Some words are far too mild for the violence of what they describe. Migraine is one of them. For many people, it evokes a simple headachean inconvenience solved with an aspirin (or Tylenol) and a glass of water. For those whove never experienced it, migraine is almost a cliché: a lame excuse to stay in bed or avoid a meeting.
But for millions of peopleand Im one of themmigraine is anything but benign. It is a debilitating neurological disease that can force life to grind to a halt for days at a time. It is an invisible disability that millions are expected to simply push through.
The Mild Version Everyone Seesand the Severe One No One Understands
I often compare migraine to carrying a 60-pound bag everywhere you go. On mild days, you still walk, work, answer emailsbut you do it while pushing through a fog of pain that absorbs all your energy. Many migraine sufferers perform normal life while their brain fights a private war.
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Ironically, this functional version of migraine contributes to the disbelief faced by people who cannot work during severe attacks. They hear, But I know someone with migraines and she still workswhy cant you?
Because not all migraines are the same. Some are annoying. Some are so ferocious you cant imagine enduring another minute of it.
A Neurological Reality That Hijacks the Entire Body
When a severe migraine hits, everything stops. I find myself in bed, motionless, in the dark. I shuttle back and forth to the bathroom to vomit. I cant read. I cant watch a show. I cant think clearly. My brain is overwhelmed by pain and sensory overload. The outside world simply disappears.
More than one billion people worldwide experience migraines. One in seven adults. And yet . . . it remains an astonishingly misunderstood disease.
It disproportionately affects womenroughly 80% of migraine suffererslargely because of hormonal fluctuations that influence the sensitivity of the nervous system. Its driven by an abnormal excitability of brainstem neurons that triggers a cascade: CGRP molecules flood the system, blood vessels dilate, nerves ignite with pain signals, and the body spirals into nausea, hypersensitivity to light and sound, vomiting, word-finding difficulties, and exhaustion. Some people experience visual disturbancesaurabefore the pain even hits. But whether with or without aura, the result can be incapacitating.
The Monastic Life Migraine Demands
Migraine forces me into a kind of monastic discipline. I dont drink alcohol anymoreits an instant trigger. Ive cut out lactose completely, because even a small amount can set off a crisis. I follow a tightly controlled diet. I guard my sleep like its sacred, because one night thats too short or too long can derail an entire day. I limit screen time as much as I can. I monitor my stress levels (not easy in the world we live in). I avoid harsh light, loud spaces, sensory overload.
And even with all that, I still cant fully prevent the attacks.
For some, its chronic. A migraine that never really leaves, a pain that becomes the background noise of existence. I honestly cannot imagine living like that. I dont know how people with chronic migraine keep goingtheir resilience is extraordinary.
A Workplace Blind Spot With Enormous Costs
The gap between lived experience and workplace perception is enormous. Migraine is still not widely recognized as a disabling condition at work. Many employees fear being judged as unreliable or weak. And too many managers still respond with skepticism or impatience.
Yet migraine is one of the worlds leading causes of productivity loss. The economic costthrough absenteeism, presenteeism, and cognitive impairmentruns into the hundreds of billions globally each year. And behind those numbers are real people who spend days each month barely able to function.
Treatment ExistsBut Access, Awareness, and Understanding Lag Behind
Traditional preventive medications (like beta blockers) help some patients, but only a fraction of them. Acute treatments like triptans can workuntil they trigger rebound headaches that are worse than the original pain. Many of us know that spiral all too well.
Newer therapies, especially those targeting CGRP, are genuinely promising. Some patients describe them as life-changing. But they remain expensive, inaccessible for many, and often unknown.
And because migraine is still not taken seriously, an astonishing number of people never even seek medical help. They just live with it. They sometimes mention it in passingoh, and I get migrainesif they mention it at all. For a condition that can derail entire lives, the gap between the severity of the disease and the lack of treatment is staggering.
Despite how common migraine is, very few workplaces have policies that address it.
The Question We Avoid: What If Migraine Affected Mostly Men?
History gives us a pretty clear answer. Across medicine, conditions that disproportionately affect womenmigraine, endometriosis, autoimmune diseaseshave been minimized, dismissed, or psychologized for decades. When women describe pain, it is more likely to be labeled as stress, anxiety, sensitivity, or overreaction. When men describe pain, it is more likely to be investigated.
Migraine sits squarely in this long lineage of medical bias. For generations, it has been seen as a womens complaint, something vaguely emotional rather than neurological. In the mid-20th century, many doctors literally described migraine as a manifestation of female hysteria. The stereotype still lingers today: the fragile woman with “her headaches.”
If a condition that disables one in seven adults were perceived as a mens disease, it would almost certainly have received more research funding, more public awareness, more employer adaptations, and far earlier recognition as a legitimate disability.
Instead, millions of women have been told for decades to push through it, take something, or manage stress, as if willpower could override a neurological storm.
What Can Employers Actually Do? More Than They Think.
Migraine shouldnt be a private burden. Workplaces can make a profound difference by recognizing it, adapting to it, and supporting those who live with it.
1. Give people autonomy over how they work: Flexibility in location and schedule is the single most important accommodation. Many of us can avert a severe attack if we rest at the earliest warning signsbut only if work allows it.
2. Accept sick leave for migraines without suspicion: No eye-rolling. No raised eyebrows. No unspoken judgment. If someone says, I cant work today, believe them. Trust goes a long way toward reducing stigma.
