In my coaching, I pride myself on helping clients get to the root of their issues, instead of offering Band-Aid solutions. At the same time, Ive found that sometimes people are so overwhelmed with all they have to do that they have difficulty making time for the deeper reflective thought that coaching requires. In these situations, I offer some quick and easy-to-implement best practices to help reduce their sense of overwhelm.
Managing your work calendar effectively is one of the most crucial steps toward feeling more in control of your professional life. When your calendar is well-organized, it reduces stress, increases productivity, and ensures that you are focusing on the tasks that truly matter. However, its easy to feel overwhelmed by back-to-back meetings, constant demands on your time, and the struggle to find space for deep work.
Heres how you can regain control of your work calendar with practical tips and strategies that can be implemented right away:
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Set clear priorities
Before diving into calendar management, it’s important to set clear priorities. Your calendar should reflect your key objectives, goals, and valuesnot just the urgent requests that come your way. Start by identifying your top priorities for the week, month, and quarter. These could include project milestones, professional development, or key meetings with stakeholders.
Set clear priorities
Time blocking is a powerful technique where you divide your day into blocks of time dedicated to specific tasks or activities. This method helps you focus on one task at a time, reducing the mental clutter that comes from multitasking. It also ensures that you allocate time to all aspects of your work, including deep work, meetings, and administrative tasks.
Learn to say no
One of the biggest challenges in calendar management is learning to say no. Its easy to accept every meeting request that comes your way, but this often leads to a crowded calendar with little time for meaningful work. Protecting your time is essential to maintaining control over your schedule.
Use the two-minute rule
The two-minute rule, popularized by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done, suggests that if a task can be completed in two minutes or less, you should do it immediately. This rule helps prevent your to-do list from becoming cluttered with minor tasks and ensures that these small items dont take up unnecessary space on your calendar.
Leverage technology
Modern calendar tools offer a range of features that can help you manage your time more effectively. From scheduling assistants that find the best meeting times to integration with task management apps, these tools can significantly reduce the time you spend organizing your calendar.
Batch similar tasks
Batching similar tasks together is a technique that can improve your efficiency and focus. For example, if you need to make multiple phone calls, schedule them back-to-back rather than scattering them throughout the day. This minimizes the mental switch costs associated with jumping between different types of tasks.
Create buffer time
Buffer time between meetings and tasks is essential for maintaining flexibility and preventing burnout. It gives you a moment to regroup, reflect, or handle any unexpected issues that arise during the day. Without buffer time, your day can feel rushed, and you may find yourself running late from one meeting to the next.
Review and reflect
Effective calendar management requires regular review and adjustment. At the end of each week, take a few minutes to reflect on how well your calendar worked for you. Did you manage to stick to your time blocks? Were there meetings that could have been shorter or avoided? Use these insights to make adjustments for the following week.
Delegate and outsource
If youre constantly overwhelmed by tasks, it might be time to delegate or outsource some of them. Delegating responsibilities to others not only frees up your time but also empowers your team members to take on more responsibility. (For more on how to delegate effectively, see here.)
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Young volunteers who respond to natural disasters and help with community projects across the U.S. have been discharged as a result of the Trump administration ‘s campaign to shrink government workforce and services.
AmeriCorpss National Civilian Community Corps informed volunteers Tuesday that they would exit the program early due to programmatic circumstances beyond your control, according to an email obtained by the Associated Press.
More than 2,000 people ages 18 to 26 serve for nearly a year, according to the programs website, and get assigned to projects with nonprofits and community organizations or the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It celebrated its 30th year last year.
The volunteers are especially visible after natural disasters, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Helene last year. The organization said on social media last month that teams have served eight million service hours on nearly 3,400 disaster projects since 1999.
Jordan Kinsler, 23, has worked with FEMA Corps for the past nine months, traveling from Minnesota communities impacted by floods to ones in North Carolina touched by Helene. He and his team were on their final project at FEMA headquarters in Washington when they got word Tuesday that they wouldn’t be able to finish.
Kinsler, who is from Long Island, New York, said they packed that night and left Wednesday morning for their home base in Vicksburg, Mississippi.
Kinsler said he’s proud of the work he’s done and had hoped to apply for a permanent position.
To have this ripped right from us at the very end, it felt insulting,” he said.
The AP sent an email Wednesday seeking comment from AmeriCorps.
