In today’s workplace, everyone’s racing to a digital finish line. Organizations have embraced transformation, but in a rush to adopt new technologies, many leaders have prioritized speed over strategy without aligning teams, systems, and goals.
The result? Disconnected ecosystems where information gets lost and workflows become increasingly disjointed.
To accelerate effectively, teams need more than just tools. They need clarity. The data from Lucids recent acceleration equation survey highlights that when teams build from a common foundation with shared context, processes, and alignment, they save time and enhance agilityenabling everyone to move faster together.
Identify the visibility gap
Theres an increasing divide in confidence and clarity around how teams understand their work. Visibility isnt just about dashboards, its about a shared understanding of expectations, deliverables, and goals. And that understanding is where the gaps are widening.
While 93% of executives in the survey said they feel confident in project expectations, only 74% of individual contributors feel the same. Without clarity on how tasks contribute to broader goals, even high-performing teams face friction, redundancy, and missed opportunities.
This lack of shared visibility is compounded by the scattered information thats become all too common in todays workplace. The average employee toggles between multiple platforms just to get a full picture of a project. It’s no surprise that 40% of knowledge workers dont know where to find key project resources, leading to delays, duplication, and frustration. These visibility gaps and scattered systems dont just slow teams down, they trap them in inefficient cycles that waste time and sap momentum.
Workers are stuck in a cycle of disconnect
Even the most capable teams can falter when processes lack consistency and documentation. Without clear guidance, employees often spend more time deciphering workflows than executing them. Our recent survey asked workers how often they recreate processes or documentation simply because they cant find themand nearly a third of workers recreate processes multiple times a week. With that, 43% of executives struggle with managing change effectively. This is not due to resistance to structure but stems from insufficient documentation and communication.
Ive seen this firsthand while scaling a company. As deadlines pile up and teams shift into execution mode, process and visibility often take a back seat. What feels like progress can quickly turn into misalignment when theres no connective tissue holding efforts together. This fragmentation leads to significant time losses, with a staggering 85% of workers spending up to two hours daily searching for information. Thats an entire workday lost each week.
Disconnected tools and fragmented project context can leave teams in a loop of improvisation and inefficiency. And while meetings are meant to solve that, more than 60% of employees say they walk away without clear next steps, which only adds to the confusion.
One in five workers believe standardized, updated process documentation would save them at least three hours daily. This highlights an incredible opportunity for massive time and cost savings. What Ive realized, and what our customers consistently tell us, is that teams dont need more systems; they need clearer, more centralized information that meets them where they already work and breaks the unproductive cycle consuming their time and energy.
What’s really needed to accelerate work
Todays workplace isnt suffering from a lack of toolsbut from too many disconnected ones. About 28% of employees surveyed say outdated or inadequate tools are slowing them down, while scattered information across platforms creates confusion instead of clarity. Teams often end up working in parallel rather than in sync, wasting valuable time and losing momentum as they struggle to find what they need. What truly accelerates work isnt more tools but better orchestration that connects existing solutions in a way that enables clear, confident teamwork.
While most firms aren’t looking to overhaul their tech stacks, theyve recognized that the key to efficiency lies in clearer communication protocols and more effective collaboration. So now is the time to invest in the right areas: streamlined processes and integrated tools that foster cross-functional work. But the real magic happens when creating consistency. When teams share the same view and access information effortlessly, they don’t just move forwardthey accelerate with shared purpose. Our opportunity as leaders? Transform scattered effort into a unified force that powers genuine, breakthrough innovation.
Dave Grow is CEO of Lucid Software.
TikTok has boosted the careers of numerous musicians, thanks to their songsboth new and oldgoing viral. The latest example is Connie Franciss 1962 hit Pretty Little Baby, which is currently inescapable across For You pages.
Now, TikTok is making it even easier for artists to capitalize on viral moments. The platform has rolled out its music insights tool globally, following a limited beta launch that was quietly tested with a select group of artists two months ago.
TikTok for Artists offers musicians daily updates on how their songs are being used and which tracks are generating the most engagement. Metrics include the number of views, posts, and creator interactions per song, as well as insights into each posts performance. Artists also gain access to demographic data about their followers, such as age, language, and self-identified gender.
All tiers of artists will gain insights on TikTok that they can use to take their careers to a whole new level, said Tracy Gardner, TikToks global head of music business development, in a statement. We built the platform to give artists transparent access to useful, actionable data about their music and their fans, to help them better engage with the TikTok community and supercharge their careers both on and off the platform.
