Whether its declaring that blindness prevents government employees from doing their jobs or suggesting that hiring workers with intellectual disabilities contributed to Federal Aviation Administration safety lapses, the Trump administration has repeatedly questioned whether people with disabilities belong in the workplace.
This stance reflects widespread stigma and misconceptions about what people with disabilities can and do accomplish.
Negative stereotypes and exclusionary practices persist despite the fact that people with disabilities are the largest minority group in the United States, representing nearly 30% of the population. Whether or not you identify as disabled, most people live or work in close proximity to others with a disability.
For years I have researched how people with disabilities have been kept out of efforts to guarantee equal access for everybody, particularly in higher education. This exclusion is often due to unfounded beliefs about capacity, intellect, and merit, and the false premise that disability inclusion requires lowering standards.
However, studies demonstrate that including people with disabilities is good for everyone, not just disabled people. Schools and workplaces are more collaborative and responsive when people with disabilities are included at all levels of the organization. In other words, disability inclusion isnt about charity; its about making organizations work better.
Rolling back protections
President Donald Trump issued executive orders the day he took office for a second time that aimed at ending government and private-sector efforts to make U.S. workplaces and schools more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. In addition to affecting LGBTQ+ communities and people of color, these measures could erode years of progress toward protecting the rights of people with disabilities to earn a living.
Between 40 million and 80 million Americans identify as disabled. Even the higher end of this range underestimates the actual number of people with disabilities, because some individuals choose not to identify that way or even realize they qualify as such. That includes people with impairments from chemical and pesticide exposure, as well as many older people and those who are living with HIV and AIDS, to name some examples.
Only 15% of people with disabilities are born with their impairment, so most individuals become disabled over their lifetime.
Tracing historical precedents
Blaming failures on people with disabilities and people of color echoes the harms embedded in eugenics, an attempt to scientifically prove genetic inferiority of disabled, LGBTQ+ Indigenous and Black people.
Eugenics led to the institutionalization and forced sterilization of, and the coercive experimentation on, people with disabilities, immigrants and people of color across the U.S. Even the Supreme Court endorsed the concept in the early 20th century.
These studies began to fade after World War II, but their legacy persists. Even today, forced sterilization continues to be lawful in U.S jurisdictions in 31 states and in Washington.
Due to widespread activism and the advent of new legal protections, many states finally dismantled their eugenic policies in the late 1970s. But eugenics-era experiments provided foundations for contemporary medical research, standardized testing and segregated school placements.
People with disabilities have far-reaching legal guarantees of civil rights and access today due to the Americans with Disabilities Act. The statute, which was enacted in 1990 and strengthened in 2008, provided protections in the workplace, educational settings, transportation and places of recreation and commerce, among others. It also guarded against negative perceptions of disability.
For example, if an employer perceived someone as disabled and denied them consideration in the hiring process because of that, the candidate would be protected from discrimination under the ADAwhether or not they had a disability.
While these advances are significant, many people with disabilities still do not have access to their basic civil rights. This is particularly true of Black people with disabilities, as they are disproportionately pushed out of school, disciplined more harshly, targeted for incarceration, and marginalized in disability representation and research.
Gaining workplace accommodations
Critics of inclusion efforts sometimes wrongly argue that employing people with disabilities is too costly due to the accommodations they may require. But the Job Accommodation Network in the Department of Labors Office of Disability Employment Policy found in 2023 that nearly 60% of these accommodations cost nothing.
Whats more, many tax incentives are available to cover these costs.
Disability civil rights law does not mandate hiring people who are not qualified or lowering standards to include the disabled. The law requires that candidates meet the essential functions of the job in order to be hired.
According to a 2024 Labor Department report, the employment rate for working-age people with disabilities was 38% compared with 75% for nondisabled people. Though there are countless reasons for this disparity, many people with disabilities can and want to work, but employers dont give them the opportunity.