Funding for AmeriCorps and NCCC has long been included when there are talks in Congress of budget trims. The federal agencys budget showed NCCC funding amounted to nearly $38 million last fiscal year.
The unsigned memo to members said NCCC’s ability to sustain program operations was impacted by new operational parameters laid out by the Trump administration’s priorities and President Donald Trump’s executive order creating the Department of Government Efficiency. Members, who receive a living allowance and have basic expenses covered, would be paid through the end of April, according to the memo.
The program also provides members who complete their 1,700-hour service term with funding for future education expenses or to apply to certain student loans. That benefit was worth about $7,300 this service year.
The memo stated that those who have completed 15% or more of their term would be eligible for a prorated amount, but those that have completed less would not be eligible.
Theres always been bipartisan support of NCCCand bipartisan criticism, said Kate Raftery, who was NCCC director from 2011 to 2014.
Raftery said the abrupt departure of these service teams would have lasting damage both on the NCCC members who were gaining education and launching careers as well as the organizations that depend on them and the neighborhoods where they served.
It was a very unique mixture of incredible heartbreak and incredible rage, outrage, Raftery said of her reaction to the news. The two were battling themselves most of the day.
Bud Maynard, mayor of Vinton, Iowa, which is home to a regional NCCC campus, said the program has been without a doubt, a blessing for Vinton and celebrated the opportunity to host hundreds of people over the years with an unmatched passion and selflessness to want to help others.
“All of Vinton should never forget what a great program, filled with great people, this has been for not only Vinton but every community that benefited from their mission, Maynard said in a statement Wednesday.
Hannah Fingerhut, Associated Press
A major Burger King franchisee with dozens of locations has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Consolidated Burger Holdings, based in Destin, Florida, filed the court documents this week in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Florida. The franchisee now operates 57 Burger King restaurants in Florida and Georgia, after it reportedly closed 18 locations before its Chapter 11 filing.
“Over the past several years, and particularly as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Debtors business suffered significantly from loss of foot traffic, resulting in declining revenue without proportionate decreases in rental obligations, debt service, and other liabilities,” Consolidated Burger said in the filing. The documents also cited “significant hurdles resulting from industry headwinds,” resulting in financial turbulence for the franchisee.
According to the documents, sales plummeted in the past two fiscal years. In 2023, the franchisee documented $76.6 million in sales and a net operating loss of $6.3 million. Last year, sales were down to $67 million with an amplified operating loss of $12.5 million.
Consolidated Burger plans to continue operating during the bankruptcy proceedings and has been seeking a buyer. It listed assets at $78 million in the court documents.It’s unmistakably a tough time for restaurant franchisees, between rising food costs, as well as higher labor costs and slower foot trafficand that’s before restaurant owners begin to feel the impact of Trump’s tariffs. To get more customers in the door, fast food chains have been offering budget meal deals: Last year, Burger King launched a $5 meal deal promotion, similar to one McDonald’s was running.Still, on the whole, Burger King’s sales have been moving in the right direction. According to QSR, which monitors data on quick serve restaurants, the Burger King chain itself outperformed its peers in Q4 with a 1.5% increase in same-store sales compared to 1.2% increase among competitors.Last year, Burger King’s parent company, Restaurant Brands International (RBI), dumped more money into its ambitious restaurant remodeling plans for locations in the U.S. and Canada. RBI also bought Burger Kings largest U.S. franchisee, Carrols Restaurant Group, for $1 billion to expedite the process. RBI said it planned to spend about $2.2 billion on the remodels, and said that by 2028, 85% to 90% of its roughly 7,000 restaurants will be upgraded.
At the time, Burger King U.S. President Tom Curtis told CNBC about the investment, saying, It was the first time in a long time that RBI had invested a significant amount of capital back into the business to coinvest with franchisees.” Curtis continued, I think the process was, Lets see how this works . . . and were seeing early results on remodels.
A consumer advocacy group filed a lawsuit this week to block insurers from charging California customers for $500 million in costs associated with the deadly Los Angeles fires.
California’s insurance commission in February ordered insurers doing business in California to provide $1 billion to the FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, to help it pay out claims related to the L.A. wildfires. The order allows insurers to recoup half the cost from its policyholders in the form of a onetime fee. The commissioner must approve the costs.
