After making his mark in Silicon Valley, Icelandic designer and tech mogul Haraldur Halli Thorleifsson is now solving a far more analog problem: the inaccessibility of local storefronts.
As a wheelchair user, Thorleifsson knows firsthand how exclusion can be built into a city. If you dont see anyone using a wheelchair, he says, its not because they dont existits because they have nowhere to go. Thorleifsson has experienced such access barriers to public spaces throughout his life, but the turning point came on a late-night walk with his family in downtown Reykjavík, when he couldnt join his son in a corner store because of a single step at the entrance.
As I was sitting outside, I kept looking at that one step, he recalls. Over the years, steps like that had stopped me from being able to go cafés to meet friends, from going to the barber, or going Christmas shopping with my family. That one step was the main obstacle between me and fully participating in society. And, not just me; anyone who uses a mobility device to get around. I decided that this had to change and since nobody else seemed to be doing anything, I figured it was up to me.
So in 2021, Thorleifsson launched Ramp Up Reykjavík to fund the installation of 100 ramps in places with the most foot traffic across Icelands capitalcafés, restaurants, and shops. Four years later, the project has delivered far more ramps than initially promised and well beyond Reykjavík to additional Icelandic cities, garnering a fitting name change to Ramp Up Iceland. On March 14, Thorleifsson celebrated the completion of Ramp Up Iceland with a ribbon-cutting ceremony and the support of the mayor, prime minister, president, and other leaders of the municipal governments across Iceland. Now, the team plans to expand the initiative to Paris and Lviv, Ukraine.
[Photo: Ramp Up Reykjavík]
An age-old accessibility problem
Creating accessibility in any urban environment is often met with logistical and bureaucratic challenges. But in cities with historic buildings that predate modern accessibility standards by decades or even centuries, those challenges are even further amplified. In downtown Reykjavík, most buildings date back to the 18th century with storefronts that sit slightly elevated above street level, making one or two steps a recurring access barrier across most of the citys core business district. And this isnt just an Icelandic issue. In a recent study, 70% of disabled people surveyed said theyve shown up to a building only to realize they couldnt get inside. More than half of them (60%) reported that they had to leave without completing their task because the building wasnt accessible. This study was conducted in the United States, where we have the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a law intended to protect the rights of disabled people and ensure accessible infrastructure.
Yet, even with the ADA, there are still massive access inequities in our urban environments. Buildings, sidewalks, and transportation systems often remain out of compliance or are poorly maintained, and legal protections such as the ADA arent universal. In many older cities around the world, accessibility standards are inconsistent, and the push to retrofit historic areas is often delayed or deprioritized in favor of architectural preservation.
Thorleifssons work is beginning to change this. The goal of Ramp Up Reykjavík was to install 100 ramps within a year; the project finished it in half the time and under budget. Following the success of the trial project, Thorleifsson expanded the initiative to cities across Iceland, with a new target goal of building 1,000 ramps in five years. They ended up building more than 1,700 ramps and again came in under budget.
[Photo: Ramp Up Reykjavík]
Building a better ramp
Each ramp is built for the location, and is integrated into the environment with designers working with the city and municipalities to try and match existing materials when possible. In many cases, passersby wouldnt even notice modifications to the historic buildings because the ramps are intentional design choices built into the urban environment. The role of a designer is to make something simple and beautiful to use, for as many people as possible,” says Thorleifsson. “So when I look at how some things are made, I can’t help but wonder how easy it would have been, with small tweaks, to make it usable by more people without losing any of the beauty.
The biggest challenge in the beginning was making people believe that this was possible, Thorleifsson says. “These problems have been discussed for decades, often with very little progress. So the approach was really to give people no excuses. We fund, design, build, and get all the permits; it’s all free for the shop owner or the person who owns the building. Once people start seeing success, where before there was none, all the arguments go away and doors open.
Thorleifsson initially funded the project with dividends made through the sale of his digital design agency Ueno to Twitter in 2021. He joined the company as a senior director of product design but was abruptly terminated in 2022 along with some 200 others when Elon Musk took over Twitterwhich led to a Twitter exchange with Musk that made international headlines.
The sale of Thorleifssons company helped get the Ramp Up Reykjavík initiative off the ground, but the project has been a collaborative venture between Thorleifsson and local businesses, government agencies, and city officials. I had some money, and I was able to quickly raise more. Once the snowball was rolling, everyone jumped on board very quickly, he says.
Now he is looking to make quick improvements at the international level. Ukraine has a lot of peope coming back from the war that need access. So the urgency is there, Thorleifsson explains of where the initiative will head next. I’m not a very patient person. I don’t think there is any excuse to move slowly on fixing a human rights issue. So I sometimes have to push hard for change to happen.
When asked what lessons hes learned that other cities should consider when trying to improve accessibility, Thorleifsson says, It’s easy. It’s cheap. There’s no excuse. Just do it. We can help. Call me.
While Teslas stock has seen a sharp decline in recent weeks, Elon Musk has quietly been working to expand his influence in a different area of tech: AI supercomputing. Recent reports have revealed that Musks AI startup, xAI, has been quietly building a new data center in Atlanta. The facility will house around 12,000 Nvidia graphics processing units (GPUs), crucial chips that power AI computation.
