If you missed the northern lights, or aurora borealis, over the past weekend, you’re in luckyou may have a second chance tonight, Monday, June 2, when they may be visible for a second night in a row in some U.S. states across the country.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) forecasts that the next possibility for viewing the northern lights is Monday night into early Tuesday, with the most intense activity across Canada and Alaska and the northern U.S. states.
This aurora borealis is the result of a geomagnetic storm that occurs when a coronal mass ejection (CME), an eruption of solar material, reaches Earth and causes swaths of blue, green, and purple in the sky. This years increased solar activity is likely the result of an 11-year sun cycle peaking through October.
Where and when will the northern lights be visible tonight?
While NOAA predicts Alaska is the best U.S. state to potentially view the aurora tonight, the agency says: “The other states that are best positioned are the northern Midwest states, from Washington, northern Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan,” Alex Gianninas, an astronomy professor at Connecticut College told Newsweek.
Residents of northern New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine may also be able to witness the light show in the night sky, Gianninas added.
The aurora borealis is best observed just after sunset or just before sunrise.
Dont worry if you aren’t able to see the northern lights tonightNOAA predicts activity will remain high through 2025 and 2026. You can track the aurora on NOAAs page, where the agency is providing updates.
President Donald Trumps administration on Monday renewed its request for the Supreme Court to clear the way for plans to downsize the federal workforce while a lawsuit filed by labor unions and cities proceeds.
The high court filing came after an appeals court refused to freeze a California-based judges order halting the cuts, which have been led by the Department of Government Efficiency.
By a 2-1 vote, a panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the downsizing could have broader effects, including on the nations food-safety system and health care for veterans.
In her ruling last month, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston found that Trumps administration lacked congressional approval to make sizable reductions to the federal workforce.
The administration initially asked the justices to step in last month, but withdrew its appeal for technical, legal reasons. The latest filing is one in a series of emergency appeals arguing federal judges had overstepped their authority.
Illston’s order rests on the indefensible premise that the president needs explicit statutory authorization from Congress to exercise his core Article II authority to superintend the internal personnel decisions of the executive branch,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in the new appeal.
Trump has repeatedly said voters gave him a mandate to remake the federal government, and he tapped billionaire ally Elon Musk to lead the charge through DOGE. Musk left his role last week.
Tens of thousands of federal workers have been fired, have left their jobs via deferred resignation programs, or have been placed on leave. There is no official figure for the job cuts, but at least 75,000 federal employees took deferred resignation, and thousands of probationary workers have already been let go.
Illstons order directs numerous federal agencies to halt acting on the presidents workforce executive order signed in February and a subsequent memo issued by DOGE and the Office of Personnel Management. Illston was nominated by former Democratic President Bill Clinton.
Among the agencies affected by the order are the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Labor, the Interior, State, the Treasury, and Veterans Affairs. It also applies to the National Science Foundation, Small Business Association, Social Security Administration, and Environmental Protection Agency.
The Supreme Court set a deadline of next Monday for a response from the unions and cities, including Baltimore, Chicago, and San Francisco.
Some of the labor unions and nonprofit groups are also plaintiffs in another lawsuit before a San Francisco judge challenging the mass firings of probationary workers. In that case, Judge William Alsup ordered the government in March to reinstate those workers, but the U.S. Supreme Court later blocked his order.
By Mark Sherman, Associated Press
The New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA) announced its plans last week to transition to Universal Open Access chargers for electric vehicles as soon as June 6.
In preparation for the transition, the NJTA asked Tesla to remove 64 existing Tesla Superchargers from the highly trafficked thoroughfare. Applegreen Electric will provide the new third-party chargers, which will be compatible with all makes and models of EVs, the NJTA said.
“The universal chargers will be available as of June 6 at the Vince Lombardi, Woodrow Wilson, Richard Stockton, James Fenimore Cooper, Joyce Kilmer, and Walt Whitman Service Areas,” the authority said in a statement. “The Turnpike Authority is working diligently with Applegreen to get the universal chargers online soon at three other Turnpike locations.”
According to the NJTA, the universal chargers are expected to be operational at the Molly Pitcher Service Area next month and the Clara Barton and John Fenwick service areas this fall.
