The Food and Drug Administrations guidance on who needs the COVID-19 booster shot has changed, but many insurers will still be covering the costs for enrolleesat least through the end of the year.
AHIP (formerly known as Americas Health Insurance Plans), the largest U.S. health insurance association, said Tuesday that its members will continue to cover vaccines with no cost-sharing for patients, following recommendations issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions vaccine advisory committee as of September 1.
Late last month, the FDA dramatically altered its approval for the COVID vaccines, clearing the shots only for people 65 and older or who have underlying health conditions. Those changes sowed confusion among people seeking the shot and could make it more difficult to obtain in the future.
Health plans are committed to maintaining and ensuring affordable access to vaccines, the group wrote in a press release. “While health plans continue to operate in an environment shaped by federal and state laws, as well as program and customer requirements, the evidence-based approach to coverage of immunizations will remain consistent.
The statement from AHIP is notable due to the massive number of Americans covered by its member companies. They include Aetna, Elevance Health, Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, CVS Health, Centene, and many Blue Cross Blue Shield state providers. The groups full member list is available on its website and illuminates which insurance providers say they will cover recommended vaccines through the end of the year.
AHIPs members account for coverage of more than 200 million Americans, though the countrys largest insurer, UnitedHealth, left the association in 2015. According to the insurers website, most UnitedHealthcare plans include COVID-19 vaccines at no additional cost, but patients could be responsible for a co-pay if receiving a vaccine during an office visit. Fast Company reached out to UnitedHealth about its COVID-19 vaccine coverage and will update this story when we receive a response.
A vaccine advisory panel is at the center of controversy
The health insurance associations announcement comes during a week of health policy unpredictability. On Monday, the federal government announced that five new members selected by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would be added to the CDC advisory panel that sets national recommendations for vaccines. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, also known as ACIP, has been a particular nexus of concern in light of Kennedys history of sowing vaccine skepticism and spreading anti-vaccine misinformation.
ACIP safeguards the health of Americans by issuing objective, evidence-based vaccine recommendations, Kennedy said in a press release on Monday. Its new members bring diverse expertise that strengthens the committee and ensures it fulfills its mission with transparency, independence, and gold-standard science.
Kennedy has moved quickly to reshape the committee, firing all of its previous members in June and accusing the group of corruption, which he said necessitated a clean sweep.
Over the coming days, I will use this platform to announce new members to populate ACIP, Kennedy wrote on X in June, claiming that none of the new members would be ideological anti-vaxxers. We should care as much about every child who could be injured by one of these products as we do every child who could be injured by an infectious disease, Kennedy wrote, referencing a common anti-vaccine talking point.
Kennedys remade advisory panel, which includes vaccine skeptics and members with no prior vaccine expertise, meets late this week and may vote on recommendations for the hepatitis B vaccine, COVID-19 shots, and the childhood vaccine schedule. The panel is expected to delay the hepatitis B vaccine given to newborns until age 4, according to former CDC officials. The ACIP vote could impact what vaccines are covered for Americans next year.
Former CDC Director Susan Monarez testified in the Senate on Wednesday, issuing grave warnings about Kennedys influence on U.S. health policy. Kennedy ousted Monarez last month after she declined to fire CDC leadership and refused to green-light the remade panels changes to U.S. vaccine recommendations.
“Given what I have seen, if we continue down this path, we are not preparednot just for pandemics, but for preventing chronic health disease. And we’re going to see kids dying of vaccine-preventable diseases,” Monarez said.
Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerrys, is leaving the iconic ice cream brand he started in 1978 with pal Ben Cohen, after ongoing political disputes with British parent company Unilever.
“After 47 years, Jerry has made the difficult decision to step down from the company we built together,” Cohen wrote on X. “Im sharing his words as he resigns from Ben & Jerrys. His legacy deserves to be true to our values, not silenced by @MagnumGlobal.”
Cohen ended the social media post with the hashtag #FreeBenAndJerrys, before sharing Greenfield’s letter online.