While the Atlanta data center is modest compared to Musk’s supercomputer project in Memphis, nicknamed Colossus, which boasts 100,000 GPUs, its construction is part of a broader trend in the tech world that has been advancing largely under the radar.
Last December, Meta announced its plans to build a $10 billion data center in Richland Parish, Louisiana. In February, OpenAI began constructing a facility in Abilene, Texas, while scoping out potential sites in 16 other states, as they seek to invest $500 billion in AI infrastructure over the next four years under the Trump Administrations Stargate project. While megaprojects like Colossus and Stargate have captured national attentionespecially as Musk trumpeted his goal of creating the most powerful AI supercomputer in the worldthis broader wave of data center construction has largely proceeded under the radar, with minimal public oversight, particularly from the communities that will host these centers.
This silent expansion underscores an important issue: We cannot allow Big Tech to have unchecked control over the development of AI infrastructure, especially when there is a lack of transparency and limited public scrutiny.
The problem with unchecked AI expansion is multifaceted. While tech companies promise their data centers will rejuvenate local economies with jobs and tax revenue, it is not entirely clear that the risks outweigh the rewards.
First, the AI industry is an environmental crisis waiting to happen. Data centers typically consume an immense amount of resources, particularly water. Liquid-based cooling systems are essential to prevent overheating in the massive networks of servers that power these centers, and this process requires vast quantities of water. The Colossus project in Memphis alone is estimated to consume one million gallons of water a day, according to public utilities companies in the city.
And its not just Memphiswith an estimated 50% of the worlds population projected to live in water-stressed areas by 2025, the growing demand for water in AI data centers presents a real threat to local communities. In Memphis, activists are already sounding the alarm about the impact on local water supplies, especially in a region with a history of arsenic contamination in drinking water. xAI has reached an agreement with the City of Memphis to build a recycled wastewater facility for the data centers cooling needs, aimed at alleviating some pressure on local water sources.
However, the company has not been transparent with the local community regarding its plans for the facility, which is expected to reduce the strain on the Memphis Sand aquifer by only 9%even as xAI announced plans to expand its supercomputing operation to one million GPUs more than 10 times its current capacity.
The environmental impact extends beyond water usage. The supercomputing industry is highly carbon-intensive. According to a report by Morgan Stanley, data centers worldwide are projected to emit 2.5 billion tons of CO2 by 2030. Many of these data centers are being built in the U.S. South, a region already vulnerable to rising temperatures. The carbon emissions from these projects will only worsen the heat risks in areas that are already hot. The effects of extreme heat are not felt equally.
In Atlanta, for instance, where some neighborhoods were redlined in the 20th century, residents in predominantly Black communitieswho ofte lack access to air-conditioning and shaded green spacesare already disproportionately at risk for heat-related illness and death. The continued expansion of data centers and the heat generated by their carbon emissions will only make these inequities worse. While Musks xAI may tout its role in advancing AI innovation, these environmental tolls cannot be ignored.
Moreover, its not even clear that we need this kind of computing power. Earlier this year, the launch of DeepSeek, a more resource-efficient AI model developed in China, shocked the tech industry. DeepSeeks breakthrough suggested that the future of AI could be far less resource-hungry than what Musk and others are pushing. Since DeepSeeks success, tech giants like Microsoft have canceled data center leases in the U.S., signaling that perhaps the need for supercomputing power is not as pressing as Musks ambitions would have us believe.
This raises the question: Are these massive data centers even necessary, or are they just part of a generative AI hype bubble? And will the communities hosting these data centers be left to foot the bill once the bubble bursts?
Of course, many will argue that the global AI race is too important to let these concerns get in the way. But we cannot allow Silicon Valleys “move fast and break things” mentality to dictate how our cities evolve and how resources are allocated. Urban leaders must step up to demand oversight and accountability in the development of these data centers.
AI is undeniably vital to the future of human progress, but its too important to be left in the hands of unaccountable tech oligarchs. Atlanta, Memphis, and other cities across the country need to assert control over the expansion of data centers and insist on transparent, responsible development.
President Trump says he is eager to make America healthy again and boost economic growth. His success hinges, in large part, on the National Institutes of Health.
Yet the Trump administration recently paused NIH meetings on new grant applications and proposed a cap on NIH funding for overhead costs. In response, research universities are already cutting studies and rescinding doctoral degree offers.
For decades, the NIH has functioned like a giant venture capital firm operating on behalf of the American taxpayer. It makes tens of thousands of small investments in basic scientific research each year thatin the aggregateyield enormous societal returns, even though they often take decades to come to fruition. The government’s own research indicates that for each one-time $1 investment it makes in basic science research, society reaps $0.43 in recurring annual benefits from increased economic activity, improved worker productivity, and better health as a result of new medicines.
Of course, the NIH doesn’tand couldn’tdo it alone. Universities, research hospitals, and the biotech industry all play their part. But it’s the NIH that essentially kickstarts this cycle of innovation.Most of the NIH’s budget goes toward grants that support university labs across the country. Between 2019 and 2023, NIH funding levels for universities, hospitals, and medical research institutions increased 23%. In fiscal 2023, the agency doled out nearly $35 billionabout 73% of its total budgetto almost 59,000 grantees at 2,500 different organizations. The average grant was less than $600,000.In these labs, scientists conduct experiments that sometimes, at first glance, seem to have little practical application. Think of past NIH-funded research featuring cocaine-addicted rats pressing levers or tiny shrimp jogging on underwater treadmills.