Providing benefits for everyone
Many accommodations designed for people with disabilities also benefit others.
Captioning on videos and movies was originally meant to benefit the deaf community, but it also helps multilingual speakers and people who simply are trying to follow the dialogue. Similarly, visual or written instructions assist people with depression, Down syndrome or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, but they can also make tasks more accessible for everyone, along with breaking assignments into smaller components.
Sensory break rooms benefit people with autism and post-traumatic stress disorder, while also providing a reprieve in a noisy work environment and minimizing distractions. Remote work options can make it easier for people with chronic illnesses to be employed, and they similarly benefit others who may have caregiving responsibilitieshelping attract and retain talented employees. Text-to-speech software provides people with cerebral palsy and nonspeaking individuals with options for communication, similar to options that many people already use on their phones.
A large body of research demonstrates the broad benefits of making jobs and schools more accessible to people with disabilities, which is ultimately an advantage for everyone.
Studies on diversity in educational and workplace settings also demonstrate positive outcomes. In a study of 10 public universities, researchers found that students who reported positive, informal interactions with diverse peers had higher scores on measures of more complex thinking, a concern for the public good and an interest in poverty issues, and were more likely to vote and develop strong leadership skills.
In a national survey of human resources managers conducted in 2019, 92% of the respondents who were aware that one or more of their employees had a disability said those individuals performed the same or better than their peers who did not.
Research published by the Harvard Business Review found many advantages to hiring people with disabilities.
For one thing, people with disabilities can have unique insights that contribute to the workplace culture. The presence of employees with disabilities can make the environment of entire companies and organizations more collaborative. Earning a reputation for inclusiveness and social responsibility can improve customer relations and can give businesses an edge when they seek funding and recruit talented new employees.
Ultimately, I believe its important to create conditions where anyone can thrive, including people with disabilities. Doing so benefits everyone.
Lauren Shallish is associate professor of disability studies in education at Rutgers University – Newark
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
A new album called “Is This What We Want?” features a stellar list of more than 1,000 musiciansand the sound of silence.With contributions from artists including Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Cat Stevens, and Damon Albarn, the album was released Tuesday to protest proposed British changes to artificial intelligence laws that artists fear will erode their creative control.The U.K. government is consulting on whether to let tech firms use copyrighted material to help train AI models unless the creators explicitly opt out.Critics of the idea fear that will make it harder for artists to retain control of their work and will undermine Britain’s creative industries. Elton John and Paul McCartney are among those who have spoken out against the plan.The protest album features recordings of empty studios and performance spaces, to show what they fear will be the fate of creative venues if the plan goes through. The titles of the 12 tracks spell out: “The British government must not legalize music theft to benefit AI companies.”Profits will be donated to the musicians’ charity Help Musicians.“The government’s proposal would hand the life’s work of the country’s musicians to AI companies, for free, letting those companies exploit musicians’ work to outcompete them,” said composer and AI developer Ed Newton-Rex, who organized the album.“It is a plan that would not only be disastrous for musicians, but that is totally unnecessary,” Newton-Rex said. “The U.K. can be leaders in AI without throwing our world-leading creative industries under the bus.”Britain’s center-left Labour Party government says it wants to make the U.K. a world leader in AI. In December, it announced a consultation into how copyright law can “enable creators and right holders to exercise control over, and seek remuneration for, the use of their works for AI training” while also ensuring “AI developers have easy access to a broad range of high-quality creative content.” The consultation closes on Tuesday.Publishers, artists’ organizations and media companies, including the Associated Press, have banded together as the Creative Rights in AI Coalition to oppose weakening copyright protections.Several U.K. newspapers ran wraparounds over their front pages on Tuesday, criticizing the government consultation and saying: “Let’s protect the creative industriesit’s only fair.”