One early tester, Cyril Riley, said: My team and I rely on TikTok for Artists daily, sometimes even hourly. In such a rapidly evolving industry, it’s crucial for us to consistently monitor and review the analytics of my account.” Another musician, Jordan Adetunji, called it a game changer.
Alongside the analytics tool, TikTok has launched a pre-release feature that lets artists promote upcoming music on the platform. Fans can pre-save unreleased albums directly to their Spotify or Apple Music libraries, making the music instantly available when it drops.
Not everyone is enthusiastic, though. Some critics view this as TikTok following in Spotifys footsteps (Spotify launched Spotify for Artists back in 2016), fostering a culture of music made specifically to go viral. As The Faders Jordan Darville writes: A massively popular app creates artist services that steer the sound of music in directions more profitable for the platform, and simultaneously throttles royalties to make shareholders happy.
Perhaps these new TikTok features will inspire more unexpected comebacks from pop icons of the 60sor maybe theyll just give us new options to soundtrack our TikTok carousels.
Alarm over China’s stranglehold on critical minerals grew on Tuesday as global automakers joined their U.S. counterparts to complain that restrictions by China on exports of rare earth alloys, mixtures, and magnets could cause production delays and outages without a quick solution.
German automakers became the latest to warn that China’s export restrictions threaten to shut down production and rattle their local economies, following a similar complaint from an Indian EV maker last week.
China’s decision in April to suspend exports of a wide range of critical minerals and magnets has upended the supply chains central to automakers, aerospace manufacturers, semiconductor companies, and military contractors around the world.
The move underscores China’s dominance of the critical mineral industry and is seen as leverage by China in its ongoing trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump has sought to redefine the trading relationship with the U.S.’s top economic rival China by imposing steep tariffs on billions of dollars of imported goods in hopes of narrowing a wide trade deficit and bringing back lost manufacturing.
Trump imposed tariffs as high as 145% against China, only to scale them back after stock, bond, and currency markets revolted over the sweeping nature of the levies. China has responded with its own tariffs and is leveraging its dominance in key supply chains to persuade Trump to back down.
Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to talk this week, and the export ban is expected to be high on the agenda.
Shipments of the magnets, essential for assembling everything from cars and drones to robots and missiles, have been halted at many Chinese ports while the Chinese government drafts a new regulatory system. Once in place, the new system could permanently prevent supplies from reaching certain companies, including American military contractors.
The suspension has triggered anxiety in corporate boardrooms and nations’ capitalsfrom Tokyo to Washingtonas officials scrambled to identify limited alternative options amid fears that production of new automobiles and other items could grind to a halt by summer’s end.
“If the situation is not changed quickly, production delays and even production outages can no longer be ruled out,” Hildegard Mueller, head of Germany’s auto lobby, told Reuters on Tuesday.
Frank Fannon, a minerals industry consultant and former U.S. assistant secretary of state for energy resources during Trumps first term, said the global disruptions are not shocking to those paying attention.
I dont think anyone should be surprised how this is playing out. We have a production challenge [in the U.S.], and we need to leverage our whole government approach to secure resources and ramp up domestic capability as soon as possible. The time horizon to do this was yesterday, Fannon said.
Diplomats, automakers, and other executives from India, Japan, and Europe were urgently seeking meetings with Beijing officials to push for faster approval of rare earth magnet exports, sources told Reuters, as shortages threatened to halt global supply chains.
A business delegation from Japan will visit Beijing in early June to meet the Ministry of Commerce over the curbs, and European diplomats from countries with big auto industries have also sought “emergency” meetings with Chinese officials in recent weeks, Reuters reported.
India, where Bajaj Auto warned that any further delays in securing the supply of rare earth magnets from China could “seriously impact” electric vehicle production, is organizing a trip for auto executives in the next two to three weeks.
In May, the head of the trade group representing General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, Hyundai, and other major automakers raised similar concerns in a letter to the Trump administration.
“Without reliable access to these elements and magnets, automotive suppliers will be unable to produce critical automotive components, including automatic transmissions, throttle bodies, alternators, various motors, sensors, seat belts, speakers, lights, motors, power steering, and cameras,” the Alliance for Automotive Innovation wrote in the letter.
