Every day, New Yorkers receive a staggering 2.3 million packages at their doorstop. Nearly 90 percent of those goods snake through the city on trucks that cause traffic congestion and pollute the air on their way. To address the problem, global architecture firm KPF is asking an ambitious question: “What if New York was designed for the perfect delivery?”
[Photo: KPF]
The answer, which is outlined in the firm’s latest book, Connective Urbanism New York, features towering distribution hubs, drones, and a hyper-connected logistics network that encompasses the city’s rails and waterways. KPF presents its solution as a provocative speculation designed to start a dialogue about the city’s delivery problem, but it is more grounded in reality than it seems. “We didn’t want to have speculations that were just dreams,” says Bruce Fisher, head of KPF Urban, and a co-author of the book.
In a place as dense as New York Cityboth in terms of population and building stockgood logistics are everything. As Fisher writes in the book: “A citys economic potential is tied to its logistic efficiency.”
An aerial view of the lower Manhattan waterfront, ca. 1932. [Photo: NY Daily News Archive/Getty Images]
Highways centralized transport. Can it be diversified?
There once was a time when most goods arrived in New York City via train and freight ships. Before the Holland Tunnel opened in 1927, nearly all domestic freight destined for New York terminated in New Jersey, then crossed the river on cargo ferries or “carfloats” outfitted with rail tracks.
A train barge staging area in Red Hook, Brooklyn. Ca. 1920. [Photo: Brooklyn Public Library, Center for Brooklyn History]
By the 1950s, propelled by the Interstate Highway System, trains gave way to trucks on improved roads, while freight shifted to shipping containers that required larger open spaces in New Jersey. The city shifted to trucks too, and its distribution infrastructure changed with it.
Now, KPF wants to diversify the way goods move throughout the city, beyond trucking. The architects envision a distribution network system that utilizes New Yorks existing freight rail lines, its extensive coastline, and its abundant navigable waterways.
[Image: KPF]
Goods would first arrive in the city by a combination of trains and ships sailing into regional ports like Red Hook, in Brooklyn, or Elizabeth, in New Jersey.
[Image: KPF]
Then, they would make their way into strategically located distribution hubs, from where automated cranes and robots would collect the cargo and distribute it to logistic centers scattered around the city. From there, goods would be delivered using a variety of micromobility options like electric bikes, un-manned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones.
A train barge, ca. 2016. [Photo: Matt Clare/Flickr]
Some freight deliveries arealready being re-routed to waterways
If the architects’ proposal evokes a scene out of a sci-fi movie, that’s because it requires the kind of infrastructure that we can seemingly only imagine from the future. But for Fisher, every idea related in the book is based on real-life examples.
For decades, the New York Department of Sanitation has used the city’s waterways to transport trash and recycling from six strategically located facilities to landfills outside the city. Most recently, in December 2025, the New York Department of Transportation (NYC DOT) launched its Blue Highways program, which aims to remove a significant portion of freight deliveries off crowded streets and onto the citys 520 miles of navigable waterways.
A DutchX cargo bike loads onto a ferry, ca. 2023. [Photo: DutchX]
Essentially, it redesigns the city’s package distribution system. Through the program, which is now in a pilot phase, the city will transport 300 to 400 small household parcels per day from a ferry onto five electric pedal-assist cargo bikes, which will complete the final delivery phase. It’s currently being tested within a designated delivery area within Manhattan. If the pilot is successful, the city plans to expand the program.
“Waterways are the new highways in New York City,” said NYC DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez in a press release at the time. “New Yorks waterways built this citynow theyre helping us create a cleaner, safer, and smarter way to deliver the goods New Yorkers rely on.”
In its efforts to reduce truck traffic and curb congestion, NYC DOT has also launched a pilot ‘Microhubs’ program with dedicated spaces for truck operators to transfer deliveries onto more sustainable modes of transportation, like e-cargo bikes, handcarts, and electric sprinter vans, for last mile deliveries.
Old distribution hubs may provide new ideas for the present
For now, these pilots are small in scale and scope, and none of them extend past the boundaries of Manhattan. In order to scale the operations into the outer boroughs, the city would likely need to build distribution hubs and logistic centers like the ones in KPF’s proposal.
In its speculation, KPF proposes a cylindrical building akin to the Marina City towers in Chicago. The building, which would be ideally located near a port or a train station, features a continuous ramp for EVs and delivery robots, docking stations for UAVs, and a rooftop launchpad for large cargo drones.