The transition is part of a larger agreement
The NJTA had previously reached an agreement with Applegreen Electric to operate service areas along the New Jersey Turnpike and Garden State Parkway.
An amendment to the agreement was authorized in 2023 to include the installation of EV chargers. As part of the amended agreement, Applegreen Electric will install and operate 80 EV charging ports by the end of this year and a total of 240 EV charging ports by April 2033.
Blackstone-backed Applegreen Electric says it has more than 600 locations across Ireland, the U.K., and the United States. In the U.S., its chargers are concentrated in the Northeast.
Tesla and Tesla users are not happy
Tesla confirmed the news in a statement on X: “The New Jersey Turnpike Authority (“NJTA”) has chosen a sole third-party charging provider to serve the New Jersey Turnpike and is not allowing us to co-locate. As a result, NJTA requested 64 existing Supercharger stalls on the New Jersey Turnpike to not be renewed and be decommissioned.”
The automotive company explained that it had spent the last three years building 116 stalls off the New Jersey Turnpike in preparation for this outcome. Tesla said it remains hopeful that NJTA or New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy will reverse the decision.
In response to a tweet that shared the news, Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote: “Sounds like corruption.”
Paul Kanitra, a Republican member of the New Jersey General Assembly, expressed outrage over the decision. “I agree that these decisions by the NJTA are absolutely absurd and will be asking that it gets looked into immediately,” he posted on X.
Fast Company contacted Murphy’s office for comment and will update if we receive a response.
Some EV drivers prefer Superchargers
The reaction to the news has been mixed. In a recent article for InsideEVs, writer Suvrat Kothari discussed the news and shared his experiences using different EV charging stations along the New Jersey Turnpike. Kothari explained he has had trouble when using non-Tesla chargers.
[W]atching Tesla drivers pull in, charge, and drive off effortlessly is undeniably enviable,” Kothari said.
The news has also generated robust debate on the Electricvehicles subreddit, with more than 660 comments as of Monday afternoon.
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter.
During the pandemic housing boom, housing demand surged rapidly amid ultralow interest rates, stimulus relief, and the remote work boomwhich increased demand for space and unlocked WFH arbitrage as high earners were able to keep their income from a job in, say, New York City or Los Angeles, and buy a home in, say, Austin or Tampa.
Federal Reserve researchers estimate that new construction would have had to increase by roughly 300% to absorb the pandemic-era surge in demand. Unlike housing demand, housing stock supply isnt as elastic and can’t ramp up as quickly. As a result, the heightened pandemic era demand drained the market of active inventory and overheated home prices, with U.S. home prices rising a staggering 43.2% between March 2020 and June 2022.
Of course, a lot has changed since then.
Not long after mortgage rates spiked in 2022 and return-to-office mandates gained a bit of momentum, national demand in the for-sale market pulled back and the pandemic housing boom fizzled out.
The longer we’ve remained in this strained housing demand environment, the more the total number of U.S. active sellers is outmatching the total number of active homebuyers.
According to a recent Redfin analysis, there were nearly 490,041 more U.S. home sellers than buyers in April 2025. Thats the most that home sellers have outmatched homebuyers in over a decade.
For comparison, at the height of the pandemic housing boom in April 2022, there were 436,106 more U.S. homebuyers than sellers.
The balance of power in the U.S. housing market has shifted toward buyers, but a lot of sellers have yet to see or accept the writing on the wall. Many are still holding out hope that their home is the exception and will fetch top dollar, writes Redfin economist Asad Khan. But as sellers see their homes sit longer on the market and notice fewer buyers coming through on tour, more of them will realize that the market has adjusted and reset their expectations accordingly.
According to Redfin, theres a wide variation across the country. Thats something that ResiClub has also previously noted.
Most of the softest housing markets where homebuyers have the most power are in the Sun Beltin particular, pockets of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, and Texas. While the tightest markets where home sellers still have the most power are in pockets of the Northeast and Midwest.
While regional variation continues to exist, the housing market across much of the country has, directionally speaking, shifted toward homebuyers over the past year.
How did Redfin calculate this?
The number of sellers in the market is simply active listings, or the total number of homes actively for sale at any point during a given month. Active listings data come from the MLS, writes Redfin.
