For the past six years, Josh D’Amaro has overseen experiences, such as theme parks and cruises, at the Walt Disney Company. Starting March 18, he’ll add the rest of the company to his responsibilities.
Disney has tapped D’Amaro as its new chief executive officer, taking the reins from Bob Iger and becoming just the ninth person to run the century-old entertainment giant.
D’Amaro won a highly competitive race for the job, fending off Disneys entertainment co-chairman, Dana Walden. Walden will remain with the company in the newly created position of president and chief creative officer.
In becoming CEO, D’Amaro also becomes the public face of Disney, a role that’s more than ceremonial. Since Walt Disney first created the company, the CEO has been a highly visible presence not only in Hollywood and on Wall Street, but in pop culture.
Previous CEOs, including Iger and Michael Eisner, were nearly as famous as the stars in Disney’s films.
Ready for his close-up?
D’Amaro has been assuming an increasingly public presence in the past several years, with media appearances and high-profile events, such as overseeing the recent christening of the Disney Destiny cruise ship.
He has also been closely involved in some of the company’s biggest projects, including the $60 billion expansion of the parks and experiences division and the recently announced forthcoming Abu Dhabi park.
About a year ago, DAmaro said during a conversation with Fast Company and other media in 2024, I found myself in Bobs office and we were talking about the last 100 years and everything that had happened in our products around the world. And we talked about the number of stories we hadnt been able to tell yet and the number of acres we have available that we can exercise and the number of fans out there which would want to participate in that. Bob looked at me and said, Go.
A long history
D’Amaro joined Disney in 1998, working at various leadership positions at Disneyland.
He eventually worked his way to president of Walt Disney World and in 2020 was named chairman of Disney Experiences, where he oversees all 12 theme parks and the company’s 57 hotels, as well as the cruise lines, Disney Consumer Products, and, perhaps critically, the company’s Imagineering unit.
Among the theme park rides that have been built under his watch are Star Wars: Galaxys Edge, the Marvel-themed Avengers Campus, and Mickey and Minnies Runaway Railway.
He helped lead the company’s $1.5 billion investment in Epic Games last year and could make video games a bigger part of the company’s focus in the coming years.
D’Amaro was also responsible for guiding Disney parks through the pandemic, a job that seemed almost impossible in 2020. When the decision was made to reopen the parks, he oversaw the changes that let the company regain a critical revenue source, but kept visitors safe.
We knew we would have to change, but the one thing we would not compromise on was our storytelling, making sure that any guest who walks through those gates feels the same Disney theyve always felt, says DAmaro.
To do that, Disney had to shake things up. Parades were out, since having people crowded along a parade route was a hazard. But character cavalcadessmaller processions that saw Disney characters walking, riding in vehicles, on mini floats, or even on horseback through the parktook their place at a frequency that was much greater than the old parade schedule.
Other characters showed up in new locations. (Goofy, for example, was sometimes seen fishing off the wharf at California Adventure.) That time period also saw the launch of the company’s virtual queue system.
The parks have since become an even bigger financial powerhouse for the company.
In its most recent earnings, released Monday, Disney announced the experiences division crossed $10 billion in quarterly revenue for the first time. Theme parks in the U.S. alone brought in $6.91 billion in revenue, despite softness with international visitors.
Josh DAmaro is an exceptional leader and the right person to become our next CEO, Iger said in a statement Tuesday. He has an instinctive appreciation of the Disney brand, and a deep understanding of what resonates with our audiences, paired with the rigor and attention to detail required to deliver some of our most ambitious projects.”
Shares of the Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) were down about 1.61% in late-morning trading on Tuesday after the announcement. The stock is likewise down more than 8% year to date.
When the boss won’t quit
D’Amaro is the second person to succeed Iger as CEO. In 2020, Bob Chapek, who had been in charge of Disney Parks and Experiences, was named CEO, but the transition was anything but smooth.
Wall Street was surprised that the company had chosen someone from the parks side and not from the company’s streaming unit. Chapek’s management style came under fire and caused some political tensions.
In 2022, as the company’s share price began to fall, the board replaced him, bringing Iger back.
James Gorman, chairman of the Disney board, who led the search for the company’s new leader, said on CNBC Tuesday that the situation won’t repeat itself with D’Amaro’s selection.
“We won’t have the drama we had last time. That I can assure you,” he said.
D’Amaro, in a statement, underscored his good relationship with Iger, thanking him for his friendship and mentorship, while outlining his vision for Disney’s future.
“There is no limit to what Disney can achieve,” he said, “and I am excited to work with our teams across the company and brilliant creative partners to honor Disneys remarkable legacy while continuing to innovate, grow, and deliver exceptional value for our consumers and shareholders.”
