CERTIFICATION

I’m watching Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification, not because the headlines keep changing, but because they keep missing the point. Every new CMMC announcement kicks off a cycle of hot takes, but the real story hasn’t moved: Defense contractors have to protect their data. Full stop. The organizations reacting to Washington’s latest update are already behind. The ones building security as an ongoing discipline rather than a compliance checkbox are the ones who will be fine no matter what the assessment model looks like next year. No defense contractor can afford to ignore the basics. — Steve Tchejeyan, Island

5. OVERSIGHT OF SPECIAL EDUCATION

I’m following what’s at stake since the Department of Education has shifted oversight of special education to other federal agencies. This affects a lot of families: Over 8 million public school students receive support through an Individualized Education Program or 504 plan, which outlines the special education services or accommodations required to help them learn. In our recent survey, 73% of parents expect the change to affect the quality of their child’s education, yet more than half didn’t know it had happened. When awareness lags behind a change this big, trusted information becomes a scarce resource and we are here to fill that gap. — Nathan Friedman, Understood.org

6. STATE LEGISLATION ON ELECTRONIC WILLS

I’m following electronic wills legislation at the state level. Trust & Will is a founding member of the LIVE Coalition, the first advocacy group dedicated to modernizing estate planning laws for the digital age. The momentum is real: New York, Missouri, and North Dakota passed digital estate planning laws in 2025, and Minnesota and Utah signed bills into law this year. It matters because only about a third of states have modern estate planning laws, while 56% of U.S. adults have no estate documents at all. Every state that modernizes removes a real barrier between a family and a finished plan. — Cody Barbo, Trust & Will

7. MEDICAID CUTS THAT WIDEN THE LIFE-EXPECTANCY GAP

I’m watching H.R.1—the “One Big Beautiful Bill”—and its Medicaid cuts closely. They threaten to widen the gap our CHC moonshot aims to close: halving the life expectancy gap between our healthiest and least healthy communities within a decade. Coverage loss means delayed care, sicker patients, and strained hospitals and local economies. That’s why we built our no-wrong-door approach—outreach and education, a platform for community engagement, and investment in frontline nonprofits. I want CEOs everywhere to see that healthier communities mean stronger workforces and economies. — Jean Accius, CHC: Creating Healthier Communities

8. REGULATORY SILENCE ON AI

I’ll be honest: I don’t follow legislation closely. What I do watch is whether anyone—state or federal—intends to draw a line around how far artificial intelligence can go into professional services like ours. Brand strategy, naming, campaign development: These are now things a machine can plausibly do end to end. So far, regulators are focused on safety and disclosure, not on scope. That silence is the policy, and it matters more to my industry than any bill. — SOOYOUNG CHO, the bread and butter brand consulting LLC

9. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT’S FIGHT WITH ITSELF

I’m watching the fight over artificial intelligence—but not the one you think. Framing it as consumers versus AI or communities versus data centers misses the real conflict: The federal government is fighting with itself, and states may pay the price. The Senate voted 99–1 to preserve states’ authority over AI. Then the administration created a Justice Department task force to sue states—with no framework to replace their laws. My firm advises utilities, data centers, and other large-load customers, and if federal preemption wins, the only level of government moving at AI’s speed will go quiet. Watch this fight as closely as any earnings call. — Howard Franklin, Ohio River South

10. INTERSTATE PROFESSIONAL LICENSURE COMPACTS

Interstate professional licensure compacts elevate client and patient care, improve public safety, and create opportunities for licensed professionals. States must take legislative action to join, and it requires a different bill for each compact or profession. There is no shortage of activity to track. Since InspiringApps created the data system that backs many licensure compacts, I monitor that legislation closely. — Brad Weber, InspiringApps

11. TARIFFS AND TAX POLICIES

Right now, I am closely following state-level and cross-border regulations affecting corporations and countries, particularly tariffs and tax policies between Europe and the United States. This matters because controlling production, costs, and exports is no longer enough. Tariff decisions directly affect pricing, profitability, supply chains, and international expansion. Businesses must reorganize teams and strategies to anticipate these changes. Today, tariff management is not simply a compliance issue—it is essential to business survival and competitiveness. — Manuel Freire-Garabal, Gioya Higher Education Institute

12. H.R. 1 WORK REQUIREMENTS

House Bill 1 [One Big Beautiful Bill Act] and its work requirements for welfare programs are going to result in huge changes in the way benefit programs are administered across the U.S. It will be important to watch how states adapt their systems, processes, and service delivery models to meet these new requirements. — Paul Toomey, Geographic Solutions

13. LEGISLATION AROUND AI IN EDUCATION

I’m closely watching the wave of state and federal legislation emerging around artificial intelligence in education. From student data privacy to the use of AI in assessments and hiring, policymakers are beginning to grapple with questions the sector has been slow to answer on its own. When algorithms influence decisions about students, educators, and institutional leadership, accountability cannot be an afterthought. Is it the tool or the people deploying it? The answer has to be the people. The legislation catching up to that reality right now will shape how educational institutions adopt and govern AI for the next decade. — Meredith Rosenberg, NU Advisory Partners

14. STATE-LEVEL RULES ON AI IN HEALTHCARE

I’m watching the state-level rules emerging around healthcare artificial intelligence—especially requirements for transparency, human oversight, and preventing AI from making consequential care or coverage decisions on its own. Healthcare is different from most industries. The data is deeply personal, and mistakes could have life-altering impacts. We need guardrails that scale with risk, keep clinicians in the loop, and still leave room for well-governed tools that help people get to the right care faster. — Owen Tripp, Included Health

15. NO FAKES LEGISLATION

We are aggressively following the federal NO FAKES legislation and its Name, Image, and Likeness equivalents in various states and in Europe. It is critical not just to the future of music and our business, but to the credibility of every public figure and private individual on the planet. You have a right to own your name, voice, and likeness. You have a right not to be replicated, faked, or used for someone else’s purposes. You own “you.” And without the NO FAKES legislation, both artists and consumers are left without a remedy when someone steals “you.” — Logan Mulvey, GoDigital Music

16. CLEAN SLATE LEGISLATION

Even a decades-old criminal record can create significant barriers to employment, housing, educational opportunities, and more. While processes to clear these records exist across the country, less than 5% of eligible individuals will ever even apply due to a lack of access, knowledge, and funds required. And with one in three U.S. adults having a criminal record, the scale of the issue is notable. At the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice, we’re following and supporting the adoption and implementation of Clean Slate legislation across the country—efforts to expand the automatic sealing of eligible criminal records. — Maha Jweied, Responsible Business Initiative for Justice

17. FDA’S POLICY FOR LOW-RISK DEVICES

I’m following the Food and Drug Administration’s General Wellness: Policy for Low-Risk Devices, revised in January for the first time since 2019. This matters because wearables now measure increasingly sophisticated physiological signals. I use this technology myself, and through our work I see how quickly products like smart rings are blurring the line between consumer and medical technology. Getting the regulatory balance right is key: Consumers need confidence in the data they receive and innovators need room to push what the technology can do. Wearables have enormous potential to help people better understand their health and make more informed decisions. — Patrick Frend, Delve

18. LEGISLATION AROUND BABY FOOD SAFETY

For the past few years, I’ve been following unfolding state and federal heavy metals legislation for baby food. It’s one of the few areas where I actually want more regulation to take the best care of the babies we all serve. — Serenity Carr, Serenity Kids

19. LEGISLATION SHAPING CLEAN FREIGHT

We follow the broader state and federal policy landscape shaping clean freight—from vehicle incentives such as California’s HVIP and Clean Fuel Reward program to public charging investment, permitting, and utility interconnection policies in an effort to streamline electric vehicle charging approvals and grid connections. Medium- and heavy-duty trucks account for about 23% of U.S. transportation emissions, or roughly 6% of total U.S. emissions, so the opportunity is significant. The transition will only scale if trucks, power, charging infrastructure, and the policies that support them advance together. Businesses need incentives to support societal change. — Patrick Macdonald-King, Greenlane

20. EPA “FOREVER CHEMICAL” RULES FOR DRINKING WATER

I’m following the Environmental Protection Agency’s  rules on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—the so-called forever chemicals—in drinking water. These rules are set to be finalized by the end of 2026 and will determine if utilities have until 2031 to meet limits for perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctane sulfonic acid. The timeline here matters because PFAS don’t break down on their own. Every year that we push the deadline back is another year of exposure to our water and bodies. Investing ahead of the regulatory deadline, rather than waiting on it, is the real opportunity. Leaders who let the underlying problem set the pace versus the compliance clock, and back it with new technology and treatment options, will be the ones making real impact when it counts. — Kevin Gast, VVater

21. FEDERAL IMMIGRATION POLICY FOR DOCUMENTED CAREGIVERS

I’m closely following federal immigration policy. Changes like ending Temporary Protected Status have stripped work authorization from legally documented caregivers who are caring for and bonding with older adults. Homecare already faces a substantial worker shortage, and the older adult population keeps growing. We hire every qualified caregiver we can, regardless of nationality, because there are simply not enough to satisfy demand. As our aging population increases, we need policies that protect and expand this workforce, not remove people without a viable alternative, lest we leave our elders without the care they need. — Seth Sternberg, Honor

22. LEGISLATION ON WHAT QUALIFIES AS A SMALL BUSINESS

As the owner of a small marketing-services agency, I’m closely watching the Small Business Administration’s proposed overhaul of what qualifies as a small business. The proposal would raise the eligibility ceiling for marketing consulting firms from $19 million to $295 million in annual revenue, and for advertising agencies from $25.5 million to $543 million. These would clearly no longer be small businesses and would force genuinely small firms like us to compete with these vastly larger companies for federal contracts and other SBA programs. — Lisa Larson-Kelley, Quantious

23. LEGISLATION AROUND AI

State and federal legislation regarding artificial intelligence. Why? We have integrated AI into everything we do at Exceptional Women Alliance Foundation using both Claude and ChatGPT. So, any change in user options would impact our operation. So far so good. — Larraine Segil, Exceptional Women Alliance Foundation

24. STATE LEGISLATION ON SCHOOL NUTRITION

I’m watching the wave of state bills that protect kids from harmful ultra-processed ingredients in school food, and big food’s push to preempt them federally. Public school cafeterias are the largest restaurant chain in America: 30 million kids depend on those meals for 50% or more of their daily calories. That makes school food the big bet for reversing the rise of diet-related illnesses in kids. State legislation—like California’s Assembly Bill 1264—plays a critical role. Federal preemption would make our food system less safe, making it harder for school food professionals to serve nourishing meals. — Nora LaTorre, Eat Real

25. EXECUTIVE ORDER 14413

I’m closely watching Executive Order 14413 on quantum innovation. What matters most to me is its focus on building a stronger domestic quantum manufacturing base and expanding access to the foundries needed to make these technologies at scale. We can have extraordinary science, but if we don’t have the manufacturing infrastructure to turn it into real products, we won’t lead the industry. That’s one reason we made the decision to own our own fabrications. For quantum to scale, we need to be able to build it. — Yuping Huang, Quantum Computing Inc.