Redfin economists added: Because there is not a similar metric measuring how many buyers are actively in the market, we developed one. We took active listings and pending sales from the MLS [multiple listing services] to estimate what fraction of homes on the market will sell within a given month. Analogously, we estimated what fraction of buyers on the market will find a home within a given month using Redfin data on the typical time from first tour to purchase. The ratio of these two data points approximates the ratio of buyers to sellers in the market.
“We then multiplied that ratio by the number of active listings to get the estimated total number of buyers in the market. Note that our estimate of buyers is not based on Redfin traffic or customer acquisition data, and the purpose of this analysis is to measure the number of buyers and sellers in the housing market as a whole. All metrics that go into our calculation of the number of buyers and sellers in the market are seasonally adjusted.
In terms of market labels, Redfin economists view the current housing market as a little softer/weaker than Zillow economists do. (You can find Zillow’s updated market labels here.)
Ding, ding, ding! Chime Financial is finally ready to go public.
The 13-year-old digital banking services company has set a target valuation of $11.2 billion for its highly anticipated initial public offering (IPO), according to a filing Monday with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
That would amount to raising roughly $832 million while offering 32 million shares, priced between $24 and $26. Per Chime’s S-1 statement, the company says it has 8.6 million active members and generates $251 in revenue per active member, on average.
San Francisco-based Chime intends to list its stock on the Nasdaq and trade under the ticker CHYM. It has not announced a listing date.
Notably, the $11.2 billion valuation is a sizable fall from the $25 billion ceiling Chime hit after a $750 million funding round in 2021a time when many fintech companies were riding high due to the pandemic.
However, it also recently disclosed that its 2024 revenue was on an uptick, hitting $1.67 billion, up from $1.28 billion a year earlier. At the same time, its net losses have narrowed during that period, from $203.2 million in 2023 to $25.3 million last year.
Fast Company reached out to Chime for additional comment, but the company declined.
Getting into the ring
Chimes IPO has been a long time coming and is expected to be one of the most anticipated offerings of the year.
Digital banking services from non-banks and so-called “digital challenger banks” are no longer a niche offering, according to a recent analysis from Deloitte. The report said consumers had registered some $98 billion in global digital deposits as of 2023, even as many of the new entrants offering such services are not yet turning a profit.
Fintech companies have also hit stumbling blocks after getting a big boost in interest from consumers during the pandemic, and thats caused some companies in the space to put their IPO plans on ice. Perhaps most recently was Swedish fintech company Klarna, which reportedly paused its IPO plans in early April.
Turmoil caused by the Trump administrations tariff regime and erratic trade policies has also thrown the IPO market off its axis, but there are signs that activity could be ramping up once again. Data from Renaissance Capital shows that year-to-date, 100 IPOs have been filedan increase of 19% from last yearand that 81 have priced, an increase of 40%.
In addition to Chime, some other anticipated IPOs that could happen this year include StubHub, Discord, Liquid Death, Panera, SpaceX, and Shein.
The United Kingdom will build new nuclear-powered attack submarines, get its army ready to fight a war in Europe and become “a battle-ready, armor-clad nation,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Monday, part of a boost to military spending designed to send a message to Moscowand Washington.Starmer said Britain “cannot ignore the threat that Russia poses” as he pledged to undertake the most sweeping changes to Britain’s defenses since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than three decades ago.“The threat we face is more serious, more immediate and more unpredictable than at any time since the Cold War,” Starmer told workers and journalists at a navy shipyard in Scotland.
A new era of threats
Like other NATO members, the U.K. has been reassessing its defense spending since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.The government announced military plans in response to a strategic defense review commissioned by Starmer and led by George Robertson, a former U.K. defense secretary and NATO secretary general. It’s the first such review since 2021, and lands in a world shaken and transformed by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and by the re-election of President Donald Trump last year.Months after Britain’s last major defense review was published in 2021, then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson said with confidence that the era of “fighting big tank battles on European landmass” are over. Three months later, Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine.Starmer’s center-left Labour Party government says it will accept all 62 recommendations made in the review, aiming to help the U.K. confront growing threats on land, air sea and in cyberspace.