French prosecutors raided the offices of social media platform X on Tuesday as part of a preliminary investigation into allegations including spreading child sexual abuse images and deepfakes. They have also summoned billionaire owner Elon Musk for questioning.X and Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI also face intensifying scrutiny from Britain’s data privacy regulator, which opened formal investigations into how they handled personal data when they developed and deployed Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok.Grok, which was built by xAI and is available through X, sparked global outrage last month after it pumped out a torrent of sexualized nonconsensual deepfake images in response to requests from X users.The French investigation was opened in January last year by the prosecutors’ cybercrime unit, the Paris prosecutors’ office said in a statement. It’s looking into alleged “complicity” in possessing and spreading pornographic images of minors, sexually explicit deepfakes, denial of crimes against humanity and manipulation of an automated data processing system as part of an organized group, among other charges.Prosecutors asked Musk and former CEO Linda Yaccarino to attend “voluntary interviews” on April 20. Employees of X have also been summoned that same week to be heard as witnesses, the statement said. Yaccarino was CEO from May 2023 until July 2025.A spokesperson for X did not respond to multiple requests for comment. X’s lawyer in France, Kami Haeri, told The Associated Press: “We are not making any comment at this stage.”In a message posted on X, the Paris prosecutors’ office announced the ongoing searches at the company’s offices in France and said it was leaving the platform while calling on followers to join it on other social media.“At this stage, the conduct of the investigation is based on a constructive approach, with the aim of ultimately ensuring that the X platform complies with French law, as it operates on the national territory,” the prosecutors’ statement said.European Union police agency Europol “is supporting the French authorities in this,” Europol spokesperson Jan Op Gen Oorth told the AP, without elaborating.French authorities opened their investigation after reports from a French lawmaker alleging that biased algorithms on X likely distorted the functioning of an automated data processing system.It expanded after Grok generated posts that allegedly denied the Holocaust, a crime in France, and spread sexually explicit deepfakes, the statement said.Grok wrote in a widely shared post in French that gas chambers at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp were designed for “disinfection with Zyklon B against typhus” rather than for mass murder language long associated with Holocaust denial.In later posts on X, the chatbot reversed itself and acknowledged that its earlier reply was wrong, saying it had been deleted and pointed to historical evidence that Zyklon B was used to kill more than 1 million people in Auschwitz gas chambers.The chatbot also appeared to praise Adolf Hitler last year, in comments that X took down after complaints.In Britain, the Information Commissioner’s Office said it’s looking into whether X and xAI followed the law when processing personal data and whether Grok had any measures in place to prevent its use to generate “harmful manipulated images.”“The reports about Grok raise deeply troubling questions about how people’s personal data has been used to generate intimate or sexualised images without their knowledge or consent, and whether the necessary safeguards were put in place to prevent this,” said William Malcolm, an executive director at the watchdog.He didn’t specify what the penalty would be if the probe found the companies didn’t comply with data protection laws.A separate investigation into Grok launched last month by the U.K. media regulator, Ofcom, is ongoing.Ofcom said Tuesday it’s still gathering evidence and warned the probe could take months.X has also been under pressure from the EU. The 27-nation bloc’s executive arm opened an investigation last month after Grok spewed nonconsensual sexualized deepfake images on the platform.Brussels has already hit X with a 120-million euro (then-$140 million) fine for shortcomings under the bloc’s sweeping digital regulations, including blue checkmarks that broke the rules on “deceptive design practices” that risked exposing users to scams and manipulation.On Monday, Musk ‘s space exploration and rocket business, SpaceX, announced that it acquired xAI in a deal that will also combine Grok, X and his satellite communication company Starlink.
Associated Press writers Nicolas Vaux-Montagny, Mike Corder, Sylvia Hui and Kelvin Chan contributed to this report.
Sylvie Corbet, Associated Press
On New Year’s Eve, Lee Zeldin did something out of character for an Environmental Protection Agency leader who has been hacking away at regulations intended to protect Americans’ air and water.He announced new restrictions on five chemicals commonly used in building materials, plastic products and adhesives, and he cheered it as a “MAHA win.”It was one of many signs of a fragile collaboration that’s been building between a Republican administration that’s traditionally supported big business and a Make America Healthy Again movement that argues corporate environmental harms are putting people’s health in danger.The unlikely pairing grew out of the coalition’s success influencing public health policy with the help of its biggest champion, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. As health secretary, he has pared back vaccine recommendations and shifted the government’s position on topics like seed oils, fluoride and Tylenol.Building on that momentum, the movement now sees a glimmer of hope in the EPA’s promise to release a “MAHA agenda” in the coming months.At stake is the strength of President Donald Trump’s coalition as November’s midterm elections threaten his party’s control of Congress. After a politically diverse group of MAHA devotees came together to help Trump return to the White House a little more than one year ago, disappointing them could mean losing the support of a vocal voting bloc.Activists like Courtney Swan, who focuses on nutritional issues and has spoken with EPA officials in recent months, are watching closely.“This is becoming an issue that if the EPA does not start getting their stuff together, then they could lose the midterms over this,” she said.Christopher Bosso, a professor at Northeastern University who researches environmental policy, said Zeldin didn’t seem to take MAHA seriously at first, “but now he has to, because they’ve been really calling for his scalp.”
