Were more than half a decade removed from pandemic lockdownswhen remote work profoundly upended the 9-to-5yet the preference for workday flexibility endures, a new report shows.
According to the recently released ninth annual State of Hybrid Work report from Owl Labs, a video conference tech company, 65% of workers are interested in a concept the report refers to as microshifting: structured flexibility with short, nonlinear work blocks matched to your energy, duties, or productivity. In other words: breaking up your work shift into a bunch of tiny ones.
Perhaps you log on at 6 a.m. to get a head start, then take a break for a midmorning Pilates class before clocking back on to finish the days tasks. Or maybe you pause in the afternoon to do the school run or take the dog out, shifting your final work block into the evening, when the madness has settled down. Like similar methods, such as timeboxing or the Pomodoro technique, microshifting rethinks the flow of a traditional workday, zeroing in on when the individual feels most productive.
Rather than being chained to a desk for eight hours each day, microshifting breaks up the slog into short concentrated bursts of productivity. Blast through your inbox, or go head-down on a project, and around that balance personal responsibilities and life events that crop up without notice.
The new report shows that microshifting has proven particularly popular among Gen Zers and millennials, with nearly 7 in 10 reporting that they would prefer such an approach at work.
Its widely accepted that productivity cannot be measured simply by hours clocked. Research on attention spans and productivity has shown that using shorter, intentional work intervals helps sustain energy, prevents cognitive fatigue, and sharpens focus. Workplaces arent as rigid and structured as they once were, Kickresume cofounder and CEO Peter Duris told Fast Company. Flexibility is one of the most common and sought-after perks in a job, whether thats having the option to work from home or working flexible hours.
In fact, Owl Labs found that employees were prepared to give up 9% of their annual salary for flexible working hours (and 8% for a four-day workweek). Microshifting is a great way for employees to balance their personal responsibilities alongside work, Duris said. If you have the option to work microshifts, it could be worth discussing with your manager. This may be especially game-changing for parents or carers.
Rather than an opportunity to slack off, look at microshifts like mini work sprints. If you give it a try, digital scheduling tools and productivity apps like Focus Friend can stop you from feeling scatterbrained and keep you focused and on track while divvying up the day.
Start by figuring out when you are most productive and tackle your high-priority tasks then. If youre a morning person, get to work right away and schedule your low-priority tasks for when your productivity levels wane in the afternoon. If youre a night owl, get your workout classes or errands out of the way first, then lock in for the evening grind.
Its always a good idea to get as acquainted as possible with your productivity styleat least until the next business buzzword gets coined and makes you rethink everything again.
Below, Ann Tashi Slater shares five key insights from her new book, Traveling in Bardo: The Art of Living in an Impermanent World.
Slater has published fiction, essays, and interviews in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Guernica, and Granta, among others, as well as in The Penguin Book of Modern Tibetan Essays and American Dragons (HarperCollins). Her speaking and teaching engagements include Princeton, Columbia, Oxford, the American University of Paris, the Rubin Museum of Art, and Asia Society.
Whats the big idea?
Traveling in Bardo interweaves explorations of impermanence in our everyday existence with Slaters girlhood in America and time spent with her Tibetan family in Darjeeling. Like her great-grandfather before her, she spreads guidance about bardo between-states, or periods of life transition, to Western audiences. Change is inevitable, can come at any moment, and only by growing our acceptance of uncertainty and endings can we live more fully. Tibetan bardo teachings help us navigate and embrace life in its sorrow and joy.
1. Between-states offer great possibilities for transformation.
We experience between-states, or bardos, in every area of our lives, from friendship and marriage to children and parents to work and creativity. These periods of transition may be eagerly anticipated (a move to another city, the birth of a child) or painfully challenging (the end of a relationship, the loss of a parent). Whatever the case, they give us a chance to reset our compass and find new perspectives as we discover that the only thing we can be sure of is change.
The transformative possibilities of between-states are imprinted on our psyches from an early age. Fairy tales are all about metamorphosis: After slumbering for a hundred years, Sleeping Beauty awakens; Hansel and Gretel defeat the witch in the forest and return home; Cinderella endures the cruel treatment of her stepmother and stepsisters and becomes a princess. We also see it in the natural world: a moth emerging from a cocoon, a flower blooming after the long winter. Were drawn to the potential for evolution that is found in between-states, but can we experience transformation as we ourselves go through times of transition? Its possible if were open to it.
2. Its not change that threatens us, but our resistance to it.
Were wired to shy away from change, resist endings, and cling to what we know. Are you holding on to a job that has lost meaning? Or a belief system or way of living that no longer serves you? Perhaps youre denying your parentsor your ownaging and mortality?