These seemingly wasteful experiments have actually informed medical breakthroughs and saved lives. The rat research helped crack open the secrets of dopamine and addiction, paving the way for opioid abuse treatments like buprenorphinea drug proven to decrease overdose deaths by 38%.
Meanwhile, the shrimp cardio workouts weren’t just crustacean CrossFit; they revealed how low oxygen affects muscle endurancewhich yielded insights for treating muscle atrophy and heart disease. What looked like government-funded lunacy to outsiders led to scientific findings that made Americans healthier, proving that curiosityeven the weird kindpays off. But when labs make a research breakthrough, that’s merely the startnot the endof the development process. Universities have neither the resources nor the desire to turn insights into real-world drugs or medical devices. Instead, universities typically license their discoveries to biotech companies, which then spend years and billions of dollars working to turn those initial findings into FDA-approved treatments.
It’s a riskyand enormously expensiveprocess. About nine in 10 experimental medicines fail in clinical trials.
Fortunately, the financial risk of that process mostly falls on private companies and their investors, not on taxpayers. One recent study that examined FDA-approved drugs found that for every dollar the NIH had contributed toward their development, the private sector contributed over $65. But without NIH grants, this entire cycle of innovation would never begin, because private companies could never justify funding extremely early-stage basic research with unclear commercial applications on their own.
That wouldn’t merely harm public healthit’d also send shockwaves through our economy.
In my home state of Illinois, research institutions received around $6 billion in NIH grants from 2019 to 2023. That sort of research yields significant scientific investmentevidenced by the fact that Illinois biotech startups raised nearly double that in venture capital from 2019-2023.
These research and commercialization efforts boost our economy. Illinois’ biotech sector supported over 93,000 jobs spread across nearly 5,000 establishments in 2023. And Chicago recently ranked 10th in the nation for biopharma R&D and third for biopharma manufacturing jobs.
Texas and Ohio, meanwhile, have seen around a 21% and 13% bump in bioscience employment from 2019 to 2023, respectively. In 2023, Texas boasted over 9,200 firms employing about 129,000 employees, while Ohio’s workforce added up to almost 64,000 workers across 4,800 firms.
It’s important for policymakers to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent judiciously. That’s precisely why the Trump administration would be wise to fully fund and staff the NIH. Significant cuts could impede American biotech breakthroughs, compromise U.S. biotech talent, and gut the nation’s job-creating biotech hubs.
The agency’s grants more than pay for themselves by kickstarting a cycle of innovation that saves American lives and grows the economy.
Celebrity assistants have a demanding job. The role requires being on call outside of normal working hours, working proactively to anticipate the needs of their boss, and protecting their boss’s schedule and privacy. It takes someone who is engaged, professional, and a team playerand searching for the right person to fill the role takes skill.
I might as well be a scientist instead of a recruiter, because I’m putting people under a microscope, says Susan Levine, founder and CEO of Career Group Companies, which has placed assistants with celebrities including Kevin Costner, Maria Shriver, and the Kardashian-Jenners. I need to be a very good listener with the client first and equally a good listener with the candidate. I make sure that everything that the candidate wants fits what the actor wants, and vice versa.
In any profession, there are overarching qualities that help you perform well in your job. The key to a long-lasting hire, however, is focusing on the person behind the skills, says Monique Helstrom, an executive assistant recruiter and former assistant to author and speaker Simon Sinek. Ultimately the relationship is human, she says. Human connection is something you have to search for.
Bonnie Low-Kramen, author of Staff Matters: People-Focused Solutions for the Ultimate New Workplace, says a strong working relationship comes down to chemistry. If an executive or a celebrity is choosing between two candidates, theyre going to choose who they feel theyll be most compatible with, she says.
As a result, hiring can be an exercise in matchmaking. While not every manager is going to be a high-profile individual, hiring managers can learn some tips from celebrity assistant recruiters on how they go about finding the right candidates:
Start with the Boss
An important tool for finding the right person is a well-written job description, says Helstrom. You need to be blunt, she says. I interview the executive quite thoroughly. I also interview people that they know and love. Some pieces will connect to their values, and some pieces will look for slightly opposite skills. I describe both sides thoroughly, so that I can attempt to weed out those that don’t fit the bill.
For example, the manager may value honesty and need someone who is not afraid to speak up. Or the manager may be a high-energy person. Finding someone who has a calmer demeanor could bring better balance to their relationship.
Levine likes to find out what an executives Achilles’ heel is. Like any relationship in life, in order for there to be compatibility and synergy, you need to know what makes someone tick, she says. If they didn’t care for the last assistant they had and are replacing them, what was it about that person that annoyed them?
Find Matching Values
Having a good understanding of the person behind the management role can help guide the interview. Helstrom asks questions that reveal if their values are in alignment. She likes to ask What do you value in a personal and professional experience? And give me some examples of the last time you lived one of those values.
If one of their values is living with integrity, for example, Helstrom wants to hear a story about a time when they didn’t drop the ball, even though there were things against them that could have stopped them from doing their job.
Did they take ownership of the project? she asks. I want to see if the behavior is what the executive wants, but I also look at their body language. Does what they’re saying match how theyre acting?