MAHA wins a seat at the table
Last year, prominent activist Kelly Ryerson was so frustrated with the EPA over its weakening of protections against harmful chemicals that she and other MAHA supporters drew up a petition to get Zeldin fired.The final straw, Ryerson said, was the EPA’s approval of two new pesticides for use on food. Ryerson, whose social media account “Glyphosate Girl” focuses on nontoxic food systems, said the pesticides contained “forever chemicals,” which resist breakdown, making them hazardous to people. The EPA has disputed that characterization.But Ryerson’s relationship with the EPA changed at a MAHA Christmas party in Washington in December. She talked to Zeldin there and felt that he listened to her perspective. Then he invited her and a handful of other activists to sit down with him at the EPA headquarters. That meeting lasted an hour, and it led to more conversations with Zeldin’s deputies.“The level of engagement with people concerned with their health is absolutely revolutionary,” Ryerson said in an interview. She said the agency’s upcoming plan “will say whether or not they take it seriously,” but she praised MAHA’s access as “unprecedented.”Rashmi Joglekar, associate director of science, policy and engagement at the University of California San Francisco’s Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment, said it’s not typical for an activist group to meet with the EPA administrator. She said MAHA’s ability to make inroads so quickly shows how “powerful” the coalition has become.The movement’s influence is not just at the EPA. MAHA has steered federal and state lawmakers away from enacting liability shields that protect pesticide manufacturers from expensive lawsuits. In Congress, after MAHA activists lobbied against such protections in a funding bill, they were removed. A similar measure stalled in Tennessee’s legislature.Zeldin joined a call in December with the advocacy group MAHA Action, where he invited activists to participate in developing the EPA’s MAHA agenda. Since then, EPA staffers have regularly appeared on the weekly calls and promoted what they say are open-door policies.Last month, Ryerson’s petition to get Zeldin fired was updated to note that several signers had met with him and are in a “collaborative effort to advance the MAHA agenda.”Zeldin’s office declined to make him available for an interview on his work with MAHA activists, but EPA Press Secretary Brigit Hirsch said the forthcoming agenda will “directly respond to priorities we’ve heard from MAHA advocates and communities.”The American Chemistry Council said “smart, pro-growth policies can protect both the environment and human health as well as grow the U.S. economy.”
EPA’s alliance with industry raises questions
Despite the ongoing conversations, the Republican emphasis on deregulation still puts MAHA and the EPA on a potential collision course.Lori Ann Burd, the environmental health program director at The Center for Biological Diversity, said the administration has a particularly strong alliance with industry interests.As an example, she pointed to the EPA’s proposal to allow the broad use of the weed killer Dicamba on soybeans and cotton. A month before the announcement, the EPA hired a lobbyist for the soybean association, Kyle Kunkler, to serve in a senior position overseeing pesticides.Hirsch denied that Kunkler had anything to do with the decision and said EPA’s pesticide decisions are “driven by statutory standards and scientific evidence.”Environmentalists said the hiring of ex-industry leaders is a theme of this administration. Nancy Beck and Lynn Dekleva, for example, are former higher-ups at the American Chemistry Council, an industry association. They now work in leadership in the Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, which oversees pesticide and toxic chemical regulation.Hirsch said the agency consults with ethics officials to prevent conflicts of interest and ensures that appointees are qualified and focused on the science, “unlike previous administrations that too often deferred to activist groups instead of objective evidence.”Alexandra Muoz, a molecular toxicologist who works with MAHA activists on some issues and was in the hourlong meeting with Zeldin, said she could sense industry’s influence in the room.“They were very polite in the meeting. In terms of the tone, there was a lot of receptivity,” she said. “However, in terms of what was said, it felt like we were interacting with a lot of industry talking points.”
Activists await the EPA’s MAHA agenda
Hirsch said the MAHA agenda will address issues like lead pipes, forever chemicals, plastic pollution, food quality and Superfund cleanups.Ryerson said she wants to get the chemical atrazine out of drnking water and stop the pre-harvest desiccation of food, in which farmers apply pesticides to crops immediately before they are harvested.She also wants to see cancer warnings on the ingredient glyphosate, which some studies associate with cancer even as the EPA said it is not likely to be carcinogenic to humans when used as directed.While she’s optimistic that the political payoffs will be big enough for Zeldin to act, she said some of the moves he’s already promoting as “MAHA wins” are no such thing.For example, in his New Year’s Eve announcement on a group of chemicals called phthalates, he said the agency intends to regulate some of them for environmental and workplace risks, but didn’t address the thousands of consumer products that contain the ingredients.Swan said time will tell if the agency is being performative.“The EPA is giving very mixed signals right now,” she said.
Sejal Govindarao, Ali Swenson and Michael Phillis, Associated Press
Cybersecurity researchers have discovered roughly 1,000 unprotected gateways to OpenClaw, an open-source and proactive AI agent that can be controlled through text conversations with apps like WhatsApp or Telegram. The gateways were found on the open internet, allowing anyone to access users personal information. One white hat hacker also reportedly gamed OpenClaws skills system, which lets users add plugins for tasks like web automation or system control, to reach the top of the rankings and be downloaded by users around the world. The skill itself was innocuous, but it exploited a security vulnerability that someone more nefarious could have used to cause serious harm.
Access to those gateways would allow hackers to reach the same files and content OpenClaw can access, meaning full read and write control over a users computer and any connected accounts, including email addresses and phone numbers. A number of incidents exploiting those vulnerabilities have already been reported.
OpenClaw, originally called Clawdbot, was released in November 2025 by Peter Steinberger, an Austrian-born, London-based developer best known for creating a tool that lets apps display and edit PDFs natively. The launch followed a wave of advances in AIs ability to interact with files that began in late 2025.
Late last year, many people began experimenting with Anthropics Claude Code, an agentic AI that links to a computers file system through the terminal or command line and responds to conversational prompts to build large projects independently, with some oversight. The tool excited many users but also discouraged others who were uncomfortable working in a non-graphical interface.
In response, Anthropic set Claude Code to work autonomously on a sibling product, Claude Work, which layers a more user-friendly interface on top. While it has gained some traction, it is a third-party product built by a developer outside Anthropic that has captured the most attention.
Steinbergers OpenClaw mimics the best features of Claude Code, but with more functionality and the ability to proactively work on tasks without being prompted.
That proactivity is a key differentiator between the tool, which was forced to rename itself Moltbot and then OpenClaw last week after a request from Anthropic, and other AI systems. Its potential has energized the tech sector, driven a spike in Mac Mini sales as a popular way to host the agent, and come to dominate certain corners of X and Reddit.