The lawsuit, filed by Consumer Watchdog in Los Angeles, alleges Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara overstepped his authority and violated state laws for allowing for such cost shifting without going through the proper process. Such regulations have never been authorized in California and should have been vetted and approved by the Legislature or other oversight agencies before enforcement, Consumer Watchdog argued. The suit is asking the court to block Lara from approving the requests. There were at least three pending applications to implement a surcharge as of Tuesday, according to Consumer Watchdog.
We look forward to defending the rights and pocketbooks of Californians and stopping this socialization of FAIR Plan losses at the publics expense, while the FAIR Plans profits will wholly remain with the insurance companies, Consumer Watchdog staff attorney Ryan Mellino said in a statement.
The Department of Insurance said the lawsuit could make California’s insurance crisis worse.
This hurts homeowners, small business and nonprofits who need access to insurance options, while doing nothing to address the insurance crisis, Gabriel Sanchez, a department spokesperson, said in a statement. “It also serves to undermine our efforts to restore competition to all areas of our state, so people can get off the FAIR Plan and back to the regular market.
The FAIR Plan is the state’s last resort option for people who cant get private insurance because their properties are deemed too risky to insure. The plan, with high premiums and basic coverage, is designed as a temporary option until homeowners can find permanent coverage, but more Californians are relying on it than ever. There were more than 555,000 home policies on the FAIR Plan as of March, more than double the number in 2020.
The plan estimated a loss of roughly $4 billion from the Eaton and Palisades Fires, which sparked January 7, destroyed nearly 17,000 structures and killed at least 30 people. The plan had already paid out more than $914 million as of February.
The lawsuit will not affect the FAIR Plan’s ability to pay out claims, Consumer Watchdog said.
The American Property Casualty Insurance Association, the largest national trade association representing home, auto and business insurers called the lawsuit a reckless and self-serving stunt. Insurers have paid ten of billions in claims and contributed more than $500 million to sustain the FAIR Plan after the L.A. fires, the group said.
Blocking recovery of the additional costs insurers have paid to prop up the Fair Plan would jeopardize the last-resort coverage option for homeownersand push our fragile insurance market closer to total collapse,” Denni Ritter, the group’s representative, said in a statement. It is critical that the costs be spread equitably across a broader pool of insured customers to help restore Californias insurance market and protect access to coverage for all consumers.
The regulation to allow insurers to shift some of the costs used to sustain the FAIR Plan is among the strategies unveiled by Lara last year. California is undergoing a yearlong effort to stabilize its insurance market after several major insurance companies either paused or restricted new business in the state in 2023, which pushed hundreds of thousands of homeowners onto the FAIR Plan. Wildfires are becoming more common and destructive in California due to climate change, and insurers say thats making it difficult to truly price the risk on properties.
Of the top 20 most destructive wildfires in state history, 15 have occurred since 2015, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.
The state now gives insurers more latitude to raise premiums in exchange for issuing more policies in high-risk areas. That includes regulations allowing insurers to consider climate change when setting their prices and allowing them pass on the costs of reinsurance to California consumers.
Trân Nguyn Associated Press
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here.
Nvidia gets burned by Trump on China chips
Silicon Valley magnates fell over themselves to placate and appease President Donald Trump. Nvidia just found out why thats no guarantee of success. The company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing on Tuesday that the Trump administration will now require a license for the company to sell its H20 chipsthe most powerful GPUs still legal for exportto Chinese companies. Nvidia says it will take a $5.5 billion charge in its April quarter earnings reflecting a belief that the license is a permanent requirement and that it has little chance of getting one. With its market cap already down 20% this year, the company watched its shares plunge another 6% in after-hours trading on Tuesday.
The license requirement comes after Nvidia had already made overtures toward Trump. CEO Jensen Huang recently dined with the president at Mar-a-Lago and has reportedly pledged to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on new U.S. data centers. Following the Mar-a-Lago dinner, NPR reported that the White House had backed off a plan to restrict the H20 chips. But in the end that wasnt enough to prevent the administration from effectively banning the H20 and gouging out a big chunk of Nvidias revenues.
We lower our fair value estimate for wide-moat Nvidia to $125 from $130 as we cut our revenue estimates to exclude China now and in the future, Morningstar strategist Brian Colello wrote in an investor brief on Wednesday. We retain our Very High Uncertainty Rating. Shares appear undervalued to us, as tariff concerns are likely weighing on the stock. You can almost see the shrugged-shoulders emoji next to Colellos words: Nvidias investor downgrade has nothing to do with real demand for its products, which remains very high.