In that letter, Greenfield said, its with a broken heart that Ive decided I can no longer, in good conscience . . . remain an employee,” and accused Unilever of curbing the ice cream brand’s independence to stand up and speak out in support of peace, justice, and human rightsvalues he claimed were protected under its merger agreement.
The two sold the Vermont-based ice cream brand to Unilever 25 years ago in 2000, but the the relationship between the companies has since eroded, according to CNN.
Ben & Jerrys is now part of The Magnum Ice Cream Company (TMICC), which Unilever recently spun off, and is now operating as a standalone global ice cream business worth an estimated $8.6 billion as of last year. A Unilever spokesperson told Fast Company that TMICC is expected list in mid-November in Amsterdam, London, and New York, and will be incorporated in the Netherlands.
We will be forever grateful to Jerry for his role in co-founding such an amazing ice cream company . . . and addressing social causes into a remarkable success story,” a spokesperson for The Magnum Ice Cream Company told Fast Company. “We disagree with his perspective and have sought to engage both co-founders in a constructive conversation on how to strengthen Ben & Jerrys powerful values-based position in the world.”
Ben & Jerrys ended sales in the West Bank in 2021, saying the political situation in the occupied Palestinian territories was inconsistent with the values of the socially conscious brand, drawing criticism from Israeli officials.
Last year, Ben & Jerry’s sued Unilever, claiming the parent company was trying to stop its effort to express support for Palestinians and a Gaza ceasefire. They later alleged Unilever threatened, then ousted CEO Dave Stever for defending the brands social mission, thereby breaching the terms of its merger, per the Washington Post.
As the COVID-19 pandemic wound down, people began reflecting on the strange way it had warped their sense of time.
The feeling became known as the pandemic skip: the sense of having lost milestones and experiences while life was on hold.
Five years later, the sensation persists, now rebranded as the COVID pause.
@himmothychalamet OP: @burrbrii #CovidPause #LostYears #SocialMediaEra #PandemicLife #FeelingYounger original sound – Himmothy chalamet
I still feel like I felt when COVID started, one TikTok user said. I dont feel like I aged. Though nearing 38, she explained that she still feels more like the 32-year-old she was when the lockdowns began.
Others echoed the sentiment. COVID stole my 20s. Im gonna be 29 soon and I still feel like Im 23 when covid started, or even about to be 26? one person wrote.
Another added, I turned 33 this year and I still feel like I’m in my late 20s.
A third summed it up: Yup. Total time warp.
On Reddit, one user described the transformation more starkly: going in the pandemic I was a kid and when it was over I was an adult working a nine-to-five. They wondered whether the COVID-19 pause was real or are people just making up something new?
Psychologists sometimes use the term arrested development to describe being stuck at the emotional age when a trauma or stressor occurred. In this case, that trauma was the pandemic. With education, careers, relationships, and independence all disrupted, many feel those formative years were stolen.
Whether its arrested development or a kind of Peter Pan syndrome, the result is the same: minds and bodies feel out of sync.
The COVID pause is so real, said a TikTok user. But he offered a silver lining: It took so much away from us that were no longer ashamed of doing certain things, like dancing on camera on TikTok.
Artificial intelligence could boost the value of trade in goods and services by nearly 40% by 2040, but without adequate policies it could also exacerbate economic divides, a new World Trade Organization report warned on Wednesday.
Lower trade costs and enhanced productivity could drive substantial increases in trade and GDP by 2040, with global trade projected to rise by 34-37% under various scenarios, according to the WTO’s World Trade Report.
Global GDP could also increase by 12-13%, it said.
“AI could be a bright spot for trade in an increasingly complex trading environment,” said the Deputy Director General of the WTO, Johanna Hill, commenting on the annual report that analyses trends in the multilateral trading system.
Acknowledging current turbulence in the world trading system, Hill noted that AI was reshaping the future of the global economy and international trade, with the potential to reduce trade costs and boost productivity.