Jill Lawless, Associated Press
Today, February 25, is a make-or-break day for Super Micro Computer (aka Supermicro) and its stock, which trades on the Nasdaq under the SMCI ticker. Thats because by the end of today, the beleaguered server company needs to file its delinquent Form 10-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). If it fails to do so, the company’s shares may be delisted from the Nasdaq.
Heres what you need to know about its stock price ahead of the deadline and the possible outcomes should Super Micro Computer fail to meet its requirements.
SMCI stock price sinks ahead of filing deadline
As of the time of this writing, in early trading SMCIs stock price is down over 8% to to above $47 per share. Todays stock price fall follows an 8% fall yesterday. Much of the market is down this week, including big tech stocks, although not as dramatically.
One reason for SMCIs fall is most likely jitters as to whether the company will indeed file its delinquent Form 10-K for the fiscal year 2024, as well as additional forms for the first two fiscal 2025 quarters with the SEC.
The forms are both a legal requirement and a condition of being listed on the Nasdaq. Supermicro missed the earlier filing deadlines amidst a swath of negative news last year, which has rattled investors since August. Most prominently, the company has faced allegations of accounting irregularities. These allegations, along with a failure to file specific financial forms, have led to the stock price fluctuating wildly since the fall.
Concerns surrounding these issues have led to a 22% decline in SMCIs stock price over the past six months. In November, the stock bottomed out at below $18 per sharea far cry from its high of over $122 per share earlier in the year.
However, despite the companys most recent declines this week, SMCI stock has still recovered a fair amount since its November lows. Year to date, the stock is up over 55%. Where that stock price goes from hereat least in the near termmay largely depend on whether Supermicro meets its filing deadlines today.
Will Super Micro Computer meet its 10-K filing deadline?
Surprisingly, despite today being the deadline for the 10-K filing, Supermicro has not given any update on it since last week.
On February 19, the company addressed the filing in a Q2 2025 preliminary report. At the time Super Micro Computer said that it continues to work diligently toward the filing of its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2024, and its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2024.
It went on to state that Based on information currently available, the Company believes it will make such filings by February 25, 2025.
Fast Company has reached out to Supermicro for an update on the filings. We will update this post if we hear back.
What happens if Super Micro Computer misses its deadline?
If Supermicro misses its deadline, SMCI stock may very well be delisted from the Nasdaq after the market closes today.
However, as noted by MarketWatch, a Wedbush analyst says that Super Micro has the option of asking for another extension to file the required forms. That extension could be for as many as 180 days.
This means today will likely end in one of the three following ways for Super Micro Computer:
Supermicro may file its delinquent SEC forms by the deadline.
Supermicro may not meet the deadline but receive an extension.
Supermicro may not meet its deadline and not receive an extension.
If Super Micro Computer achieves option No. 1meeting the deadline todayits possible that investors will react kindly. The next best-case scenario is option No. 2, where the company does not meet the deadline but receives an extension. Option No. 3 is the worst outcome.
As of the time of this writing, which of the three above options comes to pass remains to be seen.
