It was a textbook addition of insult to injury. When President Trump signed an executive order last May taking federal funds away from public broadcasters, he dubbed the document: “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media.” Apparently, the financial lifeblood of public radio and TV wasn’t merely wasteful; it was wasteful because of its recipients’ malicious intent. Later that summer, Congress made the order a reality—or at least the “ending subsidization” part, if not the maliciousness. The Rescissions Act of 2025 clawed back $1.1 billion (with a “b”) in funds already allocated for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. With its federal…
Author: Staff Writer
The first chapter in the smartphone’s history was a story of consolidation. In a triumph of engineering and convenience, the camera, music player, and computer all converged into a single, seamless slab of glass. This uniformity created a universal platform and a common language for the digital age, connecting billions of people across the world. The smartphone’s monolithic design trained us to work, create, and connect within the confines of a handheld rectangle. It subtly shaped everything from user behavior to app development, creating a “one-size-fits-all” experience for a world of infinitely diverse users. Today, that era of uniformity is…
Juneteenth—the newest federal holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States—may remain unfamiliar to some. People across America and around the world are still learning about this important observance, which we celebrate today, Friday, June 19. Here’s everything you need to know about the day, including what’s open and closed. A special attraction this year is the official public opening of the Obama Presidential Center and Library in Chicago. What is Juneteenth? In a modern world where communication is almost instantaneous, it is easy to forget the slow nature of historical enforcement and change. President Abraham Lincoln…
If you have watched a goalkeeper face a penalty kick, you know you are watching 0.3 seconds of pure attentional reckoning. The goalkeeper who dives before the ball is struck did not panic or fail to lean on their training. Their attention was misplaced. The stress of the situation pulled their attentional system toward irrelevant information, triggering a highly instinctive reaction before the moment had even arrived. I have watched this pattern repeat itself for nearly two decades working in professional and Olympic sport. The competitors who crack under pressure do not fail to meet the moment because they lack…
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. Bullies vs. Brains: Anthropic’s new scrape with the Trump administration Anthropic is in another fight with the Trump administration, this time over its new Mythos-class models, released last week. On Friday, administration officials panicked after reports that Amazon researchers had tricked Claude Fable 5 into providing cybersecurity information Anthropic had tried to block. Officials gave the company 90 minutes to voluntarily take Claude Fable 5 and Claude Mythos 5 offline. Anthropic, waiting for evidence…
Ukraine’s government is celebrating a new feature inside the Army+ app that allows soldiers who went AWOL to return to military service and even select a new unit. Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov announced that nearly 200 requests had already been submitted through the system, with dozens approved in just a matter of days. The government presents this as a technological success story. I see something very different. When a nation at war needs a smartphone application to bring soldiers back after they have abandoned their units, that is a sign that the manpower crisis has become impossible to hide. Earlier…
Federal regulators on Thursday agreed to let large energy users connect more quickly to the nation’s inefficient and electric transmission system to accommodate surging demand from power-hungry artificial intelligence data centers. Energy Secretary Chris Wright had urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to act in an effort to help the United States better compete with China for superiority in the fast-growing AI sector. Tech companies and data center developers have welcomed the chances for faster connections to the country’s power supply. But utilities, states and regional grid operators worried that the Republican administration’s plan would remove their authority to manage the process. Clean…
Tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews have taken to the streets, blocking highways, shutting down rail lines, and clashing with police over mandatory military conscription. Some demonstrations have brought major cities to a standstill. This is no fringe protest. It is a direct challenge to the authority of the state itself and highlights a deep fracture that has been growing within Israeli society for decades. What the outside world often fails to understand is that the issue goes back to the founding of Israel in 1948. Ultra-Orthodox Jews, known as Haredim, were granted exemptions from military service if they devoted…
In the past few years, job listings have increasingly touted remote or partially remote work alongside other perks like gym memberships and childcare benefits. The assumption is baked in: employees prefer remote work. It implies that companies that care about employee well-being give them the freedom to work from home. But the tide is shifting. I heard a term recently that made me chuckle: FOMOW. Fear of missing out at work. Professionals, and Gen Z in particular, are feeling the drawbacks of not going to the office. Nearly half of Gen Z and 30% of millennials reported that office working…
The politicians always promise everything to everyone because that is how they get elected. They hand out benefits, expand programs, borrow endlessly, and then leave the bill for the next generation. What has made this crisis even worse across Europe is that governments have become addicted to debt while pretending there are no consequences. Now Slovakia’s Constitutional Court has stepped into the middle of that problem and delivered a message that politicians everywhere should be paying attention to. The court ruled that when government debt breaches constitutional limits, the government cannot simply continue business as usual. It must immediately seek…