Global trade rules, governed by the Geneva-based watchdog, have faced major disruption this year following a slew of tariffs by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
The report highlighted how businesses could reduce costs in logistics, regulatory compliance and communications.
“AI-driven translation technologies can make communication faster and more cost-effective, particularly benefiting small producers and retailers by enabling them to expand into global markets,” the report said.
Such advancements could help increase export growth in low-income countries by as much as 11%, provided they improved their digital infrastructure.
However, the report cautioned that without targeted investment and inclusive policies, AI could deepen existing divides.
“The effects of the development and deployment of AI are raising concerns that many workers, and even entire economies, could be left behind,” the report said.
WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said policy makers needed to carefully manage the transition to AI.
“AI could upend labor markets, transforming some jobs whilst displacing others. Managing these shifts demands investment in domestic policies to enhance education, skills, retraining and social safety nets,” she said during the launch event for the report in Geneva.
To ensure the benefits of AI were shared widely, predictable trade supported by WTO rules and lower tariffs on raw materials essential for AI technologies, including semiconductors, were crucial, the WTO added.
Olivia Le Poidevin, Reuters
When Whitney Houston died in 2012, she was just 48 years old. Now, 13 years later, one of the most iconic voices in music is making a return. And, as you might expect, artificial intelligence is involved.
A concert experience, called The Voice of Whitney: A Symphonic Celebrationblending isolated vocal tracks, video performance footage, and a live symphony orchestraopens a limited series of shows across the country starting September 20. While the estates of other artists who have died have had similar tribute shows before, in Houston’s case, it wasn’t just a matter of putting together footage and tracks.
Many of the original multitrack recordings of Houston’s music (those that combine vocals, instruments, drums, etc.) had been lost. Park Avenue Artists, which is collaborating with Houstons estate to produce the shows, tapped Moises, an AI-powered music platform, to assist. That company’s AI is designed to isolate vocals and instruments from songs in near-studio quality.
“This project demanded exceptionally high-caliber stem separation, Moises cofounder and CEO Geraldo Ramos said in a statement. We had to isolate Whitneys vocals from fully mixed recordings without compromising the emotional power of her performance. A concert like this simply wouldnt have been possible five years ago.”
The concert tour is timed to honor the 40th anniversary of Houston’s career launch (her self-titled debut album was released in February 1985). The show previewed in Nashville in June; now it heads to seven other cities.
September 20 and 21: with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, Cincinnati Music Hall
October 11: Wilson Center at Cape Fear Community College, Wilmington, North Carolina
October 25: Bank of America Performing Arts Center, Thousand Oaks, California
November 8: Palladium at Allied Solutions Center, Carmel, Indiana
November 15: Genesee Theatre, Waukegan, Illinois
November 21: McCallum Theatre, Palm Desert, California
November 22: Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, Arizona
Fans can expect to hear “I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me),” “I Will Always Love You, “Higher Love,” and other Houston classics.
Moises has developed 45 proprietary AI models, which it says can process 2.5 million minutes of audio daily. The company’s app has proven popular with musicians, and its team members have worked at Spotify, Pandora, and TikTok, among other music-centric businesses. This may not be the company’s last work with a so-called legacy artist tour, either. Other collaborations with Park Avenue Artists are underway.
This project demonstrates how legacy artists and their estates can create meaningful experiences for music lovers through the thoughtful use of AI technology, said Ross Michaels, copresident of Park Avenue Artists. “The Voice of Whitney is the first of several planned collaborations that will use AI to illuminate new dimensions of an artists work. Its a powerful example of how AI can honor artists legacies while enriching the audience experience in beautiful and respectful ways.”
This isn’t the first time Houston’s estate has signed off on a posthumous tour. In 2020, right before the pandemic virtually shut down the world, a tour kicked off featuring a hologram of Houston performing her greatest hits accompanied by a live band.
That production was overseen by Base Hologram, which has a proven track record of bringing legacy acts back to life, with successful concert tours of Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, and opera diva Maria Callas.