3. Reduce sensory triggers in workplaces:
reduce harsh lighting,
limit strong fragrances,
manage noise levels,
provide quiet rooms when possible.
These changes dont just help migraine sufferersthey benefit everyone!
4. Train managers and HR teams: A simple awareness session can avoid years of misunderstanding. Managers need to know what migraine is (and isnt), how it affects cognition, and why flexibility is not indulgence.
5. Normalize disclosure without forcing it: People should feel safe sharing information about their condition without fear of bias. A culture of psychological safety helps enormously.
6. Support access to treatment: Health insurance plans should cover modern migraine treatments, including newly approved CGRP-targeting medications. These therapies can prevent attacks entirely or significantly reduce their severity. Supporting access is cost-effective compared to the productivity losses of unmanaged migraine.
We Are Manyand We Deserve to Be Believed
Millions of people navigate migraines in silence. We endure the pain itself, and then the second burden: the disbelief, the minimization, the cultural shrug.
Migraine is not an excuse to avoid work. It is a neurological disease that destroys days and derails careers.
We deserve to be heard and supported. We deserve autonomy, flexibility, empathy, and access to effective treatment. And above all, we deserve to be believed.
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Less than three months ago, the world watched the Trump administration reduce the White Houses historic East Wing to a pile of rubble to begin construction on a massive new ballroom. But it looks like the dust from that demolition will have barely settled before Trump starts another project to turn the presidential residence into his own personal real estate development endeavor.
This week, Trump and the head architect behind the ballroom construction, Shalom Baranes, revealed several heretofore unknown plans for the nations most symbolic building. They include multiple proposals that would add considerable architectural bulk to a White House thats already set to be burdened by a 90,000-square-foot East Wing (for context, thats nearly double the square footage of the White Houses main residence).
East Wing demolition, November, 2025. [Photo: Andrew Leyden/Getty Images]
Trumps ostentatious vision for the White House feels alarmingly similar to the ethos behind Americas suburban monstrosity, the McMansion: Maximizing for square footage by adding a hodge podge of extensions, additions, and flourishes, with no actual regard for architectural sensibility. Heres everything we know so far about his latest plans.
A new “Upper West Wing”
The most eyebrow-raising aspect of Trumps latest scheme is to construct what he calls an Upper West Wing: an entire additional level on top of the existing colonnade that connects the West Wing to the White House residence.
In an interview with The New York Times on January 7, Trump said this concept was currently in design phases, and proposed that it could serve as first ladies offices for future first ladiesan ironic proposition, given that he just destroyed the East Wing, which historically served that very purpose.
Baranes added a bit more context to this proposal at a public meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission on January 8. He told attendees that the West Wing addition will serve to restore a sense of symmetry to the White House after the East Wing renovation is complete by ensuring that both wings of the building stand at the same height. He did not provide any specific timetable for this new project.
Many experts have pointed out that the 90,000-square-foot East Wing addition will dwarf the rest of the White House by comparisonin fact, that concern is reportedly one main reason that Trump cut ties with the ballrooms original architect, McCrery Architects, back in December. It seems unlikely that simply slapping more architectural mass onto the White House will offer an elegant solution to this problem.
New details about the East Wing ballroom
At the commission meeting, Baranes also offered a bit more insight into the future of the new East Wingan addition that Trump has repeatedly demanded be made both bigger and more costly, according to multiple reports.
Architect Shalom Baranes shows elevation drawings for a new $400 million White House ballroom to members of the National Capital Planning Commission on January 08, 2026 in Washington, DC. [Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]
Baranes told commissioners that the entire East Wing project will encompass 90,000 total square feet, 22,000 of which will be taken up by the ballroom. The ballroom is set to feature towering, 40-foot ceilings, with enough seating to accommodate up to 1,000 seated guests. He added that it will be attached to the White Houses East Room via a two-story colonnade, hence the idea that an added story to the West Wings colonnade might help to even things out.
In his interview with The New York Times, Trump also added a bit more color to his ballroom concept, explaining that he sees the space as a secure site to hold a future inauguration, complete with four to five inch thick bulletproof glass.
Its being designed very much with the inauguration in mind, he said. Itll be able to hold six times what the Capitol can hold, and its all bulletproof glass, drone-proof roof, yeah, serious. The biggest drone could crash into ityoud hear a noise up there. It wouldnt be bad.
Other plans
Trumps apparent concern with the White Houses security from outside threats was echoed in his plans for Lafayette Park, located just north of the White House. He told The New York Times that he plans to tear up the park’s brick walkways and replace them with granite, in part due to fears that protestors could use the paths bricks as weapons.
Unlike the ballroom, whose current estimated cost of $400 million is being bankrolled by a hefty list of corporate donors, Trump claimed the park renovation would be self-funded. Im spending my own money and Im going to redo it, he said of the project’s estimated $10 million price ag.
Run a small business and you probably feel like you make dozens of decisions every day. Whether to cut a quality corner, or miss a ship date. Whether to respond to a customer complaint, or hope the problem goes away. Whether to address an employees behavior, or kick that can down the road.
Then there are all the personal decisions. Whether to get up and going, or hit the snooze button. Whether to ditch the food you packed, or go out for lunch instead. Whether to keep grinding, or work out.