Submarines and weapons
The measures include increasing production of submarines and weapons and “learning the lessons of Ukraine,” which has rapidly developed its drone technology to counter Moscow’s forces and even hit targets deep inside Russia.The government said the U.K, will also establish a cyber command to counter “daily” Russia-linked attacks on Britain’s defenses.Monday’s announcements include building “up to 12” nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines under the AUKUS partnership with Australia and the United States. The government also says it will invest 15 billion pounds in Britain’s nuclear arsenal, which consists of missiles carried on a handful of submarines. Details of those plans are likely to be kept secret.The government will also increase conventional Britain’s weapons stockpiles with up to 7,000 U.K.-built long-range weapons.Starmer said rearming would create a “defense dividend” of thousands of well-paid manufacturing jobsa contrast to the post-Cold War “peace dividend” that saw Western nations channel money away from defense into other areas.
Deterring Russia comes at a cost
Defense Secretary John Healey said the changes would send “a message to Moscow,” and transform the country’s military following decades of retrenchment, though he said he does not expect the number of soldierscurrently at a two-century lowto rise until the early 2030s.Healey said plans for defense spending to hit 2.5% of national income by 2027 a year are “on track” and that there’s “no doubt” it will hit 3% before 2034.Starmer said the 3% goal is an “ambition,” rather than a firm promise, and it’s unclear where the cash-strapped Treasury will find the money. The government has already, contentiously, cut international aid spending to reach the 2.5% target.Starmer said he wouldn’t make a firm pledge until he knew “precisely where the money is coming from.”Even 3% falls short of what some leaders in NATO think is needed to deter Russia from future attacks on its neighbors. NATO chief Mark Rutte says leaders of the 32 member countries will debate a commitment to spend at least 3.5% of GDP on defense when they meet in the Netherlands this month.
Bolstering Europe’s defenses
It’s also a message to Trump that Europe is heeding his demand for NATO members to spend more on their own defense.European countries, led by the U.K. and France, have scrambled to coordinate their defense posture as Trump transforms American foreign policy, seemingly sidelining Europe as he looks to end the war in Ukraine. Trump has long questioned the value of NATO and complained that the U.S. provides security to European countries that don’t pull their weight.Starmer said his government would make “Britain’s biggest contribution to NATO since its creation.”“We will never fight alone,” he said. “Our defense policy will always be NATO-first.”James Cartlidge, defense spokesman for the main opposition Conservative Party, welcomed more money for defense but was skeptical of the government’s 3% pledge.“All of Labour’s strategic defence review promises will be taken with a pinch of salt unless they can show there will actually be enough money to pay for them,” he said.
Jill Lawless and Pan Pylas, Associated Press
Jeffrey Katzenberg has long backed ambitious venturesfrom cofounding animation studio DreamWorks to championing digital innovation through his investment firm WndrCo. Now, hes supporting a bold new vision for the future of advertising. WndrCo has co-led a $15.5 million Series A investment in Creatify, an AI video ad platform that has quietly reached $9 million in annual recurring revenue just 18 months after launch.
Co-led alongside Kindred Ventures, the latest round brings Creatifys total funding to $23 million, with Katzenberg also joining the companys board.
Founded by a trio of engineers who previously built video ad products at Snap, Meta, Airbnb, and Metas AI research lab FAIR, the San Francisco-based startup helps businesses rapidly produce high-performing, AI-powered video ads for social mediawithout relying on traditional production or content creators.
Ive spent my career looking for the tools that give storytellers an edge. Thats why Im excited about AI video, Jeffrey Katzenberg, cofounder and CEO of DreamWorks SKG and WndrCo, tells Fast Company. Brands today need hundreds of custom ads across dozens of platforms, fast and cost-effectively. Traditional production just cant keep up, but AI can. Thats what makes it a game changer.
The platform features a library of over 750 lifelike AI avatars and more than 140 natural-sounding voices, enabling brands to deliver personalized messages in up to 29 languages. It also includes a built-in scriptwriting tool for crafting ad narratives.
Creatifys cofounder and CEO, Yinan Na, says his experience working on Snap Spotlight and Meta video ads taught him that great creative content, when guided by the right algorithms, naturally finds its audience.