The Starrett-Lehigh Building. ca. 1932. [Photo: Irving Underhill/Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images]
The idea for such integrated buildings isn’t all that new. In the 1930s, New York City’s StarrettLehigh Building once served as a “drive-in building”: railcars came directly into the ground floor, their freight was transferred to trucks, which were then lifted in special elevators onto designated floors with loading bays. This allowed goods to be loaded, stored, repackaged, and redistributed without using curbside space.
Today, the Starrett-Lehigh building has been transformed into a modern office building. But new buildings are emerging to help cities improve freight logistics.
In April 2025, a multi-story industrial development opened in Long Island City, Queens. Spanning 1 million square feet across six stories, Borden Industrial sports concrete ramps that trucks can use to load and unload on upper levels. The building appears focused on truck logistics, but as Fisher points out, it’s also located near active rail yards, and it borders Newtown Creek, a major industrial waterway for barges and freight.
One could imagine that, if enough buildings like Borden Industrial opened in strategic locations across New York City, KPF’s vision would quickly enter the realm of reality. And as cities around the world rush to meet their zero-emission goals, many are already experimenting with alternative delivery solutions.
For a decade now, France’s larger supermarket chain, Franprix, has transported goods by barge to its 300 Parisian stores by barge. And this year, new electric cargo barges, stocked with e-cargo bikes, are set to deliver regular mail to Paris suburbs. Meanwhile, Peachtree Corners, a small city northeast of Atlanta, Georgia, has become a testbed for a curious experiment in the shape of one-mile underground tube network that delivers sandwiches and small packages between suburban microhubs. Drone deliveries are also growing increasingly popular, with companies like Amazon and Walmart leading the charge in the U.S.
These experiments show that the pieces are already in place in many cities around the world, and New York wouldn’t be pioneering something radicalit would be joining a growing movement. But in the end, it will all come down to political will and private investment.
“Someone has to be the real defender of [these models], pushing them forward,” says Fisher. “Until there’s a overall regulatory system that allows for it, it can’t really happen.”
Chipotle is going for gold again with the return of its gold-foil burritos for the 2026 Winter Olympics.
Starting January 15, Chipotle will offer a few Olympian-inspired menu items on the Chipotle app and online. Then in February, Chipotle will wrap every burrito in gold.
For Chipotle, the Olympics are an opportunity to shake off a slump. Chipotle shares plummeted 19% in October 2025, and its operating margin was down 1% in Q3. The company hasnt announced its full 2025 financial results yet, but sales are expected to decline (a reversal from February 2025 projections). Key segments of the companys customer baseyounger people and low- to middle-income householdsare dining out less often.
The gilded Olympics campaign creates a moment to associate Chipotle burritos with the two big trends in food: less processing and more (and more and more) protein.
While the path to greatness is different for each of these star athletes, Chipotle is consistently part of their training regimen, providing easy access to real ingredients and high protein options, said Stephanie Perdue, Chipotle interim chief marketing officer, in a press release. We are honoring Team Chipotle by bringing back gold foil and extending this moment of celebration to fans across the U.S.
A history of Chipotles Olympic gold (foils)
This isnt the first time Chipotle has debuted gilded burrito wrappers. The gold foil made its debut for the companys 18th anniversary in 2011, then released nationwide in 2021 for the Tokyo Olympics. Then the gold foil returned for Paris 2024, along with the first iteration of Olympians’ signature meals as limited menu items.
Fans can once again eat like Olympians this year. The go-to orders of Team USA hockey players Matthew Tkachuk, Brady Tkachuk, Hilary Knight, Taylor Heise, and snowboard Red Gerard will all be available as digital menu items. But whats different this year is a sign of the times: It appears that this is the first year that Chipotle is advertising the grams of protein on each menu item.