None of those are actually decisions, though, since you already know you should do so. Nearly everything you decide already has an answer.
Quality problem? Fix it. Customer complaint? Respond. Underperforming employee? Address the behavior now; a performance issue takes care of itself.
The same is true for personal decisions. The nine minutes of sleep you get after hitting the snooze button isnt restorative sleep; youre better off setting your alarm for nine minutes later. (Or going to bed earlier.) The food you packed isor should bean integral part of your healthy lifestyle; going out for lunch when you didnt plan to is almost never better for you. Work out? Exercise can be your physical (and mental) competitive advantage.
Thats the beauty of processes and routines. Rules arent restrictive. Rules are liberating, because rules free you up from having to make decisions. Over time, those actions become habits. Then you definitely dont need to make a decision, because habits are effortless. (In both good and bad ways, obviously.) Instead of wasting mental energy and willpower on choosing, all you have to do is act.
As Jeff Bezos says, you dont get paid to make thousands of decisions every day. You get paid to make a small number of high-quality decisions.
As Bezos wrote in Fast Company:
You need to be thinking two or three years in advance, and if you are, then why do I need to make a hundred decisions today? If I make three good decisions a day, thats enough, and they should just be as high quality as I can make them. Warren Buffett says hes good if he makes three good decisions a year, and I really believe that.
Clearly, theres a huge difference between making three good decisions per day, and three good decisions per year. Yet that difference is also easy to explain.
Launching a startup, like starting anything from a relatively blank slate, requires making seemingly countless decisions. Infrastructure, branding, pricing strategies, marketing strategies . . . everything is up in the air. Its impossible to work in the future when you havent figured out the present.
But once youve made a decision, you no longer have to decide. Barring evidence that decision was wrong and needs to be revisited, all you have to do is act. With time, the number of decisions you need to make every day should rapidly decline.
Which means you can focus all that mental energy on making strategic rather than tactical decisions. You can focus on making decisions that set the course for the next months, or even years. To launch a new product line, or not. To open a new location, or not.
To take your lifehealth, education, relationships, etc.in new directions, or not.
Making fewer decisions (better yet, constantly revisiting fewer decisions) frees you up to think about the things that will make the biggest difference in your professional and personal life. Think of it that way, and you really dont need to make more than three good decisions a year.
Especially if those decisions help you become the person you want to be, and to build the life you really want to live.
Jeff Haden
This article originally appeared on Fast Companys 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.
Barely 10 days into the new year, it already feels like you cant look away from the news. In the last week alone, the U.S. military captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and took over operations of the country; President Trump withdrew the U.S. from dozens of international organizations, including a major climate treaty; and an ICE agent fatally shot a Minneapolis resident, sparking outrage and widespread protests.
If it seems impossible to focus on workor anything else, for that matteramid all this troubling news, youre not alone. Plenty of research in recent years has shown that Americans are overwhelmed by the state of politics and feel a heightened sense of anxiety over the news cycle. Theres also clear evidence that doomscrolling and constantly absorbing negative media can interfere with our physical and mental health.
It might feel like theres no reprieve from the endless onslaught of news, and the idea of staying productive seems almost quaint when each day has something new in store. But there are, in fact, some things you can do to help ground yourselfand get through the workday without being consumed by the news cycle.
Create some guardrails
Our media consumption habits are unhealthy, and not only because of the obvious effects on our productivity. Engaging with the news cycle takes a toll on our well-beingand from an evolutionary perspective, our brains are wired to pay closer attention to negative news.
When we see something in the news that triggers our perception of danger, we have a physiological response in our bodies, says Emma McAdam, a marriage and family therapist who also shares mental health resources on YouTube. So in order to not be reactive, we have to be really intentional consumers of the news. And we have to ask ourselves: Am I consuming news for entertainment, or am I consuming news to inform action? If the news youre taking in is not actionable, McAdam says, it can just increase your stress levels or serve as a distraction.
It’s easy to pretend that we’re doing some important job by reading the newsthat we’re being informed, she says. But realistically, we’re probably more emotionally driven to read the news. At the same time, its also not realistic for many people to entirely block out the newsespecially when it directly impacts their lives.
McAdam argues you can, however, be more intentional about how you consume news to avoid simply consuming information that is not actually actionable. This can be as simple as turning off push notifications and carving out specific times of day to catch up on the news. Or you might remove certain apps from your phone so youre less inclined to check the news unless youre on your laptop.
Our bodies respond very differently to acute stress than chronic stress, McAdam says. We’re actually very good at managing little bits of stress. A big stressor in a short dose gives your nervous system a chance to get activated and then to relax and restore your internal sense of safety. But when we consume the news throughout our entire day, then we have this low level of chronic stress.
Step away from the devices
There are, of course, jobs where you simply cant avoid the news, or maybe a push notification pops up when you pick up your phone for something work-related. In those moments, you may have an emotional response that makes it difficult to stay on task.
We’re not able to focus and concentrate as well because our nervous system is activated, says psychologist Maggie Stoutenburg, who works with the telehealth provider NY Mental Health Center. We feel this distress, but then we also feel hopelessand people can feel kind of paralyzed by that.
If you find yourself in that situation, it can be helpful to just step away from your desk. When youre activated and on edge, doing something that lights up your parasympathetic nervous system can help calm you down, Stoutenburg says. Deep breathing can be quite powerful, she says, or you might try going on a brief walk or listening to soothing music. Even a funny video can do the trick.
