These are tough times for many businesses across corporate America, many of whom are cutting down on business travel, and perks on the road. And in these times, one company’s policy on business travel is going viral: According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, Cracker Barrel employees reportedly must follow a new policy that they can only eat at Cracker Barrel restaurants while traveling for work.
But according to Cracker Barrel, that’s not exactly true.
“The policy for employees to dine at Cracker Barrel while traveling for business, whenever practical based on location and schedule, is not new,” Cracker Barrel explained to Fast Company in an email statement. “Also, it is not the only place that our employees may eat when on the road, as previously reported. The change was to further limit reimbursement of alcoholic beverages under the policy.”
Still, backlash to the reported policy comes during a rough patch for the American restaurant chain known for its Southern charm, marked by declining sales, and more customer backlash over a recent botched attempt to rebrand.
In August, Cracker Barrel unveiled a new campaign starring country music artist Jordan Davis that revamped its “Old Timer” logo and menus, and lightened up the restaurant’s dining rooms, to the dismay of longtime customers. (The reaction can be summed up by one TikTok user who posted, I prefer the darker cozier look, I also dont like change.”) The company was soon forced to walk back the plans, and later said it wouldn’t change the logo.
Cracker Barrel financials
Shares of Cracker Barrel (NASDAQ: CBRL) were down less than 1% in midday trading on Tuesday at the time of this writing.
The Tennessee-based chain’s first quarter fiscal 2026 earnings missed expectations, with total revenue at $797.2 million, down 5.7% compared to the prior year first quarter; same-store restaurant sales down 4.7% over the prior year quarter, and comparable store retail sales down 8.5%.
PayPal is replacing CEO Alex Chriss with Enrique Lores, saying that the pace of change and execution at the company has not met board expectations over the past two years.
Lores has served as a PayPal board member for almost five years and has been board Chair since July 2024. He’s also spent more than six years as president and CEO of HP Inc.
The payments industry is changing faster than ever, driven by new technologies, evolving regulations, an increasingly competitive landscape, and the rapid acceleration of AI that is reshaping commerce daily, Lores said in a statement on Tuesday. “PayPal sits at the center of this change, and I look forward to leading the team to accelerate the delivery of new innovations and to shape the future of digital payments and commerce.
PayPal’s board thanked Chriss for his contributions, including the role he played to monetize Venmo and grow the Buy Now Pay Later business.
Lores will take over as PayPal CEO on March 1. David Dorman will serve as independent chair, effective immediately.
PayPal’s Chief Financial and Operating Officer Jamie Miller will serve as interim CEO until Lores assumes the position.
PayPal also reported its fourth-quarter results on Tuesday. The technology platform and digital payments company posted an adjusted profit of $1.23 per share on revenue of $8.68 billion. The performance missed the expectations of analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research, who were looking for a profit of $1.29 per share on revenue of $8.77 billion.
The San Jose, California-based company also forecast lower profit for the first quarter.
Shares slid 16% before the market open.
Michelle Chapman, AP business writer
Amid nationwide outrage over the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, two House Democrats are pressing Google and Meta to answer for recruitment campaign posts that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has recently run on their platforms. The lawmakers, Reps. Becca Balint of Vermont and Pramila Jayapal of Washington, have accused the companies of being complicit with the Trump administration and enabling ICEs efforts to promote slogans thatthey sayhave also been employed by white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups.
The inquiries were sent on January 21, and as of Monday, the platforms still had not responded. “What is going on with ICE is a five-alarm fire for our democracy, and these corporations are in it up to their necks,” Balint tells Fast Company. “They can no longer claim they ‘didn’t know.’ They are not only profiting from cruelty but actively helping to perpetuate it at everyone else’s expense. We expect answers, and we expect them now.”
Under the Trump administration, ICE has sought to rapidly scale up recruitment. The agency aimed to spend $100 million on the effort, according to a document reported by The Washington Post last year, and it outlined a wartime recruitment strategy that included targeting people who show interest in firearms, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) events, and podcasts focused on patriotism.
ICE has run about 65 different advertisements on Google since the beginning of the year, according to the platforms ad library. These posts include a $50,000 signing bonus offer, opportunities to Defend the Homeland, and heavy use of Uncle Sam imagery. ICEwhich Rolling Stone reports has spent at least a few hundred thousand dollars running ads on Meta platforms in recent monthshas used its Facebook account to post provocative imagery alongside recruitment posts. These include posts featuring a picture of knights with swords alongside the text, THE ENEMIES ARE AT THE GATES,” as well as another displaying a man riding a horse and the phrase, WELL HAVE OUR HOME AGAIN.” Some of the posts are more explicit, including one showing a man carrying the Betsy Ross flag with the message, SEND THEM BACK.