For Milano Cortina 2026, all 4,000 Chipotle locations in the U.S. will carry the gold foil wrappers while supplies last. Here are the go-to orders of Team Chipotle:
The Matthew Tkachuk Bowl
Burrito bowl with double chicken, light brown rice, light tomatillo-red chili salsa, light sour cream and lettuce (67 grams of protein)
The Brady Tkachuk Bowl
Burrito bowl with half chicken, half steak, white rice and roasted chili-corn salsa (60 grams of protein)
The Hilary Knight Burrito
Burrito with white rice, pinto beans, fresh tomato salsa, cheese and guac (28 grams of protein)
The Taylor Heise Tacos
An order of three tacos with soft flour tortillas, chicken, fresh tomato salsa, roasted chili-corn salsa, sour cream, cheese and lettuce (50 grams of protein)
The Red Gerard Bowl
Burrito bowl with chicken, extra white rice, tomatillo-red chili salsa, cheese, sour cream and lettuce (48 grams of protein)
The race to own the Olympics
Chipotle certainly isnt the only brand trying to ride the Olympics wave.
In October, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced a limited-edition custom pasta shaped like the five Olympic rings. Although the pasta was not available for sale, there are plenty of other partnerships for those looking to get a taste of the Olympics.
Bloom Nutrition has partnered with three-time U.S. national champion figure skater Amber Glenn. Kodiak is fueling U.S. Ski and Snowboard with its high-protein, whole-grain products ahead of the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
For Chipotle, the gold foil campaign is a way to invite customers to be a part of the Olympic moment, and associate the beleaguered burrito company with new energy. Our gold foil is a simple and joyful way of honoring American athletes and rallying fans to root them on this winter, Perdue said.
r/Bald is a popular subreddit where those who are losing their hair or have recently taken the plunge and shaved their heads can find support, encouragement, and a general ego-boost from the community’s 1.4 million weekly visitors.
Created in 2011, the subreddit has 23,000 weekly contributions. Often, they follow the format of men uploading photos of their receding hairlines. Is it time? reads one recent post. The answer, in almost every instance, is yes.
The before-and-after transformations are overwhelmingly met with enthusiasm and welcoming responses. Might as well go all the way one recent post read. 10 years younger my dude! replied one Redditor. Another commented: Came here to say the same! You reverse aged.
Another poster shared their bald transformation, titled I have arrived. They added: Finally joined the bald squad. Got told I looked like I had a comb over and knew it was time.
One response read: Man its so crazy how much better every dude who posts here looks bald. Another agreed, Seriously! It’s glow up after glow up on this subbreddit!.
Pattern baldness affects roughly 80% of men and nearly half of women over the course of their lives. Still, its hard to believe this is the same internet inhabited by snark pages and trolls whose sole intent is to tear others apart based on their appearances and insecurities.
The r/bald subreddit is an example of wholesome masculine body-positivity. every post is a guy showing his clearly-past-the-point-of-no-return thinning hair & asking is it time?” and the top reply is always this image,” one X user wrote in a recent post that has been viewed more than 11 million times. Everyone get more bald now!!! another demanded.
It is not only men active on the subreddit. Women also openly share their bald journey, whether that be through choice or as a result of undergoing chemotherapy treatment or autoimmune diseases such as alopecia, which affects up to 30 million women in the U.S. alone.
Others are simply lurking for the wholesome content. I’m not anywhere near balding but I still love this sub so much, one Reddit user commented. One of the most positive places on the internet, another wrote.
At a time where hair transplants are becoming more and more common, r/Balds philosophy is instead to embrace bald and strive to make the world a more bald-friendly place.
Were often sold the idea that bald is bad. Thats bullshit, reads the subs description. It is natural. And it is nothing to be ashamed ofhere well support each other and learn to take pride in our baldness.
Honda says its refreshed H logo represents a second founding for the company. Honda 2.0, then, is designed to look like it’s from the future.
The Japanese automaker announced on January 13 that it’s adopting a new logo across its automobile business. The company has had some sort of an H mark since 1963, and its new mark is wider than its last, with stems that slant outward as they move upward. The logo is now freed from being inside a frame, and Honda compares it to “two outstretched hands.” It’s meant to evoke a shape, not just a letter.
From left: Hondas previous logo; the new version [Images: Honda]
As the automotive industry electrifies and upgrades its tech, automakers including Audi, Kia, and Tesla have turned to design tropes from 1980s science fiction to make their logos look futuristic, with stenciled, wide letters that evoke the typography of films like Bladerunner and Back to the Future II. Other brands, such as BMW, Mazda, and VW, have gone flat. All in all, these changes signal a great rebranding during a pivotal moment for the industry.