By Jarrett Renshaw and Ernest Scheyder, Reuters
As artificial intelligence’s influence continues to spread deeper into pop culture, major record labels are starting negotiations with AI companies to ensure theyand their artistsare properly compensated when their music is used to train large language models.
Sony, Warner Music, and Universal Music Group reportedly have begun talks with Suno and Udio, a pair of generative AI startups that allow users to compose new tracks. That could set the bar for how much artists and labels will be paid for their influence on AI-created musicand set up a tracking system that ensures they are accurately compensated for the frequency of use.
The negotiations come as Suno and Udio are facing a lawsuit from the Recording Industry Association of America, which accuses the two companies of copyright infringement. The labels also filed suit against the AI companies last year, a case which is still pending.
Suno, though, in its answer to the complaint, stopped just short of saying it had used copyrighted materials to train its models, saying its training data includes essentially all music files of reasonable quality that are accessible on the open Internet, abiding by paywalls, password protections, and the like, combined with similarly available text descriptions.
Suno and Udio argued that their use of the material falls with fair use exemptions.
What the major record labels really dont want is competition,” Suno wrote in its response to the suit from the labels. Where Suno sees musicians, teachers, and everyday people using a new tool to create original music, the labels see a threat to their market share.
The record labels are pushing to develop fingerprinting technology that would determine how and when a song is used in the creation of AI music. They’re also looking to be included in the music products Suno and Udio release, with influence over the development and parameters of new products.
Universal Music Group, which is home to Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, and Drake, has a history of being particularly rigid during these sorts of negotiations. Last year, the company’s standoff with TikTok resulted in it pulling its songs from the short-form social media juggernaut, then demanding the app remove any music credited to a songwriter signed to UMG.
There must not be free rides for massive global platforms that refuse to meaningfully address issues around AI, platform safety, or pay their fair share for our artists and songwriters work, CEO Lucian Grange said at the time.
All of the labels are also demanding that artists have the option to opt out of select AI use cases. Several artists, last year, signed an open letter that was critical of AI, including Billie Eilish, Billy Porter, Jon Batiste, and Jon Bon Jovi. The letter called for controls on AI music that would infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists. Also included among the signatories were the estates of Frank Sinatra and Bob Marley, which have seen those artists revived through AI to cover songs from other artists.
Music companies are the latest to negotiate with AI firms after initial resistance. Several book publishers and news organizations have agreed to deals, including News Corp., Politico/Business Insider publisher Axel Springer, Reuters, The New York Times and Vox Media.
While the talks are still early (and are being done independently by each of the labels instead of as a collective group), should they be successful, they will likely end with the music labels taking an ownership stake in the startups (as they have in streaming services like Spotify). There will also likely be some sort of financial settlement to end the existing lawsuits.
For more than 30 years, meteorologist John Morales has broadcast weather forecasts to South Floridians, warning the hurricane-prone region about the storms headed toward its coast. But now, Moraless ability to give accurate, quality forecasts to those residents is being hampered because of the recent federal government cuts to science and climate research.
The Trump administration has laid off thousands of workers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, the agency responsible for the National Weather Service and the National Hurricane Center, among other resources. Already, National Weather Service offices across the country are short-staffed, and the department has curtailed its data collectionlike launching fewer weather balloons. With fewer staff and data, weather forecasts are becoming less accurate.
This means residents wont have the weather information they need about approaching storms like hurricanes. Morales illustrated this point in a recent broadcast on NBC 6 South Florida by looking back at a forecast he did six years ago, concerning Hurricane Dorian, a Category 5 storm that decimated the northwest Bahamas.
In the clip, he acknowledged that viewers had anxiety because it looked as if the storm was heading straight toward South Florida. But Morales had assured them: Its going to turn [away from the coast]. The turn was never forecast to be on Sunday. … The turn will come Monday afternoon, Monday evening into Tuesday.
Remember that? Morales said in the broadcast after the old clip played. He had been right and, thanks to proper data collection and forecasting, was able to ensure viewers were prepared. Confidently, I went on TV and told you its going to turn, you dont need to worry, he said. I’m here to tell you that Im not sure I can do that this year, because of the cuts, the gutting, the sledgehammer attack on science in general.
National Weather Service offices across South and Central Florida are already 20% to 40% understaffed, Morales noted. There’s also been a 20% reduction in weather balloon launches, which collect atmospheric data like wind speed, humidity, pressure, and so on. And what were starting to see, Morales continued, is that the quality of the forecast is becoming degraded.