My grandmother told me once about a funeral she attended in Tibet in the 1920s where the dead man wanted to reenter his body. We couldnt see him, she said, but the high lama there saw that the dead man was trying to bring the corpse again to life. This story is a striking metaphor for our resistance to change. We struggle and grieve, deepening our suffering by trying to hold on to what is lost to us. I experienced this when my father died suddenly, and Im going through it again now as my mother disappears into dementia.
There are endings we can do something about, like a job thats no longer right for us, and ones we cant, such as an aging parent. Regardless, only when we accept the reality of our situation can we open ourselves to the sorrow we naturally feel and move forward, instead of remaining trapped in denial. Its our resistance to changerather than change itselfthat most threatens us, hindering the flourishing of our mind and spirit in a world where impermanence is the only certainty.
3. What we pay attention to becomes our reality.
In life, we may drift aimlessly through the months and years, immersed in thoughts and reveries. What our distracted minds perceive turns into our reality, and we have the strange feeling that were dwelling in a parallel universe, able to sense our real lives but not live them. We worry that something is missing, or that were missing out, and we wonder if well ever find ease and joy. Were like the hungry ghosts in Tibetan cosmology: skeletal beings with throats as thin as a piece of hair and stomachs as big as the Grand Canyon (never enough drinks or eats for them, my grandmother used to say).
The mind is like a team of horses that, given the chance, will charge off in different directions. The challenge is to take hold of the reins. As the bardo teachings tell us, the mind can be guided like the controlling of a horses mouth by means of a bridle. When conscious attention becomes our way of being in the world, we undergo a profound shift in our experience of life. Instead of feeling insatiable hungry ghost cravings, we reside more fully in each moment. As that becomes our way of being, we find the contentment that eluded us.
4. Karma is action, not fate.
We often think of karma as fate. It was my karma to buy that house, or, It was my karma to not get along with my daughter. But karma isnt just about things happening to us beyond our control. Its about how what we do, think, and say in each moment determines our path forward.
If our actions are positive, thats all to the good, but if not, we make ourselves miserable through habitual behavior that is, in Buddhist terms, unskillful, like getting into power struggles with your child, having the same pointless arguments with your partner, or staying silent when you should speak up. We can transform whats making us unhappy by changing our activities of body, mind, and speech. This may sound daunting, but it can be a small action, such as praising your partner rather than criticizing them, or expressing your opinion about something thats important to you.
Our actions in this moment are influenced by our past actions and, in turn, influence our future behavior. The more we choose the positive (kindness, honesty) or, conversely, the negative (disparaging others, lying), the more likely we are to keep acting in these ways. Its up to us whether we slog on through trials of our own making or move into an awakened way of living that brings us the happiness we seek. At each moment, we have choice. Instead of tending the same old garden, we can till the soil for a new one, planting seeds and letting them flourish.
5. We confirm our humanity by living the life thats ours to live.
If were lucky enough to come into this world as a human (rather than, say, an ant or a tree), we possess the unique capacity to make the most of our lives, spurred by the knowledgeagain, uniquely humanthat we are mortal. Making the most of our lives in this fleeting, beautiful universe means living the life thats ours to live.
A tulip is a tulip, a tiger is a tiger. Tulips and tigers dont lose sight of what they are and end up being something else, like: I ended up a daffodil when Im really a tulip! Or, How did I turn into an aardvark when Im actually a tiger? The capacity to live inauthentically is, unfortunately, all too human. Be yourself sounds so simple, doesnt it? But we care too much about what others think, and when our last day arrives, we wonder why we cared so much and regret that we did.
A wonderful aspect of authenticity is that its not about creting your essential self. Your self is like the wide blue sky, sometimes obscured by clouds but already and always existing. It becomes visible as we let go of unskillful ways of being, as we shed false personas and allow who we are to emerge. There are questions we can keep in mind that help us do this: If you found out you were going to die soon, what are some things (like others approval) that you would stop caring about? What would make you feel free?
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
Digital tools are a necessary part of work life for just about any office gig. But using too many apps, communication platforms, and other tools can be massively frustrating. And according to newly released research, switching back and forth between online systems is also a time thief.
Localization platform Lokalise recently surveyed 1,000 U.S. white-collar workers from 11 industries to examine how digital tools impact professionals and how they feel about using a variety of online systems. Overwhelmingly, the report found that workers are frustrated by having to use many different platforms.
Some 17% of workers say they have to switch platforms more than 100 times in a single workday. All the back and forth is time-consuming. On average, workers lose 51 minutes per week to tool fatigue. Yearly, that’s a loss of about 44 hours of work.
The time loss makes sense when you consider just how many platforms the average modern employee has to navigate. The majority of workers (55%) are using three to five platforms each day. Almost a third (31%) say they’re using even moreas many as 6 to 10 platforms daily.