When you need to get back on track after a distressing news alert, Stoutenburg recommends trying to work for just 1015 minute increments without letting your mind wander. Give yourself some compassion, she says. Validate your own feelings, and try to acknowledge it and then redirect it. Okay, there’s this stress here. Maybe there’s not a lot I can do about that in this moment, but what I can do is accomplish something in the next 10 or 15 minutes that will give me more of a sense of productivity and control.
Focus on what you can control
Embracing the things that are within your control can be a crucial tool for managing news-related anxiety. McAdam recommends an activity that can help you gain agency, by articulating exactly what is within your control and what is out of your hands.
You take a piece of paper, you divide it in half, and on one side, you write things I can’t control, and on the other side you write, what I can control, she says. I can’t control what the President said today. But I can control whether I’m going to show up at a protest. I can control whether I love my kids.
In other words, you do have a say in how you respond to depressing newsand McAdam points out that even anxiety can be a useful response at times, by nudging you to take action and relieve that feeling. Anxiety isn’t just something bad that happens to us, she says. Anxiety is actually supposed to ask the question: Am I in danger? Is there something I should do about it? When we ask that question, we can get more clarity and be like, well, I can’t change this. I’ll let it go . . . And if there is something actionable, that little spurt of anxiety can help us take that action.
When theres so much happening in the world, it can be difficult to stay motivated. You may have a harder time finding purpose or meaning in your work, especially in the face of more serious concerns. It can be helpful, then, to reframe how you think about your job or other elements of your life and understand where you can actually have an impact.
Most of the news we read is very far from us, and most of the good we can do is very close to us, McAdam says. Parenting matters. Being connected to our neighbors and being kind to our neighbors matters. Doing good in my sphere, doing good in my job, being kind to my coworkers, being really productive and solving [problems] at workthese are things that actually do make a difference and hopefully make the world a better, kinder, happier, safer place.
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter.
On Thursday, President Donald Trump announced that government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will buy an additional $200 billion in mortgage bonds.
Trump wrote:
Because I chose not to sell Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in my first term, a truly great decision and against the advice of the experts, it is now worth many times that amountan absolute fortuneand has $200 billion in cash. Because of this, I am instructing my representatives to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds. This will drive mortgage rates down, monthly payments down, and make the cost of owning a home more affordable.
Long-term yieldslike the 10-year Treasury yield and the average 30-year fixed mortgage rateare set by demand / lack of demand for the underlying bond. Yields move inversely to bond prices. If demand for long-term bonds rises, prices go up and yields/mortgage rates fall. If bond demand falls, bond prices drop and yields/mortgage rates rise.
For example, when the Federal Reserve engages in quantitative easing, as it did during the pandemic, it buys long-term assets like Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities (MBS), increasing bond demand and pushing bond prices up and long-term yields down, including mortgage rates. The Feds MBS purchases put additional downward pressure on mortgage rates in 2020 and 2021.
Conversely, during quantitative tightening since 2022, the Fed has been letting MBS assets roll off its balance sheet without replacing themeffectively removing a major MBS buyer from the marketwhich can put additional upward pressure on 30-year fixed mortgage rates.
Effectively, Trump is proposing to use Fannie Mae and Freddie Macboth in government conservatorshipto absorb a larger share of mortgage bonds, increasing relative market demand for MBS. That could put some short-term upward pressure on MBS prices and downward pressure on mortgage rates, further reducing the mortgage spread.
Around the same time the Federal Reserve began raising short-term rates and stopped buying long-term bonds in the spring of 2022, financial markets started pulling back from bonds, causing long-term yieldsincluding mortgage ratesto surge. Only, without the Fed buying MBS, the 30-year fixed average mortgage rates saw a bigger jump than the 10-year Treasury yield.
At its peak in June 2023, the mortgage spreadthe difference between the 10-year Treasury yield and the average 30-year fixed mortgage ratehit 2.96 percentage points (296 bps). That was far above the 1.76 percentage point (176 bps) historical average since 1972.
Over the past 2 years, the mortgage spread has slowly compressedhitting 2.05 percentage points (205 bps) in December 2025.
The goal of Trumps announcement on Thursday (i.e., Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buying an additional $200 billion in mortgage bonds) is to accelerate that mortgage spread compression.
As reported by Bloomberg in December, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have already started to accelerate their retained mortgage holdingswith them climbing around $69 billion in the second half of 2025.
According to John Burns Research and Consulting, if Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were to add another $200 billion in mortgage bond holdings in 2026, it would put the GSEs pretty close to their $450 billion legal limit ($225 billion each).
On Thursday, Alex Thomas, research manager at JBREC, tweeted:
Fannie [Mae] and Freddie [Mac] have already added ~$70B to their retained mortgage portfolios since May of last year. Adding another $200B would basically put the GSEs at their legal cap ($225B each).
Following Trumps Thursday post, there was some immediate MBS pricing movement.
That said, its unclear exactly just how much impact an additional $200 billion in GSE retained mortgage bonds ould have on the mortgage spread and the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate.