Because of federal government cuts, it’s likely hurricane hunter aircrafts wont be able to fly this year, he added. Hurricane hunters fly directly into the eye of storms in order to make forecasts even more accurate, thanks to real-time data. With less reconnaissance missions, Morales said, we may be flying blind.
Thats especially dire considering this years hurricane season is expected to come with an above-average number of storms. Last year was an intense hurricane season too, with $5 billion events and a total of more than $124 billion in damage. (The Trump administration has since cut NOAAs ability to track the cost of climate change-related weather disasters, so its not clear if well know just how damaging this years hurricane season ends up being.)
For Morales’s South Florida viewers, all these federal cuts mean they may not know how strong a hurricane is before it reaches the coastline, he added, leaving them unprepared in the face of what could be a disastrous storm season.
Morales has been forecasting the weather in South Florida for 34 years, and this isnt the first time hes spoken out about a dire reality. In October 2024, as Hurricane Milton was barreling toward Floridas west coast, Morales got emotional describing the storms intensity. “This is just horrific,” he had said then, while also making it clear to his viewers that record-hot seas, fueled by climate change, were driving that escalation.
Scientists and meteorologists have been trying to translate the costs of the Trump administration’s federal cuts to everyday Americans. Moraless broadcast does so bluntly. When sharing the clip to his Buesky account, Morales captioned it with the quip: Cuts have consequences, illustrated. And Morales ended the television segment with a call to action, as many scientists have been during the Trump administration. I just want you to know that what you need to do is call your representatives, he told viewers, and make sure that these cuts are stopped.
Meta has signed a 20-year deal with Constellation Energy to keep open its Clinton Clean Energy Center nuclear facility in Illinois, a move that will help feed the tech giant’s enormous power needs in the artificial intelligence era.
The deal takes effect June 2027, right as Illinoiss zero-emission credit (ZEC) program expires and the energy center loses its ratepayer-funded financial assistance for being a carbon-free facility.
By keeping the plant in operation until at least 2047, the center will directly provide power to the local grid and support Metas clean energy goals of matching its energy use with solely renewable energy.
This deal will expand Clintons clean energy output by 30 megawatts through plant uprates, preserve 1,100 high-paying local jobs, deliver $13.5 million in annual tax revenue, and add $1 million in charitable giving to local nonprofits over five years, Joseph Dominguez, president and CEO of Constellation, said in a statement.
Big tech’s power play
Metas deal comes as a number of Big Tech companies, including Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, are seeking out nuclear energy alternatives to power AIs growing demand.
Although the center will be using the power to support the regional grid in central and southern Illinois, the tech giant will purchase 1,121 megawatts of nuclear energy from the facility, nearly all the energy the center will have the capacity to produce.
Urvi Parekh, head of global energy at Meta, said the partnership will secure the clean reliable energy that is necessary to advance Metas AI ambitions. We are proud to help keep the Clinton plant operating for years to come and demonstrate that this plant is an important piece to strengthening American leadership in energy, Parekh said.
Following the announcement on Tuesday, Constellations stock price (Nasdaq: CEG) increased around 1%. However, the stock was largely flat by midafternoon.
Shares in Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META), parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, were also flat on Tuesday.
President Donald Trump wants his big, beautiful bill of tax breaks and spending cuts on his desk to be signed into law by the Fourth of July, and he’s pushing the slow-rolling Senate to make it happen sooner rather than later.
Trump met with Senate Majority Leader John Thune at the White House early this week and has been dialing senators for one-on-one chats, using both the carrot and stick to nudge, badger and encourage them to act. But it’s still a long road ahead for the 1,000-page-plus package.
His question to me was, How do you think the bill’s going to go in the Senate? Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said about his call with Trump. Do you think there’s going to be problems?
It’s a potentially tumultuous three-week sprint for senators preparing to put their own imprint on the massive Republican package that cleared the House late last month by a single vote. The senators have been meeting for weeks behind closed doors, including as they returned to Washington late Monday, to revise the package ahead of what is expected to be a similarly narrow vote in the Senate.
Passing THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL is a Historic Opportunity to turn our Country around, Trump posted on social media. He urged them Monday to work as fast as they can to get this Bill to MY DESK before the Fourth of JULY.
Thune, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, has few votes to spare from the Senate’s slim, 53-seat GOP majority. Democrats are waging an all-out political assault on GOP proposals to cut Medicaid, food stamps and green energy investments to help pay for more than $4.5 trillion in tax cuts with many lawmakers being hammered at boisterous town halls back home.