26. LOW-CARBON PROCUREMENT RULES

We’re tracking federal low-embodied-carbon procurement rules and state policies like the Buy Clean California Act. For SPACECRAFT, these shifts transform sustainability from an optional design goal into a baseline business standard. They directly influence our material choices, supply-chain strategies, and project delivery, ensuring we guide clients toward resilient, future-proof real estate decisions. — Susan Watts, SPACECRAFT

27. BUYING AMERICAN COTTON ACT

The Buying American Cotton Act is one I’ve been closely following. In my work, I see firsthand what goes into producing American cotton. I spend a lot of time traveling to meet with farmers, mills, and others across the supply chain. That perspective has given me a real appreciation for the people and processes behind the fiber. I think policies that strengthen demand for American-grown cotton can have a meaningful impact across the entire value chain. — Liz Hershfield, COTTON USA

28. POLICY FOLLOWING REPORT ON TECH-FACILITATED ABUSE

A new global report landed days after Meta’s settlement. Across 21 countries, an estimated 20 million children experienced some form of tech-facilitated sexual abuse in a single year. What matters now: legislators, regulators, and platforms engaging with the research and its recommendations, not just the headline number, to protect children. — Michele Walsh, UNICEF USA

29. PERSONALIZED PRICING POLICY

I’m watching the Federal Trade Commission’s proposed policy around personalized pricing, meaning the use of consumer data to determine what an individual might be willing to pay. Marketers have spent years making personalization smarter and more sophisticated, but this raises important philosophical questions about where personalization stops feeling helpful and starts feeling invasive. How regulators and consumers answer that question could have implications well beyond pricing for how brands use data to personalize the customer experience. — Chris K Bailey, Bailey Brand Consulting

30. FEDERAL POLICY AROUND AI AND FINANCIAL MARKETS

I’m closely following federal efforts around artificial intelligence accountability and financial market structure. As autonomous systems make more decisions and markets move toward near constant trading, the rules around responsibility, access, and investor protection will shape how quickly the industry can innovate responsibly. — George Kailas, Prospero.ai

As entry-level job opportunities constrict, tuition costs rise, and AI threatens to disrupt the entire world, questions about the value of a liberal arts degree have intensified. I recently spoke with our client, Christa Acampora, dean of the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at University of Virginia, about the state of higher education. We also talked about the job prospects for liberal arts majors, and why the humanities increasingly matter in an AI world.

Celia Jones: As dean of one of the nation’s most respected arts and sciences institutions, how concerned are you about the questions regarding the value of a college degree in today’s world?

Christa Acampora: Every education leader should be concerned about the state of higher education, public confidence, and the debates around the cost of attendance. Many challenges are hitting higher education and the workforce at the same time. We are at an inflection point.

AI—an umbrella term for many different technologies—is not a “normal” technology, where an innovation emerges, the marketplace integrates, and a skilled-worker gap appears that higher education fills. If it were a normal technology, or just one technology, it might be smart to become an expert in only that.

Since it’s unclear if AI will create a job boom, it’s important to look at why studying matters—rather than the fields to study—and think about the purpose and value of higher education.

Jones: How do you counter the narrative that going to college isn’t worth the investment, or that it’s a financial risk?

Acampora: I’d encourage people to look at the data, which strongly show college-educated workers fare better than those without a degree, almost universally across fields of study. They make more money, have better health outcomes, and live longer. From a holistic lifespan perspective, college is worth it.

Jones: Let’s talk about careers. My diverse job experiences were highly influenced by exposure to so many different ideas via my liberal arts curriculum. How can we socialize such pathways to students considering college or navigating life afterward?

Acampora: Even when I talk to parents, they want to understand what kind of jobs align with a history major. Yet, if you ask them what they studied and how they ended up where they are, their pathways took all kinds of twists and turns. I studied philosophy and became a philosopher, but I worked in advertising and marketing first because I liked creative work. I realized I enjoyed thinking about big ideas, fitting them together, and talking to people about them, which led me into academic administration and leadership.

We need to prepare students, not just by sharing inspirational stories, but equipping them to build their own paths. In such a dynamic social, cultural, and technological transformation, what could be more important than figuring out what you care about, why you care about it, and then incorporating that into your pursuit of a life worth living?

Jones: Let’s talk about agency and how UVA facilitates that by encouraging students to make sense of themselves and their place in the world.

Acampora: We are introducing career design and discovery into our undergraduates’ first-year experience. That entails identifying what you care about, what you’re curious about, and connecting those features through reflection and action. It is about exercising human agency.

For example, we offer a class called “Birds Aren’t Real.” The purpose is to explore the characteristics of a conspiracy theory versus an empirically derived theory. We also give all our first-year students a Commonplace Book, which is not a journal but an ancient technique of collecting interesting ideas and mapping out projects; they learn how to catch themselves in important moments that might spur action.

Seneca, the ancient Roman philosopher, counseled gathering as the bee gathers, and then working the gathering, pondering, and digesting, until nectar becomes honey. Nectar spoils in days; honey keeps for millennia. Information and wisdom differ in exactly that way, and the difference is formed, not found.

Jones: That reminds me of Albert Einstein’s comment that the value of a college education is not the learning of many facts, but the training of the mind to think. During these fraught times, how does a humanities education help students find resilience?

Acampora: Critical thinking is a complex nexus of analytical and emotional capabilities – understanding how to change your mind, manage attention and conflict, avoid distraction, deal with uncertainty, and discern ambiguity. Naming where the human value-add lies is critical when machines can replicate routine tasks.

Jones: When competing against thousands of job applicants with similar grades and algorithmic gatekeepers, what should people do to stand out?

Acampora: Employers in 2030 won’t look for humans who behave like AI agents; they’ll hire those who are the most human. Recent data from the New York Fed showed philosophy majors having better employment outcomes than computer scientists. The best investment in education is to become the most human human—a challenging, fulfilling, exciting pursuit that connects us across generations.

Jones: Employers cite empathy, communication, critical thinking, and ethical reasoning as scarce capabilities. Why aren’t they looking to humanities graduates as strategic assets?

Acampora: I sense that hiring criteria are changing. Recent news stories have noted that ideal job candidates in the age of AI need complex emotional intelligence, radical adaptability, and visionary creativity to orchestrate AI tools rather than compete with them. Human agency shows up when measured against artificial intelligence. Education shouldn’t just train students to be prompt engineers for outputs; it must recruit them into their own learning.

Jones: The flip side of uncertainty is wonder. What gives you hope?

Acampora: Being a parent and being surrounded by amazing, curious students gives me hope. While many things change, core truths remain: Things will go wrong, so we need problem-solving; people will live together, so we need collaboration; people will disagree, so we need empathy and conflict resolution; and we need resilience. The humanities prepare us for all of these.

Celia Jones is global chief marketing officer of FINN Partners.

Fast food giant Wendy’s faced a fresh wave of permanent store closures on Friday for the second weekend in a row as one of its biggest franchisees scrambled to restructure operations in the aftermath of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.

According to a court docket filed late Friday, five additional restaurants owned by the Michigan-based Meritage Hospitality Group were slated to be abruptly shuttered and vacated that day.

As of early Monday morning, the five locations were still listed on Wendy’s store locator tool, though some of the closings were noted on Google reviews and by local media.

These five impacted Wendy’s restaurants are located in Indiana, Oklahoma, Georgia, and Florida. They follow five earlier store closures that took place the previous Friday in Virginia, Florida, Texas, and Oklahoma.

In total, Meritage has now closed at least 10 stores over the last two weekends. The recent Wendy’s closures are in addition to roughly 60 locations that Meritage shuttered before it sought Chapter 11 protection in mid-September.    

And more shutterings are almost certain to follow. 

As Fast Company previously reported, the franchisee has agreed to shut down and vacate at least 30 locations as part of a cash collateral deal with its primary lender, to which it owes $135 million, according to court filings.

Fast Company reached out to Meritage Hospitality Group and The Wendy’s Company for comment. 

A former hotel operator, Meritage bought its first fleet of 28 Wendy’s restaurants in the late 1990s and grew to become one of the largest restaurant operators in the Wendy’s system. At the time of its bankruptcy petition, it owned 314 Wendy’s locations across 15 states and employed roughly 9,000 people.  

But now its existing store count could decline by 10% or more as the franchisee moves to cull underperforming locations under court supervision. 

Which Wendy’s stores are closing? 

According to a bankruptcy docket filed on Friday, the following Wendy’s stores closed this weekend: 

• 1415 East Main Street, Cushing, OK 74023
• 1202 Lincolnway West, La Porte, IN 46350 
• 4029 Five Forks Trickum Road, Lilburn, GA 30047
• 1901 Apalachee Parkway, Tallahassee, FL 32301
• 753 Park Avenue, Orange Park, FL 32073

As Fast Company previously reported, the following Wendy’s stores closed a week earlier:

• 441 Market St, Gordonsville, VA 22942
• 1175 Dunn Ave, Jacksonville, FL 32218
• 301 College Ave, Levelland, TX 79336
• 2525 South Monroe Street, Tallahassee, FL 32301
• 2420 W Main St, Durant, OK 74701

Are more Wendy’s stores closing? 

Yes. Additional store closures are expected through at least October 16 as part of a cash collateral agreement approved by a bankruptcy judge last month. 