I saw videos unique power to engage audiences at scale, but also how complex and out of reach video advertising can be for most businesses. Those experiences shaped my vision for Creatify as the Shopify of video adsan AI-driven platform that automates as a one-click video advertising experience, Yinan says. Its about harnessing AI to democratize creativity and empower entrepreneurs everywhere to scale their storytelling and grow their businesses.
Creatify has grown to over one million users, with brands like Zumper, NewsBreak, Binance, and Alibaba.com using the platform to launch hundreds of ad creatives each month. To advance automation further, Creatify is now launching an AI agent that autonomously generates, tests, and optimizes short-form video ads.
Ive seen firsthand how technology opens new doors, from hand-drawn to CGI animation, and now AI. What excites me about Creatify is that its breaking down barriers around video creation. When production takes minutes instead of weeks, more people get to tell their stories. Thats a real shift, says Katzenberg.
AdMax: An AI Agent for Ad Creatives
The startups pitch is simple yet disruptive. Video accounts for 82% of internet traffic, yet only 35% of ad spend. Why? Because high-quality video production doesnt scale fast enough for todays digital economy. Creatify aims to solve this with AdMax, an end-to-end AI platform that can generate dozens of video ad variations in minutes.
Built for performance-driven platforms like TikTok and Metas ad ecosystems, AdMax autonomously analyzes top-performing competitor ads to generate creative insights, then creates dozens of UGC-style videos featuring AI avatars and tests them directly on Meta and TikTok.
At the heart of the platform is Ad Intelligence, a proprietary engine that identifies which scripts, visuals, and formats convert best.
AdMax learns which creative elements drive better results and autonomously adjusts campaigns on the fly, continuously improving outcomes with minimal human input, says Yinan. The system uses LLMs to script tailored ads, while powerful VLMs and diffusion models edit and generate the corresponding imagery and video contents. It acts like a 24/7 creative strategist, content producer, and media optimizerrolled into one with the power of AI.
With API integrations and team workspaces, AdMax is designed to streamline production workflows for large marketing teams.
AdMax is a real breakthrough. What used to take weeks and cost tens of thousands now happens in minutes for a fraction of the price, Katzenberg says. Thats not just efficiency; its creativity and effectiveness, and its a fundamental shift in how this business will work.
Scalable Creativity, Engineered by Industry Veterans
Creatifys founding team brings significant AI engineering experience. CEO Yinan Na is joined by chief scientist Ledell Wu, formerly of Metas FAIR lab and a contributor to open-source projects like PyTorch-BigGraph, for which she earned an ICML Test-of-Time Award. CTO Xin Zhou, a veteran of Meta and Airbnb, specializes in building scalable AI systems and recommendation engines.
Now joining the board, Katzenberg brings decades of experience shaping the entertainment and media industries.
He began his career at Paramount Pictures, rising from assistant to president of production under Michael Eisner and contributing to classics like Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark. In 1984, Katzenberg joined Disney as Chairman of Walt Disney Studios, revitalizing its film division into a box office powerhouse.
After leaving Disney in 1994, he cofounded DreamWorks SKG with Steven Spielberg and David Geffen, producing hits like Gladiator, Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and A Beautiful Mind. After taking the studio public and later selling it to NBCUniversal for $3.8 billion, Katzenberg founded WndrCo in 2017.
He believes technology should turn storytelling into business results. To him, Creatify isnt just a new tool, its a creative shift.
When I joined Disney in 1984, animation was still painted by handincredible work, but slow and tedious. Today, theres no ink-and-paint department, yet more people work in animation than ever before. Technology didnt take those jobs, it transformed them, Katzenberg says. Thats the pattern: innovation expands opportunity and pushes creativity forward.
A New Era of Advertising
Early adopters are already seeing impact. Real estate platform Zumper produces over 300 video ads monthly using Creatify, saving about $20,000 each month. NewsBreak advertisers launch tailored creatives in minutes instead of days, reporting improved engagement across audience segments. Marketers no longer wait weeks for agencies to deliver polished campaigns.
Weve designed our AI to act as a strategic copilotnot a replacement. Our full-funnel intelligence draws from a rich blend of brand guidelines, historical performance, and real-time industry trends to generate creatives, says Yinan. Marketers are always in controlthey can review, refine, and approve any AI-generated asset. Our goal is to empower them with better data and sharper ideas that drive conversions, all while preserving their unique voice and creative intuition.