This story is developing…
Home Depot broke a two-year slump in same store sales during the fourth quarter as customer demand improved in a housing market that has been buffeted by soaring mortgage rates and a scarcity of homes up for sale.Revenue for the Atlanta company climbed to $39.7 billion from $34.79 billion. Analysts polled by FactSet were calling for $39.15 billion.Home Depot Inc. said Tuesday that the extra week in the quarter added approximately $2.5 billion in sales for the period.Sales at stores open at least a year, a key indicator of a retailer’s health, edged up 0.8%. In the U.S., comparable store sales rose 1.3%. It is the first quarterly increase since January 2023 and much better than the 1.5% decline expected on Wall Street.The extra week in the quarter was not included in the same-store sales results.“The fact that US comparable sales are back in the black after declining for eight quarters or two years is a very clear win for Home Depot, and it suggests that the home improvement market as a whole might finally be reaching the nadir of its more sluggish performance,” Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, wrote Tuesday.However, Home Depot said Tuesday that it expects per-share earnings to decline about 2% this year on sales growth of approximately 2.8%.Shares slipped about 2% before the opening bell.Customer transactions rose 7.6% in the quarter. The amount shoppers spent climbed slightly to $89.11 per average ticket from $88.87 in the prior-year period.“Our fourth quarter results exceeded our expectations as we saw greater engagement in home improvement spend, despite ongoing pressure on large remodeling projects,” said Chair and CEO Ted Decker said in a statement. “Throughout the year, we remained steadfast in our investments across our strategic initiatives to position ourselves for continued success, despite uncertain macroeconomic conditions and a higher interest rate environment that impacted home improvement demand.”Home improvement retailers like Home Depot have contended with homeowners putting off bigger projects due to higher borrowing costs and lingering concerns about inflation.The U.S. housing market has been in a sales slump dating back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from pandemic-era lows. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell last month as rising mortgage rates and prices put off many would-be homebuyers despite a wider selection of properties on the market.Sales fell 4.9% in January from December to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.08 million units, the National Association of Realtors said last week. Home prices increased on an annual basis for the 19th consecutive month. The national median sales price rose 4.8% in January from a year earlier to $396,900.Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes fell last year to their lowest level in nearly 30 years.Home Depot earned $3 billion, or $3.02 per share, for the three months ended February 2. A year earlier it earned $2.8 billion, or $2.82 per share.Removing certain items, earnings were $3.13 per share. That’s better than the $3.04 per share that Wall Street anticipated.
Michelle Chapman, AP Business Writer
The airline industry is notoriously hard to decarbonize: large jets traveling long distances cant feasibly use batteries, and sustainable aviation fuel is still only produced in tiny volumes.
As airlines explore a range of options, United Airlines Ventures Sustainable Flight Fund just invested in one possible solutiona system that uses crushed rocks to capture CO2 for use in fuel or to store underground.
The fund announced today that it invested an unspecified amount in Heirloom, a company that uses a powder made from limestone to pull CO2 from the air, relying on the material’s natural ability to absorb the greenhouse gas. At a facility in Californias Central Valley, robots stack trays of the limestone powder into tall stacks exposed to outdoor air. Then the powder is heated in furnaces to release the CO2 so it can be used or stored.
United also now has an agreement with Heirloom that gives it the right to buy up to half a million tons of carbon dioxide removal from the startup. We can either sequester it and track it as a carbon removal credit, or we can use it for [sustainable aviation fuel], says Andrew Chang, managing director at United Airlines Ventures.
[Photo: Heirloom]
The investors liked the basic simplicity of the technology. “We understand how limestone can capture and release CO2,” Chang says. “It is not a novel, unproven technology or catalyst or chemical pathway. It works: Heat it and cool it and it’ll lock and unlock CO2.”
Several other companies are paying Heirloom for the service of carbon removal to offset emissions, including Microsoft, which has a long-term contract to buy as much as 315,000 metric tons of CO2 removal from the startup.
If the captured CO2 is combined with green hydrogen, it can be made into fuel that can be used on existing planes. Some other sustainable aviation fuel is limited because of the feedstockmaking jet fuel from corn, for example, poses environmental challenges because of the amount of land that’s needed to grow it. (United has separately invested in biofuels made from corn, along with several other approaches.) But CO2 has a supply advantage: There’s more than enough extra CO2 in the atmosphere to meet the industry’s needs.
Some startups, including Twelve and Infinium, are now beginning to scale up production of CO2-based sustainable aviation fuel. The carbon footprint is as much as 94% less than conventional jet fuel. (If airlines also pay Heirloom to remove CO2 and store it, that can help offset the remaining carbon footprint.) Right now, this type of sustainable aviation fuel is two to four times as expensive as traditional fuel, though as airlines work on long-term plans to cut emissions by 2050, there’s a path to eventual price parity. The same approach could be used to cut emissions in other hard-to-decarbonize industries, like cargo shipping.