The practice of posthumous performances has been a controversial one for years. Most artists did not have a say in the matter. Then again, they also generally did not have a say in unreleased music being unearthed years after their death. Despite the debate, the shows have largely gone on, and are seemingly becoming more prevalent.
Are you looking ahead to retirement? If you’re an entrepreneur, you may be focused on building your company right now. But experts say you should be making retirement plans at every age throughout your working life. And when the time comes to retire, there’s a big question you’ll need to answer: Where will you want to live?
With that question in mind, the personal finance site Bankrate has done a detailed analysis of all 50 U.S. states, using criteria that Americans say are most important to them in retirement. The results are likely to surprise you. They just might change your views about where you’d like to retire.
Top of the list? New Hampshire. How the heck did Bankrate come up with that? It’s a surprising result, but the analysis is very well thought out. First, researchers reviewed a YouGov poll of 2,260 Americans that asked what three factors were most important to them in a retirement location. Respondents’ top priorities were:
Affordability
Weather
Neighborhood safety
Healthcare
Local taxes
Arts, entertainment, and recreation
People of a similar age
Bankrate analyzed each state in relation to those criteria, giving more weight to those that more survey respondents considered most important. It created detailed results for all 50 states, ranking them from best to worst on those combined criteria.
The rest of the top five, after New Hampshire, are just as surprising. They are: Maine, Wyoming, Vermont, and Idaho. Most came in toward the bottom of the ranking for weather specifically. But they outshone other states on factors like affordability, neighborhood safety, and healthcare. They also ranked strongly in having a large cohort of similar-aged people, which can help create the kind of community that is a known contributor to both longevity and well-being. And, they ranked high in the arts, entertainment, and recreation categoryin other words, enjoyable things to do. Ideally, retirement should be all about enjoyment, so this seems like an important category to me.
Of course, in your own analysis, weather might outweigh all other considerations. You may dream of spending your retirement years strolling on the beach rather than slogging through the snow. States that are further south offer more sunlight, and more opportunities to be outdoors in that sunlight, both of which are known to improve your mood and well-being. If that’s a deciding factor for you, consider Virginia, West Virginia, or Utah, all of which ranked within the top 10 overall and ranked high for weather, too.
Florida ranks 41st as a retirement state.
Weather is a complicated question, especially in these days of climate change. That’s why Florida, favored by so many retirees that it’s a cliché, ranked near the bottom in Bankrate’s analysis. It scored 41st place overall and 45th for weather specifically. If you’ve ever lived through hurricane season in that state, or you know anyone who has, you’ll understand why. Not only that, warmer states are more at risk for droughts, fires, and extreme heat. Extreme heat is deadlier than any other weather, and it’s particularly dangerous for older people.
It’s worth noting that several analyses of the best and worst states for climate change also found the Northeast is the best place to be. They rank New Hampshire and Vermont, two of Bankrate’s top-five states, as the top two states in that category.
Deciding where to live in retirement is a complex question. Proximity to family and personal preferences make this an individual decision for each of us. Maybe you would never consider New Hampshire as a place to spend your golden years. But Bankrate’s ranking, and the factors they used to compile it, might get you thinking about what the best place for your retirement and what’s most important to you.
Theres a growing audience of Inc.com readers who receive a daily text from me with a self-care or motivational micro-challenge or tip. Often, they text me back and we wind up in a conversation. (Want to know more? Its easy to try it out and you can easily cancel anytime. Heres some information about the texts and a special invitation to a two-month free trial.) Many of my subscribers are thinking ahead to retirement and considering where and how they would like to spend those years. These rankings are a great starting point for making the right choice.
By Minda Zetlin
This article originally appeared on Fast Company’s sister publication, Inc.
Inc. is the voice of the American entrepreneur. We inspire, inform, and document the most fascinating people in business: the risk-takers, the innovators, and the ultra-driven go-getters that represent the most dynamic force in the American economy.
Etsy witches have been dominating headlines in recent weeks, for both good and bad deeds.