The politicians’ letter to the companies aims to draw a direct line between Big Techs ad systems and the normalization of rhetoric that civil rights groups say echoes white supremacist propaganda. Just last week, DHS posted a recruitment ad on Instagram proclaiming well have our home again, which is a song popularized in neo-Nazi spaces and used in white nationalist calls for a race war. The same lyrics were found in the manifesto of Ryan Christopher Palmeter, the white supremacist who shot and killed three black people in Jacksonville in 2023, wrote Balint and Jayapal in their January letter to Meta. It appears Meta is complicit in furthering this content on behalf of the Trump administration.
These Facebook posts have racked up tens of thousands of likes or shares.
Though Google, which also owns YouTube, and Meta, which owns both Facebook and Instagram, are the platforms the lawmakers focused on, theyre not the only place where ICE has posted content. The agency has posted job ads or recruitment content on LinkedIn, which didnt respond to a request for comment. It’s not immediately clear that these platforms are the primary way the agency is actually finding new recruits. Still, the letter highlights that platforms stand to be drawn into the nationwide discussion over ICE and its tactics.
The companies confirmed receipt but havent responded yet, Balints office tells Fast Company. Meta declined Fast Companys request for comment, and Google did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The silence isnt necessarily surprising. Tech companies have a real interest in not ruffling feathers with the Trump administration, and some platforms have, in the aftermath of the 2020 election, already done a major about-face about their decisions to boot or suppress the presidents account. Balint’s and Jayapals letter isnt a new strategy for lawmakers either. Members of both parties have previously pushed platforms to censor or restrain posts that they find odious. In highly polarized times, critics argue that this approach essentially amounts to working the refs, and it seems unlikely Google and Meta would move to censor an official government agency.
Ignaz Semmelweis was a physician working in a maternity ward in the 1840s. He noticed something disturbing: women giving birth in the ward staffed by doctors and medical students died from “childbed fever” at rates of 10-35%, while a nearby ward staffed by midwives had death rates under 4%.
The key difference was that doctors were coming straight from performing autopsies to delivering babies, without washing their hands. They would dissect cadavers in the morning, then examine pregnant women in the afternoon with just a quick rinse. In 1847, Semmelweis instituted a policy requiring doctors to wash their hands with a chlorine solution between the autopsy room and the maternity ward. Death rates plummeted dramatically to around 1-2%.
Great news, right? But instead of celebration, the medical community mocked Semmelweis for his claim that handwashing was worth the time and effort. He was driven out of the profession, and the childbed fever deaths went back up. It took more than 50 years after his discovery for handwashing to go mainstream in hospitals.
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The case for cameras
Right now, in early 2026, state legislatures across the country are trying to outlaw a proven treatment for traffic injuries and fatalities.
Speed enforcement cameras are proven to reduce vehicle speeds and reduce crashes. According to the US Department of Transportations Proven Safety Countermeasures initiative, fixed speed cameras can cut crashes on urban principal arterials by up to 54% for all crashes and 47% for injury crashes.
For obvious reasons, school zones are the first place communities tend to install safety cameras. Speeding near schools creates unacceptable risks for kids crossing streets or waiting at bus stops.
Montgomery County, Marylands, automated speed enforcement program found that cameras reduced the likelihood of a crash involving a fatality or incapacitating injury by 19%, decreased the chance of drivers exceeding the limit by more than 10 mph by up to 59%, and fostered long-term changes in driver behavior that substantially lowered overall deaths and injuries.
In New York City school zones, fixed cameras have reduced speeding by up to 63% during active enforcement hours. Many other case studies demonstrate similar outcomes. The bottom line is automated speed enforcement saves lives.
Pre-installation surveys at some Virginia schools revealed a whopping 95% of drivers were blazing through school zones at 10+ mph during arrival and dismissal. Nearly every driver was risking the lives of young kids, including parents. In Fairfax County, the safety cameras at Key Middle School issued 7,429 citations from August 2024 to May 2025. But after the cameras had been in place for a while, average speeds fell from 33.1 mph to 27.8 mph.
People need consequences for dangerous driving. Automated cameras deliver fair, unbiased enforcement where officers can’t patrol constantly, holding reckless drivers accountable in high-risk areas like school zones while freeing up police for other duties.
Bills to ban
But while automated enforcement is saving lives, politicians in multiple states are advancing bills to ban, restrict, or phase out speed cameras.