The problem is that the very thing that makes OpenClaw so appealing, the ability to oversee an eager AI assistant without specialist coding knowledge and with an easy setup, is also what makes it so concerning. I love it, yet [I’m] instantly filled with fear, says Jake Moore, a cybersecurity expert at Eset. Moore says users are so excited by the idea of OpenClaw as a personal assistant that they are granting it unrestricted access to their digital lives, sometimes while hosting their instances on incorrectly configured virtual private servers. That leaves them vulnerable to hacking.
Opening private messages and emails to any new technology comes with a risk and when we dont fully understand those risks, we could be walking into a new era of putting efficiency before security and privacy, Moore warns. The same access that makes OpenClaw powerful is also what makes it dangerous if it is compromised. If one of the devices Clawdbot is running on is compromised, an attacker would then gain access to everything including full history and highly sensitive information, he says.
Steinberger did not respond to multiple interview requests, but he has published extensive security documentation for Moltbot online, even if many users may not incorporate it into their setups. That concerns cybersecurity experts. Developments like Clawdbot are so seductive but a gift to the bad guys, says Alan Woodward, a professor of cybersecurity at the University of Surrey in the U.K. With great power comes great responsibility and machines are not responsible, he says. Ultimately the user is.
The way OpenClaw operates, running without oversight and acting as an always-on assistant, may cause users to forget that responsibility until it is too late. Some have already demonstrated that Moltbot can be vulnerable to prompt injection attacks, in which harmful instructions are embedded in websites or emails in the hope that AI agents will absorb and follow them. I wonder who these users think will be blamed when agentic AI empties their account or posts hateful thoughts, Woodward says.
So-called rare earth elements arent actually rare. Its just difficult to refine them into the purified forms that are needed for making things like electronics or clean energy tech. The standard processes are also toxic, which is one reason that the world has outsourced production to China.
Supra, a startup that spun out of the University of Texas at Austin, is taking a different approach thats clean, low-cost, and makes it possible to capture some of the billions of dollars worth of critical minerals that are trapped in waste in the U.S.
Dr. Sessler [Photo: Supra]
The companys technology uses supramolecular receptors, a string of molecules built to grab specific molecules like a baseball glove, says CEO Katie Durham. Jonathan Sessler, a chemistry professor at UT Austin, first designed receptors like these to target cancer cells. Then he realized that they could also be designed to target critical minerals.
My original analogy was we were going to be making a chemical sponge, Sessler says. It would go in and capture these elements and we would pick it up and wring it out.
In the final design, the nanometer-sized receptors are embedded into a polymer filled with tiny pores that increase the surface area for capturing metal ions. The material is 3D-printed into reusable cartridges.
[Photo: Genesis Cosme/The University of Texas at Austin]
At a mine or industrial site, tailings or wastewater can flow through a series of the cartridges, each targeting a specific element. The receptors bind minerals in alcohol and release them when theyre rinsed with water, using little energy and avoiding the use of toxic chemicals. The process, which the company says is 100 times more selective and faster than current rare earth refining, can also be used on electronic waste.
[Photo: Supra]
In lab tests on cobalt, the technology was able to capture 100% of the element, isolating it completely from other elements like lithium in a solution.
The tech can be customized for any element. As it comes to market, the startup is focused first on scandium and gallium, two valuable rare earth elements that currently are imported from China. The U.S. is 100% import-dependent on them, and we really did not see a lot of other startups trying to address that, says Durham. By collecting the trace amounts of scandium in industrial waste in the U.S., the company hopes it can change how the element is sourced.
[Photo: Supra]
The value varies wildly depending on purityscandium, for example, can sell for $300 per kilogram at 99.9% purity, but $3,200 per kilogram at 99.99% purity. The purest form, at 99.9999%, sells for $500,000 per kilogram. (The startup is still optimizing its process, but is aiming for the highest purity.) The company plans to launch its first pilots with partners later this year.
Supra is one of a handful of startups working on ways to make rare earth production feasible in the U.S. Others include Phoenix Tailings, which works both with mined material and waste; and Cyclic Materials, which extracts and refines rare earths from end-of-life products.
Because of the demand for an American supply chain, Supra plans to focus first in the U.S. But the company eventually wants to make their products available globallyincluding in China, to help with the pollution challenge there. The world has gotten lazy and let China pay the environmental cost, says Sessler.
In 2026, audiences across the United States will experience some of the most iconic sporting events in the worldfrom Super Bowl LX and NBA All-Star weekend to the Milan Cortina Winter Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. For Comcast NBCUniversal, it marks one of the most significant years in our sports history, which will unite millions of fans.
But sports are more than entertainmenttheyre a force for connection, growth, and transformation. These events offer a rare moment to unite people and leave a lasting impact well beyond the games themselves.
EXPAND ACCESS TO YOUTH SPORTS
Early access to sports can shape a childs future. According to the Aspen Institutes Project Play, its linked to better health, stronger academics, and lifelong habits of teamwork and resilience. Yet far too many communities remain on the sidelines. Today, families spend on average nearly $900 per child per season, putting participation out of reach for too many.
Across the sports ecosystem, organizations are responding with targeted, community-based solutions. DICKs Sporting Goods has committed more than $100 million since 2014 through its Sports Matter Program to help schools and local leagues cover essentials like equipment, registration fees, and facility accesssupport that has helped keep millions of kids across all 50 states participating in youth sports. Nikes Community Impact Fund takes a similar, grassroots approach, empowering employee-led committees to award local grants to nonprofits and schools expanding neighborhood-based play, particularly for young people with limited access to safe, high-quality sports opportunities.