The administration claims the export controls stem from national security concernsthat H20 chips would pose a threat should Beijing get control of them. But more likely, Trump recognizes Nvidias central role in the generative AI boom, and seized on the companys success as a chess piece in his grudge match against China. The move comes as Chinese AI companies are pulling ahead of their American counterparts in areas like self-driving cars and robotics, and are within striking distance of surpassing the U.S. in frontier model development.
Many D.C. and Silicon Valley insiders will applaud the H20 restrictions. After all, they feed the defense sectors push to bulk up for a military conflict with China (perhaps around Taiwan), and may even slow Chinas considerable momentum in AI research. But this zero-sum, winner-take-all approach may have its downsides, too. Chinese company DeepSeek, for example, was spurred to some impressive AI innovation precisely because it was denied top-tier chips from U.S. competitors. And, as the pundit Thomas Friedman pointed out on The Ezra Klein Show, this centurys biggest problemsthe environment and AI safetyare world problems that will require cooperation and openness between the worlds two superpowers.
And its not just Nvidia. Mark Zuckerberg is learning the same lesson: that Trumps loyalty can often seem transactional at best. The Meta CEO is this week being grilled in the witness chair of a government anti-trust action that could break up his company. Trump has an obedient, all-GOP commission, and yet hes done nothing to stop the case. This after Zuckerberg and company gave $2 million to Trumps inauguration fund, stood behind Trump at the inauguration, bent the knee at Mar-a-Lago and the White House a number of times, abandoned fact-checking on his social platform, promoted longtime Republicans to high positions within Meta, and discontinued DEI programs at the company.
Zuckerberg offered the Federal Trade Commission $450 million, then $1 billion, to keep the case from going to trial, but FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson balked at the numbers and kept the court date. Trump didnt intervene. My guess is that all these tech honchos will eventually learn, in one way or another, what so many others havethe giant black sucking hole that is Donald Trumps ego simply cant be appeased.
OpenAI releases its newest reasoning model, o3
OpenAI on Wednesday unveiled its next flagship reasoning model, called o3. As the second generation of OpenAIs thinking models, o3 can quickly gather contextual data and follow multiple reasoning paths to a correct answerall in real time in response to a user prompt.
OpenAI says the new o3 model outperforms the o1 series in every respect and will replace it. A key advance lies in o3s ability to use external tools to arrive at sound answers. For instance, it might review all the published papers on a specific research problem before crafting its own novel answer, or reason over the contents of an uploaded image.
The combined power of state-of-the-art reasoning with full tool access translates into significantly stronger performance across academic benchmarks and real-world tasks, OpenAI said in a blog post published Wednesday.
According to OpenAI, the o3 model earned state-of-the-art status atop the Codeforces (coding skill), SWE-bench (software engineering skill), and MMMU (visual and textual reasoning skill) benchmark tests.
OpenAI says it used 10 times more computing power to train the o3 model than the o1, utilizing new reinforcement learning that incorporates either human or synthetic feedback to improve the quality of its answers.
To me the magic is that under the hood its still just next-token prediction, OpenAI President Greg Brockman said during a livestreamed demo Wednesday. Weve changed the objective, changed where the data comes from, and now were able to really hook it up to the world.
Alongside o3, OpenAI also released a smaller, faster, and more budget-friendly reasoning model called o4-mini, which the company says excels in math, coding, and visual tasks. In addition, the company introduced Codex CLI, a desktop coding assistant that is powered by the o3 and o4-mini models.
A vibe shift in the way enterprises are talking about AI and the workforce
When corporate executives say AI will usher in a new age of efficiency, what exactly do they mean? At first blush, it sounds like an opportunity to cut down on labor costs (personnel-related headaches). But the truth is more complicated. Over the past year, people in both the corporate and technology worlds have been quick to stress that AI will assist human workers, not replace them. And that narrative has been picked up by people at the management level, as a new survey from Beautiful.ai seems to suggest.
The firm, which sells an AI presentation builder, surveyed 3,000 managers and found that as AI tool use in the workplace rises, most doubt that AI can or should replace human workers. The percentage who said their teams wouldnt function well if some humans were replaced by AI rose 20% over last years survey, to 63% of respondents. And only 30% think replacing staff with AI would be financially beneficialdown 17% from 2024. Meanwhile, 65% say employee resistance to AI remains a top concern.