Virginia: SB 297 (introduced January 13, 2026) repeals the authority for law-enforcement agencies to use photo speed monitoring devices. It has been referred to the Senate Committee on Transportation and remains under consideration in the 2026 Regular Session.
Arizona: SCR 1004 (advanced through the Senate Appropriations, Transportation, and Technology Committee in mid-January 2026) aims to place a statewide ban on photo radar enforcement (including speed cameras) on the November 2026 ballot for voter decision.
Georgia: HB 225 repeals all laws authorizing automated traffic enforcement safety devices (speed cameras) in school zones, with an effective date of July 1, 2028, to phase out existing contracts. Reintroduced in the 2025-2026 Regular Session (published January 13, 2026), it previously passed the House 129-37 in 2025 but stalled in the Senate.
Texas: Building on the state’s existing prohibitions on most fixed speed and red-light cameras (banned statewide in 2019), recent efforts like HB 2810 (introduced in the 2025 session but died) sought to expand bans to include portable devices enforcing speed limits. Similar measures could resurface in the 90th Legislature starting January 2027, driven by complaints about distractions from flashes and potential safety risks in local deployments.
Minnesota: Rep. Greg Davids (R-Preston) announced in late 2025 that he would author a bill to ban automated speed cameras statewide, to be introduced in the 2026 legislative session. This follows Rochester’s City Council narrowly approving a request for a speed camera pilot program, highlighting opposition amid concerns over enforcement fairness and local authority.
Robust evidence from federal and local sources supports speed cameras as effective for slowing drivers and preventing crashesespecially in child-heavy school zones. Its a shame to see politicians working to dismantle them.
Speed enforcement cameras save lives. The victims and survivors of traffic violence deserve better than the misguided bills that will directly lead to more life-altering crashes.
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Firefox has a reputation as the browser of choice for power users who prefer to customize everything and it just gave users one very important new option. While most other tech companies shove AI enhancements down their users throats, Mozilla is introducing a way to disable Firefoxs AI features outright a boon for anyone searching for a safe haven from the AI software onslaught.
Starting on February 24 with the Firefox 148 update, users will be able to toggle AI off in a new AI controls area in the desktop browsers settings menu. To disable AI, you wont even need to dig around and disable features one by one: Mozilla describes the forthcoming option as a single place to block current and future generative AI features across Firefox.
If youd like to customize Firefoxs AI offerings, the browser will also allow you to check and enable individual features. In a blog post announcing the option, Mozilla recognizes that not everyone wants to use AI, but it will continue to work on AI features for Firefox users who do want them. The options on the way later this month will allow Firefox users to toggle AI on or off for translation tools, alt text descriptions in PDFs, tab groups, link preview summaries, and for a sidebar feature that incorporates chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
Mozilla has been tinkering with AI product experiments in Firefox for a bit now. The company began rolling out access to AI chatbots a year ago with Firefox 135 and last September invited iOS users to shake to summarize a website with AI.
Mozilla walks a tightrope on AI
Mozilla announced its plan to splice AI features more deeply into Firefox late last year, a decision panned by some of its users. At the time, the company emphasized that any AI tools would be opt-in and designed to keep users in full control. … We believe AI should be built like the internet open, accessible, and driven by choice so that users and the developers helping to build it can use it as they wish, help shape it and truly benefit from it, Mozilla wrote in the announcement.
The Firefox maker just appointed a new CEO as the company promotes its image as the worlds most trusted software company. Mozilla tapped Anthony Enzor-DeMeo, previously the general manager of Firefox, to step into the role. Enzor-DeMeo described the browser as the next battleground for AI in a statement paired with the news. Its where people live their online lives and where the next eras questions of trust, data use, and transparency will be decided.
Firefox users are paying close attention. Mozillas connections to the open source community and its emphasis on user choice have built a deep well of brand loyalty over the years. Still, AI is a divisive technology, and one that Firefox users arent all sold on a fact the browser maker is well aware of.
We believe choice is more important than ever as AI becomes a part of peoples browsing experiences, Head of Firefox Ajit Varma wrote in Mozillas announcement on AI controls. What matters to us is giving people control, no matter how they feel about AI.
Lior Pozin had an epiphany about AI infrastructure in early 2025. As CEO of AutoDS, an AI-powered e-commerce automation platform, he had pushed his team to deploy AI features quickly, betting that speed would define success.