[Photo: Honda]
Honda now joins the sweep of rebrands with a logo that wouldn’t look out of place on the outside of a spaceship or worn as a communication badge by an alien admiral in a sci-fi film. It’s a clean, simple mark that’s versatile enough to work well at small scales, on digital screens, in a single color, or as a car badge.
Honda first unveiled the mark in 2024 in dramatic fashion. It launched at that year’s Consumer Electronics Show on a pair of Honda 0 Series concept carsthe Saloon and Space-Hubthat look like they were built for the 2025 movie Tron: Ares and NASA’s Artemis mission to the moon, respectively.
[Image: Honda]
The company announced on January 13 that the mark seen on those concept cars will now be used as the symbol to represent the business. It will appear across touchpoints such as dealership locations, communication initiatives, and motorsports events. Next year, it will finally begin appearing on Honda EVs and hybrid-electric vehicles.
This is a future-forward rebrand that’s years in the making.
“The automobile market is currently undergoing a major transformation with electrification and application of intelligent technologies,” Honda said in a statement. “The new H mark will represent the ‘second founding,’ which Honda is pursuing with strong determination to lead the way.”
Known for models like the Accord, Civic, and CR-V, Honda is a brand associated with affordability and value. With its sci-fi-ready new logo, though, the company is aiming for a brand identity that drivers will soon associate with traits like transformation and advancement.
A new mandatory safety feature requires Roblox users in the U.S. to submit to facial age estimation via the app to access its chat feature. The online gaming platform announced it was implementing the system to prevent children younger than 16 from communicating with adults. About 42% of Roblox users are younger than 13.
But a cursory scroll on eBay found that various listings of age-verified Roblox accounts are available for purchase, some for as little as $2.99. This allows the purchaser to sign in to the account without having to use any ID or facial scan, voiding the new safety feature Roblox has implemented.
The description of one listing (since removed) read: The product is an Age Verified Roblox account for users between the ages of 13-15. This account comes with chat unlocked, allowing users to communicate with other players aged 9-17.
After Wired flagged the listings in a recent report, eBay said the company was removing them for violating the site’s policies. At the time of this writing, Fast Company found 27 results when searching for Roblox age verified account.
Thats not the only problem Roblox is contending with. The system has also had trouble correctly estimating users ages, mislabeling some adults as children and vice versa.
One X user wrote that their 10-year-old brother was misidentified as a 16- to 17-year-old. The replies are full of others sharing similar stories. I have a full ass beard and it put my alt on a 13-16 age range, one responded to the post. I’m 23 (nearly 24) and it’s forced me as a 16-17 year old, another wrote.
Another X user posted a video of them circumventing the age verification using a 3D animated avatar, which Roblox’s system identified as over 18. Another user, somewhat unbelievably, fooled the system into thinking he was over the age of 21 by drawing on facial hair with a marker. At present, nearly 80 active lawsuits accuse Roblox of enabling child exploitation, with some parents alleging their children encountered predators on the app.
A Roblox spokesperson told Fast Company: Were excited to see that tens of millions of users have already completed the process, proving that the vast majority of our community values a safer, more age-appropriate environment. To roll this out to a global community of over 150 million daily active users is a huge undertaking and were working to smooth out the transition.”
Roblox has previously put out statements saying the company is constantly evaluating user behavior to determine if someone is significantly older or younger than expected. In these situations, we will soon begin asking users to repeat the age-check process.
Last week the company also became aware of instances where parents age check on behalf of their children, leading to kids being aged to 21+.
Imagine youre talking to someone and they suddenly start to add advertising to the exchange. What might that look like? In a 1965 episode of the classic sitcom I Dream of Jeannie, the protagonist uses her magical powers to create fake parents for herself in order to impress a date. She crafts them to be just like the people on television commercials, making them speak using sentences from commercials. Her synthetic parents appear friendly and normaluntil they start talking, reciting ads verbatim for products like streak-away for gray hair, dish soap, Grippo denture adhesive, and deodorant. They have so much to say, yet communicate nothing at all.
Something similar might happen if OpenAI goes forward with its rumored plans to add advertising to ChatGPT. Last December, an article in Futurism, citing internal sources at OpenAI, suggested ad adoption could be near. Recently, The Information reported that the company is hiring digital advertising veterans and that it will install a secondary model capable of evaluating if a conversation has commercial intent, before offering up relevant ads in the chat responses. Annoying ads within ChatGPT could be for things as banal as a grocery product, a local destination to visit, or a handyman service. But they could also be a lot of something elsesomething dangerous. Given ChatGPTs track record, some poor soul might be pouring their heart out to the chatbot, only to be advised of a special on rope at their local hardware store. Im not making light of the latterIt could happen. There cant be true oversight with LLMs. And thats only one of their problems.