Its hard to say how much these managers are simply parroting the PR du jour to a surveyor. But it does raise the concern that as real workers begin to gain experience with AI tools, confidence in their potential for actually altering workflows doesnt seem to be growing. Meanwhile, a survey by HR software provider G-P finds that 67% of U.S. executives remain willing to cut headcount and use AI to become 50% more productive.
More AI coverage from Fast Company:
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The Trump administration on Wednesday sued Maine for not complying with the government’s push to ban transgender athletes in girls and women’s sports, escalating a dispute over whether the state is abiding by a federal law that bars discrimination in education based on sex.The lawsuit follows weeks of feuding between the Republican administration and Democratic Gov. Janet Mills that has led to threats to cut off crucial federal funding and a clash at the White House when she told President Donald Trump: “We’ll see you in court.”The political overtones of the moment were clear, with Attorney General Pam Bondi and one of the athletes who joined her on stage at the Justice Department citing the matter as a priority for Trump. Bondi said other states, including Minnesota and California, could be sued as well.“President Trump, before he was elected, this has been a huge issue for him,” Bondi said. “Pretty simple: girls play in girls’ sports, boys play in boys’ sports. Men play in men’s sports, women play in women’s sports.”Trump campaigned against the participation of transgender athletes in sports in his 2024 race. As president, he has signed executive orders to prohibit that and to use a rigid definition of the sexes, rather than gender, for federal government purposes. The orders are being challenged in court.Trump’s departments of Education and Health and Human Services have said Maine’s education agency is violating the federal Title IX antidiscrimination law by allowing transgender girls to participate on girls teams. The Justice Department is asking the court to order the state to direct all schools to prohibit the participation of males in athletic competition designated for females.Maine officials have refused to agree with a settlement that would have banned transgender students from sports, arguing that the law does not prevent schools from letting transgender athletes participate. Mills said Wednesday that the lawsuit was expected and is part of a pressure campaign by Washington to force Maine to ignore its own human rights laws.“This matter has never been about school sports or the protection of women and girls, as has been claimed, it is about states rights and defending the rule of law against a federal government bent on imposing its will, instead of upholding the law,” Mills said in a statement.Maine’s attorney general, Aaron Frey, said Wednesday he is confident Maine is acting in accordance with state and federal law.“Our position is further bolstered by the complete lack of any legal citation supporting the Administration’s position in its own complaint,” he said in a statement. “While the President issued an executive order that reflects his own interpretation of the law, anyone with the most basic understanding of American civics understands the president does not create law nor interpret law.”The government’s complaint cites as examples the case of a transgender athlete who in February won first place in pole vault at a Maine indoor track and field meet and a transgender athlete who last year began competing in female cross country races in the state and placed first in a girl’s 5K run.The lawsuit reflects a stark philosophical turnabout from the position on gender identity issues taken during Democratic administrations.Under President Joe Biden, the government tried to extend civil rights policies to protect transgender people. In 2016, the Justice Department, then led by Attorney General Loretta Lynch, sued North Carolina over a law that required transgender people to use public restrooms and showers that corresponded the gender on their birth certificate.Trump signed an executive order in February, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” that gave federal agencies wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with his administration’s interpretation of “sex” as the gender someone was assigned at birth.Bondi was joined at the news conference by former University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who has emerged as a public face of the opposition to transgender athletes. Gaines tied with a transgender athlete for fifth place in a 2022 NCAA championship and has testified before lawmakers across the country on the issue. She and others frame the issue as women’s rights.During a February meeting with governors, Trump threatened to pull federal funding from Maine if the state did not comply with his executive order. Mills responded: “We’ll see you in court.”Maine sued the administration this month after the Department of Agriculture said it was pausing some money for the state’s educational programs because of what the administration contended was Maine’s failure to comply with the Title IX law. A federal judge on Friday ordered the administration to unfreeze funds intended for a Maine child nutrition program.Questions over the rights of transgender people have become a major political issue in the past five years.Twenty-six states have laws or policies barring transgender girls from girls school sports. GOP-controlled states have also been banning gender-affirming health care for transgender minors and restricting bathroom use in schools and sometimes other public buildings.
Whittle reported from Portland, Maine. Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
Alanna Durkin Richer, Eric Tucker and Patrick Whittle, Associated Press
Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, six people familiar with the matter said.
Musk’s rocket and satellite company is partnering with software maker Palantir and drone builder Anduril on a bid to build key parts of Golden Dome, the sources said, which has drawn significant interest from the technology sector’s burgeoning base of defense startups.