The most time-consuming tools, according to employees, are email (47%); messaging platforms like Slack, Discord, and Teams (35%); video conferencing tools (22%); and calendar and scheduling apps (17%). In terms of apps, specifically, Outlook leads to the most fatigue (35%), with Microsoft Teams trailing closely behind (29%), followed by Gmail (24%) and Zoom (15%).
Of course, workers don’t feel great about all that time lost to digital tools. More than half (56%) say their workday is negatively impacted by an excessive number of platforms. But regardless of how workers feel about having to navigate so many different tools, or how much time it takes to do so, they say their company hasn’t addressed the issue. A whopping 79% say their company hasn’t taken steps to cut down on all the tools or stave off worker fatigue.While the workday can be made more overwhelming due to digital tools, sadly the fatigue doesn’t end there. Employees say they feel pulled to respond to alerts even when they’re supposed to be off the clock. The majority of workers (60%) say they feel pressure to respond to pings outside of working hours. With that in mind, it’s no wonder professionals are fed up with digital tools that aren’t just complicating their workdays but also their personal lives.
OpenAIs announcements at its third annual developer conference told a lot about where the company is in its evolution.
In the past, the companys executives talked mainly about new models that were smarter, cheaper, or more efficient. At the event in San Francisco on October 6, the companys leaders said relatively little about their latest models, and nothing about AGI or superintelligence. Instead, they discussed new ways to make the AI do real work that matters.
Building functional agents
One of the keys to enterprise customers realizing a return on their investment in AI is the creation of intelligent agents capable of completing complex business tasks. To that end, OpenAI announced AgentKit, which it said is a complete set of tools for developers and enterprises to build, deploy, and optimize agents.
The tool kit has three main parts: an Agent Builder that offers a visual canvas for piecing together agents, a Connector Registry that manages how the agent connects to data and tools, and ChatKit, which lets developers create agents that users can talk to.
During the keynote, OpenAIs Christina Huang used the Agent Builder to add a conversational agent that helps users find content within a website. The agent used some complex workflows, consulted documents, deployed a widget to stylize the agents colors and syntax, and pulled in pre-built privacy and security guardrails. Then she pushed the new agentall in under eight minutes.
OpenAI said it has seen developers and enterprises use the AgentKit tools to build agents that do deep research, customer support, IT support, and sales functions.
Apps, take two
Importantly, OpenAI is also taking another shot at its App Store Moment.
After launching its GPTssmall, customized versions of ChatGPTin late 2023, the company did surprisingly little to promote or enhance the program. On October 6, OpenAI announced a new kind of app that can be used entirely within ChatGPT: a chatbot that can suggest apps based on what the user said in the chat.
For instance, it might suggest a Coursera app if the user said they want to learn more about some new skill. Or the user can ask for an app by typing its name into the chat. The apps themselves can take natural language directions or requests from the user, as well as display videos or interactive content within the chatbot.
OpenAI provided developers with a new software development kit for building the apps. For developers, it’s a chance to get their apps in front of OpenAIs 800 million ChatGPT usersjust when a need for the app arises. Booking.com, Canva, Coursera, Figma, Expedia, Spotify, and Zillow all made apps while participating in a pilot program.
In the big picture, ChatGPT is becoming far more than a chatbot. Its more functional, and apps and agents are a big reason for that. ChatGPT now has 800 million weekly users, and its popularity is growing fast. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, said during a Q&A session with reporters that the chatbot is evolving toward becoming something like an operating system.
Codex, too
A fierce competition has unfolded among the big AI companies to offer the best coding tool. OpenAIs entry in the race is Codex, which the company said is no longer a preview and is now generally available to all developers.
Codex also now interoperates with Slack, so that developers can delegate tasks to, or ask questions of, Codex directly from a team channel or threadjust like they would a coworker.
But most importantly, Codex is now powered by GPT-5, OpenAIs most advanced reasoning model, which has allowed the company to make the coding assistant aspect of the product far more capable. For developers, it feels like theyre teaming with a junior software engineer who works independently on specific tasks, then reports back with the results.
These new applications of AI could help enterprises bridge the gap between a desire to deploy AI models and actually seeing some real return on investment from doing so. That may be just what OpenAI needs right now.
Cash crunch
The company is burning through cash to pay for model training and new data centers, a burn thats expected to accelerate over the next few years. Meanwhile, the company is likely making most of its money through ChatGPT subscriptions, not enterprise business such as API fees.
CFO Sarah Friar told Bloomberg a year ago that 75% of OpenAIs revenue comes from consumer subscriptions to ChatGPT, implying a 25% share of revenue for the enterprise business. Theres little to suggest that the enterprise business contributes much more than a quarter of total sales today.