Whats Next for Creatify?
With the fresh capital, Creatify plans to grow its R&D team, enhance customer success efforts, and roll out new features. Upcoming releases include Batch Mode 2.0 for generating hyper-targeted ad variations in bulk, along with AI-powered market insights and automated multichannel publishing.
As AI tools evolve from assistants to autonomous creators, a deeper question emerges: what becoes of agencies, creative teams, and the craft of storytelling when a model can do it all on demand?
The human touch is still everything. AI doesnt work on its own, it follows vision, direction, and feedback, Katzenberg says. Creatify isnt replacing marketers; its a copilot, not the pilot itself. The best technology has always done the same thing: helped people do what they do bestonly faster, smarter, and at greater scale.
In January, Fortune Brands Innovations, whose portfolio includes home and security brands such as Moen and Master Lock, announced it was consolidating its regional U.S. offices into one state-of-the-art campus in Deerfield, Illinois. As part of that effort, they are requiring the majority of corporate employees to move to the Chicago suburb.
When asked to relocate, most of these employees declinedbut the company said it expected that, and in a conversation about the transition, CEO Nicholas Fink framed the changes ahead as a positive for the company. He added that while many opted out of relocation, the company still exceeded industry benchmarks for the number of people who said yes to the move.
To be candid, its a big change for a lot of people, says Fink, who declined to share more specific figures. There are people who are committed to their communities and their families and arent interested in a move. . . . And then there are people who are very excited to be a part of this.
The company asked employees from eight sites across the U.S., as well as some remote employees, to relocate. It will eventually ask employees from a ninth site to relocate as well. The companys manufacturing facilities, distribution centers, and international sites, as well as its digital-focused San Francisco office, will remain open.
Among the Fortune Brands sites that will be closing are Master Locks headquarters in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Moens headquarters in North Olmsted, Ohio, and Therma-Tru Corps headquarters in Maumee, Ohio.
The larger return-to-office push
Fortune Brands isnt alone in its desire to bring employees together after a pandemic that isolated many and led to the remote-work boom, which some employers are now rolling back via return-to-office mandates.
In April, CNBC reported that Google had asked remote employees to begin reporting to a Google office three days per week in order to keep their jobs amid cost cuts. Amazon has also asked some corporate employees to relocate amid its full time return-to-office push, prompting a number of workers to resign.
While RTO mandates arent unusual, whats less common is requiring a full relocation to a central headquarters. Last year, in a somewhat similar move, Walmart required employees to relocate to its Arkansas headquarters or another main hub, prompting some executives to resign, according to Quartz.
Organizing a mass relocation
Employees who were asked to relocate were offered an expenses-paid visit to Deerfield, relocation assistance, and, in most cases, an increase in base pay to account for higher cost of living in the Chicago area. Employees who opted out of relocating are receiving severance packages and at least a 90-day notice of their last day of work, the company said. The moves will happen in phases, beginning at the end of this summer.
By the end of 2027, Fortune Brands says it will have room for over 1,000 employees at its new headquarters. That includes relocated employees as well as new employees the company is currently in the process of hiring. The move will create about 400 new jobs for professionals in the Chicago area, an exciting prospect for Fink.
Were seeing a level of talent applying very proactively to join our company that we really hadnt seen when we were dispersed, he says. There are some jobs that have had 1,400 applicants.
Fink adds that he wants to be crystal clear about how much the company values its current talent, though he feels new hires will help give the company a technological edge. In a press release about the new headquarters, the company also announced simplified leadership changes that involve eliminating the role of group president.
Creating a central headquarters
The location in Deerfield, about 30 miles north of Chicago, was selected based on the potential talent pool in the area as well as tax credits given by the state of Illinois, the company says. The new campus, formerly home to a pharmaceutical company, occupies two buildings connected by walkways, and boasts an on-site gym, daycare center, cafeteria, coffee bar, and recreational activities including golf simulators and a bowling alley.
With the move, Fink says he hopes employees who were previously scattered across the countryand across the company’s various brandswill be able to connect more easily and quickly. In fact, hes already seen it happen in the temporary space the company is currently occupying.