Context is the Holy Grail
OpenAIs advertising move is a bold and brilliant, but potentially terrible, crude attempt to automate contextual understanding, a missing link with the push toward combining big data and surveillance. For a long time, newspapers and radio stations were local and distributed. As transportation connected us and technology improved, the opportunity to distribute more centralized news from single, larger sources became possible. Television began with a few channels and concentrated programming that was the same across broad regions. This ushered in a heyday for advertisers who sponsored TV content and could show single ads to millions of viewers.
As a distributed technology, the internet disrupted many forms of traditional media, and advertisers have been scrambling to try to reach us in new ways. While technology has enabled advertisers to benefit from our location in an attempt to hone in on what might appeal to us, internet ads are often not contextually relevant to what we want or need.
What OpenAI intends to do with advertising, via ChatGPTs self-reported 900 million weekly users, will synthesize the local distributed model. This will enable the platform to reach into our homes in the same way that mass television once possessed. Its an attempt to unify and bypass the interfaces of phones and computers that we currentlyuse. In the process, OpenAI willbe creating a super platform for informational use and processing.
The algorithms dont know us
Within its current platform, ChatGPT offers a conversational medium of interaction and query; each chat captures how we use language, more detailed descriptions of the problems we seek to solve, and many of our needs. Thus, the opportunity for OpenAI to have platform control, along with access to our inner thoughts, all with the surveillance capability to compile these into targeted individual ads, is the ultimate goal for advertisers: to really reach us, deep inside our thoughts.
However, this outcome is unlikely. The problem with this model is that it still relies on computational compiling and sorting. The algorithms wont know us, or form relationships with us. Because of that, they cant actually recommend true advertising solutions to our problemsjust like these algorithms cant solve our problems now. But their results can mimic helpfulness, just like Jeannies synthetic parents.
While collecting and compiling our online data has brought advertisers closer to knowing what they think we need, what has been missing is an understanding of the context of what these actions mean to us. Qualitative research, which helps to discover the how, why, and what of interaction, has been pushed aside through the rush to embrace big data.
The LLMs that feed chatbots are not magical: They are algorithms that statistically match words and rank them from sources that the model was trained on. An LLM listening to our conversations will not “understand” context as human qualitative researchers can. Thus, the ads that ChatGPT will suggest from our conversations may seem like a match, but they’re unlikely to offer anything contextually substantial.Another idea OpenAI suggests is that sponsored results could get preferential treatment. Subscribers might get better matching ads, but, again, because this is all based on word matching, it may not matter much. (It hasnt been revealed if there will be an option to avoid such advertising completely.)
The trust is an illusion
An OpenAI spokesperson told The Information: People have a trusted relationship with ChatGPT, and any approach would be designed to respect that trust. But theres a big difference between having a social relationship with someone and having a trusted social relationship.
Many of us are trained to fill in social gaps when we interact with others who are trying to communicate with us. In that context, we may project sociabilityand, thus, trustonto them. By seeming to respond to us with a point of view and a chat style that feels personal, ChatGPT perpetuates that illusion of sociability and trust. By leveraging our innate social behaviors, ChatGPT also leverages that behavioral goodwill. But that sociability and trust is in our heads. It isnt realits just an algorithm.
ChatGPT is merely a way for OpenAIs LLM outcomes to be presented to us. Is it trusted and social to siphon peoples knowledge and work to train a model? If OpenAI were a person, wed say no, pointing out how thats akin to a sociopath stealing our ideas and work and presenting them to others. But because we converse with ChatGPT, we project a trust upon it that it cant earn because it is not human.
OpenAI adding advertising to ChatGPT seems like an inevitability. If we use this tool, we need to remember that we cannot form bonds to it, that it cannot have a relationship with us, and that all it can do is word atch. Any ad it serves us will be based on what we tell it, but it can’t “think” about all we tell it and propose an ad that speaks explicitly to us as a trusted friend who knows us would do. It is best to keep that in mind as these tools evolve to seemingly understand us. OpenAI as a company could try to earn its customers’ trust by discovering what its customers want and need using qualitative research rather than foisting its advertising decisions upon us. Even so, the idea that this advertising model will scale and deliver contextually relevant advertising to 900 million weekly users seems unrealistic. Context, especially driven through LLMs that already have issues with slop, hallucinations, and outright lies, can be a challenging match for advertisers, who need reliable recommendations to keep the integrity of their brands and reputations.