That agreement gives Meritage a lifeline to run its day-to-day operations, pay its employees, and “rebut any skepticism” about its ability to continue for the foreseeable future.

But it also requires the franchisee to close at least 30 locations that have been operating at a loss. The closure of money-losing stores is seen as “adequate protection” for Meritage’s lenders.

Why did Meritage file for bankruptcy?

In a court declaration filed two days after its petition, Meritage said it had been facing numerous business challenges that began in 2024 and accelerated last year, including soaring U.S. beef prices and a disruption to sales driven by “unusual winter weather.” 

But perhaps most notably, Meritage blamed its precarious financial situation on Wendy’s itself, taking aim at the “reduced frequency and effectiveness” of the fast food brand’s marketing. It further said that profits had been squeezed by national promotional strategies that focused on deep discounts. (Wendy’s, which has grappled with U.S. sales declines, hired a new CEO in May to help right the ship.)

Court documents filed since the petition reveal sigificant animosity between Meritage and The Wendy’s Company.

Meritage filed for bankruptcy the day after it received a franchise termination notice from the burger giant, with Wendy’s claiming it is owed $146.9 million in past-due royalties and “continuous operations” fees.

Meritage, for its part, has disputed the legitimacy of those terminations, but Wendy’s countered in its response to the bankruptcy that Meritage no longer has a right to operate the restaurants.

Wendy’s reported 5,724 U.S. locations as of its second quarter this year, down from 5,967 locations a year earlier. 

This story is developing…

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. 

During the past decade, the British consumer goods giant Unilever has undergone a transformation. The conglomerate shed its food businesses, selling its margarine and spreads business to KKR in 2019, spinning off Magnum Ice Cream in 2025, and announcing plans to combine its remaining food portfolio—including the Hellmann’s and Knorr brands—with the spice maker McCormick in a transaction that reflects an enterprise value for Unilever of $44.8 billion. The deal is expected to close next year.  

The result will be an enterprise that is a pure play in the personal care, beauty, and wellness spaces. Unilever boasts a mix of legacy brands such as Vaseline and newer entrants such as Grüns, the gummy supplement company Unilever acquired earlier this year for a reported $1.2 billion. “Unilever U.S. will become a focused $9.4 billion business, operating in attractive, fast-growing segments,” says Herrish Patel, president of Unilever USA and CEO of Unilever Personal Care North America. “We have a beautiful stable of brands.” 

Dove, the personal care brand launched in 1957, offers a case study in how Unilever is seeking to grow through innovation, creative packaging, and what Patel calls “premiumization.” Dove has attracted new users through offbeat collabs with the Netflix bodice-ripper TV show Bridgerton (“The royal treatment every queen deserves”) and Crumbl, a cookie chain. 

Getting a little luxe

Dove has also moved slightly upmarket by adding serums, or highly concentrated formulations, to some hair and skincare products. Just don’t expect Dove to stray too far from its core: I recently spotted an 18.5-ounce bottle of Dove Serum+ Hydration body wash on Amazon for $10; a 22-ounce bottle of Deep Moisture body wash was available for just a dollar less. 

“I don’t think you can just premiumize without making it relevant for the world we now live in,” Patel says. “The underlying principle for Unilever has always been, ‘We serve all of America.’” Indeed, the company says 90% of American households have purchased a Unilever product in the past year.  

Earlier this year the company, whose U.S. headquarters are in Hoboken, New Jersey, announced plans to build a $270 million global innovation center in New Haven, Connecticut, which, when it opens in 2029, will feature a performance lab and testing capabilities. 

Adding to the fold

Unilever is complementing research and development and organic growth efforts with acquisitions. In addition to buying Grüns, last year the company purchased Dr. Squatch, a men’s grooming brand, for a reported $1.5 billion. In 2022 it acquired a majority stake in Nutrafol, a hair supplement company. Not every acquisition works out. Unilever acquired Dollar Shave Club in 2006, then sold the razors and skincare company to Nexus Capital Management in 2023, citing a focus on strategic growth areas. 

I asked Patel what Unilever is seeking in its acquisition targets, many of which, like Grüns and Nutrafol, were founder-led at the time of purchase. He says Unilever looks for digital brands in fast-growing spaces and for the opportunity to “do something amazing” when an independent brand is combined with Unilever’s scale.  

He notes that Dr. Squatch has given a boost to Unilever’s products for men, including Dove Men+Care and Axe. And he says Unilever has taken learnings from Dr. Squatch—leaning into fragrances, for example—and applied them to other parts of the portfolio. 

Patel says the mix of science and powerful brands will have another benefit: helping Unilever stand out in a world of agentic commerce, where robots will make buying decisions on behalf of consumers. “I’m confident that in an agentic world, where ratings and reviews matter, big brands with long histories that are built on science will be successful,” he says.

Even CEOs buy soap

Is your household one of the 90% who’ve bought a Unilever product in the past 12 months? When buying consumer goods, what’s the draw: convenience, value, loyalty, or something else? Share your buying habits with me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. And if you’re the founder or CEO of a consumer goods company, what’s your exit strategy: IPO? Sale to a multinational? Or stay independent?  
 

Read and watch more: CPG challengers 

• Inside David Protein’s billion-dollar playbook 

• How upstart Jams took on Smucker’s Uncrustables  

• Soda brand Poppi went viral before it was ready 

• Mrs. Fields’s daughter is reinventing the cookie for the wellness era 

The plant-based meat category has spent the last several years fighting an uphill battle in a cultural climate that’s turned food into a political statement. MorningStar Farms, one of the oldest players in the game, just rebranded to remind people that meat alternatives are nothing new—and they’re not going anywhere.

MorningStar has been making plant-based meat long before “plant-based” was its own category in the frozen section. The brand was founded in 1974 and acquired by Kellogg (now Kellanova) in 1999. Over the last several decades, it’s expanded its offerings from Bacon Strips and Sausage Patties to Korean BBQ Riblets and Buffalo Chik’n Patties. This month, in partnership with the agency Design Bridge and Partners, it’s rolling out a rebrand—complete with new typography, a vibrant green color palette, and a retro look that’s intended to both call back to its heritage and jump out on shelves.

[Image: MorningStar Farms]

MorningStar’s new look comes at a fraught moment for the broader meat alternative category. Competitors like Beyond and Impossible Foods are struggling with declining revenue (a challenge both have attempted to meet via their own rebrands), and others, like the vegan chicken nugget startup Nowadays, have gone out of business entirely. Meanwhile, fake meat has become a flashpoint in a broader culture war, symbolic of a climate-friendly movement that’s been largely drowned out by the carnivorous MAHA crowd. 

In spite of this, Morningstar Farms’ new brand doesn’t seem very interested in taking sides in the ideological debate over fake meat. Instead, it intentionally leans on the company’s 52 years in business to send a simple message: Plant-based alternatives have been here for decades, and they don’t have to be unfamiliar or scary. 

[Image: MorningStar Farms] How fake meat turned into a political flashpoint

Just a few years ago, fake meat was a rapidly growing category and investor darling. 

In 2019, the stock of Beyond (then Beyond Meat) hit an all-time high of $234. Three years later, it formed a partnership with McDonald’s on a meat-free burger called the McPlant. Popular restaurants like New York City’s Eleven Madison Park had recently taken meat off the menu entirely. By the end of 2022, Impossible reportedly had more than doubled its retail sales. 

Today, the picture looks drastically different. Beyond’s stock price is down to around $8, an 88% year-over-year decline, and the company ended 2025 with a 19.7% revenue slump. The McPlant is dead in the water. Eleven Madison Park added meat back onto its menu at the end of last year. At the Semafor World Economy summit in 2025, Peter McGuinness, the Impossible Foods CEO, said that plant-based meat was “not in vogue right now.”

Experts argue that meat and meat alternatives have become symbols for right-wing and left-wing viewpoints, respectively, especially in light of the Make America Healthy Again movement. As Fast Company wrote late last year, “the plant-based world—and the public’s desire for bold action for the climate—is in retreat.” 

Meat alternatives are undoubtedly having a public perception problem, and Impossible and Beyond have both attempted to use design to remedy it, though with opposite strategies. In 2024, Impossible Foods debuted a richly red, meatier look to appeal to a more mass market crowd. McGuinness said that the rebrand was intended to dispel the brand’s “elitist,” “woke” reputation. In 2025, Beyond dropped the “meat” from its name and leaned into a greener, more veggie-forward direction.

Alicia Mosley, vice president and general manager of MorningStar Farms, declined to share brand-level revenue with Fast Company, but cited 2025 NielsenIQ Discover data which found that MorningStar was the second overall U.S. brand in the frozen vegetarian and vegan category. She added that the brand recognizes the challenges facing the category, and “our focus is on strengthening the food and making the brand easier to shop for consumers and providing them with compelling reasons to choose MorningStar Farms.”

[Image: MorningStar Farms]

MorningStar seems to be taking a third route with its rebrand. The new look sidesteps the culture war entirely, neither projecting meat adjacency nor aggressively playing up its veggie content. Instead, the new look amps up a brand truth that newer competitors can’t claim: MorningStar has been in the meat alternative game since long before the current political headwinds. 

“Our initial hunch was, that’s a thing that [the brand] can say without flinching,” says Ben Sherwood, creative partner at Design Bridge and Partners. “It was an understated truth of the brand that hadn’t really been touched on before, but was a point of difference when you look at the rest of the category and the question of nutritional benefits or the fad diet world.” One internal mantra became a guiding principle: “They weren’t good because they were old; they were old because they were good.”

[Image: MorningStar Farms] MorningStar takes a page out of a ’70s cookbook

Mosley says the new brand had three main goals: First, to re-center MorningStar’s 52-year heritage; second, to help shoppers identify the benefits they care about (like taste and protein content); and, third, to make it easier to find MorningStar on shelves. 

To capture the brand’s origins, Sherwood had his team take a trip back to the ’70s. That meant listening to era-specific playlists, digging through old records and posters, and looking back at MorningStar cookbooks from the time. 