Still, OpenAI probably needs to see substantial growth in enterprise business to hit break-even in the next five years. The enterprise was our first focus even before ChatGPTour first product was an API, OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap said during a press briefing on October 6. From day one we saw the desire on the part of businesses, but I think a few things were missing.
Lightcap said that for much of the companys history, its models werent good enough to take on business tasks reliably. OpenAIs reasoning models, an important component of agents, showed just last year. In the enterprise you need to be able to execute business processes, so you needed this kind of shift toward agentic AI so that it could just do things for you, he said.
Lightcap said business agents also need to be able to connect with other services (such as databases and tools), and that agents are just now getting the capabilities and technical standards (like Anthropic’s MCP protocol) to do that. Finally, enterprise users need to become familiar with agents and how they work.
Lightcap said OpenAIs announcements represent real progress in overcoming those barriers: I think what you saw today is an evolution in every one of those areas.
Last week, subscribers of Microsofts Game Pass were in an uproar over plans to hike the price from $19.99 per month to $29.99. One of the most surprising reactions, however, came not from gamers, but from retail partner GameStop. While you’ll pay $30 per month if you sign up for Game Pass Ultimate directly with Microsoft, youll get the same old price — for some indefinite period — if you stick with GameStop. “Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is still $19.99 a month with us. You’re welcome,” the retailer wrote in a social media post.
Gamers can subscribe to GamePass directly from their XBox, via their PC, and on the web. Those who plan to take advantage of the lower price GameStop is offering GameStop will redeem the code on their gift card via the Web.
Game Pass Ultimate is the preferred subscription plan for core gamers. It offers day-one access to new first-party games like Call of Duty, as well as the entirety of an older game catalog, access to Ubisoft+ classics, and a subscription to Fortnite Crew.
While $30-per-month isn’t so bad, the price increase will saddle Microsofts biggest fans with the bulk of the cost, essentially penalizing them for supporting the platform. By appealing squarely to those customers, GameStop could regain some of its relevancy with gamers.
It could also lose some goodwill with Microsoft.
Microsoft’s gaming division is putting all of its eggs in the GamePass basket. By undercutting the subscription price, GameStop could be cutting into the company’s bottom line.
Alternatively, GameStop could be cutting into its own profit margin on GamePass gift cards. The pas de deux between retailers and publishers is a complex, constantly evolving one. Microsoft, after all, could stop issuing the cards with the $19.99 price tag on them at any time, but so far has not.
While a favorite of the meme stock crowd, GameStop has squandered much of its reputation with players.
For years, it was the go-to place for new releases and made millions on the sale of used games, which at one point accounted for roughly half of its gross profits. But as digital distribution became the norm in the video game world, there was less reason for gamers to visit GameStop. Midnight releases of highly anticipated games became rare events. As gamers shifted to digital, there were fewer physical versions of games to trade in, cutting into used-game revenues.
Beyond thumbing its nose at Microsoft with the continued $20 gift cards for Game Pass, GameStop took another swing at the concept of virtual ownership, underlining that when you have a physical copy of the game, it’s yours for as long as you have the disc. “Game Pass: $29.99 every month. Own nothing. GameStop: Buy once. Own forever. Math isnt that hard,” it wrote.
GameStop, it’s worth noting, isn’t alone in towing the line on the previous Game Pass Ultimate price. Both Amazon and Target are still selling one- and three-month subscription gift cards at the older rate.
Neither of those retailers is quite so publicly poking the bear, however. Then again, neither faces the extinction-level threat that GameStop is.
A year ago, Michael Pachter of Wedbush, sent a note to investors saying he expected the company to be gone entirely by 2030.
GameStop has a likely runway of no more than five years, he wrote. The demise of GameStop is outside the 12-month window we use for our price target, but we expect the companys demise at some point later this decade.
GameStop shares were flat Monday, closing at around $25.05. Year to date, the company’s stock is down 18%. It is, however, still considerably higher than the $3-$4 range it traded at before the meme stock traders began to focus on it.
Some good news on the weight-loss front: Customers can now go to Costco to get Ozempic and Wegovy, brand-name injectable prescription drugs manufactured by drug maker Novo Nordisk, which contain the same active ingredient: semaglutide.
The Danish pharmaceutical firm announced Friday that both are available at the big-box retailer’s pharmacies nationwide, for $499 for a month’s supplythe same price as sold in CVS, Walmart, and the company’s direct-to-consumer website. You’ll still need a prescription to buy the drugs.
Fast Company has reached out to both Costco and Novo Nordisk for comment.
AlsoCostco is offering a 2% discount for both Costco executive members and Costco Citibank Visa card holders, according to CBS News.