AutoDS was bootstrapped and eventually reached 1.8 million users, generated more than $1 billion in user revenue, and exited successfully to Fiverr. From its earliest days, the company was fast moving, the kind of place where speed was strategic and rapid implementation felt like the natural way to operate. But as Pozins team moved from pilots to production, they learned that speed alone was not enough. AI only delivers results when the right data foundations and ownership structures are in place.
Without the right governance, data organization, and access, AI cant scale, Pozin tells Fast Company. Once we built that foundation, everything changed. AI stopped being a feature and became part of how we operate.
That experience was not unique to AutoDS. In 2025, across several industries, companies quickly realized that deploying AI at scale required confronting uncomfortable truths about their infrastructure, their assumptions about what AI could do, and their willingness to solve unglamorous problems before chasing transformative ones. While the year began with big promises, it turned out to be less about breakthroughs and more about a reckoning with reality.
The lessons that emerged reveal an industry growing up. Instead of building ever more powerful models or simply raising more capital, the industry is maturing by figuring out what actually works when the demos end and the real work begins.
INFRASTRUCTURE FIRST, OR NOTHING ELSE MATTERS
In early 2024, database company RavenDB explored building an AI assistant for its documentation in collaboration with Microsoft. The project ultimately fell apart. According to founder Oren Eini, the problem was not the AI model itself but everything surrounding it.
Data had to move through multiple systems before reaching the model, and updates required manual intervention. The entire setup depended on fragile connections that could break at any moment. For a database company, the irony was hard to miss.
The experience clarified something essential for the team: AI needed to be integrated far more deeply into the database itself to be reliable, predictable, and scalable.
For Eini, it wasnt a setback so much as a signal that the surrounding architecture mattered as much as the model itself. That realization informed RavenDBs more recent work on AI agents in and capabilities built directly into the database layer, where models operate closer to the data they rely on and can behave more predictably in production environments.
At AutoDS, that shift translated into a more deliberate approach. The team focused on building a shared data layer into its drop-shipping platform and clearer ownership around AI initiatives, which later enabled products like its AI-powered store builder to scale more reliably across the business.
The shift required patience. Pozins team stopped chasing what looked impressive and started tracking what mattered: time saved, accuracy improved, and decisions accelerated. Success now means AI actually improves how we work, not just that were using it, Pozin notes.
EFFICIENCY BEATS RAW POWER
While much of the AI industry chased larger models and more compute in 2025, Oculeus, a software-for-telecom company with deep experience in AI, spent the year prioritizing efficiency. The team focused on designing and refining systems that deliver reliable performance without excessive computational overhead. That focus is central to how Oculeus applies AI in telecommunications, where its systems are used to detect fraud patterns and anomalous behavior in real time.
In those environments, Arnd Baranowski, the companys CEO, explains that predictability matters more than novelty, because false positives and inconsistent outputs carry direct financial and operational risk.
AI algorithms and technology, which go along with massive computation and energy consumption, are a misguided path, Baranowski adds. His critique extends beyond hardware, questioning the industrys embrace of nondeterministic systems that produce different outputs for the same input. Training must result in 100% deterministic responses. Otherwise, something is wrong.
That stance runs counter to the excitement around large language models, which treat randomness as a feature. For Baranowski, the lesson of 2025 was simple: AI systems only earn trust when they behave consistently and can be relied on in real operating conditions.
Eini also shares that view. At RavenDB, the goal wasnt building the smartest AI. It was building predictable AI that could handle routine tasks without drama. We dont necessarily want smart AI, Eini says. We want predictable AI.
As compute costs remain high and energy consumption becomes a public concern, 2026 will favor companies that figured out how to do more with less over those still chasing the biggest possible models.
TRUST DEMANDS BOUNDARIES
In 2024, Air Canadas chatbot promised a customer a bereavement fare discount that didnt exist. The airline was held liable. The case crystallized a problem that became unavoidable in 2025: AI agents cant be trusted the way employees can.
Eini frames it bluntly. A bank teller is bound by policies and consequences. An AI agent isnt. I like to think about them as employees who I know are susceptible to bribes, he says. Its crucial to consciously set boundaries for their actions and actively implement protective measures.
Those boundaries took practical form. At AutoDS, Pozin created a dedicated team to verify AI outputs and ensure the system received accurate source data. At RavenDB, the team developed and implemented chain-of-approval processes and clear limits on what AI agents could access or promise.
The lesson extends beyond technical safeguards. AI agents exist in a gray zone between tool and actor. They respond to instructions but lack judgment. They execute tasks, but cant weigh the consequences. That reality requires new frameworks for accountability that dont assume good training guarantees good behavior.