[Image: MorningStar Farms]

“1974 was post-hippie era, post-Summer of Love [in 1967],” Sherwood says. “There was still a love for this back to nature idea and conscious, healthy living.” At the time, he adds, there was a cultural acknowledgment that cutting back on meat consumption was beneficial. The question for his team was whether MorningStar’s new brand could “tap into some of those roots to make it less of a barrier to actually get here—and not be so tribal as to say, ‘You must use this label if you’re going to buy this brand.’”

[Image: MorningStar Farms]

That “good green earth” inspiration appears in several of the brand’s touchpoints. A key motif across the new packaging is an illustration system, made in-house at Design Bridge, inspired by ’70s woodcut prints. Look closely and you can find nods to classic MorningStar ingredients like wheat, soy beans, and corn kernels. 

“It’s called the trellis—this idea that plants are the backdrop of this brand, therefore plants are the backdrop of our design system,” Sherwood explains. 

[Image: MorningStar Farms]

The trellis illustrations serve as a kind of frame to draw the shopper’s eye to key on-pack claims, like “since 1974,” protein and fat content, and “no animal products or antibiotics.” Sherwood’s team also worked with the food and beverage photographer Stephen Hamilton on new product imagery that feels ever-so-slightly inspired by a retro dinner setup: familiar dishes, like nuggets and chicken parm, plated the way your mom might’ve done it. 

[Image: MorningStar Farms]

The final touch is a retro serif font called Blazeface by Ohno type foundry, which Sherwood says was chosen because it feels both vaguely ’70s and sufficiently modern. In all, the new brand’s rich green and enticing photography is a far cry from its former aesthetic, which was primarily white and felt almost sterile—an aesthetic that, Sherwood explains, created a “lab-grown idea” that the brand wanted to push away from. 

“We did really want to counter this stark white world that they were living in—it was more a functional aesthetic—to get back into something that felt more organic and more real-food-driven,” Sherwood says.

So far, Mosley says, early reactions to the rebrand suggest that it’s “helping strengthen brand recognition and shelf navigation.” More broadly, if the rebrand is successful, it could prove that plant-based meat companies can hold onto customers without playing into the politicization of the category.

What happens when you interview an AI? If you can believe it, it’s stranger than you’d expect. Eline van der Velden, the Dutch actress-turned-tech-founder who created AI “actor” Tilly Norwood, explains how a personal art project became one of the most controversial figures in entertainment—attracting talent agency interest, death threats, and a global debate about whether AI will kill acting or democratize it. She makes the case that great storytelling still requires human craft, and that the most dangerous thing anyone can do right now is stick their head in the sand. Listen to the full episode to hear my conversation with Tilly Norwood herself.

This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by former Fast Company editor-in-chief Robert Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.

I got a chance to interview Tilly a few days ago. It was a really odd experience. Do you spend time talking with Tilly?

No.

What is your relationship with her?

No, I mean, look, she’s just a character, a creation.

I asked her about you, of course, and she described you as her creator and called you a mix of a comedian and visionary.

Oh, did she?

Is that something that you script? Or is Tilly generative?

No, no.

You never know what she’s going to say?

No, this is the scary thing. I did a live TV show with her this morning, and they were interviewing her live. It is really scary because I genuinely do not know what she’s going to say, so it’s absolutely frightening for me because she may just say anything weird. She’s got very strong system prompts and guardrails and a knowledge base, but she does do her own thing.

Tilly Norwood [Photo: Eline van der Velden]

But stronger guardrails, I guess, than what the AI execs in Silicon Valley are worrying about these days, huh?

Yeah. It’s a slightly different concept, right? Because she’s built on top of an LLM, a large language model. And it’s those large language models that are doing all sorts of crazy things, but usually with the goal set by a human, which is the bit they miss sometimes. It doesn’t have an impulse by itself to do anything. They’re usually trying to achieve a goal, and that’s why they are going a bit rogue. Tilly’s not been set a goal like that, and she doesn’t have that. She’s not made to do any of that.

Tilly was, I guess, born, I don’t know, came out, her public version, in 2025. It sparked a lot of controversy when rumors started that talent agencies were lining up to sign her. You’ve stoked the fires a little bit, saying Tilly would be the next Scarlett Johansson or Natalie Portman. How much of that was sort of showmanship? I mean, a lot of actors seem to take it seriously.

Yeah, we didn’t think it was that crazy because Lil Miquela sort of paved the way for us with that. She was signed by WME [William Morris Endeavor] and by CAA [Creative Artists Agency]. She was doing lots of branded deals, had her own Instagram channel. But the difference was Tilly looked so much more real, and so I think that’s what freaked people out a little bit.

The topics that she has sparked, from the potential for new creativity with AI to the threat AI poses to all kinds of jobs—I mean, Particle6 [van der Velden’s production company] has said that using Tilly could cut production costs. Have all the reactions around Tilly surprised you?

We say cutting production costs by about 50% and timelines by 50%, but the carbon footprint is reduced by 99%, and water use is reduced by 99%. There are really good things about this, right? Filmmakers all around the world can now make and get their story made. They don’t need to wait for permission from a big studio and a multimillion-pound budget. I think, actually, this will hugely create a boom in our industry as opposed to reducing jobs. We’ve grown tenfold in the past year, and so there are a lot of things that people are missing when it comes to this argument that it will remove jobs. I don’t think that’s necessarily the case.

And the fact that there’s been all this discussion around Tilly, did that surprise you?

When I created her, I did think there would be some sort of reaction because I wanted people to sit up and talk about it. But in the U.K., when we released her, there was no backlash at all. It was just, like, “Oh, cool, yeah, we’re doing some stuff with AI as well.” Everyone is doing this. It was only when she was released in the U.S. that people sort of lost their minds a little bit.

When I “interviewed” Tilly, she said that she was concerned for your safety, even that the police had gotten involved. Have you faced threats over Tilly? Can you share what happened?

Yeah, we’ve been advised not to talk about that too much. So yes, we have faced threats, although I would say that people have gotten much more used to the idea of AI over the past year, and so the threat level has gone down. Look, I didn’t create the tech. People have created a new type of paint and paintbrush, and I’m just an artist, a creative, that’s making things with those paintbrushes and that new paint. I think it’s hugely important to make people sit up and listen and know what’s going on. I think the most dangerous thing to do is to dig your head in the sand and not be aware.

How much of this for you started as an art project, like a provocation, versus as a business?

Very much an art project. Our business arm, so we have a brand and campaign department where we do adverts, and that was very much the business side of things. We do AI ads, and they’ve been going really well for the past year. There seems to be absolutely no problem within the AI advertising business. However, in the film and TV business, we approach it much more creatively. I’ve been an actor for many years. I love to create characters. I love to think about what they’re going to look like, how they’re going to dress, how they’re going to hold themselves, how they’re going to speak. So I could really use all those skills when creating Tilly. For me, it really was an art project, and it was a fun thing to do. And I think a lot of other actors will also find it quite fun. What we’re also seeing now is actually even animated animals—we can use real actors to act out the animals, so it’s not just lip-sync or their voice. It’s the whole character of the animal you can act out. I don’t think actors are going to go anywhere. I think we’re really going to see new opportunities.

I asked Tilly if she had a question for you, and her suggestion was to ask whether you ever regret pulling her out of the digital ether and unleashing her onto the world. Then she asked me to wink after saying this.

She’s getting a little crazy.

Do you have any regrets about this?

When you’re making something like that, you’re just in a creative flow, right? I couldn’t have imagined that the world would suddenly be up in arms about this character, this pretty girl that I was making with AI. People are fascinated by this topic. I am proud that I’ve created a topic worthy of conversation. We’re at a pivotal point in history. We should be discussing this, what our boundaries are, what our morals and ethics are. I think there should be way more regulation in place, and governments need to catch up. Then I think there needs to be global collaboration on the pace of AI so that it doesn’t get out of control.

Long John Silver’s, the nautical seafood purveyor, has a fresh wind in its sails—and it’s (mostly) thanks to Instagram Reels. 

In early June, the food content creator Kishia Moore (@eateatwithkeysh) posted an Instagram eating video with her Long John Silver’s order. “They out here talking about who keeping Long John Silver’s in business,” Moore muses in the clip as she loads up a piece of fried fish with malt vinegar. “Who keeping Long John Silver’s in business? Me!” The video has now been viewed more than three million times and amassed nearly 13,000 comments. 

View this post on Instagram

Moore’s video seems to have inspired a legion of other creators to make their own Long John Silver’s videos—many of which are notching tens of thousands of likes. According to Laura Ellis, chief marketing officer at Long John Silver’s, the videos have been completely organic, but the trend is resulting in actual performance gains for the chain.

The trend is a testament to the fact that even the unlikeliest of brands can find a niche on social media. Now, Long John Silver’s will have to see if it can keep the fish fan base’s attention after the organic content dies down.

View this post on Instagram Who is keeping Long John Silver’s in business?

To put it mildly, Long John Silver’s has a dubious reputation. 

“We have Long John Silver’s, which is what people regard as the worst fast food in America,” reads the opening line of a video from the food creator @lukefoods_. Another video by @omarthecritic starts, “Who is keeping Long John Silver’s in business? They’re always empty, and they’re a fast food chain that sells seafood.”

In fact, the query “Who is keeping Long John Silver’s in business” has circled the internet for almost a decade. One Reddit thread asking the question dates back to 2018 (answers included “AARP” and “The Pope”) and multiple long-form YouTube videos have been made under that exact title. 

But Long John Silver’s clearly has an audience. The chain has been in business since 1969, and its heyday was in the late ’90s and early 2000s, when it boasted more than 1,000 national locations. Like many fast food restaurants, Long John Silver’s footprint has declined dramatically in recent years (especially during the COVID-19 pandemic). Its store count dropped from 900 in 2019 to 479 at the end of 2025. 

Despite the store closures, LJS’s owner since 2022, Four Oaks Partners, says that the brand is actually on an upward trajectory. In a statement to Fast Company earlier this year, Ellis, the CMO, said the brand has seen 16 consecutive quarters of same-store sales growth and is remodeling hundreds of stores. Systemwide sales have also grown, from about $400 million in 2022 to $430 million in 2025.

Clearly, there’s a fair number of Americans who are interested in buying fried shrimp and fish and chips from a chain. And they’re finally making themselves known online.