Through the end of June 2025, there is $9.26 trillion in agency mortgage-backed securities (MBS), according to data the Urban Institute recently provided to ResiClub. Below is the breakdown:
> $3.00 trillion held by depositories (banks)
> $2.74 trillion held everyone else
> $2.14 trillion held by the Federal Reserve
> $1.33 trillion held by foreign buyers
> $0.06 trillion held by GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac)
The chart below is the same as the one above, but it shows MBS holders by distribution.
Prior to the Great Financial Crisis, the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) used to be much bigger buyers of mortgage-backed securities.
In an Urban Institute report published in January 2026, Laurie Goodman and Jim Parrott explain what happened:
For years, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were the buyers of last resort in the market, stepping in to profit from widening spreads and, in doing so, putting a comforting outer bound on MBS volatility. Once they went into conservatorship, the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) were replaced in that role by the Federal Reserve, which stepped into the agency MBS market to calm much larger swings in the economy. All of this went unnoticed outside of the MBS market until recently, when the Federal Reserve finally ended its time in the stabilizing role, leaving the MBS market without a buyer of last resort for the first time in decades.
The GSEs gave up their role as market stabilizer when they went into conservatorship and began reducing their portfolio under the terms of their bailout by the Treasury. The Federal Reserve then promptly stepped into the role. As part of its broader effort to shore up the market in the wake of the financial crisis, the Federal Reserve bought $1.25 trillion in agency MBS between January 2009 and March 2010 and bought another $823 billion between 2012 and 2014. Largely because of that aggressive posture, along with the bailout of the GSEs, the MBS market and mortgage liquidity generally remained stable through the depths of the crisis, a remarkable feat given the level of dislocation in the rest of the economy.
The Federal Reserve was then well positioned to handle the next major disruption in the MBS market, when financial markets seized up in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. In February and early March 2020, the financial markets froze, and investors were forced to sell their agency MBS to build cash reserves, pushing mortgage spreads wider by 75 basis points. The Federal Reserve stepped in in March, committing to buying agency MBS and Treasury securities in the amounts needed to support smooth market functioning and effective transmission of monetary policy to broader financial markets and the economy. 1 True to its word, the Federal Reserve, over the next month, bought more MBS than the entire gross production of the securities, stabilizing spreads and, with them, mortgages rates. Spreads ultimately settled a bit higher than they had been before the pandemic, but that was attributable to volatility in fixed income and a refinance wave triggered by the drop in Treasury rates.
The Federal Reserve relinquished its role as the stabilizer of the agency MBS market when it pivoted to quantitative tightening in March 2022, ending its purchases of MBS and committing to running off its MBS portfolio. With the GSEs still operating under the portfolio constraints imposed in conservatorship, that left the market without a stabilizer for the first time in recent history.
Two years ago, countries around the world set a goal of transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly and equitable manner. The plan included tripling renewable energy capacity and doubling energy efficiency gains by 2030important steps for slowing climate change since the energy sector makes up about 75% of the global carbon dioxide emissions that are heating up the planet.
The world is making progress: More than 90% of new power capacity added in 2024 came from renewable energy sources, and 2025 saw similar growth.
However, fossil fuel production is also still expanding. And the United States, the worlds leading producer of both oil and natural gas, is now aggressively pressuring countries to keep buying and burning fossil fuels.
The energy transition was not meant to be a main topic when world leaders and negotiators met at the 2025 United Nations climate summit, COP30, in November in Belém, Brazil. But it took center stage from the start to the very end, bringing attention to the real-world geopolitical energy debate underway and the stakes at hand.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva began the conference by calling for the creation of a formal road map, essentially a strategic process in which countries could participate to overcome dependence on fossil fuels. It would take the global decision to transition away from fossil fuels from words to action.
More than 80 countries said they supported the idea, ranging from vulnerable small island nations like Vanuatu that are losing land and lives from sea level rise and more intense storms, to countries like Kenya that see business opportunities in clean energy, to Australia, a large fossil-fuel-producing country.
Opposition, led by the Arab Groups oil- and gas-producing countries, kept any mention of a road map energy transition plan out of the final agreement from the climate conference, but supporters are pushing ahead.
I was in Belém for COP30, and I follow developments closely as a former special climate envoy and head of delegation for Germany and senior fellow at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. The fight over whether there should even be a road map shows how much countries that depend on fossil fuels are working to slow down the transition, and how others are positioning themselves to benefit from the growth of renewables. And it is a key area to watch in 2026.
The battle between electro-states and petro-states
Brazilian diplomat and COP30 President André Aranha Corra do Lago has committed to lead an effort in 2026 to create two road maps: one on halting and reversing deforestation and another on transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems in a just, orderly, and equitable manner.
What those road maps will look like is still unclear. They are likely to be centered on a process for countries to discuss and debate how to reverse deforestation and phase out fossil fuels.
Over the coming months, Corra plans to convene high-level meetings among global leaders, including fossil fuel producers and consumers, international organizations, industries, workers, scholars and advocacy groups.
For the road map to both be accepted and be useful, the process will need to address the global market issues of supply and demand, as well as equity. For example, in some fossil fuel-producing countries, oil, gas or coal revenues are the main source of income. What can the road ahead look like for those countries that will need to diversify their economies?
Nigeria is an interesting case study for weighing that question.