Itd be nice if we could have everybody on board to do it, but, you know, individual members are going to stake out their positions, Thune said Tuesday.
But in the end, we have to succeed. Failures not an option. Weve got to get to 51. So well figure out the path forward to do that over the next couple of weeks.
At its core, the package seeks to extend the tax cuts approved in 2017, during Trump’s first term at the White House, and add new ones the presidents campaigned on, including no taxes on tips and others. It also includes a massive build-up of $350 billion for border security, deportations and national security.
To defray the lost tax revenue to the government and avoid piling onto the nation’s $36 trillion debt load, Republicans want reduce federal spending by imposing work requirements for some Americans who rely on government safety net services. Estimates are 8.6 million people would no longer have health care and nearly 4 million would lose Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits, known as SNAP.
The package also would raise the nation’s debt limit by $4 trillion to allow more borrowing to pay the bills.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s bill “is ugly to its very core.
Schumer said Tuesday it’s a lie that the cuts won’t hurt Americans. Behind the smoke and mirrors lies a cruel and draconian truth: tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy paid for by gutting health care for millions of Americans,” said the New York senator.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to soon provide an overall analysis of the package’s impacts on the government balance sheets, particular its rising annual deficits. But Republicans are ready to blast those findings from the congressional scorekeeper as flawed.
Trump Tuesday switched to tougher tactics, deriding the holdout Republican senators to get on board.
The president laid into Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, the libertarian-leaning deficit hawk who has made a career of arguing against government spending. Paul wants the package’s $4 trillion increase to the debt ceiling out of the bill.
Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas. His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). Trump posted.
The July 4th deadline is not only aspirational for the president, it’s all but mandatory for his Treasury Department. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned Congress that the nation will run out of money to pay its bills if the debt ceiling, now at $36 trillion, is not lifted by mid-July or early August to allow more borrowing. Bessent has also been meeting behind closed doors with senators and GOP leadership.
Thune acknowledged Tuesday that lifting the debt ceiling is not up for debate.
Its got to be done, the South Dakota senator said.
The road ahead is also a test for Thune who, like Johnson, is a newer leader in Congress and among the many Republicans adjusting their own priorities with Trump’s return to the White House.
While Johnson has warned against massive changes to the package, Thune faces demands from his senators for adjustments.
To make most of the tax cuts permanent particularly the business tax breaks that are the Senate priorities senators may shave some of Trump’s proposed new tax breaks on automobile loans or overtime pay, which are policies less prized by some senators.
There are also discussions about altering the $40,000 cap that the House proposed for state and local deductions, known as SALT, which are important to lawmakers in high-tax New York, California and other states, but less so among GOP senators.
We’re having all those discussions, said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., another key voice in the debate.
Hawley is a among a group of senators, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who have raisd concerns about the Medicaid changes that could boot people from health insurance.
A potential copay of up to $35 for Medicaid services that was part of the House package, as well as a termination of a provider tax that many states rely on to help fund rural hospitals, have also raised concerns.
The best way to not be accused of cutting Medicaid is to not cut Medicaid, Hawley said.
Collins said she is reviewing the details.
There’s also a House provision that would allow the auction of spectrum bandwidth that some senators oppose.
Lisa Mascaro and Mary Clare Jalonick, Associated Press
Associated Press writer Matt Brown contributed to this report.
Immigration, which has dominated the headlines since in the United States since President Donald Trump kicked off his second term this January, is also making headlines in Europe. On Tuesday in the Netherlands, Prime Minister Dick Schoof stepped down after the leader of the country’s far-right party, Geert Wilders, withdrew his party from the ruling coalition over disputes about asylum and immigration, effectively causing the Dutch government’s collapse and triggering new snap elections, according to the Guardian.
The government collapse comes a few weeks before a major NATO summit in The Hague, and marks the unraveling of a multi-party coalition made up of: Wilders’ anti-Islam Freedom party (PVV), the Farmer-Citizens Movement (BBB), the centrist New Social Contract (NSC), and the Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).
“We had agreed that the Netherlands would become the strictest (on immigration) in Europe, but were trailing somewhere near the bottom,” Wilders said, according to Reuters. “I intend to become the next prime minister. I am going to make the PVV bigger than ever.”
As the news service pointed out, it remains to be seen if Wilders’ bold move will lead to his election, or backfire.