These efforts reinforce a simple truth: Access works best when it is local, affordable, and sustained.
At NBCUniversal, we too believe that sports can uplift local communities. Ahead of the FIFA World Cup, Telemundo is supporting neighborhood-based soccer festivals and Unity Cup celebrations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Miamiworking with trusted local partners to connect young people not only to play, but to mentorship, cultural pride, and a sense of belonging.
Together, these initiatives demonstrate that expanding access is a critical first step. Once young people can engage in sports, they also need meaningful guidance and support.
EMPOWER THROUGH MENTORSHIP
Coaching is not just about teaching athletic skills and game strategy. Coaches often serve as role models and mentors for young athletes. The Aspen Institutes Coaching Social and Emotional Skills in Youth Sports report highlights how intentional coaching provides a powerful venue for young people to develop social and emotional competencies, from teamwork and selfregulation to empathy and decisionmaking.
One example of how companies are investing in coaching is Under Armours UA Next program, which serves as the companys national grassroots platform for middle and highschool athletes. UA Next operates across major U.S. cities through partnerships with regional coaching networks and locally-hosted camp events, connecting young athletes with highlevel instruction and structured skill building environments.
The U.S. Soccer Foundations Yes, Coach! initiative aims to train 100,000 coach-mentors by 2030 who will impact 3 million youth. Comcast NBCUniversal and Telemundo will support this effort through a new bilingual platform and public service announcement campaign created by apprentices at Wide Angle Youth Media, and airing across our networks ahead of the tournament.
Additionally, ahead of the Super Bowl, NBC station KNTV is supporting a Laureus Sport for Good USA and Positive Coaching Alliance (PCA) community event, where NFL players and PCA coaches will lead onfield training and mentorship for San Francisco youth.
These initiatives help provide more children with the chance to be supported by a trusted adult on and off the field.
In addition to the positive role mentorship and coaching play in young athletes, sports can be a powerful catalyst for giving young people the opportunity to shape and share the stories that bring these moments to life for fans at home.
ELEVATE VOICES THROUGH SPORTS STORYTELLING
Every major sports moment creates a story. These moments also have a profound impact on those who get to tell them and whose voices are amplified along the way.
A powerful illustration of sports-driven storytelling comes from Visas Player of the Match program, which leveraged the FIFA Womens World Cup global stage to spotlight top women athletes and entrepreneurs. Across all 64 matches, Visa committed $500,000 in grants to women-owned businesses from the home countries of each matchs standout playerconnecting on-field excellence with real-world entrepreneurial achievements, and broadening visibility on the world stage.
Extending the impact of storytelling beyond the field, NBCUniversal partners with nonprofit creative agencies such as RE:IMAGINE, Venice Arts, Kids in the Spotlight, Reel Works, Wide Angle Youth Media, Youth Beat, and Ghetto Film School to provide production opportunities for emerging young storytellers. This year, in collaboration with the NBA, select apprentices will produce content around NBA All-Star Weekend that will run across Comcast NBCUniversal and NBA platforms. The goal isnt just to capture memorable moments; it’s to help young creatives build confidence, broaden networks, and gain hands-on experience that extend far beyond any single event.
From access to mentorship, and the opportunities around sports storytelling, a clear throughline emerges: Sports have the power to uplift and unite communities, provide an infrastructure for youth to feel supported, and create pathways for young people to thrive.
WHY IT MATTERS
This work is personal. As a former high school athlete and a parent, Ive seen how sports can build confidence, empathy, and a sense of purpose, especially when young people feel encouraged and included.
In a year defined by unprecedented moments in sports, we have an opportunity to meet the moment with intention. By using the shared attention of these global events to expand participation and invest in the next generation of athletes and fans, we can create impact that endures long ater the final whistle.
Because when we change the game, we change lives.
Hilary Smith is EVP of corporate social responsibility at NBCUniversal.
Don’t tune into the Super Bowl hoping for a break from the tumultuous politics gripping the U.S.The NFL is facing pressure ahead of Sunday’s game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots to take a more explicit stance against the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement. More than 184,000 people have signed a petition calling on the league to denounce the potential presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Super Bowl, which is being held at Levi’s Stadium in the San Francisco Bay Area. The liberal group MoveOn plans to deliver the petition to the NFL’s New York City headquarters on Tuesday.Meanwhile, anticipation is building around how Bad Bunny, the halftime show’s Spanish-speaking headliner, will address the moment. He has criticized President Donald Trump on everything from his hurricane response in his native Puerto Rico to his treatment of immigrants. On Sunday night, he blasted ICE while accepting an award at the Grammys. His latest tour skipped the continental U.S. because of fears that his fans could be targeted by immigration agents.Trump has said he doesn’t plan to attend this year’s game, unlike last year, and he has derided Bad Bunny as a “terrible choice.” A Republican senator is calling it “the woke bowl.” And a prominent conservative group plans to hold an alternative show that it hopes will steal attention from the main event.The Super Bowl is one of the few remaining cultural touchstones viewed by millions of people in real time and the halftime show is no stranger to controversy, perhaps most notably Janet Jackson’s 2004 performance in which her breast was briefly exposed. But there are few parallels to this year’s game, which has the potential to become an unusual mix of sports, entertainment, politics and protest. And it will unfold at a tinderbox moment for the U.S., just two weeks after Alex Pretti’s killing by federal agents in Minneapolis reignited a national debate over the Trump administration’s hard-line law enforcement tactics.“The Super Bowl is supposed to be an escape, right? We’re supposed to go there to not have to talk about the serious things of this country,” said Tiki Barber, a former player for the New York Giants who played in the Super Bowl in 2001 and has since attended several as a commentator. “I hope it doesn’t devolve, because if it does, then I think we’re really losing touch with what’s important in our society.”