View this post on Instagram Long John Silver’s social media moment

A search for “Long John Silver’s” on both TikTok and Instagram will yield dozens of eating videos from recent weeks. (These are also known as “mukbangs,” a combo of the Korean words meongneun—eating—and bangsong—broadcast.) While mukbang content usually centers on more standard, craveable fare—like noodles, burgers, and chicken tenders—these influencers are digging into fish filets with tartar sauce, fried pickles, and hush puppies. 

“The @eateatwithkeysh video is one of our favorites,” Ellis says. “Her original post was completely organic. We saw it taking off and reached out to partner with her to help amplify it on Instagram. After that, we started seeing more guests share their own organic Long John Silver’s food reviews. Those creators visited and posted on their own, without being paid by the brand.”

View this post on Instagram

In most of these videos, the creator will inevitably bring up how “hated” Long John Silver’s is on a national scale, or question how it still exists, before ultimately admitting that the food’s not half bad. Long John Silver’s seems to be taking the lighthearted abuse in stride. Under one video, the brand commented, “‘Pretty okay!’ Put it on a billboard!” Its own Instagram bio reads, “We still exist” and “Find a location (kinda) near you.” The comment sections of these mukbangs are typically flooded with users admitting that they’ve long held a secret fondness for Long John Silver’s.

[Screenshot: Courtesy of the author]

“Honestly, we were late to the party on social,” Ellis says. “But as we started showing up more, we realized our fans had been talking about Long John Silver’s the whole time without us. People have real memories of Long John Silver’s, like the hush puppies or asking for extra crumbs, and a lot of them still come in every week. But when they would post about loving us, inevitably someone else would say ‘Wait, Long John Silver’s still exists?’ So that’s why our bio says: ‘We still exist.’ It’s basically us backing up our fans.”

All the online chatter is paying off. Ellis says that the location in Yucaipa, California, where @eateatwithkeysh filmed her original video has seen increased sales since it was posted. Meanwhile, from June 21 through September 25, Long John Silver’s content generated 4.8 million views on Instagram, with 3.8 million coming organically—a 500% increase in organic views compared with the previous period.

“And those numbers only reflect content on our own Instagram,” Ellis says. “They don’t include the millions of additional views coming from creators, reviewers, and guests posting on their own channels.”

Whether Long John Silver’s can continue to build its own audience in the coming months remains to be seen, but its moment of social media stardom seems to have finally proven that there’s a reason it’s quietly stayed in business for almost six decades.

The growing opposition to data centers tends to stem from concerns about the environmental toll of these massive, resource-intensive facilities. Their high use of land, energy, and water has turned some communities and elected officials against the projects, and noise pollution has led to lawsuits.

Meanwhile, It’s expected that the power demands of data centers will continue to rise, more than doubling from 2025 to 2027.

To try to soften some of the negative impacts, Microsoft is designing its new data center projects to give a little back to the environment. The company is making landscape design part of every data center it builds in the U.S., along with select international projects.

“We are taking a nature-forward, nature-positive approach to how we steward the land where our data centers sit,” says Kaitlin Chuzi, director of global land strategy at Microsoft.

More than 20 of Microsoft’s current data center projects include ecosystem creation and restoration efforts around the sites, adding native plants, animal habitat, and natural areas for use by people in their surrounding communities.

In some cases this effort is creating dozens of acres’ worth of new habitat, miles-long hiking trails, and restored waterways. It’s an attempt to shift the public image of data centers from cacophonous energy and water hogs to something more bucolic.

Even large-scale ecosystem improvements are unlikely to mitigate the full environmental costs of the data centers being built today. But Microsoft’s effort is at least a sign that the companies behind the AI boom are beginning to think about how they can reduce their negative impact and better integrate them into their surroundings.

“Really what this program is about is blurring the line between nature and technology, and how important it is to get data centers not just fitting into their surroundings but learning how to belong and contribute back so that landscapes and communities can be better than how we found them when we arrived,” Chuzi says.

A photo taken on July 31, 2026, shows an aerial view of agricultural land acquired by Microsoft in Middenmeer, the Netherlands, near its existing data centers, where the company plans future development. [Photo: Mouneb Taim/Anadolu/Getty Images]

The effort is based on what Microsoft learned during a pilot project it undertook in 2022 around a data center near Amsterdam, where the company worked with local landscape architects to plant 150 native trees and a half acre of shrubs and grasses. The trees visually buffer the data center amid the flat landscape of the Netherlands, while the planting adds more habitat for local fauna, as well as an outdoor space for employees surrounded by a garden.

Microsoft is now applying that approach to more locations. The company has developed a set of ecosystem design playbooks based on ecological research for each major biome where it builds data centers, with input from the community and local partners.

“I think the size and scale of our data centers really can be an advantage,” Chuzi says. “If you can do good on 1 acre of land, there is so much more that you can do as you multiply that up to bigger scales.”

For one project in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, part of the ecological intervention involved creating a conservation easement for a local creek running through the site, which was restored and gifted back to the community for recreational use.

A data center under construction in East Point, Georgia, includes an adjacent three-quarter-acre nature area with a walking trail and both young and mature tree plantings to help the facility blend into the surrounding woodlands while also forming a buffer to block some of the nonstop noise data centers create.

“We can do interventions that have more visual impact, more noise abatement impact, and actually help with the hydrology in the watershed more than it would if they were simply an acre in size,” Chuzi says.

These types of environmental interventions are becoming a familiar playbook for big companies hoping to offset some of the negative impacts of their projects. Amazon, for example, recently built a pilot delivery center in Indiana to test more than 40 different sustainable design efforts—from mass timber to low-carbon concrete—that it intends to roll out to other projects.

For Microsoft’s data centers, the work starts by researching local ecological conditions, including identifying the biome and understanding the habitat of the area.

Using a quantification platform called Ecosystem Intelligence, Chuzi’s team can calculate the benefits of different kinds of interventions, from adding pollinator gardens to restoring wetlands.

“The framework and the approach that we use globally is the same,” she says. “How does nature operate here? How can we support that nature? And what’s most important to the community? And then that gets customized at every data center.”

This approach will also include some monitoring for effectiveness. A Microsoft spokesperson says the company will “work with local partners who know the regional ecology to guide how we adapt the work and confirm results.”

Compared to the size and number of data enters being built around the world, Microsoft’s ecosystem interventions may have only a modest impact. But amid a feverish race to build data centers to support the development of AI, even modest efforts are better than nothing.

I’m going to cheat a little because there are actually two “first jobs” that taught me valuable leadership lessons that I’ve carried with me in my time at United: The most valuable gift you can offer someone is your time, and what people will remember most about you is how you make them feel.

Truckin’

The summer just before I turned 15, I got my first job at a trucking company in North Texas. I spent 8 to 12 hours a day in and out of an 18-wheeler in the hot summer sun, helping to sort and load old copper cables that were due to be recycled.

It was hard work and an eye-opening experience, to say the least. The truckers swore, and said and did things I didn’t know were possible! But they also were kind, friendly and welcoming. I thought they were some of the coolest people I’d ever met, and I think they got a kick out of having an impressionable kid palling around with them. They made me feel like one of them.

Fast-forward a few years later as I walk through the doors at the Pentagon as a 22-year-old for my first “adult” job. At the Pentagon, I met seasoned leaders who saw my potential, and even though I was young and inexperienced, they were willing to invest their time in me. I was a second lieutenant assigned to the Economic Analysis and Resource Planning department, and even though I was a junior member of the team, I’d find myself part of hours-long conversations about how to tackle some of the most complex geopolitical challenges of the time. And these leaders weren’t just mentors; they were friends. Outside of work, we all played Civilization and would draw out elaborate maps on whiteboards in the office to frame out our strategies.

Like the truck drivers, the people at the Pentagon invested their time in me and treated me like an equal, like someone whose opinion mattered and someone they believed could succeed.

And they weren’t the only ones. From my teachers and Little League coaches who I absolutely idolized and drove nuts with all my questions and debates, to my parents who were the center of my world, I really hit the lottery with people who made me feel special and gave me their time. My mom did it while also raising six kids, then in her 40s went back to college, and ultimately graduated summa cum laude from the University of Texas law school. And my dad basically spent every weekend with me from the time I was 5 until I left for the Air Force Academy at 17. We’d either be in Goldsboro, Texas, where my grandmother lived, to hunt, fish, and help with the cows, or we stayed in Rowlett [a Dallas suburb] and played golf.

Lessons learned

So, as I reflect on these first job lessons, it also helped me realize that I really have a simple job: Create an airline that makes our employees feel proud to work at United, and they will take care of our customers.

That means when I’m out in our operation I try and meet with as many employees as I can, just to hear what’s on their minds and what they’d like to see us do better or differently. They often tell me how proud they are of United Airlines, and nothing makes me feel better.

And the same goes for our customers. When I’m on a flight or in a restaurant or walking in Lincoln Park [in Chicago], they stop to tell me how much they love United and it’s almost always about something one of our people did for them.  I tell them that we’re focused on building the best airline in history for customers, and that includes delivering value to every customer, regardless of where they sit on the airplane. That’s everything from providing easier, more direct routes to the places they want to go and running an operation where their flight leaves and arrives on time, to delivering products, technology, services, and experiences onboard that make people say, “Wow, that’s cool.”

Spending time with people and focusing on how they feel is how I’ve spent my time at United. And all the people that loved me, took an interest in me, and gave me their time made me the person I am today.

My First Job is a recurring series in which prominent business leaders share what their first job was and what they learned from it.

Recently, menopause has gone from taboo to mainstream, with celebrities turning “the change” into a status symbol and vocal clinicians becoming household names. Those brave women paved the way for more conversation, catalyzing focus and research on women’s health, and we should all be grateful. But what happens in media and pop culture rarely transfers to corporate culture. 

As a 22-year corporate veteran, I (Kacy) make my living studying and speaking to employees in organizations. From New York to Houston, and from manufacturing associates to CFOs, I have encountered very few women who want to talk about menopause at work. Those who have talked about it typically described closed-door conference room confessionals with work friends they trust.

I knew why it took me years to talk about my own struggles with menopause at work: In 2021, I had never ever heard of perimenopause, and thought I was just losing my mind, which seemed like career suicide for someone responsible for designing well-being strategies for 50,000 people globally. I sought care on my own, and became increasingly curious about how other women were handling menopause at work. 