In 2023, Wilders’ PVV actually won by a landslide in the general election, but the four major parties that created the coalition picked Dick Schoof as prime minister, leading longtime Prime Minister Mark Rutte, of the Peoples Party for Freedom and Democracy, to step down from the post. At that time, the disputes were over immigration, just as they are today.
Last Monday, Wilders’ PVV announced a 10-point plan to reduce immigration that would effectively slash migration, temporarily halt asylum seekers who were granted refugee status from reuniting with families, and place soldiers at borders to turn away asylum-seekers. At issue are Syrians who are in the Netherlands as a result of the violence in their home country.
The question many political analysts are now asking: Is this another example that Europe is shifting toward the right, as seen by Poland’s recent election? On Sunday, voters elected conservative nationalist Karol Nawrocki as that country grapples with the E.U.’s second-highest fiscal deficit, and weighs Ukraine’s future as a NATO member state.
South Koreas main conservative candidate Kim Moon Soo has conceded defeat in the presidential election.
Kim, the candidate of the People Power Party, told a news conference early Wednesday that he humbly accepts [the] peoples choice and congratulates his liberal rival Lee Jae-myung for winning the election.
Kim spoke as voter turnouts and media projections showed Lee was expected to win the election to succeed Yoon Suk Yeol, a conservative who was removed from office in April over his ill-fated brief imposition of martial law.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. APs earlier story follows below.
South Koreas liberal opposition candidate Lee Jae-myung was expected to win an early presidential election on Tuesday, vote counts and media projections suggested.
The victory would cap months of political turmoil triggered by the stunning but brief imposition of martial law by the now ousted conservative leader Yoon Suk Yeol.
It was unclear whether Lees election would cause any major, immediate shift in South Koreas foreign policy. Lee, previously accused by critics of tilting toward China and North Korea and away from the U.S. and Japan, has repeatedly stressed South Korea’s alliance with the U.S. as the foundation of its foreign policy.
The toughest external challenges awaiting a new president are U.S. President Donald Trumps tariff policy and North Koreas advancing nuclear program. But experts say whoever becomes president in South Korea can’t do much to secure major progress in South Koreas favor on those issues.
With 73% of ballots counted as of 1 a.m. Wednesday, Lee, the Democratic Party candidate, led with more than 48% of the votes, trailed by main conservative People Power Party candidate Kim Moon Soo with 42.9%. South Koreas major media outlets were analyzing that Lees victory was certain.
The exit poll by South Koreas three major television stationsKBS, MBC, and SBSearlier showed Lee projected to obtain 51.7% of total votes cast, beating Kim with 39.3%. Preelection surveys suggested Lee appeared headed for an easy win, riding on deep public frustration over the conservatives in the wake of Yoons martial law debacle that plunged South Korea into political turmoil.
With the vote counting still underway, its premature to say anything definitively, but if the results stand as they are now, I pay my respects to the great decision of our people, Lee said outside his apartment in Incheon, just west of Seoul, as his supporters shouted his name.
Hundreds of Lee supporters separately gathered outside the National Assembly in Seoul, waving Korean flags and singing.
Nearly 80% of the countrys 44.4 million eligible voters cast ballots, according to an interim tally. Thats one of the highest turnouts for a presidential election in South Korea, reflecting public eagerness to move past the political turmoil.
The winning candidate will immediately be sworn in as president Wednesday for a single, full term of five years without the typical two-month transition period.
Pragmatic diplomacy
Lee, who served as governor of Gyeonggi province and mayor of Seongnam city, has been a highly divisive figure in politics for years.
As a former child laborer known for his inspirational rags-to-riches story, Lee came to fame through biting criticism of the countrys conservative establishment and calls to build a more assertive South Korea in foreign policy. That rhetoric has given him an image as someone who can institute sweeping reforms and fix the countrys deep-seated economic inequality and corruption.
His critics view him as a dangerous populist who relies on political division and backpedals on promises too easily.
On foreign policy, Lee has has steadfastly vowed to pursue pragmatic diplomacy. He has promised to solidify a trilateral Seoul-Washington-Tokyo partnership, a stance that isn’t much different from the position held by South Koreas conservatives.
He said he would pursue better ties with North Korea but acknowledged that it would be very difficult to realize a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un anytime soon. This signals Lee won’t likely initiate any drastic steps meant to improve relations with North Korea.