Without trust formed between entities, were all at risk of being played: OpenAI, who believes their algorithms will deliver what they promise, the advertisers who trust that their ads will accurately match the users context and interest, and those who use ChatGPT, a service they trust that, in fact, seems intent upon using them for revenue instead.
The new year is a time for resolutions. This year, governments, platforms, and campaigners all seem to have hit on the same ones: Children should spend less time online, and companies should know exactly how old their users are.
From TikToks infinite scroll to chatbots like xAIs Grok that can spin up uncensored answers to almost any question in seconds, addictive and inappropriate online options leave legislators and regulators worried. The result is a new kind of arms race: Lawmakers, often spooked by headlines about mental health, extremism, or sexual exploitation, are turning to age gates, usage caps, and outright bans as solutions to social medias problems. Just in the past week, weve seen Grok become Exhibit A in the debate about harmful content as it helps undress users, while states consider or enact bans, blocks, and time limits on using tech.
Right now, the regulatory debate seems to exclusively focus on how certain internet services are net negatives, and banning access to minors to such services, says Catalina Goanta, associate professor in private law and technology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. That black-and-white approach is easy for politicians to parse, but doesnt necessarily communicate the nuance involved in tech and its potential for good. The scientific debate shows us a much more nuanced landscape of what can be harmful to minors, and that will depend on so many more aspects than just a child having a phone in their hands, says Goanta.
Legislators are moving quickly to throw a protective shield around younger users. A December 2025 proposed law in Texas would have required Apple and Google to verify user ages and get parental consent for minors app downloads, but was blocked just before Christmas.
Meanwhile, as outright bans are being blocked, states are pushing forward with rules that cap social media access. Virginias default one-hour daily cap for under-16s was launched with a requirement for commercially reasonable age checks. However, it has already been challenged in court by a lawsuit filed by NetChoice, an association that seeks to make the Internet safe for free enterprise and free expression. The group, which includes Amazon, Google, Meta and OpenAI as members, says imposing a time block on social media is like limiting the ability to read books or watch documentaries.
All of the laws have been challenged, and the court’s ruling on the Texas law doesn’t bode well for the other state laws, says Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of the Chamber of Progress, which he describes as a center-left tech industry policy coalition.
But, he says, some of this tough talk is also allegedly helped by big tech firms themselves, It’s important to keep in mind that the app store age verification bills have been written and advanced by Meta, largely as a way of getting themselves from defense onto offense.
The Texas law is just one out of many that are cropping up around the United Statesand around the world. Across the Atlantic, France is pursuing an Australia-style ban on social media for under-15s this year, while the U.K.s official (if not likely) opposition party, the Conservatives, has also backed a social media ban for under-16s.
That court challenge is an augur of whats to come in 2026, reckons Kovacevich. Legislators keep pushing and pushing with age verification mandates, warning labels, and design mandates, and they keep running into the same two buzzsaws again and again, he says: Users’ privacy rights and the First Amendment.
The legislative surge is part of a broader tech temperance movement aimed at social media, apps, and AI. In the U.K., the Online Safety Act’s child-safety provisions came into practical effect in July 2025, requiring platforms likely to be accessed by children to implement “highly effective” age-assurance measures and shield young users from content promoting self-harm, suicide, violence, and pornography.
With Grok, the law is facing its first big test for the body in charge, communications regulator Ofcom. Across the European Union, the Digital Services Act’s rules on minors’ data and recommender systems are also tightening. The question now is whether courtsand userswill tolerate the friction these laws create.
Regulators have to resolve an inherent tension, says Goanta. Do we want children to have agency over their access to and conduct on the internetthe childrens rights narrative. Or do we consider that they have limited capacity because they are not yet fully developed, and their guardians get to make decisions for them? She points out that there can be plenty of solutions that fall between both extremes. But the resulting spectrum should be the focus of debates, and not moral panics.
Next week’s “Free America Walkout” is asking Americans to walk out of work (and school) on Tuesday, January 20, to disrupt “business as usual” in protest of the Trump administrations recent actions and policies, including its treatment of immigrants, attempts to curb democracy, recent abuse by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, and the recent fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis.