Earlier this month, just before the Seattle Mariners lost their sixth game in seven tries, an X user shared that they had paid an Etsy witch to help the team get their act together and start winning baseball games again, and hopefully make their way to the World Series and win. The spell, which cost the fan $19.99, came from SpellByLuna on Etsy.
WE HAVE CONFIRMATION OF THE SPELL https://t.co/XyESsEpM7l pic.twitter.com/cGeosHQsIR— Absolute Unit (@notB0bR055) September 6, 2025
After a reversal of fortunes, the team is now on a nine-game winning streak. Coincidence? Perhaps. But the Mariners arent taking any chances, giving the Etsy witch a shout-out on their official X account. (Unfortunately, Luna is currently not selling on Etsy.)
shoutout to the etsy witch pic.twitter.com/XalePUoOkW— Seattle Mariners (@Mariners) September 7, 2025
And its not just sports fans turning to witches-for-hire in times of need. Whether you want to help your team to victory or cast a love spell on your crush, theres a cottage industry on Etsy ready to field your requests.
Though the platform banned metaphysical services in 2015, there are thousands of spells for sale on the site that range in price from just $1 to upwards of $2,000. (Fast Company has reached out to Etsy for comment.)
A number of influencer brides, including Jaz Smith and Becca Bloom, have enlisted an Etsy witchs service to ensure good weather on their wedding days. In at least Smiths and Blooms case, the purchase paid off: Both were blessed with blue skies despite the forecasted rain on their respective big days.
Others are hiring Etsy witches for more nefarious reasons. Is now a good time to admit I paid an Etsy witch to curse his NFL team this season, one screenshot read, posted on X.
What used to be a somewhat taboo, or at least unorthodox, practice has since entered the mainstream thanks to social media and Gen Zs embrace of spirituality.
The psychic industry, which includes various specialties such as astrology, palm-reading, psychic readings, tarot-card readings, and fortune-telling, generated an estimated $2.3 billion in revenue in 2024 and employed 105,000 people, according to market research firm IBIS World.
For a growing number of customers, thats money well spentwhether or not the spells actually work.
Japan’s exports to the United States plummeted 13.8% in August compared to the same month the previous year, marking the fifth straight month of declines, as auto exports were hit by President Donald Trump’s tariffs.The Finance Ministry data released Wednesday showed the rate of the drop in exports to the U.S. compared to the previous year worsened from a 10.1% slip in July.U.S. tariffs on Japanese automobiles and auto parts decreased from 27.5%, the amount Trump initially levied, to 15% this week, but that’s still higher than the original 2.5%.Wednesday’s data reflect the month of August, when the tariffs were higher. Japan’s overall exports were little changed, slipping 0.1%, as exports grew to Europe and the Middle East.The provisional data for August showed Japan’s imports from the world fell 5.2% from a year ago. Imports from China grew 2.1%, while exports to China fell 0.5%. Imports from the U.S. grew 11.6%.Exports to the world grew in food, gaining 18%, as well as in ships, growing by nearly 25%. Imports grew in computers, adding nearly 35% on-year, while aircraft rose 21%.
Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama
Yuri Kageyama, AP Business Writer
At a recent Apple event, the tech giant unveiled that Airpods will now be able to offer live translation abilities, powered by AI.
Shares of Duolingo, the language-learning company, dropped nearly 3% that afternoon in response. (Google also added a similar feature to its Google Translate app in August.)
But Luis von Ahn, Duolingo’s cofounder and CEO, isnt really worried that real-time translation will be a threat to his business. For one, real-time translation isnt a totally new technology, he says.
About 10 years ago, Google did their event, Google IO, and demoed live translation . . . Nine years ago, they did an event again, and what they demoed was live translation. Eight years ago, they did an event, and demoed live translation, von Ahn said on Tuesday, speaking at the Fast Company Innovation Festival in New York.
[Photo: Jonah Rosenberg for Fast Company]
These announcements have been happening since Duolingo has been a public company, and its stock will dip, he said, and then bounce back.