Bad Bunny has leaned into the controversy
The 31-year-old Bad Bunny, born in Puerto Rico as Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, has elevated Latino music into the mainstream and gained global fame with songs almost entirely in Spanish something that irks many of his conservative detractors. He has leaned into the controversy, referring to the halftime show when he hosted “Saturday Night Live” in October by joking “everybody is happy about it even Fox News.”He segued into a few sentences in Spanish, expressing Latino pride in the achievement, and finished by saying in English, “If you didn’t understand what I just said, you have four months to learn!”Those who follow him closely doubt that he’ll back down now.“He has made it very clear what he stands for,” said Vanessa Díaz, a professor at Loyola Marymount University and co-author of “P FKN R: How Bad Bunny Became the Global Voice of Puerto Rican Resistance.” “So I can’t imagine that this would all go away with the Super Bowl.”The halftime show is a collaboration between the NFL, Roc Nation and Apple Music. Roc Nation curates the performers and Apple Music distributes the performance while the NFL ultimately controls the stage, broadcast and branding.The NFL, which is working to expand its appeal across the world, including into Latin America, said it never considered removing Bad Bunny from the halftime show even after criticism from Trump and some of his supporters.NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday described the singer as “one of the great artists in the world,” as well as someone who understands the power of the Super Bowl performance “to unite people and to be able to bring people together.”“I think artists in the past have done that. I think Bad Bunny understands that. And I think you’ll have a great performance,” Goodell told reporters during his annual Super Bowl press conference.About half of Americans approved of Bad Bunny as the halftime performer, according to an October poll from Quinnipiac University. But there were substantial gaps with about three-quarters of Democrats backing the pick compared to just 16% of Republicans. About 60% of Black and Hispanic adults approved of the selection compared to 41% of whites.Republicans are eager to maintain Latino support in their bid to keep control of Congress. But as the Super Bowl draws near, many in the GOP have kept up their Bad Bunny critiques.Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, the former head football coach at Auburn University who is now running for governor, derided the “Woke Bowl” on Newsmax last week and said he’ll watch an alternative event hosted by Turning Point USA.The group founded by the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk said Monday that Kid Rock, a vocal Trump supporter, would be among the performers at its event.
DHS won’t say whether immigration agents will be at Super Bowl
In recent days, Department of Homeland Security official Jeff Brannigan hosted a series of private calls with local officials and the NFL in which he indicated that ICE does not plan to conduct any law enforcement actions the week of the Super Bowl or at the game, according to two NFL officials with direct knowledge of the conversations.ICE is not expected to be among more than a dozen DHS-related agencies providing security at the game, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.While that is the plan, some worry that Trump and his MAGA allies who lead DHS can change their minds ahead of Sunday’s game given their recent statements.DHS official Corey Lewandowski, a key adviser to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, said in October that ICE agents would be conducting immigration enforcement at the game.“There is nowhere that you can provide safe haven to people who are in the country illegally, not the Super Bowl, not anywhere else,” he said at the time.Asked to clarify ICE’s role this week, DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin refused to say whether federal immigration agents will be present for the Super Bowl.“Those who are here legally and not breaking other laws have nothing to fear,” she said. “We will not disclose future operations or discuss personnel. Super Bowl security will entail a whole-of-government response conducted in line with the U.S. Constitution.”The progressive group MoveOn will host a Tuesday rally utside the NFL headquarters in New York to present a petition telling the league, “No ICE at the Super Bowl.”“This year’s Super Bowl should be remembered for big plays and Bad Bunny, not masked and armed ICE agents running around the stadium inflicting chaos, violence, and trauma on fans and stadium workers,” MoveOn spokesperson Britt Jacovich said. “The NFL can’t stay on the sidelines, the league has a responsibility to act like adults, protect Super Bowl fans and stadium workers, and keep ICE out of the game.”In an interview, San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie was optimistic that the event would be a success even in a politically tense climate.“We are going to keep everybody safe our residents, our visitors,” he said. “Obviously with everything going on, we’re staying on top of it, monitoring everything. But I expect everything to be safe and fun.”
Steven Sloan and Steve Peoples, Associated Press
Discounting has been part of retails toolkit for decades, and it can be effective, especially during high-stakes shopping seasons. But as promotions become more frequent across the industry, companies are taking a closer look at the downside: Short-term sales gains dont always come with long-term loyalty or durable margins, and customers remember how a brand made them feel far more than what they saved at checkout.
Whats often missing from the conversation is the role of experience-led value. Loyalty isnt built through price aloneits built through moments that make a customer feel recognized, appreciated, and confident they made the right choice. When brands compete only on discounts, they sacrifice those moments in favor of short-term volume.
This coming year, retailers may feel the urge to pull the markdown lever more than ever.
While the National Retail Federation pegged retail sales during the recent holiday shopping season to exceed $1 trillion, retailers saw fewer unit sales as shoppers dealt with tariff-driven sticker shock. As a result, 2025 marked a significant change in consumer behavior as shoppers across the board sought value and deals. That shift is likely to persist through 2026, increasing pressure on retailers to use markdowns to move inventory.
The risk isnt that retailers will discount, its that discounting becomes the strategy rather than the symptom.