The protest’s main organizers are the Women’s March. The group came to prominence the day after President Donald Trump’s first inauguration in 2017, when it organized a massive nationwide protest, drawing hundreds of thousands of Americans to Washington, D.C. At that time, the protest on January 21, 2017, was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history.
Now, nearly nine years lateralmost to the daythe Women’s March is back, marking the one-year anniversary of Trump’s second inauguration.
On January 20, were calling on people everywhere to turn their backs on fascism and walk out, Rachel OLeary Carmona, executive director of Womens March, tells Fast Company. Authoritarianism runs on our obedience, and were withdrawing it. We walk out because a free America is the only America worth calling great.
By disrupting “business as usual,” organizers explain they are sending a message to the administration that its actions will not be tolerated. This is a protest and a promise. In the face of fascism, we will be ungovernable, the Free America website says.
Here’s what to know.
What’s happening on Tuesday, January 20?
More than 450 events are scheduled in all 50 U.S. states, as well as in Canada, France, Italy, and the Netherlands.
Walkouts, sit-downs, vigils, and meetups are set to take place in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Boulder, Houston, New York City, Oklahoma City, Phoenix, Portland (Oregon and Maine), San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa, Tucson, and Washington, D.C.
These include school walkouts; marches to federal buildings, city halls, local court houses, and capitals; and more.
Why a walkout, not a march?
“Marches show how many people care. Walkouts show how much power we have,” the website says. “And we have seen the power of walkouts around the worldpeople from Poland to Chile who have fought peacefully and successfully to dismantle injustice and topple authoritarian regimes.”
“At this moment, visibility alone isnt enough,” the website continues. “We need action that tests our strength, builds coordination, and proves that noncompliance is a legitimate response to injustice.”
Historically, walkouts and sit-insalongside protestshave been an effective nonviolent tool to create change. From the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements to the current New York City nurses’ strike, workers, students, teachers, and ordinary Americans have walked off the job and sat in protest to register their discontent.
Who else is helping to organize the Free America Walkout?
The day’s events are organized by the Women’s March organization along with 50501, a progressive grassroots movement, with a coalition of national and local partners including Feminist, Free DC, and the Immigrant Rights Committee in Tampa.
As we head into the new year, I am facing a daunting prospect. After over 34 years in higher education as a professor and administrator, Im moving to the private sector to support more effective teaching practices. I would classify this change as a significant career pivot. I am changing market sectors (public sector to private) and shifting from serving a single institution to a global base of clients.
Decisions like this are not to be made lightly. It is important to ensure that you are making this move to run toward something attractive and not just away from something that frustrates you. Here are three important considerations if you think a significant career move may be in your future.
Why do you want to do this?
Career pivots are generally rooted in dissatisfaction. There is something about the work youre doing now that is frustrating or unsatisfying. For many people, there is a particular crisis that initiates the real desire to take a pivot. It could be an illness, accident, or death in the family, or it could be a crisis at work.
Crises are helpful, because they allow people to take stock of their lives. Significant milestone events like a birthday or the end of a year can play the same role. However, dissatisfaction provides energy to run away from something. A career pivot also involves running toward something.
So, a successful career pivot must also involve a reason to take on a new role. One common career switch involves moving from a position that no longer fits your personal values to one that is a better fit to the values important to you. For example, you may have been focused on achievement early in your career and now feel like doing something that benefits society is more important than personal gain. It is useful to be explicit about the ways that a new job may be a better fit to your personal values, because that compatibility is a crucial source of long-term satisfaction.
In addition, you want to ensure that you are clear-eyed about what a new career path entails. Just about every job has a certain number of frustrating tasks you have to put up with. You want to acknowledge the frustrations and drudgery of the path youre selecting so that you are not just engaging in the mythical belief that the new career path will be free of BS.
How does your experience and expertise transfer?
If you are going to be successful in the new role, there has to be something about your knowledge and skills that will enable you to contribute. Psychologists use the word transfer to name the capacity to take what you know and what you can do in one area and use it in another.
As you contemplate this career pivot, talk to people who are already doing this work about their day-to-day work life. If possible, shadow one of them for a while. Think about how you would react or solve problems in the new work you would be doing. Are you able to take your experience and apply it in the new setting?