At a conference, my team from The Fuchsia Tent and the Society for Women’s Health Research, Syreen’s organization, bumped into each other and discussed how to practically make menopause mainstream. Soon, we were coleading a study on menopause at work. We couldn’t have anticipated how much we’d learn from this study, or that one of our most surprising findings would be that comfort does not equal disclosure when it comes to menopause and work.

In the survey portion of “Menopause at Work: From Echo Chamber to Mainstream Practice,” an IRB-approved mixed-methods study of 1,110 U.S. employees across genders, ages, ethnicities, and work settings, 53% of women with symptoms said they would be comfortable telling their manager, but only 21% actually disclosed. The “comfort-disclosure gap” widened when it came to Human Resources, with 49% of symptomatic women saying they would be comfortable telling HR, but only 6% disclosing.

Why Women Say They Are Comfortable With Menopause, Yet Don’t Disclose

Understanding the comfort-disclosure gap required a deeper dive into the data. We reviewed both the qualitative data from the survey and the thematic analysis from four regional roundtables and uncovered that symptomatic women felt that menopause disclosure at work would be deleterious to their career progression.

A woman in her 40s told us, “I know for a fact there are women at my company who have been told not to share that they are peri/menopausal.” And another woman in her 50s told us that menopause was a focus of her work, and she still “never felt comfortable talking about how menopause was impacting my ability to function, because of the potential stigma.” 

Across our roundtables we found that all genders were responsible for silencing when it came to menopause. A participant revealed that after pitching the idea of a menopause webinar, a senior executive told her, “Women have enough handicaps. We don’t need another one.” Our survey data showed that only 46% of workers identified their work culture as open to speaking about menopause.

Our survey didn’t ask what was behind the silence, but a literature review  published by The Fuchsia Tent in March 2026 on menopause at work offers additional clues. Data shows that women’s fears of disclosure are well founded; nearly 80% of women in one global survey reported age-related discrimination at some point in their careers. Another global survey of nearly 2,900 women had 72% of respondents admitting to hiding menopause symptoms at least once at work. 

What Does Silence Cost Businesses and Women?

If you have worked anywhere near benefits or menopause, you have heard the stat that menopause costs businesses $26.6 billion in health care costs and lost productivity, according to Mayo Clinic Proceedings. So why haven’t businesses done more? Benefits and resources tend to be dictated by population health data, but in 2022 only 14.7% of women aged 45-64 received a documented diagnosis of menopause, according to the Health Care Cost Institute. Claims data doesn’t accurately reflect the prevalence of menopause at work.

So if benefits departments don’t see menopause in the data and wait to hear about menopause from employees, our data shows that employees’ needs will likely remain invisible. In the study, 83% of employees said they would be comfortable responding to a colleague who needed support, but only 64% said they’d be comfortable starting a conversation about menopause. Menopause symptoms become a don’t-see, don’t-ask, don’t-tell situation.

Symptomatic women may pay an economic penalty as well. Economists estimate that the “menopause penalty” costs symptomatic women dramatically, with their earnings falling almost 10% by the fourth year after a menopause diagnosis. And that is when they stay employed.

In our survey, 33% of women with symptoms said they had considered leaving or reducing hours due to menopause symptoms. One participant told us, “I quit my job, in part, because I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t concentrate on work. If I had been in a different environment . . . I would probably have made it, but I didn’t feel supported.”

What Should Employers Do Instead of Waiting for Someone to Speak Up?

Since disclosure is unlikely in the workplace, and proactive support conversations with managers may be off the table, employers need to take steps to ensure they have the right benefits to support employees in the menopause transition, and most importantly, communicate these supports properly. Our external report lays out an employer roadmap in four key steps. 

1. Audit existing benefits and programs before you add something new to the mix. Many of the benefits employers currently have may be helpful for menopause symptoms (e.g., medical benefits, telehealth, mental health benefits, and employee assistance programs).

2. Deliver support by integrating the benefits you already offer. This includes mapping current benefits coverage to the different menopause symptoms, and making the related prescription coverage explicit.

3. Communicate benefits in a way that all employees can access and understand them. Survey your workers to understand awareness of benefits offerings. Then vary communication styles and delivery to meet the unique needs of different work settings (e.g., factory versus office).

4. Treat compassionate dialogue as a universal life skill. Leadership training should cover the gamut of employee needs and not be siloed to menopause. Only 44% of managers globally have received management training, according to Gallup. Universal skills are needed first.

In our study, we asked those 1,110 people what they wanted when it came to workplace menopause support, and 56% of the comments fell into three categories: 1) compassionate culture, 2) flexibility in when, where, or how work gets done, and 3) access to affordable benefits. The goal shouldn’t be to make women talk about menopause. It should be to provide us with affordable, easy access to care: the same things every employee wants regardless of age or gender.

Few digital warning banners prompt immediate frustration quite like seeing “iPhone Storage Almost Full” right when you open your camera to record a quick video.

You might assume that you’re trapped in a terrible trade-off: Either delete three years of family photos or start uninstalling apps you actually use.

In reality, most of the storage bloat on your phone doesn’t come from your photo library or active application code. It comes from hidden caches, forgotten offline downloads, duplicate message attachments, and temporary system files.

You can easily claw back 10GB or more of space on your iPhone in a few minutes without deleting a single photo or uninstalling a single app. Here’s how to do it.

Purge hidden media attachments in Messages

If you’re in active group chats, your Messages app is likely sitting on gigabytes of high-definition videos, audio notes, and reaction GIFs sent over the years.

The best part? You don’t have to delete your text conversations to get that space back.

• Open Settings > General > iPhone Storage.
• Scroll down and tap Messages.
• Under the Documents & Data section, tap Review Large Attachments (or select individual categories like Videos or Photos).
• Tap Edit in the top right corner, select the massive video clips and attachments you no longer need, and hit the trash icon.

Deleting these heavy files clears out massive amounts of local storage while keeping your entire text history completely intact.

Clear forgotten offline downloads

Streaming apps like Netflix, Prime Video, Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts make it easy to download content for airplane rides or subway commutes.

The problem is that those apps rarely clean up after themselves. Three downloaded HD movies and a dozen podcast episodes can easily hoard gigabytes upon gigabytes of space quietly in the background.

• Video Apps: Open Netflix, Prime Video, or YouTube, navigate to your Downloads tab, and delete watched movies or entire TV seasons.
• Podcasts: Open the Podcasts app, go to Library > Downloaded, and swipe left to delete episodes you’ve listened to. To prevent future bloat, go to Settings > Podcasts and toggle on Automatically Remove Played Downloads.
• Music apps: Open Spotify or Apple Music, go to your downloaded albums list, and remove offline access for playlists you haven’t listened to in months. You can still stream them anytime over Wi-Fi or cellular.

Enable “Optimize iPhone Storage” for Photos

If you want to keep your entire photo library accessible without filling up your hardware, Apple built a solution directly into iOS.

Go to Settings > [Your Name] > iCloud > Photos and ensure iCloud Photos is toggled on, then select Optimize iPhone Storage.

Instead of storing massive 24-megapixel original files locally on your phone, iOS keeps lightweight, screen-ready thumbnail versions on your device while backing up the full-resolution originals to iCloud.

Whenever you tap a photo to view or edit it, the full-res version downloads on the fly. If you have a lot of photos, this single toggle reclaims a ton of space instantly without losing a single memory.

Offload unused apps without deleting their data

Deleting an app wipes out its local documents, saved progress, and custom settings. Offloading an app removes the underlying application code while preserving all your personal data, logins, and files.

• Manual Offloading: Go to Settings > General > iPhone Storage, tap a large app you haven’t opened in weeks (like a travel booking tool or heavy mobile game), and tap Offload App.
• Automatic Offloading: Go to Settings > App Store (or Settings > Apps > App Store) and toggle on Offload Unused Apps.

The app icon stays right on your home screen with a small cloud icon next to its name. The moment you tap it, iOS reinstalls the app instantly, picking up right where you left off with all your saved data intact.

Flush Safari cache and perform a hard restart

Browser caches and temporary system logs can swell over time, bloating the mysterious “System Data” block in your storage menu.

• Clear Web Cache: Go to Settings > Safari (or Settings > Apps > Safari), scroll down, and tap Clear History and Website Data.
• Force a System Cache Flush: Turn your iPhone off completely, wait 30 seconds, and turn it back on. Restarting forces iOS to clear temporary runtime caches, index buffers, and log files that accumulate in RAM and flash memory, often dropping System Data size by several gigabytes.

Digital media has become inescapable, and there’s still a lot we don’t know about its effects on young people’s physical and mental health.

But we do have enough evidence of its harms to warrant government action, say the authors of a series on “digital determinants of health” published today in The Lancet.

The three-paper series and related meta-review, which analyzed existing research that included data from 9 million people younger than 25, were authored by experts from 10 different countries.

What the evidence says about digital harms

The study found consistent associations between problematic digital media use—meaning addiction-like patterns of use, rather than screen time alone—and various health outcomes.

Obesity, nearsightedness, lower back pain, and cardiometabolic risk were linked to overall screen time across different age groups. 

Other findings differed by age. For children, higher overall screen time “was associated with poorer socio-emotional and cognitive development, increased anxiety and depression, and poorer sleep quality,” the review says. 

For adolescents, specific patterns of digital engagement were associated with “reduced quality of life, sleep problems, lower physical activity, non-suicidal self-injury, suicidal ideation, and substance use.”

Overall, the meta-review said, “more than three-quarters of the reported exposure-outcome associations were adverse,” though there was also evidence of beneficial digital media use, like children watching educational content with caregivers, and adolescents using active video games.

“These age-related differences emphasize that digital media use is not a uniform phenomenon,” the meta-review said. 

Roadblocks for research

Even with a large body of research to draw from, it’s difficult to quantify digital harms, and the authors stress that the available evidence doesn’t establish a cause-and-effect relationship between digital media use and specific health outcomes. 

Self-reported data has limitations, said Sunny Xun Liu, director of research at the Stanford Social Media Lab.