Organizations thriving in 2026 will treat AI deployment as a trust problem first. That means transparency about capabilities and limits, clear expectations for users, and systems designed to fail safely when things go wrong.
SMALL FIXES BEAT MOONSHOTS
The years biggest AI narratives centered on autonomous vehicles, artificial general intelligence (AGI)which AI scientist Yann LeCun thinks is an illusionand models replacing entire professions. But companies making actual progress focused elsewhere: solving small, annoying problems at scale.
The biggest changes will come from fixing many small problems, not from one big, all-knowing AI, Eini says. Quantity has a quality of its own, and removing many small frictions leads to a much faster pace overall.
RavenDB empowered regular team members to build AI features in days rather than waiting for top engineers to approve and execute. AutoDS measured success by whether AI made employees faster and more efficient, not by how many AI projects were running. The results were individually modest but collectively transformative.
A year earlier, companies chased AI for its own sake, deploying pilots that looked impressive in demos but never scaled. In 2025, the focus shifted to measurable impact. Eini compares it to how we today make water potable for drinking, a practice so ordinary now that no one thinks about it. In the same sense that ATMs or self-checkout services havent fundamentally changed the entire world, but have made our lives measurably better, I think well see a lot of that, he tells me. The sheer quantity of changes will have a transformative effect.
PREPARATION MATTERS MORE THAN REACTION
Steve Brierley wasnt building AI in 2025. As CEO of quantum computing company Riverlane, he was watching how unprepared industries were when ChatGPT arrived. The AI boom exposed how unready many industries were when tools like ChatGPT suddenly entered the mainstream, forcing companies to scramble around regulation, scalability, data readiness, and consolidation, and a widening workforce and skills gap, Brierley says.
His takeaway: understand emerging technologies early enough to anticipate challenges rather than react to crises. Quantum computing will arrive sooner than many expect, and it wont be a marginal improvement. AI excels at analyzing and generating insights from data, while quantum computing will enable the creation of new kinds of data altogether, Brierley says. Together, they will unlock far greater exploration, discovery, and innovation than technology could achieve on its own.
Gilles Thonet, deputy secretary-general at the International Electrotechnical Commission, saw the same dynamic in regulation. As AI laws took effect in 2025, companies struggled to translate legal requirements into operational reality. International standards are essential to fostering trust in this transformative technology, Thonet says.
WHAT COMES NEXT
The lessons from 2025 point toward an AI future grounded in operational reality rather than hype. Companies leading that shift built infrastructure, set boundaries, and solved real problems instead of chasing headlines.
But new challenges are emerging. Sheetal Mehta, global head of cybersecurity services at NTT Data, warns that AI capabilities driving productivity gains are being weaponized. Agentic AIs speed and ability to learn and make decisions autonomously can also be used by cybercriminals, exposing enterprises to new attack surfaces and unexpected security vulnerabilities, Mehta says.
That means 2026 will require better safeguards, not just better systems. Organizations will need to treat AI security, governance, and ethics as foundational, not optional.
Pozin captures that shift rather poignantly. The next phase of AI is AI that lives with us, learns us daily, and delivers exactly what we need, just in time. It wont feel like a tool anymore. Itll feel like a teammate that truly gets you, he says.
Eini puts it even more simply: Moving beyond the initial awe to become a transparent tool that simply gets things done.
Not AGI. Not full automation. Just AI that works reliably, scales predictably, and solves problems without creating new ones. For an industry that spent years chasing moonshots, that might be the most ambitious goal of all.
In France, civil servants will ditch Zoom and Teams for a homegrown video conference system. Soldiers in Austria are using open source office software to write reports after the military dropped Microsoft Office. Bureaucrats in a German state have also turned to free software for their administrative work.
Around Europe, governments and institutions are seeking to reduce their use of digital services from U.S. Big Tech companies and turning to domestic or free alternatives. The push for digital sovereignty is gaining attention as the Trump administration strikes an increasingly belligerent posture toward the continent, highlighted by recent tensions over Greenland that intensified fears that Silicon Valley giants could be compelled to cut off access.
Concerns about data privacy and worries that Europe is not doing enough to keep up with the United States and Chinese tech leadership are also fueling the drive.
The French government referenced some of these concerns when it announced last week that 2.5 million civil servants would stop using video conference tools from U.S. providers including Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex, and GoTo Meeting by 2027 and switch to Visio, a homegrown service.
The objective is to put an end to the use of non-European solutions, to guarantee the security and confidentiality of public electronic communications by relying on a powerful and sovereign tool, the announcement said.