Assess Their Engagement
Some candidates want a job, and some want this job. To determine how important the role you need to fill is to the candidate, Low-Kramen, who was the personal assistant to actress Olympia Dukakis for 25 years, likes to check if theyve done their homework.
Not just homework, but deep homework, she says. What do they know about the organization, and what do they know about the people involved, even the recruiter. You will be able to tell very quickly if they’ve done their homework or if they ask questions that could have easily been found on Google.
During the interview, Helstrom assesses engagement by making sure the person is prepared. I’ve had people come to the interview and say, What interview is this for? or What job is this for? she says. I ask them Why do you want this job?
Measure Professionalism
Personality is what’s going to get you the job, but you need a high level of professionalism, says Levine. [Your boss] is not going to be your friend over the years; you might develop a relationship, but its a job, she says.
Different roles will measure professionalism in different ways. For a celebrity assistant, confidentiality is an important value. Helstrom says one of her favorite ways to discern the candidates ability to maintain the employers privacy is asking them questions about their former executive.
Ill say, Tell me about your last executive, or Tell me about the worst executive youve ever had, she says. I want to see if they start getting personal. If they dish to me, they’re dishing to other people.
Another way to get insights on someones level of professionalism is by checking references. In addition to talking to previous employers, Low-Kramen looks at candidates social media platforms for clues.
[Posts are] evidence of discretion and what is appropriate to be putting out publicly, she says. I don’t think it’s a big reach that an executive or hiring manager might think, If she or he is presenting themselves like this on social media, that may be what they’ll do with me. Your private life is your private life except when it impacts your professional life. It speaks to their professionalism and dedication to the career. I know of assistants who have not been offered jobs because of what’s on social media.
Finally, Low-Kramen looks for common courtesies that might indicate how someone behaves in a professional setting. For example, does the candidate stand when the intervewer enters the room? Do they look you in the eye? Did they silence their phone? If you meet them for a meal in a restaurant, how do they treat the waitstaff?
All of this shows respect and deference to the situation, she explains. They should make it intentional that the most important person they’re talking with right now is you.
If youre feeling anxious about AI right now, youre not alone. Its reasonable to wonder whether AI will soon be able to do a lot of what we used to think of as human work. As of now, this technology has already shown some degree of promise for all of the following very human psychological skills: diagnosing diseases, writing code, summarizing and teaching information, predicting markets, brainstorming, product design, project management, coaching, and much more.
We probably all know some optimists who think AI will be merely an efficiency tool that gets you 80% there and humans will still be needed for the other 20%. But even in a scenario like that, some current jobs will surely be lost. Im not going to try to predict the future and say what is right. Im just pointing out that there are plenty of reasons why many of us are worried, anxious, or downright afraid of AI taking our jobs at some point.
Psychology has something very valuable to offer here. What this is really about is living with uncertainty.
One good way to live wellperhaps even happilywith uncertainty is to start by understanding what the worry, anxiety, and fear (WAF) are there for. As University of Michigan Professor Ethan Kross explains, emotions are useful sources of information. When it comes to WAF, very often the information is that there is something coming in the future that you cant fully control and you want the outcome to turn out a certain way. In other words, WAF serves a functionto help us try to control the future.
That can be adaptive at times, like when preparing for a major licensing exam. Its a specific goal where you can control the outcome in some important ways. Worrying about whether certain topics will be covered on the exam can help you do some downside planning. Feeling a little anxious on the morning of the exam can help you stay energized and focused. Having some fear about what would happen if you failed to study enough and were embarrassed with the results can motivate you when your motivation lags. All of that helps you try to control the future.
Trying to control the future is not so adaptive when its not meaningfully possible, such as when the future is as uncertain as it is with AI. In this context, downside planning can have no end, the anxiety can be chronic because there is no singular eventlike the examcoming up to apply it to, and the fear of failure can feel unending when any job you might have or prepare for might be taken away by AI.
But the truth is that no one can know what capabilities and impact AI will have in the future. Theres a place for some guessing and downside (or upside) planning with AI, but thats different from the ongoing and repeated fears many have of AI taking their jobs. WAF in this case often leads to a general sense of doom and hopelessness. It no longer serves an adaptive purpose. Instead it holds you backand its unpleasant.
However, the information in the WAF is still useful. The information is often that you seek a greater sense of control over your career success.
What can you do to gain some sense of control and reduce WAF when the future is so uncertain? It all comes down to bringing your focus to what you can control. These three steps can be a great way to do so:
Honor that goal of having a sense of control, and find a better way to get there.
Focus on what you can control, which, in this case, is the present and your use of AI now.
Answer this question: What do I want to do with AI now?
For example, I need to engage in negotiations from time to time. On occasion, I find I am quite cynical about the chances that the other side will play fair or be open to listening. So one way I want to use AI right now is to get guidance from experts on cynicism.
I might not have access to Jamil Zaki, author of Hope for Cynics. But I know that researchers have often found that your beliefs and attitudes make a big difference in how things turn out. So if I wanted to change my cynical attitude about my negotiation, I could ask AI to suggest a few pointers that Zaki would likely recommend to help me to approach a negotiation with hopeful skepticism rather than having already cynically written the other side off.
When you focus on what you want to do with AI now, you do two things that should decrease the WAF feelings. One is that you increase your sense of control, which has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety. The other is that, rather than trying to avoid what you fear, you reorient toward approaching what you desire. So its more about desire and less about WAF.