At the same time, you want to be realistic about your willingness to learn. Some people are very comfortable in situations in which they are a relative novice. They dont mind being someone who needs to be helped along and may make a certain number of rookie mistakes. Making a career pivot involves learning a lot. Youre not going to be the most effective person at work when you start in the new role. If you find that exciting, then you are a good candidate to make a change.
Where does your life satisfaction come from?
Earlier, I mentioned one big source of life satisfaction, which is the fit between the results of the work you do and your values. But, that is not the only thing that will make your life satisfying.
For one thing, you may not derive your greatest satisfaction from your work. Instead, you may have organizations, hobbies, or relationships that are a deeper part of what makes your life worth living. If so, you want to think about how the new responsibilities at work will relate to what is most important to you in life.
For another, your happiness with work is not just in the relationship between the mission of the organization and your personal values. The day-to-day engagement with work is also going to affect how you feel. Long commutes can suck the life out of you, even if you like the work youre doing. If you are someone who needs to be around people a lot, then a job that is mostly done remote may not feed your desire for social interaction.
How does the work youll be taking on relate to the things you do and do not like to do? Look for some ways that your daily work life will bring with it a few elements that will be truly enjoyable so that you can envision yourself getting out of bed excited to take on the day rather than wishing that the weekend would arrive sooner.
I explored all of these questions as I moved toward my new career path. Im excited to share more details about it over the next few weeks.
Well, this could be awkward for Americans traveling abroad.
Beginning on January 21, the U.S. will indefinitely suspend immigrant visa processing from 75 countries as part of the Trump administrations crackdown on immigration. While the suspension only applies to those visas needed for employment or to join family in the U.S.and not student or tourist visasit includes many beloved travel destinations for Americans.
The countries selectedincluding the Bahamas, Jamaica, and Thailandwere deemed high risk of public benefits usage by the State Department, according to a statement on Wednesday. The ban goes into effect next week, at which time no immigrant visas will be issued to nationals of the 75 affected countries until further notice.
Under President Trump, we will not allow foreign nationals to abuse Americas immigration system and exploit the generosity of the American people, Tommy Pigott, spokesperson for the State Department, posted on the X platform on Wednesday.
This announcement follows one from last week in which the U.S. added seven countries to a list of mostly African nations whose passport holders must post bonds of up to $15,000 to apply to enter the country.
EFFECTS ON LEGAL IMMIGRATION
This latest visa crackdown also builds upon prior bans that affected 40 countries, effectively barring entry for nearly half of the immigrants who came to the country legally in 2024, David J. Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, wrote in a blog post.
Linking the crackdown to concerns about welfare use among legal immigrants is not good justification for this type of immigration restriction, partly because immigrant visa recipients are already barred from receiving any federal means-tested public benefits for five years, Bier said.
President Trump is leading the most anti-legal immigrant administration in American history, Bier wrote. This is just the latest action to slash legal entries to the United States.
WHAT THE BAN COVERS
The list also has notable exceptions, including several countries that are otherwise the subject of scrutiny by the current administrationChina, Mexico, and El Salvador, for example. Whats more, it doesnt target nationals from several countries for which the U.S. processed the most visas in recent years, such as the Dominican Republic, the Philippines, India, and Vietnam.
In addition to the exception for tourist and student visas, dual nationals who have a valid passport from a country thats not on the list are exempt from the pause, according to the State Department. And no visas have been revoked, the agency said.
POTENTIAL RIPPLE EFFECT
Even though tourism visas arent affected, the change in visa policy could have a ripple effect. The U.S. is expected to see a boom in foreign tourism this year, bringing in more than 1.2 million visitors for the matches scheduled for June and July, according to estimates by Tourism Economics.
In 2025, the U.S. welcomed 6% fewer foreign than in the previous year, according to figures released this week by the World Travel and Tourism Council. And a survey conducted in October by Global Rescue found that, as a result of U.S. international policy announcements in 2025, some 61% of American travelers believe theyll be viewed more negatively while traveling abroad.
FULL LIST OF AFFECTED COUNTRIES
The full list of countries affected by the ban on visas that goes into effect next week is: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Burma, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Colombia, Cote dIvoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Fiji, The Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Grenada, Guatemala, Guinea, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyz Republic, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Libya, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Nepal, Nicaragua, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Republic of the Congo, Russia, Rwanda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, and Yemen.