United’s investment will help Heirloom scale up production faster. “The funding will be used to continue to drive down the cost of the technology, develop additional projects, and provide the funding needed to subsequently access infrastructure capital,” says Heirloom spokesperson Scott Coriell. The startup is focused on what it calls “deployment-led innovation,” using real-world installations to help it iterate and reduce costs. “As we continue to build larger projects, costs will come down and the market will grow,” he says. “The critical objective to scale [direct air capture] is to repeat this cycle again and again.”
Ultimately, though huge volumes of captured CO2 could be used to make fuel, the carbon removal industry will have to grow even faster to deal with the problem of CO2 in the atmosphere; even as companies cut emissions, pulling CO2 out of the air is necessary to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. Around a trillion extra tons of CO2 have been added to the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution, and the number keeps growing. As it’s captured, much of it will be stored.
“We believe that over time, the vast majority of CO2 will end up underground,” Coriell says. “Even in a world where aviation, and other hard-to-abate industries, transition to cleaner fuels, there will still be billions of tons of CO2 emissions that will need to be abated each year.”
An annual United Nations conference on biodiversity that ran out of time last year will resume its work Tuesday in Rome with money at the top of the agenda.That is, how to spend what’s been pledged so farand how to raise a lot more to help preserve plant and animal life on Earth.The talks in Colombia known as COP16 yielded some significant outcomes before they broke up in November, including an agreement that requires companies that benefit from genetic resources in naturesay, by developing medicines from rainforest plantsto share the benefits. And steps were taken to give Indigenous peoples and local communities a stronger voice in conservation matters.But two weeks turned out to be not enough time to get everything done.The Cali talks followed the historic 2022 COP15 accord in Montreal, which included 23 measures aimed at protecting biodiversity. Those included putting 30% of the planet and 30% of degraded ecosystems under protection by 2030, known as the Global Biodiversity Framework.“Montreal was about the ‘what’what are we all working towards together?” said Georgina Chandler, head of policy and campaigns for the Zoological Society London. “Cali was supposed to focus on the ‘how’putting the plans and the financing in place to ensure we can actually implement this framework.”“They eventually lost a quorum because people simply went home,” said Linda Krueger of The Nature Conservancy, who is in Rome for the two days of talks. “And so now we’re having to finish these last critical decisions, which are some of the the nitty-gritty decisions on financing, on resource mobilization, and on the planning and monitoring and reporting requirements under the Global Biodiversity Framework.”The overall financial aim was to achieve $20 billion a year in the fund by 2025, and then $30 billion by 2030. So far, only $383 million had been pledged as of November, from 12 nations or subnations: Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Province of Québec, Spain, and the United Kingdom.Participants will discuss establishing a “global financing instrument for biodiversity” intended to effectively distribute the money raised. And a big part of the talks will be about raising more money.
‘Completely off track’ on larger financial goal
Chandler and Kruger both said the finance points at Colombia’s talks were particularly contentious.“It’s really about how do we collect the money and how do we get it distributed fairly, get it to the ground where it’s needed most, so that that’s really the core issue,” said Kruger.Oscar Soria, chief executive of The Common Initiative, a think tank specializing in global economic and environmental policy, was pessimistic about raising a great deal more money.“We are completely off track in terms of achieving that money,” Soria said. Key sources of biodiversity finance are shrinking or disappearing, he said.“What was supposed to be a good Colombian telenovela in which people will actually bring the right resources, and the happy ending of bringing their money, could actually end up being a tragic Italian opera, where no one actually agrees to anything and everyone loses,” Soria said.Susana Muhamad, Colombia’s former environment minister and the COP16 president, said she’s hopeful of “a good message from Rome.”“That message is that still, even with a very fragmented geopolitical landscape, with a world increasingly in conflict, we can still get an agreement on some fundamental issues,” Muhamad said in a statement. “And one of the most important is the need to protect life in this crisis of climate change and biodiversity.”Global wildlife populations have plunged on average by 73% in 50 years, according to an October report from the World Wildlife Fund and the Zoological Society of London.“Biodiversity is basically essential to our livelihoods and well-being,” Chandler said. “It’s essential to the the air we breathe, the water we drink, rainfall that food systems rely on, protecting us from increasing temperatures and increasing storm occurrences as well.”Chandler said deforestation in the Amazon has far-reaching impacts across South America, just as it does in the Congo Basin and other major biodiverse regions worldwide.“We know that has an impact on rainfall, on food systems, on soil integrity in other countries. So it’s not just something that’s kind of small and isolated. It’s a widespread problem,” she said.