Both drugs are similar, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved them for two different reasons. Wegovy is approved for chronic weight management, while Ozempic is approved for treating type 2 diabetes, to reduce the risk of cardiovascular health issues including heart attack, stroke, and death. Ozempic is prescribed “off-label” for weight loss.
The main difference is that they have different side effects and dosagesand because Wegovy is administered at higher doses, a maximum of 2.4 mg a week, it leads to both greater weight loss and more gastrointestinal side effects. Ozempic is typically administered at 2 mg per week. Each are injected once a week.
Costco financials
Costco Wholesale Corporation (COST) stock was down less than one percent on Monday in afternoon trading.
The company reported fourth quarter earnings for the period ending August 31, 2025, with net sales for the quarter up 8%, to $84.4 billion from $78.2 billion last year. Net sales for the fiscal year increased 8.1%, to $269.9 billion from $249.6 billion last year.
Costco currently has a market capitalization of $402.6 billion.
According to the companys annual analysis, this years shopping season wont just break recordsitll rewrite the playbook. AI assistants are set to steer how people search, shop, and spend, while buy-now-pay-later plans help stretched consumers keep the holiday magic alive.
Each year, Adobe uses data from its Adobe Analytics platform to predict what the shopping landscape and consumer behavior will look like between November 1 and December 31. According to Adobes description, the data includes inputs from many of the top 100 retailers in the U.S., covering over 1 trillion visits to retail sites, 100 million SKUs, and 18 product categories.
In 2025, Adobe says that the holiday shopping season will be bigger than everand AI will play a key role in guiding how shoppers fill their carts. Here are three main takeaways from the analysis:
Holiday shopping will reach a record high, but its growing sluggishly
Holiday shopping is expected to reach a record high this year: Adobe predicts that shoppers will spend a total of $253.4 billion, up 5.3% from last year. Thats a head-turning sum, but its actually a slower rate of growth compared to 2024, when Adobe Analytics predicted that the total would increase by 8.7%.
The slowdown comes as inflation persists and consumer spending remains dampened. In a survey conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and released in early September, shoppers reported that, for the upcoming holiday season, they expected to spend 5.3% less than in 2024 (about $1,552 per person). Its the first notable drop since 2020, when average spending fell 7.6% to $1,187.
“You have consumers dealing with a lot in the broader economy,” Vivek Pandya, director at Adobe Digital Insights, told Reuters. “We anticipate them taking advantage of these major sales moments, and we still see them leaning on the online sector as an area to get better deals.”
Buy your Christmas gifts now; pay for them later
Given that consumers wallets are tighter this year, Adobe predicts that a good chunk of holiday shoppers will turn to buy-now-pay-later (BPNL) services to help spread out the costs. BPNL spend is expected to drive $20.2 billion in online spendroughly $2 billion more than the 2024 holiday season.
These numbers dont come as a surprise, as BPNL usage has become increasingly common over the past several months. An April LendingTree survey found that consumers are increasingly relying on BNPL services for quotidian purchases like groceries and food delivery, while Grand View Research predicted earlier this year that the BNPL market will see a 26.1% annual compound growth rate between 2023 and 2030.
AI-assisted shopping is in
Over the past several months, brands including Ralph Lauren and Pinterest have invested in their own AI tools to drive online shopping. The AI-powered app Daydream is purpose-built to help users find the perfect outfits. AI features are becomingly increasingly intertwined in the overall shopping process, from how users find gift inspiration to the search engines they query and the sites they shop on.
Last year was the first time that Adobe noticed a measurable surge in AI traffic to U.S. retail sites pre-holidays, but it wont be the last.
Generative AI-powered chat services and browsers are changing how consumers act online, becoming a helpful assistant for compiling research before making a purchase, the brands report reads. Adobe observed the first material surge in AI traffic to U.S. retail sites (measured by shoppers clicking on a link) during the 2024 season, with traffic increasing 1,300% YoY. For the 2025 season, Adobe expects AI traffic to rise by 520% YoY, peaking in the 10 days leading up to Thanksgiving.
In an Adobe survey of 5,000 consumers, more than one third reported having used an AI-powered service for online shopping, with top use cases including research, product recommendations, and gift inspiration.
A quarter of a century after the Acela began whisking passengers between Washington, New York, and Boston, the Acelas slightly faster replacement finally began service at the end of August.
But the most obvious upgrade NextGen Acela offers over its predecessor is not speed, but shininess.
On the trains second day of revenue service, I boarded a train in Washington, D.C., for a day trip to New York. Standing alongside a previous-gen Acela at Union Station, my train was positively gleaming, and looked just as sharp on the inside.
Then came the ride, which took just as long as previous trips and went no faster. NextGen Acela can hit 160 mph on upgraded track, but my train maxed out at 144 mph on a straightaway north of Princeton, N.J., cleared for 160 mph operation.