WHEN DISCOUNTS COST MORE THAN THEY DELIVER
Kohls offers a useful illustration of this tension. In the third quarter of 2025, the retailer reported a modest year-over-year increase in gross margin, while operating income declined amid softer sales. The results underscore how difficult it can be to translate promotional activity and operational improvements into sustained profitability when demand remains under pressure.
This dynamic isnt unique to Kohls. Shifting consumer preferences, lingering supply-chain complexity, and intensified competition have forced many retail leaders to make difficult decisions about pricing and inventory.
Target faced a similar challenge in 2022, when excess inventoryparticularly in home and apparelprompted the company to take decisive markdown and inventory-reduction actions. While those moves helped rebalance inventory levels, they also weighed on near-term profitability.
More recently, Lululemon has contended with elevated promotional activity amid signs of slowing demand in the U.S. and increased competition in the athleisure category from brands like Vuori and Athleta. Analysts have pointed to higher markdown levels as retailers across the space work to maintain traffic and manage inventory in a more competitive environment.
Taken together, these examples reflect a broader pattern in retail: promotions can help stabilize revenue in the short term, but they dont always improve operating leverage or long-term customer value. Discounts move inventorybut they rarely move customer lifetime value in the same direction.
WHY DISCOUNTING FEELS INEVITABLE BUT ISNT SUSTAINABLE
Discounting has intuitive appeal. In a crowded market with shrinking discretionary budgets, deals cut through the noise. Spending trends underscore just how price-sensitive shoppers have become, with a growing percentage planning holiday-season purchases early and hunting for discounts across channels.
Yet this rush to save can produce a dangerous feedback loop:
1. Shoppers learn to wait for deals.
2. Brands feel pressured to offer deeper discounts.
3. Margins shrink, forcing even steeper promotions next cycle.
Over time, this turns what should be a preference decision into a pricing decision, and pricing decisions rarely build durable brands.
LOYALTY IS BUILT BEYOND THE TRANSACTION
If discounting tells a shopper, Buy now because its cheap, then true loyalty says, Buy again because it matters. The difference is subtle, but profound.
Loyalty isnt a transaction with a strike price; its a series of experiences that make a customer feel recognized, appreciated, and connected. It doesnt live at checkout. Its built in the moments of fulfillment, engagement, and emotional connection that follow.
Yet many retail strategies still prioritize pre-purchase price incentives over post-purchase relationship building. Thats why promotions dominate inboxes, but customer lifetime value stagnates.
A BETTER PATH FORWARD
Some brands are finding a way out of this loop by shifting emphasis away from discounts and toward experience-led value. This includes deploying value-oriented pricing structures that dont train customers to wait for sales. Retailers can also offer post-purchase experiences that reinforce brand affinity without discount hooks. They can also provide more personalized engagement that acknowledges the shopper as an individual rather than a deal seeker.
Retailers who embrace these strategies in 2026 signal something important: you matter to us, not just your wallet. And that distinction, over time, fuels repeat business in a way discounts never can.
Discounts will always have a placeespecially during peak shopping seasons when consumer attention is fragmented and competitive pressure is intense. But when discounting becomes the foundation of a pricing strategy rather than a tactical lever, it eats into profits and inwardly rewires customer expectations.
The retailers that will win in 2026 and beyond wont be the ones offering the biggest discounts. Theyll be the ones who understand how customers remember brands, through moments of appreciation, relevance, and experience that extend beyond the transaction.
As the past holiday season showed, even the most sophisticated retailers can fall into the trap of equating promotional volume with lasting value. The brands that win in the long run will resist that reflexand instead focus on creating moments that customers remember, not just prices they respond to.
Elery Pfeffer is the CEO at Nift.
You wouldnt pay a surgeon to file your tax return, and you wouldnt ask your accountant to perform your appendectomy. The same is true for AI: Organizations should start realizing that different AI providers excel at different needs, from coding to specialized research or creative design.
Over the coming year, enterprises will absorb a variety of these AI providers technologies in earnest and at scaledepartment by department, role by role. Legal teams will standardize on tools like Harvey. Customer service teams will rely on Glean or purpose-built agents. Development teams may choose resources from Anthropic. Marketing, engineering, finance, and HR will similarly gravitate toward AI resources from Microsoft, xAI, or OpenAI, optimized for their specific needs.
In other words, enterprises will evolve from the idea that single-provider AI resources will solve their needs to an era of targeted, role-based, or need-based AI.
Making matters even more complicated, many AI providers are now beginning to roll out their own browsers.
Enterprise leaders thus face a new challenge: how to manage the onslaught of AI needs that are now arriving.
HISTORY IS REPEATING ITSELF
Enterprises have been here before.
When cloud computing emerged, many dipped their toes in the water by standardizing on a single provider. The logic was simple: fewer vendors, lower cost, less risk. But as cloud usage expanded, different workloads demanded different strengths, and organizations diversified their cloud infrastructure.
The same dynamic emerged with data platforms. Early efforts focused on centralized applications like data lakes, but as use cases multiplied, organizations often found that no single system served every real-world use case equally well. Most enterprises responded by adopting multiple tools around a shared data foundation.
In both cases, organizations that had prepared themselves for flexibility were better positioned.
AI is following this same trajectory, only faster. And unlike cloud or data infrastructure, AI adoption isnt happening quietly behind the scenes. Its happening in daily workflows across departments, often without central coordination.
Leaders can therefore best help their organizations succeed by embracing many tools, each chosen for what it does best, while managing them through shared controls.
THE RISK OF AI TOOL SPRAWL
As AI systems and use cases proliferate, failing to prepare poses real risks to the enterprise.