In his January 27 executive order, Trump cited a missile attack as “the most catastrophic threat facing the United States.”
All three companies were founded by entrepreneurs who have been major political supporters of Trump. Musk has donated more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help elect Trump, and now serves as a special adviser to the president working to cut government spending through his Department of Government Efficiency.
Despite the Pentagon’s positive signals to the SpaceX group, some sources stressed the decision process for Trump’s Golden Dome is in its early stages. Its ultimate structure and who is selected to work on it could change dramatically in the coming months.
The three companies met with top officials in the Trump administration and the Pentagon in recent weeks to pitch their plan, which would build and launch 400 to more than 1,000 satellites circling the globe to sense missiles and track their movement, sources said.
A separate fleet of 200 attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers would then bring enemy missiles down, three of the sources said. The SpaceX group is not expected to be involved in the weaponization of satellites, these sources said.
One of the sources familiar with the talks described them as “a departure from the usual acquisition process. There’s an attitude that the national security and defense community has to be sensitive and deferential to Elon Musk because of his role in the government.”
SpaceX and Musk have declined to comment on whether Musk is involved in any of the discussions or negotiations involving federal contracts with his businesses.
The Pentagon did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters, only saying it will deliver “options to the President for his decision in line with the executive order and in alignment with White House guidance and timelines.”
The White House, SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril also did not respond to questions.
SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE
In an unusual twist, SpaceX has proposed setting up its role in Golden Dome as a “subscription service” in which the government would pay for access to the technology, rather than own the system outright.
The subscription model, which has not been previously reported, could skirt some Pentagon procurement protocols allowing the system to be rolled out faster, the two sources said. While the approach would not violate any rules, the government may then be locked into a subscription and lose control over its ongoing development and pricing, they added.
Some Pentagon officials have expressed concerns internally about relying on the subscription-based model for any part of the Golden Dome, two sources told Reuters. Such an arrangement would be unusual for such a large and critical defense program.
U.S. Space Force General Michael Guetlein has been in talks on whether SpaceX should be the owner and operator of its part of the system, the two sources said. Other options include having the U.S. own and operate the system, or having the U.S. own it while contractors handle operations. Guetlein did not respond to a request for comment.
Retired Air Force General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, a top SpaceX advisor to Musk, has been involved in the company’s recent discussions with senior defense and intelligence leaders, the two sources said. O’Shaughnessy did not respond to requests for comment.
Should the group led by SpaceX win a Golden Dome contract, it would be the biggest win for Silicon Valley in the lucrative defense contracting industry and a blow to the traditional contractors.
However, those long-standing contractors, such as Northrop Grumman, Boeing and RTX are expected to be big players in the process as well, people familiar with the companies said. Lockheed Martin put up a webpage as a part of its marketing efforts.
MANY BIDS
The Pentagon has received interest from more than 180 companies keen to help develop and build the Golden Dome, according to a U.S. official, including defense startups like Epirus, Ursa Major, and Armada. Members of the White House’s National Security Council were briefed by a handful of companies about their capabilities, four sources said.
The Pentagon’s number two, former private equity investor Steve Feinberg, will be a key decision-maker for Golden Dome, two U.S. defense officials said.
Feinberg co-founded Cerberus Capital Management which has invested in the cutting-edge hypersonic missiles industry but not in SpaceX. Feinberg, who did not respond to a request for comment, has said he would divest of all his interests in Cerberus when he joined the administration.
Some experts believe the overall cost for Golden Dome could reach hundreds of billions of dollars. The Pentagon established several timelines for capabilities to be delivered starting with early 2026 to those delivered after 2030.
SpaceX is pitching for the part of the Golden Dome initiative called the “custody layer,” a constellation of satellites that would detect missiles, track their trajectory, and determine if they are heading toward the U.S., according to two sources familiar with SpaceX’s goals.
SpaceX has estimated the preliminary engineering and design work for the custody layer of satellites would cost between $6 billion and $10 billion, two of the sources said. In the past five years, SpaceX has launched hundreds of operational spy satellites and more recently several prototypes, which could be retrofitted to be used for the project, the sources said.
Reuters reviewed an internal Pentagon memo from Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth issued shortly before a February 28 deadline to senior Pentagon leadership asking them for initial Golden Dome proposals and calling for the “acceleration of the deployment” of constellations of satellites.
The time frame could give SpaceX an advantage because of its fleet of rockets, including the Falcon 9, and existing satellites that could be repurposed for the missile defense shield, the people familiar with the plan said.