My return trip Friday night on the same tracks, however, topped out at 162 mphthe speed Frances TGV debuted at in 1981.
Progress on the Northeast CorridorNEC for shorthas been like that since before Amtrak took over the route from the bankrupt Penn Central Transportation Company in 1971. Taking the busiest passenger railroad in North America out of service for a complete rebuild to meet the standards of high-speed lines in other countries has been impossible, but even incremental upgrades have often been left waiting for lack of funding.
And yet the NEC remains the only high-speed line in the U.S.and it may retain that status at the end of the decade. What Amtrak can make happen on these 450-plus miles of track, then, matters.
How well it can make these improvements happen, in turn, hinges on how well Amtrak and its regulators can drop a sort of American exceptionalism unjustified by past performance and adopt the best practices of high-speed rail elsewhere in the world.
[Photo: Amtrak]
Replacing a weary workhorse
The first-gen Acela made a quick impression at its belated debut in 2000. Those 20 trainsets had the sleek look of bullet trains overseas and could hit 150 mph on rebuilt track in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, 140 mph elsewhere.
The Acela grew to become Amtraks second-most-used route after the slower Northeast Regional trains that run from Boston to Washington and then onward to points in Virginia. In fiscal year 2024, the railroad carried 3.2 million passengers. And it has the highest profit margin of any Amtrak route: 36% in FY 2024, yielding $134 million in adjusted operating earnings.
But the first-gen Acela also provides a lesson in procurement failure: Amtrak had it built to Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) crash-resistance standards that essentially demanded that a passenger train bash aside a freight train without crumplingfar stricter than those of other countries with impeccable safety records.
That made buying a train already running in Europe or Japan impossible. Instead, Amtrak ordered a custom design from a joint venture between Bombardier and Alstom. The result suffered numerous early breakdowns. The train was so heavy that former Amtrak president Thomas Downs called it a “high-velocity bank vault.”
Liberalized crashworthiness rules allowing basic safety engineering like crumple zones allowed Alstom to adapt EU-spec train designs for NextGen, which its building at a factory in Hornell, New York. Each of these 28 trains is longer and carries more passengers386 seats, versus the 304 on first-gen Acelamaking for a meaningful increase in capacity.
When Amtrak inked that contract with Alstom in 2016valued at $2.45 billion, including NEC upgradesit predicted that the new trains would enter service in 2021.
They took another four years, during which the old trains grew unreliable enough that Amtrak had to park some to cannibalize for repair parts.
[Photo: Amtrak]
In a 2023 report, Amtraks inspector general cited Alstoms struggles to develop a computer model of NextGens performance, without which the FRA would not approve the start of testing, and defects in trainsets built so far.
At the start of 2025, Amtraks site predicted a spring debut, but NextGen Acela needed another few months. Amtrak pointed to the difficulty of meeting FRA testing requirements, which spokeswoman Olivia Irvin says necessitated continual refinement of Alstoms analysis, simulations and testing activities.
Sean Jeans-Gail, vice president of government affairs and policy for the Rail Passengers Association, a Washington nonprofit advocating for better passenger-rail service in the U.S., suggested that the FRA hasnt quite dropped a not-invented-here mindset: The FRA is moving towards aligning its specifications with international best practices, but theres still room for improvement.
Progress on board — but with some pain
The ride I experienced from D.C. to NYC and back made at least some of that wait seem worth it. Beyond the lack of grime, the ride felt smoother, if not smooth enough to match a high-speed train in Europe or Japan.
But while the legroom and absence of middle seats remain terrific, the seat cushions could benefit from some softening. The seats also dont recline conventionally; instead, the seat pan and the very lowest part of the seat back slide forward.
Amtrak did fix one annoyance with the old trains: The power outlets rest between each pair of seats instead of in the wall, ending the need to reach across a stranger. Theyre accompanied by USB-A ports that Amtrak plans to upgrade to USB-C.
The bathrooms, one of the scruffier areas of the Acela, got a high-touch treatment, with powered doors and touchless dispensers for water and soap above the sink.
[Photo: Amtrak]
The cafe car, however, lacks any seats. And its grab-and-go refrigerated shelves did not spare anybody from waiting in line: The check-out terminal wasnt in operation on my ride to New York.
New Acela trains, like the old ones, feature a First Class car, which I used on the ride back by cashing in an upgrade coupon procured with Guest Rewards points. Amtraks partnership with Philadelphia-based Starr Restaurants continues to yield surprisingly tasty catering. As on the older train, the seats have no more recline than those in other cars (which Amtrak sells as business class), but one side of this car has only a single row of seats.