Im having members of my team walk into my office and say, I just bumped into so-and-so, or, I just ran into someones office and we made a decision in five minutes, Fink says. That might previously have been: Schedule a meeting, someone prepares a deck, someone presents the deck, then you have a conversation about it, and maybe you make a decision or maybe you dont, then you get off the Zoom . . .
Fink believes the streamlined communication will allow for higher productivity and greater innovation, which will drive products and services. The company reported mixed financial results in a first-quarter earnings call earlier this month. Sales fell 7% year-over-year, with the company attributing the drop in part to softer consumer demand. However, earnings per share met analyst expectations. In response to the earnings release, the companys stock price dropped 2.78%, closing at $54.31.
While Fink believes strongly in the importance of having employees in one headquarters, he says there are no plans to change his companys current hybrid-work policy, which requires three days a week in-office.
Thats created a lot of value for people, he says. But theres also value in being together, so were trying to find the perfect balance. Some of the people who arent making the movefor us have found other jobs where they can work remotely. I would think that, over time, that will lead to underperformance relative to the people who are getting together and making decisions much faster. Its a hypothesis, but one were eager to prove out.
China blasted the U.S. on Monday over moves it alleged harmed Chinese interests, including issuing AI chip export control guidelines, stopping the sale of chip design software to China, and planning to revoke Chinese student visas.“These practices seriously violate the consensus” reached during trade discussions in Geneva last month, the Commerce Ministry said in a statement.That referred to a China-U.S. joint statement in which the United States and China agreed to slash their massive recent tariffs, restarting stalled trade between the world’s two biggest economies.But last month’s de-escalation in President Donald Trump’s trade wars did nothing to resolve underlying differences between Beijing and Washington and Monday’s statement showed how easily such agreements can lead to further turbulence.The deal lasts 90 days, creating time for U.S. and Chinese negotiators to reach a more substantive agreement. But the pause also leaves tariffs higher than before Trump started ramping them up last month. And businesses and investors must contend with uncertainty about whether the truce will last.U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the U.S. agreed to drop the 145% tax Trump imposed last month to 30%. China agreed to lower its tariff rate on U.S. goods to 10% from 125%.The Commerce Ministry said China held up its end of the deal, canceling or suspending tariffs and non-tariff measures taken against the U.S. “reciprocal tariffs” following the agreement.“The United States has unilaterally provoked new economic and trade frictions, exacerbating the uncertainty and instability of bilateral economic and trade relations,” while China has stood by its commitments, the statement said.It also threatened unspecified retaliation, saying China will “continue to take resolute and forceful measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”And in response to recent comments by Trump, it said of the U.S.: “Instead of reflecting on itself, it has turned the tables and unreasonably accused China of violating the consensus, which is seriously contrary to the facts.”Trump stirred further controversy Friday, saying he will no longer be nice with China on trade, declaring in a social media post that the country had broken an agreement with the United States.Hours later, Trump said in the Oval Office that he will speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping and “hopefully we’ll work that out,” while still insisting China had violated the agreement.“The bad news is that China, perhaps not surprisingly to some, HAS TOTALLY VIOLATED ITS AGREEMENT WITH US,” Trump posted. “So much for being Mr. NICE GUY!”The Trump administration also stepped up the clash with China in other ways last week, announcing that it would start revoking visas for Chinese students studying in the U.S.U.S. campuses host more than 275,000 students from China.Both countries are in a race to develop advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, with Washington seeking to curb China’s access to the most advanced computer chips. China is also seeking to displace the U.S. as the leading power in the Asia-Pacific, including through gaining control over close U.S. partner and leading tech giant Taiwan.
Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press
Going into my time reviewing the Google Pixel 9a, I had this grand idea to transform myself into “AI Man.”
Google has made a big to-do about how it’s reimagining Android with AI at the core, and the $500 Pixel 9a is now the cheapest entry point into Google’s Gemini AI ecosystem. In the past I’ve found all those AI features easy to ignore, but this time I was going to dedicate myself to making the most of them.