Experts say there arent many diplomatic options for South Korea as it tries to address Trumps tariff hikes and calls for South Korea to pay more for the cost of the U.S. military presence, as well as North Koreas headlong pursuit of nuclear weapons. Experts say that has made both Lee and Kim Moon Soo avoid unveiling ambitious foreign policy goals.
Paik Wooyeal, a professor at Seouls Yonsei University, said foreign policy strategists for Lee understand there isnt much South Korea can do to bring about a denuclearization of North Korea. Paik said Lee also doesnt share the Korean nationalistic zeal held by ex-liberal President Moon Jae-in, who met Kim Jong Un three times during his 2017-22 term.
Impact of tariff hikes
Lees government still could become engaged in a little bit of friction with the Trump administration, while a Kim Moon Soo government, which prioritizes relations with Washington, would likely offer more concessions to the U.S., said Chung Jin-young, a former dean of the Graduate School of Pan-Pacific International Studies at South Koreas Kyung Hee University.
Chung predicted Lee wont be able to pursue overly drastic steps on foreign policy and security, given the countrys foreign exchange and financial markets are vulnerable to such changes.
Lee has preached patience over Trumps tariff policy, arguing it would be a mistake to rush negotiations in pursuit of an early agreement with Washington. Kim Moon Soo has said he would meet with Trump as soon as possible.
On Monday, South Korean trade officials held an emergency meeting to discuss a response to Trumps announcement that the U.S. will raise tariffs on steel and aluminum products to 50% beginning Wednesday. South Koreas central bank last week sharply lowered its 2025 growth outlook to 0.8%, citing the potential impact of Trumps tariff hikes and weak domestic demand worsened by the political turmoil of past months.
Healing domestic divide
The election serves as another defining moment in the countrys resilient democracy, but observers worry a domestic divide that worsened after Yoons martial law stunt is far from over and could pose a big political burden n the new president.
The past six months saw large crowds of people rallying in the streets to either denounce or support Yoon, while a leadership vacuum caused by Yoons impeachment and ensuing formal dismissal rattled the countrys high-level diplomatic activities and financial markets.
Lee has promised to heal the national split, but his vow to thoroughly hold those involved in Yoon’s martial law stunt accountable has sparked concerns that he would use investigations to launch political retaliations against his opponents.
In a Facebook posting earlier Tuesday, Lee called for voters to deliver a stern and resolute judgement against the conservatives over martial law. In a campaign speech Monday, Lee claimed that a win by Kim Moon Soo would mean the return of the rebellion forces, the destruction of democracy and the deprival of peoples human rights.
Kim, a former labor minister under Yoon, said that a Lee win would allow him to wield excessive power.
Lee is now trying to seize all power in South Korea, Kim told one rally.
By Hyung-Jin Kim and Kim Tong-Hyung, Associated Press
American telehealth company Hims & Hers Health announced on Tuesday that it will be acquiring Zava, a leading European digital health company in an all cash acquisition set to close in the second half of 2025. Following the announcement, Hims’ stock price (HIMS) jumped 5.8% in premarket trading. (As of midday Tuesday, the stock was trading up just under one point.)
The move will rapidly expand Hims & Hers reach, which has a current base of 2.4 million U.S. customers. As the only digital health company with over a decade of operations across Germany, France, Ireland, and the U.K., Zava has an active user base of 1.3 million.
The demand for simpler, more personalized healthcare is universal, said Andrew Dudum, founder and CEO of Hims & Hers, in a press release. By leveraging Zava’s established European presence, cutting-edge technology, and deep customer understanding, we’re poised to fundamentally transform access to care for millions across Europe. Whether in rural towns, vibrant cities, or remote communities across Europe, people battling widespread, often silent chronic conditions like obesity, depression, and more will have access to the personalized, high-quality care they deserve.
Expanding to Europe is additionally beneficial because the E.U.s universal healthcare policies make pharmaceuticals much more affordable relative to the U.S. This means that personalized telehealth services like Hims & Hers could become more widely accessible there.
The medications are priced more competitively than in the U.S. so more people can actually afford it and we are seeing a huge demand, said Zava CEO David Meinertz in an interview with CNBC. The demand is increasing with additional strains on the statutory systems that telehealth can alleviate.
Hims & Hers’ most recent earnings report in May revealed a revenue of $586 million for the quarter, an increase of 111% over the first quarter of last year, as the platform continues to expand. The company’s current market cap is $12.5 billion as of Tuesday.