We cannot risk having our scientific exchanges, our sensitive data, and our strategic innovations exposed to non-European actors, David Amiel, a civil service minister, said in a press release.
Microsoft said it continues to partner closely with the government in France and respect the importance of security, privacy, and digital trust for public institutions.
The company said it is focused on providing customers with greater choice, stronger data protection, and resilient cloud services ensuring data stays in Europe, under European law, with robust security and privacy protections.
Zoom, Webex and GoTo Meeting did not respond to requests for comment.
French President Emmanuel Macron has been pushing digital sovereignty for years. But theres now a lot more political momentum behind this idea now that we need to de-risk from U.S. tech, Nick Reiners, senior geotechnology analyst at the Eurasia Group.
It feels kind of like theres a real zeitgeist shift, Reiners said
It was a hot topic at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting of global political and business elites last month in Davos, Switzerland. The European Commission’s official for tech sovereignty, Henna Virkkunen, told an audience that Europe’s reliance on others can be weaponized against us.
Thats why its so important that we are not dependent on one country or one company when it comes to very critical fields of our economy or society, she said, without naming countries or companies.
A decisive moment came last year when the Trump administration sanctioned the International Criminal Court’s top prosecutor after the tribunal, based in The Hague, Netherlands, issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an ally of President Donald Trump.
The sanctions led Microsoft to cancel Khan’s ICC email, a move that was first reported by The Associated Press and sparked fears of a kill switch that Big Tech companies can use to turn off service at will.
Microsoft maintains it kept in touch with the ICC throughout the process that resulted in the disconnection of its sanctioned official from Microsoft services. At no point did Microsoft cease or suspend its services to the ICC.
Microsoft President Brad Smith has repeatedly sought to strengthen trans-Atlantic ties, the company’s press office said, and pointed to an interview he did last month with CNN in Davos in which he said that jobs, trade and investment. as well as security, would be affected by a rift over Greenland.
Europe is the American tech sectors biggest market after the United States itself. It all depends on trust. Trust requires dialogue, Smith said.
Other incidents have added to the movement. There’s a growing sense that repeated EU efforts to rein in tech giants such as Google with blockbuster antitrust fines and sweeping digital rule books haven’t done much to curb their dominance.
Billionaire Elon Musk is also a factor. Officials worry about relying on his Starlink satellite internet system for communications in Ukraine.
Washington and Brussels wrangled for years over data transfer agreements, triggered by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowdens revelations of U.S. cyber-snooping.
With online services now mainly hosted in the cloud through data centers, Europeans fear that their data is vulnerable.
U.S. cloud providers have responded by setting up so-called sovereign cloud operations, with data centers located in European countries, owned by European entities and with physical and remote access only for staff who are European Union residents.
The idea is that only Europeans can take decisions so that they cant be coerced by the U.S., Reiners said.
The German state of Schleswig-Holstein last year migrated 44,000 employee inboxes from Microsoft to an open source email program. It also switched from Microsoft’s SharePoint file sharing system to Nextcloud, an open source platform, and is even considering replacing Windows with Linux and telephones and videoconferencing with open source systems.
We want to become independent of large tech companies and ensure digital sovereignty, Digitalization Minister Dirk Schrödter said in an October announcement.
The French city of Lyon said last year that it’s deploying free office software to replace Microsoft. Denmarks government and the cities of Copenhagen and Aarhus have also been trying out open-source software.
We must never make ourselves so dependent on so few that we can no longer act freely, Digital Minister Caroline Stage Olsen wrote on LinkedIn last year. Too much public digital infrastructure is currently tied up with very few foreign suppliers.
The Austrian military said it has also switched to LibreOffice, a software package with word processor, spreadsheet and presentation programs that mirrors Microsoft 365’s Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
The Document Foundation, a nonprofit based in Germany that’s behind LibreOffice, said the military’s switch reflects a growing demand for independence from single vendors. Reports also said the military was concerned that Microsoft was moving file storage online to the cloud the standard version of LibreOffice is not cloud-based.
Some Italian cities and regions adopted the software years ago, said Italo Vignoli, a spokesman for he Document Foundation. Back then, the appeal was not needing to pay for software licenses. Now, it’s the main reason is to avoid being locked into a proprietary system.
At first, it was: we will save money and by the way, we will get freedom, Vignoli said. Today it is: we will be free and by the way, we will also save some money.
Kelvin Chan AP business writer
Associated Press writer Molly Quell contributed to this report.