Shifting your focus to what you want that is within your control now, as pertains to AI, can help you live well with the uncertainty around how AI will affect your job.
Often people try to gain control over a highly uncertain future by dwelling on what the future could hold. But this leads to avoidance and distracting negative WAF feelings. Paradoxically, shifting your focus to the present and to what you want that is within your control now, can be the best way to set your future self up for success. As you get to know the technology you can build a more constructive relationship with it.
Theres a Kraft Heinz commercial running in Canada right now that is a perfect embodiment of the geopolitical moment between the U.S. and its northern neighbor. In it, the brand is celebrating its Canadian workers, and highlighting all the Canadian ingredients in its products like peanut butter, cheese, and Kraft Dinner.
For context, in case you dont read the news: Since the election, President Trump has not only threatened and implemented trade tariffs on Canadian goods, but has added insult to injury by suggesting America’s longtime ally become its 51st state. This has not gone over well in Canada for obvious reasons.
Thats why an American conglomerate like Kraft Heinz feels the need to clarify a few things. Sure, the cream cheese might be called Philadelphia, but ITS MADE IN MONTREAL with CANADIAN DAIRY, WE SWEAR. As a Canadian, it feels to me like the brand equivalent of my American friends turning to me during every commercial break of a hockey game to assure me they dont actually want to annex my country.
Canadian to the core
Of course, its not only American companies creating ads to hype how deep their Canadian connections are. This moment has given Canadian brands a chance to really fly their maple leaf flags to make sure we all know whos really from here.
Thats important because Canadians buy more American-made goods than the U.K., France, Japan, and China combined. Yet a recent KPMG study found that 70% of Canadians would boycott U.S. products if President Trump implemented his 25% tariffs, while 80% are actively seeking non-U.S. alternatives when Canadian options arent available.
The threats and tensions aren’t just theoretical: The Globe & Mail reported this week that cross-border travel is falling sharply: Statistics Canada reported that Canadians made 1.2 million fewer round-trip visits to the U.S. last month, which is 23% less than February 2024. Meanwhile, hotels in Maine are reporting a major drop in summer bookings, some as much as 90%.
Peter Chapman, founder of consulting firm SKUFood and a former executive with Canadian grocery giant Loblaw, told The Canadian Press, Its by far the most dramatic and swiftest shift Ive seen in consumer behavior.
Ian Westworth, Grey Canadas head of planning and effectiveness, wrote in Campaign recently that this shift in consumer behavior presents a significant opportunity for Canadian brands to align with this cultural moment and tap into a groundswell of national pride. This is an opportunity to build not just short-term momentum but also enduring consumer relationships, said Westworth.
Halifax-based Moosehead Breweries is facing tariff impacts across its packaging supply chain, but managed to keep its sense of humor, creating a Presidential Pack of 1,461 beersone beer for every day of the next four years. It’s sold at least 10 of the $3,400 packs so far, and now has a waiting list.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Moosehead Breweries (@moosehead)
Everyone up here, from the Prime Minister to Mike Myers, has been using the Elbows up mantra (it’s a hockey thing). And now brands from both countries have been forced to reconcile what that actually means for them.
Flying the flag
This isnt the first time a brand has aimed at the under-tapped resource that is Canadian national pride. Back in 2000, Molson Canadian created a spot called The Rant that featured a guy named Joe proudly dispelling what amounts to American stereotypes of Canada.
Cheesy, sure, but it struck a very strong nerve. As loathe as we are to admit it, a sizable proportion of the Canadian identity is tied to all the various ways we arent American. Were often a nation stuck between the influences of a colonial past (Britain and France), and a pop culture present (America). Part of our contemporary identity is finding ways to move beyond this binary. Marvel star, and Toronto native, Simu Liu leaned into our unique brand of multiculturalism when he hosted the 2022 Juno awards (Canadas Grammys) and re-created his own rant: I grew up on ketchup chips, roti, and Jamaican beef patties . . . Thats about as Toronto as you can get.
Like any emphasis on buying local, or touting Made in the USA stateside, brands have long used their connection to Canada as a marketing device here. But this time its different. It feels like all at once, every marketer in Canada is a maple-syrup-swigging, hockey-loving hoser.
Some are doing it by adding phrases like Proudly Canadian or Canadian Made to their labels. Others are creating full ad campaigns. Maple Leaf Foods recently launched a partnership with other Canadian brands urging people to look for the leaf on grocery products.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Maple Leaf Foods (@mapleleaffoods)
Grocery giant Loblaws has created a black T label to highlight products impacted by the new American tariffs.
Retailer Canadian Tire dropped a spot to reiterate its roots, while using harsh winds as a nod to the current political and economic climate.
The Canadian Forces even has a spot that could weirdly double as a tourism ad, encouraging Canadians to be maple-leaf buying, local adventuring in their spending habits.
Graham Candy, chief strategy officer at Toronto-based ad agency Angry Butterfly, is expecting to see more marketers join the chorus. “We feel like this is just the beginning of what we are going to see out there from a political and marketing comms perspective,” says Candy. “We expect to see bolder messages, more pride, potentially more anger and stronger ‘Us versus Them’ messaging.”