Oil exports consistently provide the bulk of Nigerias revenue, accounting for around 80% to over 90% of total government revenue and foreign exchange earnings. At the same time, roughly 39% of Nigerias population has no access to electricity, which is the highest proportion of people without electricity of any nation. And Nigeria possesses abundant renewable energy resources across the country, which are largely untapped: solar, hydro, geothermal and wind, providing new opportunities.
What a road map might look like
In Belém, representatives talked about creating a road map that would be science-based and aligned with the Paris climate agreement, and would include various pathways to achieve a just transition for fossil-fuel-dependent regions.
Some inspiration for helping fossil-fuel-producing countries transition to cleaner energy could come from Brazil and Norway.
In Brazil, Lula asked his ministries to prepare guidelines for developing a road map for gradually reducing Brazils dependency on fossil fuels and find a way to financially support the changes.
His decree specifically mentions creating an energy transition fund, which could be supported by government revenues from oil and gas exploration. While Brazil supports moving away from fossil fuels, it is also still a large oil producer and recently approved new exploratory drilling near the mouth of the Amazon River.
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Norway, a major oil and gas producer, is establishing a formal transition commission to study and plan its economys shift away from fossil fuels, particularly focusing on how the workforce and the natural resources of Norway an be used more effectively to create new and different jobs.
Both countries are just getting started, but their work could help point the way for other countries and inform a global road map process.
The European Union has implemented a series of policies and laws aimed at reducing fossil fuel demand. It has a target for 42.5% of its energy to come from renewable sources by 2030. And its EU Emissions Trading System, which steadily reduces the emissions that companies can emit, will soon be expanded to cover housing and transportation. The Emissions Trading System already includes power generation, energy-intensive industry, and civil aviation.
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Fossil fuel and renewable energy growth ahead
In the U.S., the Trump administration has made clear through its policymaking and diplomacy that it is pursuing the opposite approach: to keep fossil fuels as the main energy source for decades to come.
The International Energy Agency still expects to see renewable energy grow faster than any other major energy source in all scenarios going forward, as renewable energys lower costs make it an attractive option in many countries. Globally, the agency expects investment in renewable energy in 2025 to be twice that of fossil fuels.
At the same time, however, fossil fuel investments are also rising with fast-growing energy demand.
The IEAs World Energy Outlook described a surge in new funding for liquefied natural gas, or LNG, projects in 2025. It now expects a 50% increase in global LNG supply by 2030, about half of that from the U.S. However, the World Energy Outlook notes that questions still linger about where all the new LNG will go once its produced.
What to watch for
The Belém road map dialogue and how it balances countries needs will reflect on the worlds ability to handle climate change.
Corra plans to report on its progress at the next annual U.N. climate conference, COP31, in late 2026. The conference will be hosted by Turkey, but Australia, which supported the call for a road map, will be leading the negotiations.
With more time to discuss and prepare, COP31 may just bring a transition away from fossil fuels back into the global negotiations.
Jennifer Morgan is a senior fellow at the Center for International Environment and Resource Policy and Climate Policy Lab at Tufts University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
A new year brings a new tax filing season. With many cash-strapped Americans worried about their finances, many cant wait to file their returns. The sooner you file, the sooner your chances of getting your refund, after all.
But just when can you begin submitting your tax return to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS)? That depends. Heres what you need to know about the 2026 tax filing season.
When does the 2026 tax filing season begin?
There are actually two start dates to the 2026 tax filing season this year. The 2026 tax filing season refers to the period taxpayers have to file their tax returns for the 2025 calendar year.
According to an IRS press release on Thursday, the official day of the 2026 tax filing season begins on Monday, January 26, 2026. From this day, anyone who is required to file a federal tax return can do so.
But January 26 isnt the earliest date some people can begin submitting their tax returns to the IRS.
As the IRS noted in its Thursday release, the agency will actually begin to accept tax returns from a select group of taxpayers starting today, Friday, January 9, 2026.
Who can submit their tax returns beginning on January 9?
Not every taxpayer can submit their returns beginning on January 9. According to the IRS, this submission start date is only open to qualified taxpayers.
So, who is a qualified taxpayer? The IRS says a person meets that designation if they are in a select group of people who use the IRS Free File program to submit their taxes.
Per the IRSs Thursday notice: The IRS Free File program will begin accepting individual tax returns starting Friday, Jan. 9 for qualified taxpayers. Taxpayers comfortable preparing their own taxes can use IRS Free File Fillable Forms starting Jan. 26, regardless of income.
What this means is not everyone who uses the IRS Free File program can submit their tax returns starting todayonly select individuals.
Those IRS Free File users who can begin submitting their tax returns today are limited to those individuals who need to report $89,000 in adjusted gross income (AGI) or less, according to the IRSs Free File information page.
Taxpayers who use Free Files online forms and who make more than $89,000 in adjusted gross income will need to wait until January 26 to submit their tax returns, just like everyone else.
Will eligible taxpayers who submit via Free File before January 26 get their tax refunds faster?
Thats unknown, as every individuals tax situation is different. In the IRSs notice, it states that the agency will begin accepting tax returns from eligible individuals on January 9. It does not say it will begin “processing” the returns then.
What this means is that even if you are eligible to submit your tax return before January 26, it cant be guaranteed that the IRS will actually begin processing your return before January 26.
Still, its reasonable to assume that if you want to get your tax refund as soon as possible, you should file your tax return on the earliest date you can.
The IRS says individuals have until Wednesday, April 15, 2026, to file their taxes for the 2025 tax year and pay any taxes owed.