The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Steven Grattan, Associated Press
New York City collected $48.6 million in revenue from the first month of its congestion pricing program that the Trump administration has moved to kill, a transit agency said.
The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) said on Monday that in January the program reduced congestion and raised $48.6 million with $11.1 million in expenses and net operating revenue of $37.5 million. New York Governor Kathy Hochul met with President Donald Trump on Friday to make the case for the congestion pricing program.
Under the program, which launched on January 5, most passenger vehicles are charged $9 during peak periods to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street. Trucks and buses pay up to $21.60. The fee is reduced by 75% at night.
The MTA, which has issued $900 million in debt for the congestion system infrastructure costs and capital projects, projected Monday it is on track to raise $500 million in net revenue the first year, noting it only collected revenue for 27 days in January.
In total, 68% of revenue came from passenger vehicles, 22% taxis and ride share vehicles, 9% from trucks and 1% motorcycles and buses.
The MTA sued last week seeking to block Trump’s effort to terminate the program.
Hochul has said that funds raised from the program would underpin $15 billion in debt financing for mass transit capital improvements.
The program was approved in the final months of former President Joe Biden’s administration.
Charged via electronic license plate readers, private cars pay once a day regardless of how many trips they make into the central business district.
A few other cities have implemented congestion pricing systems. London, which began its system in 2003, now charges 15 pounds ($18.70). Singapore and Sweden also have congestion pricing plans.
Before the fee, New York said more than 700,000 vehicles entered the Manhattan central business district daily, slowing traffic to around 7 miles per hour (11 kph) on average, which is 23% slower than in 2010.
David Shepardson, Reuters
As Fashion Week takes over New York, London, and Milan, designers arent just showcasing their collections on the runwaythey’re taking over LinkedIn.
The job-seeking platform reports a fivefold increase in live fashion show broadcasts over the past three years, with 85% of luxury brands turning to the professional social network to reach those with money to spend.
LVMH and Louis Vuitton set the trend in 2019, making live fashion shows on LinkedIn the core of their engagement strategy. The move quickly paid off. After unveiling a new mens collection in Shanghai, the brand drew nearly a million potential luxury buyers in just three days. Soon fashion powerhouses like Herms, Dior, Prada, and Balenciaga followed suit, bringing high fashion to the professional network.
Since then, LinkedIn has proven to be an essential marketing tool for meeting high-net-worth clients where they are at. After all, every successful professional comes with purchasing power. With over one billion members, more than 30% of LinkedIn users are interested in fashion, a much higher figure than on other social networks. LinkedIn data also reveals that 67% of luxury purchases happen after a career promotion or job change. Brands can tap into these pivotal moments using the platforms Career Changers feature, which identifies users in professional transition, right when theyre most likely to splurge.
Fashion is deeply tied to self-expression, and on LinkedIn, where professional identity plays a key role, luxury brands have the opportunity to engage with their audiences in a way that feels relevant, whether its dressing for a leadership role, investing in timeless pieces, or aligning with a particular lifestyle, Stephanie Barret, head of luxury at LinkedIn, tells Fast Company. Unlike mainstream social media, where fashion content competes with a wide range of entertainment-driven content, LinkedIn offers a focused, high-quality environment where professionals engage with premium storytelling.