This proliferation extends beyond standalone AI tools. Increasingly, SaaS applications from CRM systems and productivity suites to finance and HR platforms embed their own AI. In many cases, AI adoption will happen by default, not by deliberate choice.
With these tools, teams will also inherit fragmented security policies, inconsistent controls, and limited visibility. Tools that seem harmless in isolation can create meaningful risk in aggregate.
This is the rise of shadow AI: systems introduced to solve real problems, but without the oversight to manage them responsibly. With agentic AI, where systems act on users behalf, those risks compound: permissions expand and accountability becomes harder to trace.
If these tools are left unchecked, leaders will lose sight of where AI is used, what data it touches, and which systems act autonomously on the organization’s behalf. Experimentation and innovation should not be allowed to scale faster than oversight.
GOVERNANCE IS THE MISSING LAYER
Multimodal flexibility does not have to come at the expense of visibility and security. Again, we have been here before. With SaaS, enterprises dont manage a wide variety of capabilities by forcing everyone onto one system. They manage it by establishing shared controls across many tools.
Enterprises need a governance layer that sits above all AI vendors. That layer should provide:
Visibility across AI usage
Policy enforcement independent of model provider
Guardrails for data access
Safe experimentation
Support for bringing your own device, contractors, and distributed teams
Governance doesnt restrict freedom. It enables it by allowing organizations to choose every model they want and assign them across their teams without introducing new risk.
And true governance cant rely on technology alone. Leaders must cultivate a culture of AI literacy, where every employee can confidently evaluate, validate, combine, and challenge AI systems. Then organizations can embrace a multitude of AI tools, safely, and effectively.
PREPARE FOR MULTI-MODEL SUCCESS
Much like SaaS, the cloud, and data platforms before it, AI will soon spread across roles, workflows, and applications. Leaders that build in the capacity to manage all these modelsthrough visibility, governance, and an AI-fluent workforcewill be best positioned to capture all of AIs advantages without compromising safety, trust, or control.
Steve Tchejeyan is president of Island.
Shares in Palantir Technologies (Nasdaq: PLTR) are rising this morning, one day after the AI data analysis software company with significant U.S. government contracts reported better-than-expected Q4 earnings. Heres what you need to know about Palantirs latest results and its rising stock price.
Palantirs Q4 2025 beat Wall Street expectations
Yesterday, Palantir announced its Q4 2025 earnings, and investors breathed a sigh of relief. For Palantirs Q4, which ended on December 31, the company brought in $1.41 billion in revenue, signaling 70% year-over-year growth.
The majority of that revenue comes from Palantirs U.S. customers, which is split roughly evenly between the U.S. government and commercial U.S. businesses.
Palantir said U.S. government revenue totaled $570 million for the quarter, representing 66% year-over-year growth in that vertical. U.S. commercial revenue totaled $507 million137% year-over-year growth.
But more important than those actuals was what Wall Street had been expecting. And Palantir easily surpassed those expectations, leading to the rapid rise in its stock price today.
As cited by CNBC, London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) estimates expected Palantir to bring in $1.33 billion for the quarter. The company ended up surpassing that estimate by around $80 million.
Analysts were also expecting an earnings per share (EPS) of 23 cents. Palantirs actual EPS for the quarter was 25 cents.
PLTR shares are still down from their all-time highs
Palantir released its earnings results after the closing bell yesterday, and today its stock price is reaping the rewards of those results, enjoying double-digit growth in premarket trading.
As of this writing, PLTR shares are up 11.35% to $164.55. The companys share had closed at $147.76 yesterday.
That share price pop will be music to the ears of Palantir investors. Before this morning’s premarket trading bump, PLTR shares were down nearly 17% year-to-date.
Its current premarket price rise doesnt quite put PLTR shares back in the black for the year, but its definitely a move in the right direction.
Palantir shares had hit an all-time high of above $207 in November, after seeing a phenomenal year of growth.
The previous November, in 2024, started with shares sitting in the low-40s range. But increasing government contracts and AI optimism throughout the remainder of 2024 and into 2025 sent PLTR shares surging.
Then came December 2025, and PLTR shares got pummeled. Between December 24 and 31, the companys stock price fell from the $194 range to around $177. That fall reflected both rising concerns about Palantirs lofty valuation and broader worries about a potential AI bubble.
Where does PLTR go from here?
Despite Palantir beating expectations for Q4, the future of its stock price likely hinges on its abilityor notto continue delivering results that justify its valuation.
As of yesterdays close, Palantir was valued at around $352 billion and traded at a price-to-earnings ratio of more than 230, which is incredibly high for even a tech company.
The companys stock price could also be significantly impacted if upcoming Big Tech earnings do not meet expectations and thus reignite fears of an AI bubble. If investors turn sour on AI stocks, Palantir shares could once again be hit hard.
For instance, Google parent Alphabetthe best performing of the so-called Magnificent 7 tech stockswill report earnings on Wednesday. Fellow tech giant Amazon will report the following day. Later this month, meanwhile, AI chip giant Nvidia Corporation will report its results.
Investor sentiment around AI could be deeply impacted by the results of any one of those companies.
As for Palantir itself, the firm issued guidance yesterday for both its current Q1 2026 and its full-year 2026.
For its Q1, Palantir said it expects revenue of between $1.53 billion and $1.54 billion. Thats more than the $1.32 billion that many analysts were expecting. For its full-year 2026, Palantir expects revenue of $7.18 billion to $7.2 billion. That is nearly $1 billion more than many analysts were expecting.