Two things can be true at once. K-pop is an inextricable force in global pop culture, and it has long been undercelebrated at institutions like the Grammys where K-pop artists have performed but have never taken home a trophy.That could change at next month’s 2026 Grammy Awards ceremony. Songs released by K-pop artists or K-pop-adjacent artists, more on that later have received nominations in the big four categories for the first time. Rosé, perhaps best known as one-fourth of the juggernaut girl group Blackpink, is the first K-pop artist to ever receive a nomination in the record of the year field for “APT.,” her megahit with Grammys’ favorite Bruno Mars.The song of the year category also features K-pop nominees for the first time. “APT.” will go head-to-head with the fictional girl group HUNTR/X’s “Golden,” performed by Ejae, Audrey Nuna and Rei Ami from the “KPop Demon Hunters” soundtrack.And the girl group Katseye, the brain child of HYBE the entertainment company behind K-pop sensation BTS and countless other international acts fashioned in the image of the K-pop idol system, has been nominated for best new artist.
Is this a historic moment for K-pop?
It depends on who you ask.Areum Jeong, assistant professor of Korean Studies at Arizona State University and author of “K-pop Fandom: Performing Deokhu from the 1990s to Today” says the majority of these nominations strike her more as “a de-territorialized, hybrid idea of K-pop,” instead of a recognition of K-pop.While Rosé “was recruited and trained under the K-pop system, and while ‘APT.’ does contain some motifs from the Korean drinking game,” Jeong says, “the song does not feel like a localized K-pop production. Same with Katseye, who was trained and produced under HYBE but marketed more toward Western fans and listeners.”Jeong says that both “APT.” and Katseye’s “Gabriela” both of which will go head-to-head with “Golden” in the pop duo/group performance category “seem less K-pop than other K-pop songs that could have been nominated over the years.”She argues the same is true for the music of “Kpop Demon Hunters.” “It is very similar to ‘APT.’ in that it takes inspiration and motif from Korean culture,” where “K-pop serves as an idea, a jumping-off point, or a motif, creating alternatives or new possibilities.”Mathieu Berbiguier, a visiting assistant professor in Korean Studies at Carnegie Mellon University, points out that these nominations differ from past K-pop Grammy nominations because “Golden,” “APT.” and Katseye all feature “a mainstream popular music factor.”That’s the connection of a massive popular Netflix film (“Kpop Demon Hunters”), a collaboration with Bruno Mars (“APT.”), and Katseye’s international membership and Netflix series (“Pop Star Academy: Katseye”), respectively.“It tells you that K-pop is not considered as something niche anymore,” he says. “Now, when we think about pop music in general, we also think of K-pop as part of it.”Bernie Cho, industry expert and president of the South Korean agency, the DFSB Kollective, agrees that there is an international, mainstream appeal to the nominees.“All the nominees represent a sort of post-idol K-pop, in the sense that Rosé, the three ladies of HUNTR/X and Katseye represent the globalized version of K-pop, where the ‘K’ is very much there, but some people might argue it’s silent. The songs are not necessarily for Korea, by Korea, from Korea, just kind of beyond Korea,” he says. “It’s a celebration and testament to how diverse and dynamic K-pop has become.”
Why are these acts being recognized now?
“For years, the Recording Academy has snubbed K-pop acts that have set record-breaking standards, such as BTS,Seventeen and Stray Kids,” argues Jeong. “I think one of the main reasons is that the Western world is still so resistant to non-English lyrics.”“It does not surprise me that ‘APT.’ and Katseye’s music, which mainly contain English lyrics and seem less K-pop, were nominated,” she continues.Berbiguier adds that “is a reflection of K-pop nowadays, like, trends: the fact that there’s less and less Korean and more and more English.”There may be an additional factor at play. Tamar Herman, a music journalist and author of the “Notes on K-pop” newsletter, says many critics and industry voices found 2025 to be a lackluster year for new pop music in the U.S. a fact that was all but confirmed in Luminate’s 2025 Mid-Year Report, which found that streams of new music had slowed compared to the year prior, potentially due to a dearth of megahits dominating the charts.“Yes, it’s a big moment for K-pop, but it is so overdue, these recognitions are more of a sign of how poorly the music industry in the U.S. did this year that we’re looking externally,” she says.She argues that acknowledgment of Korean entertainment from U.S. entertainment industries is more symbolic of U.S. cultural dominance slipping than “K-pop being really good, because K-pop has been really good for a really long time,” she says. “This is all recognition of just global storytelling improvement, global taste-making improvement.”“I don’t want to diminish it,” she adds. “These are all universally friendly, accessible, good pop songs.”And if they weren’t, they wouldn’t connect.“It’s very obvious that they’re not just performers. They’re artists. They’re singers. They’re songwriters,” says Cho.
Will a K-pop artist win a Grammy for the first time this year?
The jury is still out.“I think it’s not even a matter of if or when. It’s going to be who and how many,” says Cho.Others are less committal. “It’s hard to predict,” says Berbiguier. “For me, it’s more possible that ‘Golden’ gets one.”“Yes and no,” offers Herman. For her, it depends on an evolving and fluid definition of K-pop. After all, HUNTR/X is a fictional girl group from an animated film that did not debut through the K-pop music industry system. Would a victory for their song “Golden” mean a victory of K-pop? That’s a matter of opinion.