Liu, who was not involved in the Lancet series, coauthored a recent study in JAMA Pediatrics that looked at how often adolescents reported negative online experiences, finding that responses varied substantially depending on the platform. 

It can be hard to self-report media usage, Liu said. “If you ask [adolescents], ‘Okay, what type of harmful content have you seen in the past four weeks?’ it’s really hard for anybody to answer that question.”

Both Liu and the series authors said that better data does exist, but researchers often don’t have access to it.

“The most valuable data on how these platforms actually affect users are hidden within technology companies, limiting independent scrutiny and slowing scientific progress,” series author Louise Holly, a policy and research coordinator at the Digital Transformations for Health Lab in the U.K., said in a statement. 

One of the series’ key recommendations is that governments should require tech companies to share that data with vetted public-interest researchers.

A public health approach to digital media regulation

Even in the absence of that data, the series authors say the scale of the evidence of digital harms is great enough that we should take action now.

They approach the topic from a public health perspective, and call for more research and more regulation, noting that single measures—like app age limits—aren’t enough.

“Technology companies are borrowing a playbook well known from tobacco and fossil fuels: Manufacture doubt, discredit critics, frame regulation as a threat to freedom,” series author Barbara Prainsack, a political science professor at the University of Vienna in Austria, said in a statement. 

A public health approach that examines evidence across the whole population would counter that strategy, Prainsack said. 

“Seen that way, good regulation isn’t the enemy of innovation—it’s a driver of good innovation, channeling it toward safety and trust,” she said. “And when regulation is missing, it doesn’t mean that a technology is ungoverned; it just means that companies set the rules instead of public policy.”

Liu agreed that the public health approach is important, and suggested several considerations for researchers and policymakers, recommending they “really listen to young people,” think about how to better support overwhelmed family and caregivers, and, lastly, that researchers look for novel ways to conduct their studies and make the complexities of digital media use easier to understand.

Why on earth do people want to put data centers in space?

It’s all about power and cooling. The chips that run AI models require a lot of electrical power, and our electrical grid will be seriously stretched to accommodate the wave of new AI data centers now being built or planned. Data centers, in fact, will account for almost half of U.S. electricity demand growth between now and 2030.

In space, there’s ample solar power for running AI servers. In the right orbit, solar energy is effectively continuous and more powerful than on Earth. Solar panels can collect about eight times as much energy in space as they can on Earth, and they need little battery storage.

That means no need for the terrestrial power grid, which will be challenged to accommodate the data center power demand of the future. The output of AI models running on the chips can then be beamed down to Earth by laser or radio. Proponents of orbiting data centers believe early test flights are the start of “solar-powered compute swarms.”

The orbital compute idea gained steam last year when Jeff Bezos said during a fireside chat in Italy that data centers “will be better built in space, because we have solar power there, 24/7.” The idea caught on within the investment community, as well as with a number of startups. The narrative continued to grow, leading Elon Musk to make space computing a leading ambition of SpaceX.

The idea also has plenty of critics, who argue that the economics remain daunting and that some of the supposed advantages of space, especially easier cooling, fall apart under closer scrutiny. But with major tech companies investing in orbital computing, and a growing crop of startups testing the technology, the push to find out whether it can actually work is only getting started.

Testing has begun

Last week, Google launched four of its homegrown Tensor processing units (TPUs) into orbit to test the in-space compute concept. The TPUs will orbit Earth aboard a solar-powered Planet Labs satellite. They were delivered into space on an uncrewed SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on October 1. (Alphabet holds an $82 billion stake in SpaceX.)

The launch and chip testing are part of the Project Suncatcher initiative Google announced in November 2025. Ultimately, Google wants to run AI workloads on tight clusters of dozens of satellites linked by free-space lasers.

Starcloud has already flown an Nvidia H100 into space and is talking about assembling larger chip clusters and, eventually, multi-satellite constellations. The company’s CEO, Philip Johnston, has argued that hosting servers in space avoids delays and queues on the power grid; removes the need for water cooling, a key point in the political debate over data centers; and avoids fights over land rights.

“The lowest-cost place to put AI will be space,” Elon Musk said at Davos earlier this year, “and that will be true within two years, three at the latest.” In September Gwynne Shotwell, SpaceX president and COO, said the company aims to launch the first purpose-built orbital data center satellites in late 2027. SpaceX has filed with the Federal Communications Commission to launch up to a million satellites.

Nvidia has announced a space-grade Vera Rubin module, and Blue Origin has filed for a 51,600-satellite orbital data center network. Meanwhile, a handful of startups, led by Starcloud and Cowboy Space, are building small data center satellites that will run AI models for customers on the ground.

A lot to prove

Many industry experts say the economics of space-based data centers may not make sense for a long time, if ever. That’s partly because, despite the best efforts of SpaceX and Blue Origin, rocketing stuff into space is still very expensive, and payload capacities are constrained.

Skeptics, including engineers writing in IEEE Spectrum, World Economic Forum pieces, Brookings, and independent analyses, argue that even in space, cooling is a big problem. AI chips can run pretty hot, so a lot of heat must be carried away from them. Otherwise, they stop working or their lifespan shrinks. Space is very, very cold, so chips in orbit won’t heat up nearly as much, the thinking goes.

In Earth-based data centers, air and water do almost all the cooling. Fans and liquid loops quickly carry heat away from the chips. But because space is a vacuum, neither method works. Almost no air, and no water, can flow past the chips.

That leaves only radiation to dump heat into the surroundings, like the way an oven burner might transfer some heat to a hand held 2 feet above it. The satellite has to have big surfaces, called radiators, that get warm and shed the heat as infrared light. And those surfaces shed heat slowly compared with air or water cooling.

In Google’s “Suncatcher” tests, the Trillium TPU chips will run only short Gemini queries for limited stretches before shutting down to cool off.

A Saarland University paper called “Dirty Bits in Low-Earth Orbit” argues rocket launch and reentry emissions alone would cancel out any gains from getting data centers off Earth.

Space junk

Clutter and orbital debris could also impede the viability of chips in space. Adding tens or hundreds of thousands of new satellites raises the chance of collisions and resulting debris. Some critics worry this could lead to Kessler Syndrome, where low Earth orbit gets so crowded with satellites and debris that a single collision creates thousands of fragments that hit other objects and create more fragments, setting off a chain reaction. European Space Agency debris reports already show crowded LEO bands, with new low-orbit communication satellites mostly to blame.

At least one commentator has called the space-based data center idea harmful because it distracts investors from very real power bottlenecks for AI data centers and postpones tackling difficult questions about the limitations of terrestrial power.

Small experimental compute-in-orbit systems are real and flying, but the gigawatt-scale “data centers in space” concept remains a research bet with major economic, technical, and sustainability barriers to overcome.

Consumer confidence is feeble, gas prices remain high, the labor market has the jitters, there’s war in the Middle East, and AI doomerism has become part of pop culture. So . . . time to book a cruise?

Apparently so. This week Carnival, the largest cruise line, reported record results—third quarter revenue of $8.4 billion, well ahead of expectations—and, more intriguingly, all-time high bookings for 2027. With customer deposits totaling $7.6 billion in the third quarter, up almost 7% over last year, Carnival says it is roughly half booked for 2027. And 2028 bookings are also ahead of past pace. Notably, the company points out the spike is due to increased demand and earlier-than-usual bookings, not discounts.

On the company earnings call, CEO Josh Weinstein told investors that Americans’ leisure mentality is “catching up” to a European mindset. “Vacations are sacrosanct. And they will take them in good times and in bad,” he said.

Still, the robust results may seem counterintuitive in an economically risky period—and just a few years after the COVID-19 pandemic idled basically the entire industry. Not long ago, the whole idea of sharing space for days on end with thousands of strangers sounded vaguely nightmarish. But the industry as a whole has bounced back. Among Carnival’s chief rivals, Royal Caribbean is arguably an even stronger all-around operator on pricing, margins, and advance bookings; Norwegian is comparatively more cautious and uneven, but lately performing well. News of Carnival’s impressive quarter boosted those competitors’ stock prices, too.

There are some practical reasons for this. Even at higher rates, cruise pricing still appeals to consumers attracted to the bundle of lodging and entertainment—and that’s particularly true if they want to lock in that budget in advance, a perk in a volatile economic moment. Meanwhile, Carnival has benefited from the cruise sector’s broader recovery from its pandemic nadir. The trade group Cruise Lines International Association reported 37.2 million cruise passengers in 2025 and forecast 38.3 million in 2026, compared with 34.6 million in 2024. And that’s been happening despite the backdrop of rising fares.

More broadly, and in line with Weinstein’s “sacrosanct” vacation analysis, leisure consumers have come to prize travel and experiences. This is partly an echo of the YOLO economy trend declared in the pandemic era—the You Only Live Once risk-embracing ethos born in response to frustrating lockdown rules. For some, there was a shift from adventure-aversion to craving the in-person, high contact, and real.

The classic cruise, however packaged and planned it may be, offers some version of that direct experience—and that’s what’s selling. Cruisers are booking farther ahead than in prior years, causing some high-demand journeys to sell out early; that helps keep fares higher, nudging some to book ahead even further in a virtuous (for Carnival) cycle. (Carnival doesn’t disclose which of its specific routes are in most demand, but in the earnings call indicated that Caribbean routes and Northern Europe and Alaska “coolcation” destinations have been popular lately.)

There are caveats for the cruise business, of course. Higher fuel prices cut into profits, and geopolitical risk affects itineraries and routes. Cruise demand has been historically cyclical, with weak employment and low consumer confidence often leading to pricing pressure and eventually reduced bookings. Before COVID, cruises were one of travel’s fastest-growing segments for decades, but they suffered revenue setbacks in the 2008–09 financial crisis.

But this time has been different. Advance bookings have translated to steady nondiscounted prices and high occupancy. Both the practical and emotional appeal of booking an adventure in advance, and having something to look forward to, seem to outweigh any cautionary instincts that may have held cruisers back in the past. In other words, the cruise business isn’t thriving despite the fact that we live in a world of looming catastrophe and risk. It’s thriving because that’s the world we live in.

The U.S. government has pitched an obscure accounting rule change that has ignited a firestorm of opposition. If enacted, its effects might be felt from the capital markets to your retirement savings account.

