Noodles & Company is set to close additional restaurants. In a January 12 press release, Noodles & Company announced plans to close between 30 and 35 restaurants in 2026, with the aim of improving financial health and profitability.
As of December 30, 2025, the fast-casual noodle chain had 340 company-owned restaurants and 83 franchise restaurants. The eatery already reduced its footprint last year, when it closed 42 restaurants (33 were company-owned, and nine were franchise locations).
Decisions like this are made thoughtfully and with a long-term view of the business,” Joe Christina, CEO and president of Noodles & Company, shared in the company press release. “Our fourth quarter results reinforce that when we concentrate our resources on restaurants with the strongest opportunity to perform, Noodles can drive meaningful top-line growth. That performance gives us added confidence as we continue to refine our portfolio in 2026.
These actions are intended to strengthen the overall health of the brand and our financial position, helping to ensure we are well-positioned for profitable growth and long-term value creation for our shareholders, Christina continued.
Retail and restaurant closures are becoming more common
Noodles & Company isnt the only company announcing closures. Unfortunately, its becoming more common.
Last week, the fast-casual salad and wrap chain Salad & Go confirmed it would close 32 locations by January 11. The company shuttered 25 stores in Texas and seven in Oklahoma. As a result, Salad & Go no longer operates restaurants in either state.
Macys has also continued to reduce its footprint. The department store announced it would close 150 underproductive stores by the end of January 2027. In a January 9 news release, Macys confirmed a list of 66 locations set to close, two of which have already closed.
Video game retailer GameStop also plans to shutter more stores early this year. The company has not yet announced how many stores it will close in 2026. But in recent days, customers have taken to social media to share store closure signs. In its third-quarter earnings report on December 9, GameStop shared that it had closed 590 stores in the U.S. in the previous fiscal year.
And after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in November 2025, American Signature is set to permanently close all Value City Furniture and American Signature Furniture stores.
Satellite communications networks have proved resilient amid a crackdown.
Amid growing protests and escalating violence in Iran, the countrys government has blocked access to domestic communications systems and imposed a nearly week-long internet blackout.
But Starlink, the satellite internet service run by SpaceX, only uses personal terminals that connect to its constellation, and doesnt rely on any regime-controlled infrastructure. As a result, technology has now become a lifeline, and one of the only ways people in Iran can bring their disturbing reality on the ground to the rest of the world.
The biggest part of the communication [in the country] is being handled by Starlink, Amir Rashidi, the director of internet security and digital rights at the Miaan Group, an organization thats been tracking the communications blackout in Iran, tells Fast Company. Without the Starlink, you won’t see any of these videos, or you won’t receive any news. Indeed, it is still incredibly difficult to ascertain firsthand information from inside Iran. Foreign reporters only have limited access to the country, and phone calls have also been restricted by the government. The full extent of the carnage is unclear, but some officials suspect thousands of people may already be dead.
More may happen with Starlink in Iran in the coming days. SpaceX has now waived the initial Starlink subscription fee for users in Iran, and organizers have been sharing details on how to use the technology, as securely as possible, amid a brutal crackdown. President Donald Trump said earlier this week he plans to communicate with Elon Musk about expanding service in the region.
The Trump Administration is committed to helping to preserve and protect the free flow of information by the most effective means to the people of Iran in the face of the Iranian regimes brutal repression, a State Department spokesperson, declining to share more specifics, told Fast Company on Wednesday. SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment.
The situation is a reminder that, in an emergencyand amid political upheavalinternet access can be a critical tool. Indeed, its easy to view Starlink as a fundamentally authoritarian-proof technology. But satellite internet, like any platform, isnt completely immune from authoritarian intimidation. And while SpaceX is providing a critical service in the moment, the company, and Elon Musk, are private entities whose goals arent guaranteed to align with values of free speech, or even the foreign policy interests of the United States. The fundamental issue is that the interests of Elon Musk are not the interests of the United States, Gordon LaForge, a researcher at the think tank New America, tells Fast Company. Sometimes they might be in alignment, but sometimes they won’t be.
Limited access
Right now, even as protests overtake much of the country, only a small number of Iranians there have access to Starlink terminals, which are generally needed to connect to the countrys constellation of low-Earth satellites. This hardware can be difficult to come by. Iran doesnt have authorized Starlink sellers, which means ordinary people need to find them on the black market, where they’re expensive, as Forbes previously reported several years ago.