Amtrak plans to step up its rollout of NextGen but is now shying away from specifics beyond saying that the new trains will continue to enter service from now through 2027.
New bridges, tunnels, and wires to go with new trains
The view out NextGens blissfully grime-free windows included one of the first major projects along the corridor nearing completiona $2.2 billion bridge in New Jerseys Meadowlands to replace a 1910-vintage drawbridge that occasionally gets stuck open.
Full-scale construction on two other long-overdue NEC projects will soon begin: a $6 billion tunnel through Baltimore to replace a fossil of a tunnel through which trains creep along at 30 mph, and a $14.8 billion project to dig two new tunnels under the Hudson River to augment the pair that the Pennsylvania Railroad opened between New Jersey and New York in 1910.
A different set of NEC improvements are easier to miss, because they dont involve giant structures over or under rivers. Amtrak has been upgrading the tracks and wires along the NEC to international standardsbut more slowly and in fewer places than many railroad experts think appropriate.
The wires that provide electricity to trains are especially important, and especially old: The Pennsy wrapped up its initial electrification of the NEC in 1935. Their simple design, in which wires hang from one pole to the next, limits top speeds to 145 mph and risks breakdowns when hot weather causes the wires to expand and sag.
The fastest parts of the NEC feature whats known as constant-tension catenary, with weights and pulleys to keep wires straight. Thats a standard sight on railroads in other countries, even for slower routes.
[Photo: Amtrak]
Constant tension is the way to go for both speed and reliability reasons, said Nolan Hicks, a veteran New York City transportation reporter. Hes the author of an extensive report for New York Universitys Transit Costs Project on accelerating regional rail lines by adopting international best practices.
After years of Amtrak reserving this power upgrade as a sort of infrastructure treat for especially straight segments of the corridor, its now expanding those bits of constant-tension catenarynotably, extending it from that small 160 mph stretch in New Jersey south to Trenton.
Amtrak also now plans to install this high-speed infrastructure on upcoming bridge replacements, such as one planned over the Susquehanna River in Maryland, and in other regions where the track alignment can support speeds of 145 mph.
Thats a notable change, but the railroad isnt ready to predict faster trip times, saying only that they will be determined based on infrastructure improvements we will also make along the Corridor.
An April 2025 Transit Costs Project report outlined $12.5 billion in additional infrastructureif built at Western European costs, not American costs to datethat could drop travel times from D.C. to NYC and NYC to Boston to an hour and 56 minutes each.
High-speed hopes elsewhere
The work of upgrading the NEC, sometimes one pole and wire at a time, can seem boring compared to next-gen possibilities like magnetic-levitation trains or Elon Musks vision of hyperloop vehicles running in a partial vacuum. But maglev trains remain scarce and expensive, while the hyperloop turned out to be vaporware.
Fantasizing about those sci-fi concepts has not sped NEC travel times by a second, but it has been effective at talling investments in the proven technology of steel wheels on steel rails.
The nations most ambitious attempt at building a high-speed rail network from scratch, California High-Speed Rail, has been a victim of that distraction tactic: Musk admitted in 2019 that he hyped hyperloop in part because he hated that project.
California, meanwhile, didnt help CAHSR by outsourcing most of its management, a consultant-dense strategy that wasted time and money. After surviving one round of attempted Trump-administration funding cancellations (its fighting off another), the project has finally been moving management in-house as California has streamlined some environmental permitting regulations.
Its also working to accelerate construction by adopting international standards that could cut tunneling distances in half. But its newest optimum scenario still has service from San Francisco to the Los Angeles high-desert exurb of Palmdale waiting until 2038 and costing $87.12 billion to build; reaching L.A.s Union Station would follow years and billions of dollars later.
The much newer Brightline West project, which plans to build a high-speed line from L.A.s eastern suburbs to Las Vegas, has a simpler and shorter route. But its parent firm faces financing challenges compounded by rising costs that the Department of Transportation now estimates at $21.5 billion.
Jeans-Gail remains optimistic about both projects, but for different reasons.
Ill note that the Trump Administration, via Secretary Duffy, has had nice things to say about that project, he says of Brightline West. As for CASHR: California is the only state thats big enough and wealthy enough to even attempt to keep a project of this magnitude going in the face of this kind of schizophrenic federal partnership.
Putting high-speed rail on a faster track across the U.S. will require change at both the federal level and in states such as Texas, where elected leaders have sometimes treated passenger rail as socialism on steel wheels. But railroads and rail authorities would help their own cause if they could simply steal the best ideas of other countries instead of trying to be American originals.
Meanwhile, an Acela of any generation may not travel nearly as fast as the trains in these plans and in those other lands. But it does have the advantage of running on rails today.
Some flavor crazes flirt with us and fade. Others stay and make themselves at home.