Despite these advantages, some of those familiar with the discussions said it was uncertain whether the SpaceX group would be able to efficiently set up a system with new technology in a cost-effective way that can protect the United States from attack.
“It remains to be seen whether SpaceX and these tech companies will be able to pull any of this off,” said one of the sources. “They’ve never had to deliver on an entire system that the nation will need to rely on for its defense.”
Mike Stone and Marisa Taylor, Reuters
China-founded e-commerce sites Temu and Shein say they plan to raise prices for U.S. customers starting next week, a ripple effect from President Donald Trump’s attempts to correct the trade imbalance between the world’s two largest economies by imposing a sky-high tariff on goods shipped from China.Temu, which is owned by the Chinese e-commerce company PDD Holdings, and Shein, which is now based in Singapore, said in separate but nearly identical notices that their operating expenses have gone up “due to recent changes in global trade rules and tariffs.”Both companies said they would be making “price adjustments” starting April 25, although neither provided details about the size of the increases. It was unclear why the two rivals posted almost identical statements on their shopping sites.Since launching in the United States, Shein and Temu have given Western retailers a run for their money by offering products at ultralow prices, coupled with avalanches of digital or influencer advertising.The 145% tariff Trump slapped on most products made in China, coupled with his decision to end a customs exemption that allows goods worth less than $800 to come into the U.S. duty-free, has dented the business models of the two platforms.E-commerce companies have been the biggest users of the widely used exemption. Trump signed an executive order this month to eliminate the “de minimis provision” for goods from China and Hong Kong starting May 2, when they will be subject to the 145% import tax.As many as four million low-value parcelsmost of them originating in Chinaarrive in the U.S. every day under the soon-to-be canceled provision.U.S. politicians, law enforcement agencies, and business groups lobbied to remove the long-standing exemption, describing it as a trade loophole that gave inexpensive Chinese goods an advantage and served as a portal for illicit drugs and counterfeits to enter the country.Shein sells inexpensive clothes, cosmetics, and accessories, primarily targeting young women through partnerships with social media influencers. Temu, which promoted its goods through online ads, sells a wider array of products, including household items, humorous gifts, and small electronics.Last year the companies were among the largest advertising spenders on social media platforms, but they’ve both slashed that spending in recent weeks, according to data analytics provider Sensor Tower. That could be bad news for the platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snap, X, and TikTok that rely on advertising.In November, American e-commerce giant Amazon launched a low-cost online storefront featuring electronics, apparel, and other products priced at under $20. Many of the electronics, apparel, and other products on the storefront Wednesday resembled the types of items typically found on Shein and Temu.In their customer notices about the pending price increases, the companies encouraged customers to keep shopping in the days ahead.“We’ve stocked up and stand ready to make sure your orders arrive smoothly during this time,” Temu’s statement said. “Were doing everything we can to keep prices low and minimize the impact on you.”
Mae Anderson, AP Business Writer
An aggressive U.S. tariff policy will trigger a significant slowdown in the U.S. economy this year and next, with the median probability of recession in the next 12 months approaching 50%, according to economists polled by Reuters.
A sudden 90-day pause in reciprocal tariffs on trading partners imposed by President Donald Trump hasn’t done much to improve the U.S. outlook given a trade war with its biggest trading partner, China, is escalating and damaging business sentiment.
Most forecasters, like U.S. consumers in recent months, have significantly raised their inflation expectations. They have also slashed their growth outlook.
Median inflation forecasts in the April 1417 Reuters poll have surged since last month, potentially restricting the Federal Reserve from delivering more than two interest rate cuts between now and year-end.
The probability of a U.S. recession over the coming year has surged to 45%, the highest since December 2023, from 25% last month.
“Sentiment is incredibly weak right now and that points to households being very nervous about spending . . . Prices, jobs, and wealth are all moving against the consumer and that is a pretty toxic combination for consumer spending growth going forward,” said James Knightley, chief international economist at ING.
“That’s the real issue for U.S. growth that raises the recession risk . . . The lack of clarity on the trading environment faced by U.S. companies makes them naturally more wary about putting money to work in the U.S. economy.”
All 45 economists who answered an additional question said tariffs had negatively impacted business sentiment, with almost half saying they were very negative.
The economy, which started the year on a solid footing of strong growth, consumer spending and hiring, is expected to grow just 1.4% in 2025, a sharp downgrade from 2.2% predicted last month.
