This year’s FIFA World Cup has been unusually volatile. The expanded 48-team format has produced a string of surprise results—including Cape Verde, ranked 67th and playing in its first World Cup, holding cofavorite Spain to a scoreless draw in Atlanta before coming from behind to draw 2-2 with Uruguay. The 32-team knockout round has continued that pattern. Paraguay eliminated four-time champion Germany on penalties after a controversial video assistant referee (VAR) call wiped out a German extra-time goal for a foul in the box. One potential factor at play here: the way tournament data is now being distributed. Lenovo, the…
Author: Staff Writer
America’s 250th birthday is just around the corner, and fast food brands are ready to celebrate life, liberty, and the pursuit of food and drink deals. This week, there’s absolutely no shortage of red, white, and blue offerings, as well as a few collectibles. So if you’re struggling to find your holiday spirit this year, perhaps one of these promos will have you feeling free—or at the very least, full. Here are six epic deals in honor of America’s 250th that you won’t want to miss. Starbucks Firework Frappuccino It wouldn’t be a holiday without a Starbucks drink drop. The…
The narrative around artificial intelligence and work has followed a predictable arc: AI takes over tasks, humans lose jobs, and companies save money. It made intuitive sense. It also turns out to be more complicated than anyone anticipated. The real story emerging in 2026 is messier and more interesting. Some of the world’s largest technology companies are pulling back on AI spending after discovering that the economics don’t pencil out the way they expected. Bryan Catanzaro, Nvidia’s VP of deep learning, put it with unusual candor: “The cost of compute is far beyond the costs of the employees.” Uber’s chief…
Gen Zers might not want to be too quick to blame AI—or their lack of AI skills—for their employment struggles. According to new research, a general shortage of job openings is the primary reason.Data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis analyzed labor conditions for 18- to 24-year-olds between April 2023 and late 2025. The unemployment rate for the group rose by 2.9 percentage points due to overall job scarcity. By comparison, unemployment only increased by 1.1 percentage points as a result of employers shifting their demands toward workers already skilled in AI. “Since April 2023, hiring has slowed,…
As companies gear up for annual summer vacations, there’s a new workplace trend bubbling up that leaders need to know about: “PTO-maxxing.” It’s the strategy employees are using to take their calendar holidays and plan vacation days around them, stretching a paid holiday into a lengthy break and maximizing their total PTO—potentially turning 14 PTO days into 46 vacation days. As CEO of my company, I see it less as a problem and more as a symptom of workplaces that continue to judge employees negatively for taking much-needed rest. One recent study found that while leaders recognize that vacations boost…
As America marks its 250th anniversary, the country should be celebrating one of the greatest political experiments in human history. Instead, nearly one in five Americans say they do not plan to celebrate Independence Day, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. The survey also found that two in five Americans doubt the United States will even endure another 250 years. Those numbers should concern everyone regardless of political affiliation because they point to something far deeper than disagreement over one election or one president. The Reuters report illustrates just how fractured the country has become. Some residents interviewed said they would…
Most AI “strategy” right now isn’t strategy at all. It’s a leadership response to panic. The suffocating, staring-at-the-ceiling-at-2am kind of panic that sets in when your board’s watching, your ROI dashboards haven’t budged, and your teams are fracturing under the weight of expectations. WRITER’s latest AI Adoption in the Enterprise report shows just how intense that pressure is: 94% of executives are facing board demands to do more with less. Over three-fourths (78%) are watching AI drive a massive wedge between IT and other lines of business, and 74% say it’s causing tension between executives and employees. Underneath all that…
France is enduring one of its most intense heat waves in decades, with temperatures exceeding 40°C (104°F), schools forced to close, and public officials urging people to stay indoors. Yet what caught my attention was not the weather itself, but the response from the French government. Instead of asking why millions of French citizens remain without air conditioning, politicians are effectively telling people they should simply learn to live with the heat. After years of climate policies discouraging air conditioning, France now finds itself with only about 27% of homes and roughly 13% of apartments equipped with cooling systems, compared…
Public companies in America are required by law to publish one number: the ratio between what it pays its CEO and what it pays its median worker. The rule has been in force since 2017. The number sits in every proxy statement on the exchange. Most leaders cannot tell you their own. When you do look, the numbers are not subtle. The average across the S&P 500 was 285 to 1 in 2024. At the hundred lowest-paying large firms it averaged 632 to 1. At Starbucks it once reached 6,666 to 1. In 1965 the same ratio was about 21…
Finland has become another example of what happens when ideology overtakes economic reality. According to a recent report, Finland’s construction sector is suffering severe unemployment, with the Construction Trade Union estimating that 17.5% of construction workers are now unemployed. Many have already exhausted the maximum 400 days of earnings-related unemployment benefits and have dropped onto lower levels of support. Yet almost simultaneously, there are renewed discussions about bringing in workers from outside the European Union to fill jobs in the construction industry. The desperation in Finland’s labor market is becoming almost unbelievable. One comparison circulating widely captures just how severe…