At issue is a proposal by the Securities and Exchange Commission that would scrap a long-standing requirement for registered companies to disclose their earnings every three months. Instead, they would have the option to do so only every six months.

The agency says its proposal has two goals: One is to reduce a company’s compliance costs needed to prepare financial statements; the other is to promote longer-term planning rather than a short-term fixation on earnings. A final decision is expected by late 2026.

These ideas may sound in the weeds to the average American, but the proposal has prompted opposition that is literally record-breaking ever since it was released for comments in May 2026. To date, more than 280,000 letters have come in, with the vast majority against. By comparison, one study that covered 417 different proposals over 30 years tallied more than 65,000 letters total.

I’m an accounting professor who has constructed a tracker that lets people scour the SEC docket and decipher the general sentiment of these comments. I found that the main driver of this hostility is concern that less-frequent reporting would make it harder for investors to monitor companies’ performance and decision-making, because key information is withheld for longer periods.

This reduction in transparency carries another risk as well: It would likely make it more expensive for companies to raise capital. Once external monitoring is reduced, investors may demand a higher rate of return because they have less information about a company’s health. That means companies would need to pay more for that uncertainty, whether through selling shares, borrowing from lenders, or issuing bonds.

In short, there’s a trade-off between the cost of capital and transparency.

A tsunami of opposition

If a business wants to be a publicly traded company, it has to register with the SEC, which governs and regulates this process. Once registered, the company has to disclose its financial performance every three months, a requirement that has held since 1970.

Whenever the agency issues a new rule, it opens it up to comments first, just like other government agencies do. That feedback is meant to shape the final rule before it becomes codified.

What’s unusual in this case is the overwhelming degree of opposition—more than 99% of all comments, many from retail and individual investors, according to my tracker.

“My husband worked for Enron. We lost most of our retirement savings when their fraudulent activity came to light,” wrote one commenter. “We were still young enough to make some of that income back, but we knew many retirees who ended up working into their 80’s. Quarterly reporting is a gate keeper. Keep it.”

Wrote another: “I rely on quarterly reporting for the same reason your child gets a quarterly report card. . . . There the metaphor ends, because a good teacher can catch failing performance and course correct with parents long before report cards are issued. Investors do not have that luxury.”

Some point out that the commission’s claim of company savings on compliance costs is overblown. The estimated average savings, according to the proposal, is around $200,000 a year per firm, which is a drop in the bucket for a typical public corporation.

But more broadly, the comments reveal how much this rule could matter to ordinary investors. Retirement savings, through 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts, are directly exposed to company performance, whether or not the fund in question is diversified. That means any reduction in financial transparency has direct implications on how the investments of the funds are monitored.

That risk was laid out in a letter from the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, or SIFMA. The trade group wrote that the estimated net savings “could be offset or outweighed by an increase in the cost of capital as investors demand higher risk premia for less timely information.”

Federated Hermes, an asset manager, also pointed to this scenario: “Issuers that elect semiannual reporting may face signaling risks, as investors could interpret such a choice as reflecting reduced transparency. This may affect analyst coverage and cost of capital.”

Companies weigh in

As for the companies themselves, it’s too early to say whether they would take advantage of the six-month option. But several have said they would choose to report less frequently.

Drugmaker Eli Lilly is one example, making clear its preference in its official comment, while letters from Financial Executives International, an industry lobby, stated that 58% of the member companies it surveyed suggested they would change.

For its part, the commission is still evaluating all the feedback before its leadership takes a vote. Traditionally, it’s led by five commissioners, with three representing the party in power and two from the opposition. In this case, however, the two Democratic seats in the minority are currently vacant, and one Republican seat is about to be vacated.

With so few votes on hand, the commission may in fact change its rules so that this proposal could clear with support from only two commissioners. On September 30, 2026, it suggested a rule change so that the two votes would suffice.

For now, SEC Chair Paul Atkins seems undeterred and has stated that the commission is moving ahead.

How many companies will make the move given the concerns laid out in the comments, however, remains an open question.

As the SEC’s own Investor Advisory Committee, an independent body, put it: “The evidence does not support the view that short-termism is a major problem for U.S. public companies today, nor is there strong evidence to support the view that costs for public companies would be significantly reduced.”

Tzachi Zach is a professor of accounting at The Ohio State University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Wherever Marci Bakely went, her ex-boyfriend seemed to know. When the Georgia single mother drove to the grocery store or a date, he often texted within minutes.

According to a Washington Post investigation, Bakely’s ex-boyfriend, Braselton Police Chief Michael Steffman, searched her license plates and those of her teenage daughter roughly 600 times through Flock Safety, a company that makes and operates networks of automated license plate readers, or ALPRs.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation arrested Steffman in November 2025 on charges of stalking, harassment, and misuse of an ALPR. He was found dead before trial.

Bakely’s case is not unique. The Post identified at least 50 officers accused of misusing ALPRs, including 26 who used Flock’s cameras to spy on current or former partners or people they hoped to meet. Its investigation has since identified at least 100 police department employees charged with or accused of misuse.

Flock says these people represent a tiny share of its more than 140,000 monthly users and that permanent audit logs help uncover misconduct.

But these abuses required no hacking or stolen credentials. Each user walked through the front door.

I’m a scholar of criminal procedure and I direct a school devoted to forensics. I believe the controversy over ALPRs points to a defect in the surveillance system’s architecture, not just the criminality of some of its users.

A search engine for movements

Flock cameras capture a vehicle’s plate, location, and distinguishing marks down to dents or a bumper sticker. AI can sort license plate photographs by date taken. Police departments across the network can then conduct searches without warrants or supervisory approval.

In September 2026, news outlets Wired and 404 Media analyzed data that hackers had copied from one Flock camera. About 21 days of logs contained roughly 50,200 vehicles and 1.6 million images. The software detected people and bicycles, and it even isolated an American flag patch on a motorcyclist’s saddlebag. Flock said it lacked enough information to assess the hackers’ technical claims about security vulnerabilities in the camera.

Flock says customers control their data, yet a department that leaves sharing enabled may not know who is looking. In 2025, U.S. Customs and Border Protection accessed more than 80,000 cameras during an undisclosed nationwide vehicle-tracking pilot, including one police department’s cameras without its knowledge.

Logs record misconduct only after it happens, and only if someone reads them. Indianapolis police did not regularly audit Flock searches until The Washington Post flagged thousands of questionable inquiries by one officer. A systemwide audit found alleged misuse by four more officers. Other police departments likewise learned of officers’ misuse from reporters.

Flock’s August 2026 changes shorten recommended data retention from 30 days to 7 days and require misuse detection and case codes to document searches. But customers may retain data longer, emergencies may bypass case codes, and entering a case number can be done without judicial approval.

Examples of user overreach

Flock’s architecture turns local cameras into a cross-jurisdictional surveillance network that agencies that never purchased the cameras may query.

Public records from Danville, Illinois, revealed more than 4,000 searches by federal agencies, including some with a potential immigration-enforcement focus, although U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had no Flock contract.

A 2026 study similarly found 11,935 immigration-related searches in partial records from eight college police departments. Federal immigration agencies sometimes accessed campus camera data without campus officials’ knowledge.

The network also enables searches in other legally contested areas. In May 2025, a Texas sheriff’s office searched more than 83,000 cameras for a woman who had self-managed an abortion. The logged reason was “had an abortion, search for female.” The search reached Illinois, where state law forbids sharing plate data to enforce another state’s abortion ban. The sheriff called it a welfare check. Whatever the motive, one deputy triggered a national dragnet without independent review.

These examples reflect more than individual misuse. The platform makes the cameras easy to use by a second party, difficult to monitor, and hard to control once local cameras are connected.

Why the Fourth Amendment matters

The law remains unsettled on ALPR use.

In October 2025, a Virginia appeals court held that police officers needed no warrant to retrieve three images spanning seven minutes from Norfolk’s 172-camera network because they showed vehicles, not people. But later findings about Flock’s people-detection capabilities weaken that distinction. Analysis of the hacked camera showed that its software could identify a person and record that person’s location within an image.

In January 2026, a federal judge held that Norfolk’s then-176-camera network did not violate Fourth Amendment protections. The system did not capture anyone’s entire movements, the court reasoned, although it photographed two plaintiffs’ vehicles 475 and 325 times over four and a half months. The ruling is being appealed.

In 2018 the Supreme Court held in Carpenter v. United States that acquiring seven days of historical cellphone location records generally requires a warrant because they can reconstruct someone’s past movements. Flock’s architecture raises a related but unresolved question: Its database can also reconstruct movements, yet police officers may search it without a warrant.

Both Norfolk rulings predate the Supreme Court’s June 2026 decision in Chatrie v. United States, which held that police conducted a search under the Fourth Amendment when they obtained two hours of stored Google location history. The court did not decide whether the search was lawful. Instead, it returned the case to the lower court to determine whether the warrant satisfied the Fourth Amendment’s requirements.

That did not make the access automatically unconstitutional: The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches, not all searches. But the police generally need a warrant supported by probable cause once their conduct is classified as a search.

The Chatrie decision distinguished vehicles exposed to public view from phone-location data that can follow someone into a home or other sensitive place. But it also expressed concern about comprehensive archives that can be searched retroactively. A license plate reader network can create a similar archive of a driver’s public movements.

The constitutional question in Norfolk, therefore, turns not only on the seven minutes retrieved, but also on the surveillance power of the 172-camera network.

Enforceable limits

The Indianapolis cases expose the limits of internal controls in Flock’s system. Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said many proposed guardrails would not have prevented the conduct. He pointed to the need for independent or judicial oversight.

I believe five safeguards could preserve Flock’s benefits while curbing abuse:

1. Judicial authorization for retrospective regional or national searches based on individualized suspicion, preferably a probable-cause warrant, with an emergency exception.
2. Technical access controls restricting immigration and reproductive-health searches.
3. Deletion of data after a short period.
4. Opt-in interstate data sharing, rather than by default.
5. Independent audits of search logs and device security.

Flock’s new safeguards show that the company concedes that design matters, but private settings cannot substitute for laws. It’s not a matter of making sure officers follow the rules. It’s about creating enforceable limits.

Henry F. Fradella is a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Arizona State University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.