An overwhelming majority of common contributors, 46 of 50, have lowered their 2025 growth outlook by around 80 basis points on average just in the past month. Economists as a group have not downgraded their forecasts by that much in such a short span of time since July 2022.
Next year, the economy is forecast to expand 1.5%, well down from 2.0% expected in a March poll.
“Damage has likely already been done by uncertainty about tariffs, and that uncertainty stands to reduce growth, increase inflation, and amplify tail risks on an ongoing basis,” said James Egelhof, chief U.S. economist at BNP Paribas.
Similar worries have also dented confidence in U.S. assets with many strategists in separate Reuters surveys recently saying they were concerned about the safe-haven status of U.S. Treasuries and the dollar.
INFLATION EXPECTATIONS SURGE
Economists have raised their outlook for all inflation measures surveyedconsumer prices, core CPI, personal consumption expenditure, and core PCEand all were expected to remain well above the Fed’s 2% target until at least 2027.
Most regular contributors have revised their CPI forecasts for this year from the March survey by nearly 60 basis points on average, the biggest monthly change since March 2023.
U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Wednesday warned Trump’s tariff policies risked pushing inflation and employment further from the central bank’s goals and said the Fed was “well positioned to wait for greater clarity.”
A more than 60% majority of economists, 62 of 101, predicted the Fed would hold its federal funds rate at 4.25%4.50% until at least July. There was no clear consensus on where the rate would be by end-2025 but about two-thirds of economists predicted it at 3.75%4.00% or higher.
Just over a third, 35, are expecting three or more reductions this year, in line with what interest rate futures are pricing.
Kevin Khang, a senior economist at Vanguard said “it’s the ubiquitous presence of tariffs that makes the likelihood of upward price pressure an extremely likely scenario. And that’s why we think price stability will be marginally more prioritised over full employment.”
Unemployment rate forecast changes in the poll were modest compared with the large downgrades to growth and upgrades to inflation. The jobless rate, currently 4.2%, was expected to average 4.4% and 4.6% this year and next, respectively.
Indradip Ghosh, Reuters
Whats in your office starter pack? La Colombe cold brew and a New Yorker subscription? Bose headphones and Brooks Brothers?
Thanks to the latest ChatGPT trend making the rounds, you can now find out. By uploading a few photos and using a specific prompt, OpenAIs GPT-4o image generator will spit out a personalized action figure or Barbie box in your likenesscomplete with miniature accessories and sealed in plastic.
In the past week, the trend has started popping up across TikTok, X, andwhere trends go to dieFacebook and LinkedIn.
The Strategic Data & AI Consultant Starter Pack Now in limited-edition blister packaging, one LinkedIn user wrote alongside their post. Unleash Your Inner Leader: The ‘Passion-Driven AI Impact’ Starter Pack! wrote another.
A marketing agency in Texas called it a cute way to re-introduce yourself to your audience, re-introduce your employees, or even make an action figure, (or a few action figures,) of what your ideal target audience/consumer looks like. Brands like Starbucks and NYX Cosmetics have also jumped on the trend. Even Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene posted her own AI-generated figure, complete with Bible and gavel.
The Congresswoman MTG Starter Kit If I was a doll! I love all my accessories, including my Bible and gavel for DOGE Committee chair! pic.twitter.com/2fEWYH1Ubt— Marjorie Taylor Greene (@mtgreenee) April 10, 2025
As with other recent AI trends, reception has been mixed. People on LinkedIn turning themselves into cheap, plastic, replaceable products is the least surprising thing, one X user posted. Can we please stop mass using AI to create social media trends (for example, the action figure trend happening rn)? another wrote.
People on LinkedIn turning themselves into cheap, plastic, replaceable products is the least surprising thing.— akreon (@_akreon_) April 10, 2025
The counter-hashtag #StarterPackNoAI quickly began circulating among creatives pushing back against what they see as the erosion of artistic labor. The starter pack trend follows closely on the heels of the controversial Studio Ghibli AI trend, which sparked debate over whether OpenAI was unfairly using the work of artists, including Studio Ghiblis Hayao Miyazaki.
Environmental and cultural concerns aside, some users simply hate to see the TikTokification of LinkedIn.
“Went over to LinkedIn for a break from tariff world is ending doomscrolling. Got a feed full of ‘I made myself an action figure, another X user complained. Take me back doomscrollers.”