Personally, I’m just waiting for Nestlé to finally announce a brand partnership with Shoresy for its Canadian-made Drumsticks ice cream treat.
Same rules apply
For some marketers, wrapping their brands in the flag may work perfectly well. For others, its a mistake.
In so many ways, the current situation between Canada and the U.S. is unprecedented. But the solution for marketers is actually still rooted in the best practices of a modern brand: know what your core values are and use that as the lens through which you communicate with your audience.
Plenty of brands in Canada will jump on this patriotic bandwagon, but the ones who find success will be those who have built their Canuck credentials over time. Just as brands that decide to aim attention at a particular cultural nichewhether anime fans, surfers, or Swiftiestheir actions need to be true to who they are or else the brand will be called out and, ultimately, unsuccessful in reaching that audience.
American and international companies that have built the strongest brand connections to their Canadian consumers will ultimately weather the tariff storm, and it wont be because of some haphazard flag-waving.
That said, Diageo should probably start re-airing its 2023 Crown Royal Super Bowl ad immediately.
It can be difficult to assert yourself during a negotiation. You may feel emotional about the process, especially if you are countering a lower offer than you expected or are nervous about being up against a seasoned negotiator. Or perhaps you’re uncomfortable with the idea of selling yourself to a potential employer or partner.
Whatever the case may be, your approach to negotiations could be working against you. The best way to make sure you don’t botch a negotiation is to prepare for it in advance, writes Lydia Fenet, a leading charity auctioneer and expert in selling and negotiations. That can involve using friends and family to practice how a negotiation may unfold.
“To win a negotiation you need to play out as many different scenarios as possible before you sit down, so you are prepared for any angle,” she adds. When you are preparing for a tricky conversationwhether you’re hammering out a job offer or discussing a potential partnershiphere are a few negotiation tips you should keep in mind:
What not to say
There are a few phrases that Fenet says you should steer clear of during any negotiation, to avoid unintentionally weakening your position. “If you begin a negotiation by asking, ‘Is it okay if I ask for . . . ?’ you have made me the authority, which gives me the upper hand,” she writes. Framing the question this wayor even explicitly asking if the salary figure you have proposed is too highcan indicate a lack of confidence, making it more difficult to negotiate effectively.
It’s also important to set a number ahead of time that you won’t go below, so that you’re willing to walk away if the negotiation does not land where you were hoping. “By thinking this through before the negotiation, you should feel confident you wont give away more than you want or accept less than you should in the heat of negotiation,” Fenet says. Since employers will expect you to drive a hard bargain, you should put a number forward without second-guessing yourself or questioning whether it’s too high.
Don’t keep talking
Sometimes, less is more when you are navigating a negotiation. You might struggle to sit in silence after sharing your salary requirements if, say, an employer does not immediately respond to your proposal. If youre highly agreeable, you like to keep things moving forward, says leadership coach René Rodriguez. You may not trip over little details, and you may agree to a lower price. Someone who isnt as agreeable may stop the negotiation right away and demand a higher pay.
But silence can be a powerful tactic during a negotiationparticularly if you’re the kind of person who tends to overexplain or feels the need to justify your demands. In fact, it’s a strategy that employers may use to gain the upper hand during a negotiation. By holding your ground, however, you can force the person you’re negotiating with to speak first.
How to follow up
What you do after a successful negotiation is also a key part of getting the outcome you want. After all, as Fenet writes, a negotiation is “not done until the contract is signed.” It’s crucial to close the loop so you make sure that what you discussed is finalized.
That said, there are times when you know a negotiation is unlikely to pan out. Maybe there isn’t room in the budget or the partnership just isn’t a good match. Even so, it can be worthwhile to create rapport with the person across the table. “Remember, life is long,” Fenet writes. “People change jobs, and budgets come and go; but if people walk out of a negotiation feeling like they made a connection, they will still be your first call.”
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Speaking to investors last week, Lennar co-CEO Jon Jaffe said that the spring 2025 selling season for Americas second-largest homebuilder is off to a slower-than-normal start.
We do not see the seasonal pickup typically associated with the beginning of the spring selling season,” Jaffe said. “So we continue to lean into our machine focusing on converting leads and appointments and adjusting incentives as needed to maintain sales pace. These adjustments came in the form of mortgage rate buydowns, price reductions, and closing cost assistance.
Last quarter, Lennar spent the equivalent of 13% of home sales on buyer incentivesup from 1.5% in Q2 2022 at the height of the pandemic housing boom. A 13% incentive on a $400,000 home translates to $52,000 worth of incentives.
This weaker housing demand environment is causing unsold inventory to tick up. Indeed, since the pandemic housing boom fizzled out, the number of unsold completed new single-family homes in the U.S. has been rising:
February 2018: 63,000
February 2019: 75,000
February 2020: 77,000
February 2021: 39,000
February 2022: 31,000
February 2023: 70,000
February 2024: 88,000
February 2025: 119,000
The February figure (119,000 unsold completed new homes) published this week is the highest level since July 2009 (126,000).
Lets take a closer look at the data to better understand what this could mean.
To put the number of unsold completed new single-family homes into historic context, we created a new index: ResiClubs Finished Homes Supply Index.
The index is one simple calculation: The number of unsold completed new single-family homes in the U.S. divided by the annualized rate of U.S. single-family housing starts in the U.S.