Language learning means learning it yourself
Von Ahn also doesnt think live translation is appealing to Duolingo users. The app’s users generally fall into two big buckets, he noted, the first being the those who are learning English.
They actually want to learn English, he said. Phone translation is just not going to do it for them.
The other big bucket are people who use Duolingo to learn a language as a hobby. Just like chess, von Ahn said. (Duolingo added chess to its lesson lineup earlier this year). And computers have been better at playing chess than humans since 1997. People are still learning chess.
Its not that von Ahn is against AI. Duolingo has been leaning into the tech, too. In a staff memo von Ahn wrote back in May, he detailed how the company would become AI-first. That memo sent off a wave of backlash, as people took it to mean that the company would be replacing its human employees with artificial intelligence.
Von Ahn called that misinformation.
We have not laid off a single full-time employee, now or in the history of the company, he said. (And Duolingo has actually been hiring since that announcement.) But employees are using AI to do more work.
‘Four or five times as much content’
To teach a language through its app, Duolingo offers users lots of different course contentsentences to translate, short stories to read, cartoons to watch. That’s all always been created with a combination of human work and automation.
As time has passed, more and more has been automated, von Ahn said. So now, with the same number of people, we can make four or five times as much content in the same amount of time.
The addition of chess is one example. Two Duolingo employees started that project, and neither were engineersor knew how to play chess. Instead, the designer and project manager duo spent six months using AI to “vibecode.” Once the interactions reached a certain level, they added engineers to the team.
The whole thing was done from scratch to launch in nine months by a team that was at first just two people, and by the time they launched, it was only six, von Ahn said. And now . . . theres millions and millions of users.
The José Andrés Group (JAG) officially announced on Wednesday its partnership with Copia, a technology platform that helps combat food insecurity and reduce food waste by distributing excess prepared foods to local nonprofits.
The global restaurant group, founded by celebrity chef and restauranteur José Andrés, is the first Michelin-starred group to partner with Copia. The move aligns with the restaurant collectives mission to change the world through the power of food.
What does Copia do?
Copia simplifies the logistics behind the surplus food donation process. The tech platform enables businesses such as restaurants, corporate dining brands, and hospitality companies, to easily request pickups of excess prepared food. Partners are matched with local nonprofits to ensure the safe delivery of food donations.
Courtesy of Copia
Food waste has long been a problem. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, an international environmental advocacy group, up to 40% of the U.S. food supply is wasted.
That’s enough food to fill the 90,000-seat Rose Bowl Stadium every day. Meanwhile, data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) shows that more than 47 million Americans live in food-insecure households.
Nearly 4,000 pounds of food waste have already been donated
The partnership between JAG and Copia has already proven to be successful.
Restaurants at three locationsthe Ritz-Carlton South Beach in Florida, the Ritz-Carlton in New York’s NoMad neighborhood, and Mercado Little Spain in New York’s Hudson Yardshave been using Copia to distribute excess food to those in need.
Nearly 4,000 pounds of food have been redirected since the José Andrés Group started using Copia’s platform.
This has resulted in the distribution of 3,292 meals, the prevention of 12,165 pounds of CO2e emissions, and the conservation of more than 900,000 gallons of water, the companies said. Additional JAG restaurants in Washington, D.C., will soon begin redistributing excess food through Copia.
“Restaurants have the power to do more than feed peoplethey can fight hunger, fight waste, and fight climate change,” Sam Bakhshandehpour, CEO of JAG, said in a statement. “Partnering with Copia lets us turn that power into action.”
On Wednesday, Bakhshandehpour will lead a discussion at The Bazaar by José André in NoMad as part of the Fast Company Innovation Festival.
The discussion will explore how the restaurant group continues to innovate on its mission and how other restaurant groups and food businesses can make a difference, such as creating menus that minimize food waste and partnering with services like Copia.
Paige Lowe, vice president of customer success at Copia, will also join the event.