Beyond its corporate roots, the networking platform is adapting to offer services that go further than simple job searches. Features like Live Event Ads enable brands to engage audiences before, during, and after major fashion shows. Additionally, luxury brands looking for ways to promote their content from members or influencers can make use of LinkedIns Thought Leader Ads, generating 2.3 times more clicks than traditional ads.
LinkedIns efforts are paying off. A study by influence management platform AmazingContent reveals LinkedIn as the preferred platform by luxury leaders 70% of luxury content engagement is on LinkedIn (compared to 20% on Instagram and 10% on X).
At the core, success on LinkedIn is about narrative-driven engagementusing livestreams, industry voices, and interactive content to showcase craftsmanship, heritage, and innovation in a way that resonates with high-intent consumers, says Barret. By tapping into LinkedIns professional audience, brands can align their messaging with key career moments, ensuring they reach people at times when they are naturally inclined to invest in luxury.
Apple shareholders on Tuesday are expected to reject an attempt to pressure the technology trendsetter into scrapping its corporate programs designed to diversify its workforce.The proposal drafted by the National Center for Public Policy Researcha self-described conservative think tankurges Apple to follow a litany of high-profile companies that have retreated from diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives currently in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump.It comes a month after the same group presented a similar proposal during Costco’s annual meeting, only to have it overwhelmingly rejected. A similar outcome is expected during Apple’s annual meeting despite the strident objections of critics.Just as Costco does, Apple has steadfastly stood behind diversity and inclusion efforts that its management contends good business sense.But the National Center for Public Policy Research’s proposal has attacked Apple’s diversity commitments for being out of line with recent court rulings and said the programs expose the Cupertino, California, company to an onslaught of potential lawsuits for alleged discrimination. The group estimated about 50,000 Apple employees could file cases against Apple without detailing how it arrived at that figure.“It’s clear that DEI poses litigation, reputational and financial risks to companies, and therefore financial risks to their shareholders, and therefore further risks to companies for not abiding by their fiduciary duties,” the National Center for Public Policy Research says in its proposal.The specter of potential legal trouble was magnified last week when Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier filed a federal lawsuit against Target alleging the retailer’s recently scaled-back DEI program alienated many consumers and undercut sales to the detriment of shareholders.In its rebuttal to the anti-DEI proposal, Apple said its program is an integral part of a culture that has helped elevate the company to its current market value of $3.7 trilliongreater than any other business in the world.“We believe that how we conduct ourselves is as critical to Apple’s success as making the best products in the world,” the company said in its statement against the proposal. “We seek to conduct business ethically, honestly, and in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.”In its last diversity and inclusion report issued in 2022, Apple disclosed nearly that three-fourths of its global workforce consisted of white and Asian employees. Nearly two-thirds of its employees at that juncture were men.Other major technology companies for years have reported employing mostly white and Asian men, especially in high-paid engineering jobsa tendency that spurred the industry to pursue what have been largely unsuccessful efforts to diversify.
Michael Liedtke, AP Technology Writer
Tens of thousands of planes take off, land, and perform touch-and-goes at the Marana Regional Airport in southern Arizona every year. Without an air traffic control tower, it’s a calculated dance that requires communication by pilots.Two small planes collided in midair over one of the runways on the outskirts of Tucson last week. One hit the ground and caught fire, sending up a plume of black smoke. The remains of two people were found in the charred wreckage. The other plane was able to land, with those occupants uninjured.The collision was the latest aviation mishap to draw attention in recent weeks. The circumstances vary widely with each case, however, and experts who study aviation accidents say they don’t see any connection between them.Chatter over the airwaves has provided some clues about what happened in Arizona. A chief flight instructor who was in the air with a student that day heard the commotion over the radio: One plane was attempting a touch-and-go when another clipped its propeller while attempting to land.Erwin Castillo, who works for IFLY Pilot Training, recalled hearing one pilot scream: “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! He just hit us.”It will be up to federal investigators to determine what caused the crash, a detailed process that will take months.While some observers suggest having a control tower may have made a difference, experts say not having a tower doesn’t mean the airport is any less safe; pilots just have a different set of communication procedures to follow.