A higher index score indicates a softer national new construction market with greater supply slack, while a lower index score signifies a tighter new construction market with less supply slack.
If you look at unsold completed single-family new builds as a share of single-family housing starts (see chart below), it still shows we’ve gained slack; however, it puts us closer to pre-pandemic 2019 levels than the 2008 housing bust.
While the U.S. Census Bureau doesn’t give us a greater market-by-market breakdown on these unsold new builds, we have a good idea where they are based on total active inventory homes for sale (including existing homes) that spiked above pre-pandemic 2019 levels. Most of those areas are in the Sun Belt around the Gulf.
Some builders are facing pricing pressureespecially in key Florida and Texas markets, where resale supply is also well above pre-COVID norms, Dillan Krieg, an analyst at John Burns Research and Consulting, recently wrote on LinkedIn.
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A powerful law firms acquiescence to President Donald Trump has sent shockwaves through the legal community, prompted prominent lawyers and former associates to deride the firm, and astounded even its harshest critics.
In response to an executive order from the White House targeting Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, the firms chair, Brad Karp, cut a deal with Trump to provide $40 million in free legal support and conduct an audit of the firms DEI employment and hiring protocols. Following the deal, Trump reversed his order, which would have stripped Paul Weiss of its security clearance, terminated its federal contracts, and limited its attorneys access to federal buildings. A day after announcing the agreement with Paul Weiss, the White House directed federal law enforcement to punish other lawyers who challenge Trumps initiatives in court.
Until last week, Paul Weiss was best known for its pro bono work for liberal causes, fundraising for Democrats, and standing up to Trump during his first term. Trumps order essentially took revenge on the firm for bringing a pro bono lawsuit against January 6 Capitol rioters and for its ties to Mark Pomerantz, the attorney who pursued criminal charges against Trump in the Manhattan District Attorneys office.
But the prestigious global firmwhich represents ExxonMobil against lawsuits claiming the oil giant deceived the public about the dangers of burning fossil fuelsalso has a history of defending corporate giants accused of harming the public.
As David Moore at Sludge reported, Paul Weiss has worked to defend a range of corporate clients from liability. The firm led legal defense for the Sackler family against lawsuits for their role in the nations opioid crisis. It fought the U.S. Department of Justice on behalf of tobacco giant Phillip Morris when it was sued for covering up and undermining the link between smoking and cancer. Its recent work has included successfully defending Amazon executives against antitrust claims and shielding JP Morgan Chase and its directors from allegations involving Jeffrey Epsteins criminal activity.
Today, Paul Weiss serves as Exxons lead representation in climate deception cases brought against the oil giant by state and local governments. The company is often represented in court by Kannon Shanmugam, a top litigator at the firm who led preparations for a legal challenge against Trump in case Paul Weiss couldnt make a deal with the president, The New York Times reported.
The firm had a choice to fight backinstead, they’ve chosen to give in, which suggests that they think their profits are better served by being in Trump’s pocket than by appearing objective, said Haley Czarnek, national director of programs and operations at Law Students for Climate Accountability, a group that advocates for the legal industry to reckon with its role in the climate crisis.
In its latest climate scorecard, Czarneks group calculated that Paul Weisswhich scored an F grade for its work involving climate changetopped all other Vault 100 firms in the number of cases in which it represented fossil fuel companies between 2019 and 2023.
Still, Czarnek said she was shocked by the deal Paul Weiss made with Trump. To completely and totally capitulate to the whims of a political figure and to turn themselves into another arm of the administration is obscene, she said.
Law Students for Climate Accountability was founded as a result of law student protests at Harvard, Yale, NYU, and the University of Michigan in 2020 urging Paul Weiss to drop Exxon as a client. The group wants to send the message that firms cannot be neutral when it comes to the climate, because fossil fuel corporations have big money to throw around and the communities harmed by the climate crisis do not, said Czarnek. (Oil interests donated more than $75 million to Trumps presidential campaign.)
At the time those protests began, the firm had just defeated a lawsuit brought by the New York attorney general accusing Exxon of misleading investors about the risks of climate change to its business. While arguing to dismiss that case, Paul Weiss attorneys cited a meeting memo that federal prosecutors say was illegally obtained in a hacking-for-hire scheme targeted at supporters of the lawsuits, which has since been linked back to Exxon by a middleman who pleaded guilty to participating in the hacking.
The firm also defended Exxon against a lawsuit brought by Indonesian villagers who said soldiers the company hired to guard its natural gas facility committed murder and torture. The case was settled in 2023, after a former Paul Weiss attorney representing Exxon was admonished by a judge for litigation misconduct that later cost her a job at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Paul Weiss helped offset that controversial work with its large pro bono practice, touting its unwavering commitment to providing pro bono legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of our society and in support of the public interest. Now part of that practice will be dedicated to issues championed by Trumpthough the firms chairman, Karp, promised its staff that the president would not be dictating which of those issues the firm chose.
It makes really transparent what pro bono has always been aboutwhich is doing good work for the firm, not for the public, said Czarnek, who said that firms will typically only take on pro bono work that doesnt conflict with the interests of their corporate clients. The pro bono arm of any firm is a PR operation that exists to bolster the reputation of the firm, she said.