It didn’t really work out as planned. While Gemini is a better assistant than it used to be on Pixel phones, it can also be a big a waste of time. And for all Google’s talk of reinventing all of Android around AI, some of the best Pixel AI features require a more expensive phone then the 9a.
[Photo: Jared Newman]
Gemini’s promise and pitfalls
I’ll give Google credit for this much: Gemini on the Pixel 9a is no longer a trainwreck.
When Google started shipping Gemini as the default voice assistant on the Pixel 9 series, it was worse than the old Google Assistant at common tasks like creating to-do list items, checking local store hours, and getting directions. Google has patched in a lot of that missing functionality over the past nine months.
In some ways, Gemini even more useful now. I can ask for directions with a specific stop along the way, for instance, or have a back-and-forth to manage the items on my Google Keep grocery list. Being able to converse with Gemini about widely understood topics can be helpful as well, and unlike with Assistant, there’s a chat history you can look through for future reference.
Still, leaning on Gemini for anything important feels like a crapshoot.
[Photo: Jared Newman]
While on vacation in Florida, for instance, I asked Gemini to look up the time for my flight home. It first informed me that I had two flights scheduled (I only had one), and when I asked to put the correct flight info on my calendar, Gemini added a completely invented flight to New York instead. (I live in Cincinnati.) Gemini also failed to account for traffic when I asked what time to leave for the airport, even though Google Maps provides this info on its own. And because Gemini can’t search through secondary calendarslike the one my wife and I use to coordinate pretty much everythingit’s been largely worthless for looking important dates.
Gemini Live, the conversational voice mode you can use it without touching the screen, had some issues as well. I tried using it to research a story on satellite messaging, only to later discover in my own research that Gemini got a half-dozen facts wrong. Later I asked Gemini to act like a stenographer, transcribing some thoughts of mine for this story, but it kept interrupting and failed to capture large chunks of what I said.
[Photo: Jared Newman]
Even Gemini Live’s ballyhooed Camera Mode feels a bit like a parlor trickalbeit an impressive one. While pointing your camera at the real world, Gemini can identify and answer questions about what it sees. It recognized a mango tree on the aforementioned Florida trip, for instance, and told me that none of the fruit looked ripe enough to eat. But when I asked why my aloe plant at home looked red and droopy, the insight was no different than if I’d just asked the same question in a Google search. (Too much water, or maybe not enough, Gemini said.) Camera Mode’s ability to understand your surroundings may ultimately be a better fit for smart glasses that can easily ingest more information.
Keep in mind that none of these features are Pixel-exclusive. Gemini is also the default assistant on Samsung’s latest flagships, and it’s a free download on iOS. Meanwhile, the Pixel 9a doesn’t support some of the exclusive features Google does offer, like transcript summaries in the Recorder app, phone call summarization, and an app for organizing your screenshots.
Oddly enough, the Pixel AI feature I used the most is one that predates the ChatGPT era: When you get a call from an unknown number, tapping “Call Screen” asks the caller to explain who they are, and then shows you a transcript of their response. It’s an immensely satisfying way to deal with spammers and telemarketers, most of whom just hang up.
[Photo: Jared Newman]
For Gemini to really make a difference on phones, it will need to interact with more apps and services, handle data from Google’s own services more reliably, and be better at not making stuff up. I don’t feel like the Pixel 9a is much closer to doing those things than previous Pixels, it just has a few more AI tricks bolted on.
Still a fine phone
Odd as it may seem to relegate the actual phone features to an afterthought, that pretty much reflects how I feel about the Pixel 9a. For $500, it’s a pretty good phone that I’ve been using in place of my usual flagshipsan iPhone 16 Pro Max and a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5largely without complaint.
Yes, there are trade-offs. The camera array is less sophisticated, which mostly became an issue when I really wanted to zoom in on something. Battery life, while better than the Pixel 9, doesn’t match Google’s and Apple’s “Pro” level phones and led to some charging anxiety on long days. The bezels around the display are thicker. The edges are aluminum and not stainless steel, and the rear panel is plastic instead of glass. The front glass, meanwhile, is less resistant to drop damage.
Still, I never felt like the Pixel 9a was hindering me from doing what I needed to do, which was to see how Google’s AI-first vision for Android has manifested over the past year. And the verdict, so far, is that it mostly hasn’t.