The 68th Grammy Awards will be held Feb. 1 at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. The show will air on CBS and stream on Paramount+. For more coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards.
Maria Sherman, AP Music Writer
Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok is preventing most users from generating or editing any images after a global backlash that erupted after it started spewing sexualized deepfakes of people.The chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has in the past few weeks been granting a wave of what researchers say are malicious user requests to modify images, including putting women in bikinis or in sexually explicit positions.Researchers have warned that in a few cases, some images appeared to depict children. Governments around the world have condemned the platform and opened investigations into the platform.On Friday, Grok was responding to image altering requests with the message: “Image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers. You can subscribe to unlock these features.”While subscriber numbers for Grok aren’t publicly available, there was a noticeable decline in the number of explicit deepfakes that Grok is now generating compared with days earlier.The European Union has slammed Grok for “illegal” and “appalling” behavior, while officials in France, India, Malaysia and a Brazilian lawmaker have called for investigations.On Thursday, Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer threatened unspecified action against X.“This is disgraceful. It’s disgusting. And it’s not to be tolerated,” Starmer said on Greatest Hits radio. “X has got to get a grip of this.”He said media regulator Ofcom “has our full support to take action” and that “all options” are on the table.“It’s disgusting. X need to get their act together and get this material down. We will take action on this because it’s simply not tolerable.”Ofcom and Britain’s privacy regulator both said this week they’ve contacted X and Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI for information on measures they’ve taken to comply with British regulations.Grok is free to use for X users, who can ask it questions on the social media platform. They can either tag it in posts they’ve directly created or in replies to posts from other users.Grok launched in 2023. Last summer the company added an image generator feature, Grok Imagine, that included a so-called “spicy mode” that can generate adult content.The problem is amplified both because Musk pitches his chatbot as an edgier alternative to rivals with more safeguards, and because Grok’s images are publicly visible, and can therefore be easily spread.
Kelvin Chan, AP Business Writer
Groks digital undressing scandal is horrifying. In recent days, countless women, including the mother of one of Elon Musks children, have found AI-generated and nonconsensual sexual images of themselves propagating across the web. According to one analysis, Grok was, at least as of early January, generating thousands of sexually suggestive, or undressed, images of people per hour. (Elon Musk now says that image generation will only be available to paid users.)Investigators from several countries have launched inquiries to investigate whether xAI had run afoul of the law, including rules about pornographic deepfakes and child sexual abuse material. Of course, none of these governments are as entangled with xAI, or Elon Musk, as the U.S. right now.
The Defense Department offered the company a $200 million contract for Grok last year. Now, a Pentagon official tells Fast Company that the agency’s policy on the use of artificial intelligence fully complies with all applicable laws and regulations, adding that personnel are mandated to uphold these standards, and any unlawful activity will be subject to appropriate disciplinary action.”
The Trump administration has also signed a range of deals with xAI to offer its Grok chatbot to federal workers for office use. The White House didnt respond to a request for comment. Nor did Carahsoft, a federal government contractor that has signed on to facilitate sales of xAI’s Grok for Government product suite.
The General Services Administration, a wonky but critical federal agency thats organized several major government deals for AI companies, including xAI, appears to be punting the issue. The agency tells Fast Company that Grok was still undergoing its own internal safety testing in advance of its integration into USAi, a massive AI platform for the U.S. government that already includes technology from companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.
But its unclear how involved, or active, these tests actually are. Its been months since these evaluations were first discussed, and the agency hasnt released any update on how Grok has performed. Fast Company has filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for any publicly available records pertaining to the results of those evaluations but has not received a response.
Grok for Government and xAI are currently undergoing GSAs required internal safety assessments prior to potential integration into USAi.gov, Marianne Copenhaver, a spokesperson for the agency, tells Fast Company. Any federal agency that decides to buy Grok through the larger xAI government deal it already helped negotiate for the company is responsible for evaluating the models they choose to use, she adds.
Copenhaver did not address whether the agency was studying Grok’s new penchant for producing Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM).
Liability
In the U.S., its possible that xAI could face legal problems. Using AI to undress minors, for instance, may already fall under existing criminal statutes. In addition, the Take It Down Act, a bipartisan bill crafted by Sens. Ted Cruz and Amy Klobuchar and signed by Donald Trump last year, requires platforms to remove nonconsensual AI sexual imagery within two days of being notified.
Deploying Grok within the U.S. federal government could be a major liability, several experts tell Fast Company.
If agencies are using xAI, officials will eventually have to demand extra guardrails to make Grok usable with the government, which would be difficult to do with xAI ultimately retaining some data about government systems, one former White House official says.In Groks current form, federal workers could, in theory, create CSAMan alarming possibility, says David Nesting, a former AI adviser to the federal chief information officer. If agencies are not monitoring and filtering uses of generative AI in the workplace, this seems like a gap.
Mike Horton, the former chief AI officer of the Transportation Department, says Groks CSAM issue is the inevitable result of a Wild West culture in Silicon Valley and the federal government to move fast and break things. Guardrails are necessary, he says, to avoid situations like this from occurring in the first place.
Unbridled AI acceleration with no guardrails is like driving a Maserati at 120 mph with no brakes. You can reliably and safely drive that fast because of the brakes, not in spite of them, he says.