Its too soon to tell for sure, but the Dubai chocolate movement seems to have put down roots and is spreading at a brisk clip. The sweet flavors and thick texture that have made Dubai chocolate bars a hit are morphing into other kinds of confections too.
Lets back up for a minute. The original and now-classic Dubai chocolate bar was created by Fix Chocolatier in the United Arab Emirates in 2021, and by 2023 had exploded on social media. Rich and indulgent, it features a thick, milk chocolate shell usually encasing a creamy pistachio (and often tahini) filling mixed with crispy, shredded, phyllo-like pastry called kadayif.
Global brands and small bakers alike are riffing on the concept with different flavors, translating the concept to croissants, milkshakes, and more. Fillings range from peanut butter and jelly to smores to matcha.
I dont call this a trend anymore its a whole new thing, said Din Allall, whose family business, The Nuts Factory, has about 150 U.S. stores featuring nuts, dried fruits, and candies.
He carries 12 flavors of Dubai chocolate bar, as well as chocolate- and pistachio-covered Dubai dates, Dubai-coated roasted nuts, a layered Dubai chocolate strawberry parfait, and a Dubai Golden Chocolate bar infused with edible 24-karat gold for $79.99 (their regular 6.5-ounce bars sell for $18.99).
It’s not just the flavors that make Dubai chocolate different, Allall says, but the bar’s structure too “huge, thick, with lots of filling.”
Big retailers and restaurants have gotten on board
Trader Joes carries a Dubai chocolate bar made by Patislove. IHOP introduced a limited-time Dubai pancake stack in some locations in August. Baskin-Robbins has some Dubai-inspired ice cream products on its menu, while Costco sells a range of Dubai chocolate confections, including a Dubai chocolate cake. Walmart and QVC also sell Dubai chocolate.
Swiss chocolate giant Lindt has a bar, and drew crowds when it debuted a limited number of them in Europe last fall.
For me, its the crunch,” said Erica Lefkowits, who was buying some Dubai chocolate recently in Dublin. “The chocolate is soft and melty, and the filling is creamy, and then the crunch of the kadayif. Its all about the texture. Plus, its sugar.
She was a little annoyed at the price, higher than your average chocolate bar. Part of Dubai chocolate’s appeal, though, is the way it feels simultaneously indulgent and worldly. Pistachios, rose, saffron and cardamom bring luxury, travel and exoticism to the chocolate party.
Despite the price, Ive never seen a single item sell like this in my 50 years of retailing, said Stew Leonard, Jr., CEO of Stew Leonard’s grocery stores in the New York metropolitan area. The chain introduced the BeeMax Dubai chocolate bar in March, watched it fly out the doors, he said, and then launched their own house-branded version (made by the company Chocopologie).
They’ve introduced a Dubai chocolate gift box for the holidays, which includes teeny Dubai ice cream cones, Dubai pralines and two bars.
Some other widely distributed brands in the U.S. are Moda, Magno and Leonessa. Other iterations of Dubai chocolate include Chocolove’s little candies and Matteo’s Coffee Syrups’ sugar-free chocolate coffee syrup.
Katie Workman, Associated Press
For its 50th anniversary, Zara has partnered with 50 designers and creators for a collection you might not expect from a fast-fashion mall brand.
The Spanish fashion retailer unveiled its 50th anniversary collection at Paris Fashion Week with collaborators that include photographer Annie Leibovitz, supermodel Cindy Crawford, stage designer Es Devlin, and musician Robbie Williams. Available worldwide beginning Oct. 6, the collection does include plenty to wear (Leibovitz contributed a photo for a t-shirt), but what stands out most are the non-apparel items. This is about a whole lot more than clothes.
Es Devlin [Photo: Zara]
Devlin, whose build stages for artists like Adele, Beyoncé, and U2, contributed a square-shaped concrete lamp, and Williams a mirror that says “You Can, You Must, And You Will.”
Robbie Williams [Photo: Zara]
Sarah Andelman, a Paris store owner, made a fun book holder that can hang in the closet, and there’s a yellow-and-black dinnerware set from artist Sterling Ruby and a pyramid lamp from French designer Alex de Betak. Many of the pieces are meant to be conversation starters, like a Barbie pink surfboard from Balenciaga creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli and a pair of gold-colored ash trays are from Kate Moss.
Alex De Betak [Photo: Zara]
Zara has grown from a single store that opened in A Corua, Spain, in 1975 to about 1,800 stores today. According to PitchBook data, Zara generates two-thirds of revenue for parent company Inditex.
Its anniversary collection, with is high-end home goods, wants to send a message about its staying power half a century in. It’s a flex from a company that might be better known for clothes you wear just once.
Pierpaolo Piccioli [Photo: Zara]