The Gates Foundation will not change course in the face of massive foreign aid cuts, holding out hope that the U.S. specifically will return to funding the global health projects the foundation has long championed, its CEO said Tuesday.
Instead, the foundation one of the largest in the world will concentrate at least 70% of its funding over the next 20 years on ending preventable maternal and child deaths and controlling key infectious diseases. A third goal focused on poverty will divide its work between U.S. education and agriculture in poorer countries.
We are saying not only will we not be taking on new priorities, were actively narrowing our priorities against three core North Star goals, Mark Suzman said in an interview with The Associated Press as the foundation published an annual update on its plans Tuesday.
In May, Bill Gates, who started the foundation with his ex-wife Melinda French Gates in 2000, announced it would close in 20 years, earlier than planned.
In the letter Tuesday, Suzman gave more details about what work would end and what would continue. He also affirmed that the foundation would not rethink its plans given the cuts to foreign assistance by donor countries around the world.
While these conditions will have significant repercussions for global health and development for the next few years, priorities can shift. Debt can be restructured. Generosity can return, Suzman wrote in the letter, referring also to the significant debt burden that many low- and middle-income countries carry, which eats into their public health budgets, for example.
The foundation will renew its campaign for donor countries to fund global health, specifically, Suzman said, even as he acknowledged that overall funding levels were unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels.
We definitely have not lost hope that the U.S. will stay engaged over the medium and longer term as a champion of global health, Suzman said.
The foundation will renew its advocacy with campaigns that argue for saving the lives of pregnant women and young children.
We think that is powerful and evocative, Suzman said.
The U.S. has historically been the largest funder of global health. It’s not yet clear how much funding Congress and the Trump administration will ultimately allocate toward foreign assistance or global health this year, but the State Department has said foreign assistance going forward will look extremely different. This year, the U.S. refused to fund Gavi, which offers vaccinations to children around the world, but it did pledge to contribute to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, of which it has historically been the largest supporter.
What Gates Foundation programs will end?
The foundation will wind down its program that aimed to give more people in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia access to digital financial services, with Suzman saying they think that goal will be met by 2030.
The foundation also has planned the end of its program to help people move out of poverty in the U.S., which it launched in 2022 with a $460 million commitment.
In 2023, Ryan Rippel, the head of the program, said they aimed to improve economic mobility for 50 million people in the U.S. who earn 200% of the poverty level or less, which was $29,160 in annual income for an individual at the time. The foundation said it hadn’t assessed the program’s impact against that goal specifically.
The economic mobility work will continue in a modified form as a partnership announced in July to develop AI tools that benefit frontline workers.
For the next five years, the foundation plans to hold its budget steady, spending $9 billion annually, regardless of market changes, Suzman said. They then anticipate increasing that amount as they seek to meet Gates commitment to spend the vast remainder of his fortune through the foundation by 2045. The foundation said in January that it would cap operating expenses at 14% of its annual budget and anticipated reducing its workforce by 2030.
The proposed changes were developed before the U.S. government released files on Jeffrey Epstein that include mentions of Gates and unsubstantiated claims that a spokesperson called false.
Betting on AI to make big gains in multiple areas
The foundation is also betting on the potential of artificial intelligence tools in other areas, including U.S. education and agriculture, where it’s funded projects delivering information like weather conditions to small farmers.
While U.S. education was an early focus for Gates and French Gates, Suzman said looking back, those efforts did not deliver the desired impact. However, they think AI applications could help a large number of students, teachers and schools.
In January, the foundation announced a new $50 million partnership with OpenAI’s for-profit subsidiary to develop ways for primary health clinics in Rwanda and potentially other countries to use AI to amplify the reach of health workers and improve outcomes for patients. When the foundation works with corporations, it requires them to offer what they develop without any markup to poorer countries.
“Wherever possible, were looking for things that are going be interoperable and open source to allow for these very new public goods,” Suzman said, meaning users aren’t locked into working with a specific company.
John Halamka, a physician and president of the Mayo Clinic Platform, who has worked at the intersection of health care and technology for many years, said these types of projects need to empower the local municipality to develop and fine tune the AI model for their population. Halamka, who has previously worked with the Gates Foundation on projects but is not involved in this initiative, sad interventions also need to meet patients at their level of comfort and trust with the technologies.
How do you ensure these kinds of tools will be used, trusted, adopted?” he asked. “And what are you doing to make the population comfortable with the use of these new technologies?
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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the APs collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of APs philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.
Thalia Beaty, Associated Press
The internet-famous monks that have captured the attention of the world on their cross-country “walk for peace” are in the final stretch of their 2,300-mile journey.