Another law firm for major fossil fuel companies, Gibson Dunn, has used pro bono work in a similar way. During the first Trump administration, Gibson Dunn partner Ted Boutrous, who regularly argues on behalf ofChevron, offered free representation to those targeted by the president in violation of the First Amendmentand the firm represented CNN journalist Jim Acostawho had his press pass to the White House revokedamong others.
Gibson Dunn represents Chevron against climate deception lawsuits, and just won a nearly $670 million verdict for Energy Transfer in its lawsuit against Greenpeace for assisting protests against the Dakota Access Pipelineone of several cases the firm has pursued that legal experts say are intended to chill the free speech of its clients opponents.
The scales may continue to tip against communities and advocates also targeted by the Trump administration, who say theyve been unable to obtain legal representation as law firms fearing retribution yield to Trumps threats. But Exxon, at least, will still have its lawyers.
This piece was originally published on ExxonKnews, a project with the Center for Climate Integrity.
Law school applications typically spike in times of financial and labor market distress, but a significant recent surge may be more driven by other factors.
According to the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC)which, among other things, administers the law school admissions test (LSAT)application volume for the 2025 school year is up 20.5% compared to last year.
When we ask test takers and applicants Why are you applying to law school?, the primary reason is to make a difference, says LSACs interim president and CEO Susan Krinsky. As a result, she attributes the latest increase to the world around us, explaining there have been a few very interesting Supreme Court cases, and then we’ve got the political environment.
Krinsky adds that election years often see somewhat higher law school applicant numbers, but such a significant jump is usually only typical in times of severe economic distress, like the 2008 financial crisis or the early pandemic.
We will often see at least a small bump in U.S. presidential election years, but not like this one. This one is unique, she says, adding that while financial motivations are likely still a significant motivator they now appear to be secondary.
The increase in law school applications also follows a similar spike in business school applications this year, which experts also believe was more divorced from underlying economic conditions than is typical.
Like law school hopefuls, many business school applicants said they wanted the degree to make a greater impact, as well as to achieve greater work-life balance, and to guard themselves against the unpredictable effects of artificial intelligence.
Competition is heating up
Not only is the number of law school applicants up this year, but LSAC data suggests each is also applying to more programs, suggesting significant competition for limited spots.
The number of people applying is up about 20%. The [number of] applications they’re submitting, however, is up more like 23%, Krinsky says. I don’t think law schools are going to enlarge the size of their classes, given that its very important to law schools that their students get jobs at the other end, and its hard to predict what the market will look like three years from now.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the 166 year-old University of Michigan Law School recently reached a new application volume record, while Creighton University School of Law reported a 25% increase. A spokesperson from Columbia Law School also confirmed to Fast Company that their law school, too, has seen an increase in application volume for its incoming cohort.
Having done this for a long time, most of these increases and decreases are plus or minus 5%when its a big moment, its maybe 10%, says Georgetown Law School dean of admissions Andy Cornblatt. For it to be up 20% nationally, and 25% at Georgetown, is highly unusual.
Prior to the fall of 2021 Cornblatt says no U.S. law school had surpassed about 12,600 applicants in a single academic year. During the pandemic, applications for Georgetowns 650-person law school hit a new record of 14,000 applications, and Cornblatt says this year is on pace to match or surpass that figure.
In recessions, applications go up every time. Thats not this, he says. If you go back over time, these presidential election yearsparticularly recentlygenerate an enormous amount of interest in law and politics and policy and the courts; all of those things become front and center.
Cornblatt adds that some economic uncertainty, looser policies around entrance exam requirements, and the heightened visibility of legal decisions in the social media age are all contributing factors, but none alone would explain such a significant surge.
I tell students the playing field used to be boardroomsthat’s your grandparents generation, he says. The playing field now is the courtroom, and that’s where this new surge of applicants wants to be, because that’s where the action is.
What an historically competitive year means for applicants
The significant and widely unexpected increase in interest has forced law schools like Georgetown to take a somewhat different approach to their admissions process this year, Cornblatt says, with significant implications for applicants.
People who last year would have been admitted are now probably sitting on a waitlist, and people who would have been wait-listed were probably denied, he explains. The good news is I am being very conservative with the number of people I’ve admitted, and as a result, I think we will be much more active on the waiting list than we have been in the past.
In other words, being wait-listed in this highly competitive year should be taken as a more encouraging sign than in a typical year.
Applicants competing for those limited spots are also encouraged to apply at more schools than they might otherwise, a trend already emerging in the LSAC data.
Part of it is having a really high LSAT scoremore competitive than the average of the school, says Claudia Nelson, the director of operations and client relations at higher education admissions consulting firm Admit Advantage. If you want to be seen as a competitive applicant you need to also have really excellent materialspersonal statements, diversity statements, other addendumand apply early.
The start of a four-year trend?
Though applicants are probably too late to start their application for the 2025 school year, Nelson advises those seeking admissions in future years to get started as soon as essay questions are made public, typically in mid-to-late-summer.
After all, if application volume is indeed being driven by political turmoil, Nelson says law school admissions are likely to remain highly competitive in the years ahead.
We’ve seen a lot of applicants report that they want to go into civil rights and human rightsand I want to say that [the repeal of] Roe v. Wade was probably a big wake-up call for peopleso its about more than just whats happening in the [labor and financial] markets, she says. If all else stays consistent, well probably see an increase throughout this [presidential] administration.