How many airports in the U.S. have control towers?
Of the 5,100 public airports across the country, only about 10% have towers staffed by people who direct the flow of traffic. These are the busiest of airports, with complex operations and large volumes of commercial flights.For the airports without control towers, pilots rely on radio communications and the principle of “see and avoid” to ensure they can maneuver safely. The concept is drilled into pilots from Day 1 of their training and it’s applicable regardless of the kind of airspace they’re in, said Mike Ginter, a retired Navy aviator and senior vice president of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association’s Air Safety Institute.He likened it to being behind the wheel of a car and practicing all the safety rules learned in driver’s ed.“You don’t have to tell the state police that you’re getting ready to drive to the supermarket to get groceries. You just go out, and you look both ways before you turn, and you turn on your turn signal and you drive,” he explained, saying there are basic tenets of safety that are ingrained in pilots.The system has worked well, considering the sheer number of planes coming and going daily from small airports and the roughly 26 million hours of flight time logged by general aviation pilots.
What prompted regulation of the friendly skies?
It was a summer day in 1956 when two commercial flights left Los Angeles within minutes of each otherone en route to Chicago and the other to Kansas. Flying under visual flight rules, the planes collided over the Grand Canyon in Arizona, killing all 128 people aboard. The crash site is now a National Historic Landmark.Even though U.S. air traffic had more than doubled since the end of World War II, it was this disaster that helped to fuel efforts to overhaul aviation safety.Legislation was introduced in 1958 to create an independent federal agency that would provide for the safe and efficient use of national airspace. The bill was signed within months and the first Federal Aviation Agency administrator was appointed.Responsibilities evolved, and the agency became the Federal Aviation Administration as air traffic control systems were being modernized.
Are new control towers being planned?
Through the FAA, airports can apply for federal grants to modernize and build air traffic control towers that are staffed by private companies and contract workers, rather than FAA staff.Nearly 180 airports nationwide are eligible for funding under the program, with most looking to upgrade existing towerssome that date back to the 1940s and others that were meant to be temporary.A review of funding awarded through the program over the past four fiscal year shows a handful of airports were awarded money specifically for site studies, environmental work and construction of new towers. That includes airports in Bend, Oregon; Boulder City, Nevada; and Mankato, Minnesota.In the case of Marana, the airport was first accepted into the program in 2019 but the coronavirus pandemic stalled efforts to get a tower built by the five-year deadline. Airport officials have said they now are on track to complete the project by 2029.
Will federal job cuts affect air traffic safety?
U.S. President Donald Trump issued a memo in late January to top transportation officials, ordering an immediate assessment of aviation safety following the midair collision of an Army helicopter and commercial passenger jet over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. Sixty-seven people were killed.Trump raised questions about hiring practices within the FAA, suggesting previous Democratic administrations had shifted away from merit-based hiring.Some FAA jobs have been eliminated as Trump streamlines the federal workforce and looks to ferret out waste and curb spending, but less than 1% of the agency’s more than 45,000 workers were probationary employees targeted as part of the job cuts, federal officials have said.In addition, the administration has said no air traffic controllers or critical safety personnel were fired as part of the effort. But labor and industry groups say even without cuts, air traffic control towers were already understaffed.Trump has said that he would support legislation aimed at modernizing the nation’s air traffic control system. In a letter sent to members of Congress last week, the industry group Airlines for America pushed for emergency funding for critical air traffic control technology and infrastructure as well as air controller staffing and training.
Associated Press writer Sejal Govindarao in Phoenix contributed to this report.
Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press