The group of around 19 Buddhist monks and their rescue dog companion, Aloka, have been trekking from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C., to promote world peace.
They began their walk on October 26, 2025. The journey was expected to take 120 days. Despite the recent frigid temperatures and snow storms, theyre ahead of schedule.
According to a recent post on the groups Facebook page, they plan to arrive in Washington, D.C., one week from today, Tuesday, February 10, 2026.
While the exact route and schedule could change, the current pace has them completing the journey in 108 days.
On February 2, 2026the 100th day of their walkthe monks arrived in Richmond, Virginia. Today, theyre making their way from Richmond to Ashland, Virginia.
Their Facebook page notes that they are walking to raise awareness of inner peace and mindfulness across America and the world.
The movement has drawn widespread positive attention. Massive crowds of supporters have gathered to welcome the monks as they make their way to each planned stop along their route.
The final stretch: Less than 100 miles left to walk
The monks shared their most current schedule on Facebook.
Heres what to expect:
February 10, 2026: The monks will visit the Washington National Cathedral.
February 11, 2026: The group will host a meditation retreat in the afternoon and evening.
February 12, 2026: The monks will depart Washington, D.C., by bus for Fort Worth, Texas.
The post read, We look forward to welcoming everyone with open hearts as we complete this peaceful journey together. Your presence would be a blessing and a gift to us all.
More details will be made available as they are confirmed. If you want to stay up to date on the group’s whereabouts, check their Facebook page. They share updates about their daily route.
You can also track their progress each day in this live interactive map.
Over 5 million followers are feeling inspired by the movement
The moments message of hope and peace has been well-received. Millions of people worldwide have been following the Walk for Peace movement through social media. Every social media post is flooded with positive comments from well-wishers.
The monks have attracted a large social media presence that continues to grow. Since January 2, 2026, the Walk for Peace Facebook page has grown from 575,000 to 2.5 million followers. The Walk for Peace Instagram account, which had 618,000 followers, now has 1.8 million.
The groups rescue dog, Aloka, has also attracted a massive social media following.
The Aloka The Peace Dog Facebook page is nearing one million followers. In mid-January, Aloka had to have surgery to heal a leg injury. Hes doing well, but since hes still recovering, and has been traveling in an escort car that follows the walking route along with the monks.
Disney earnings are out, and by the looks of it, the entertainment giant is starting 2026 with some strong points in its first-quarter report, powered in part by two big hits at the box office. However, some disappointing news looking ahead to the second quarter may have spooked investors, causing shares of the stock to slide over 7% to $104.72 in afternoon trading on Monday.
Shares of the Walt Disney Company (DIS) were up briefly on Tuesday morning after news that Disney named Josh D’Amaro as its new chief executive officer (starting March 18), but were back down by another half a percent to $103.99 in afternoon trading on Tuesday at the time of this writing.
First, the good news: Disney’s first quarter earnings beat estimates with revenue coming in at $25.98 billion, above analyst expectations of $25.74 billion; and higher-than-expected earnings per share (EPS) of $1.63 adjusted, 6 cents above Wall Street estimates of $1.57.
That’s due in large part to the entertainment giant’s experiences unit, which operates 12 theme parks across six global resorts, along with cruises and vacation clubs, which reported more than $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time.
It also got a nice boost from Disney’s studios box office blockbuster releases Zootopia 2 and Avatar: Fire and Ash,” that each surpassed $1 billion at the global box office, according to Disney’s earnings report. The company also highlighted its streaming services, and said sports channel ESPN delivered strong quarterly ratings. (“ESPN capturing more than 30% of all sports viewership across networks, including ESPN on ABC.”)
Now the bad news: Disney cautioned that looking ahead to its second quarter, it forecasts that its theme parks will likely see “modest operating income growth” due in part to the decline in visits from international tourists to the U.S., the Associate Press reported.
In answer to a question on Monday’s earnings call, Disney CEO Bob Iger said “because international visitors tend to stay in Disney hotels less “the company was “able to read it from other indicators” and as a result “pivoted marketing and sales efforts… to a more domestic audience and we are able to keep attendance rates high.”
That overall drop in foreign tourism to the U.S. could likely be the result of a few different factors, including President Donald Trumps crackdown on immigration; his administration’s aggressive stance toward foreign countriesincluding our close European allies and Canadaover the U.S. invasion of Venezuela and push to take over Greenland; and his high tariffs on global nations, often accompanied by anti-foreigner rhetoric.