Right now, there just arent that many terminals overall, though reports indicate the number has grown recently. As of December 2022, Elon Musk had said there were around 100 terminals in the country. By the end of 2024, there were reportedly about 20,000 Iranian users, and there are possibly tens of thousands more there now, Rashidi says. Still, 90 million people live in Iran, which means most people wont have Starlink anytime soon.
But the Iranian government is also taking active steps to disrupt the service. The Iranian legislature passed a law banning Starlink last year, and people who use it face the risk of going to prison, or, potentially, the death penalty, if theyre accused of using the technology for espionage. Though the Iranian government has, in the past, complained about how easy it is to hide Starlink devicessome hardware can fit in a backpackofficials have also reportedly started scanning the country for signs of terminals, even using drones to hunt for dishes and terminals that might be installed on rooftops.
Starlink might also be susceptible to jamming. The Iranian government appears to have partially interfered with the service, in some places, by jamming the GPS connection that Starlink relies on, and, in effect, reducing Starlinks total capabilities. One Iranian internet access group, in a post on X, said they were able to collaborate with SpaceX on a software update that blunted the impact of this interference.
Notably, these issues dont seem to have taken Starlink completely offline, and Penn State professor Sascha Meinrath, who studies satellite constellation bandwidth, told Fast Company that this method may only work in fairly constrained areas. Rashidi, from the Miaan Group, likened the jamming to a nuisance. It was like a fly sitting on your face or on your nose. You can easily move your hand and push the fly away, he told Fast Company. You feel uncomfortable, but that won’t kill you.
Still, this disruption may foreshadow future attempts by other governments to try to undercut Starlink service, and shows there are ways to undermine the service. Down the line, as SpaceXs commercial infrastructure becomes increasingly enmeshed in U.S. national security and defense systems, theres also an increasing incentive for foreign adversaries to investigate ways to take it down. Researchers in China have already studied ways to jam a service like Starlink with a swarm of drones.
Who benefits?
Starlink often becomes a key communication platform in places experiencing incredible political upheaval, includingmost recentlyin Ukraine, Gaza, and Venezuela. In emergencies, it might even help provide the service. SpaceX provided free terminals to Ukraine, and is providing free Starlink connections in Venezuela until next month. Internet access is critical for people on the ground, but theyre also geopolitical: These deals have further lubricated SpaceXs relationship with the U.S. government, and, today, the company now holds myriad contracts with both civilian and defense agencies. The State Department is even actively promoting the Starlink service globally, particularly in Africa, as ProPublica reported last year.
But while these deals might read through the lens of anti-authoritarianism, or internet freedom, they should primarily be understood as efforts to advance U.S. foreign policy interests, and the interests of SpaceX and Elon Musk, experts tell Fast Company.
Theres always the risk that Musk, or SpaceX leadership, will switch off the service in order to effect a desired political outcome. In one critical example: a few years ago, Musk suddenly ordered the shutdown of the Starlink service in one contested area in Ukraine, leaving troops without communications and disrupting their counteroffensive, according to Reuters reporting last year.
Take Ukraine, where Starlink is indispensable to the Ukrainian military, Gordon LaForge, a senior policy analyst at the liberal think tank New America, tells Fast Company. When Musk threatened to withdraw Starlink, the Pentagon stepped in to pay for the service. And of course Musk personally attains a level of direct geopolitical influence that few other individual businesspersons or private citizens of any sort can achieve.
SpaceX uses geopolitical conflicts to showcase its ability and the indispensability of its services for secure communications, adds Joscha Abel, a researcher based at the University of Tübingen who has written about the service. Tech corporations like SpaceX frequently align themselves with the geostrategic objectives of the U.S. government to earn profitable public contracts and see their technologies embedded in national security and military planning.
In other words, Starlink had been marketed to Ukraine as a liberatory technology that would help them in their fight against Russia, but depending on it ultimately subjected its troops to the political preferences of the companys leadership.
And while Musk has fashioned himself a free speech advocate, he has, in the past, taken steps to silence critics on his social media platform, X. Like many other leaders, he also has business ties in some authoritarian countries, places operating open platforms wont always necessarily suit his business interests. When an essential technological instrument of U.S. policy is in the hands of a private individualand a mercurial one at that, explains LaForge, it increases the risk of policy capture and outcomes that are not in the public interest.”
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is investigating a salmonella outbreak linked to dietary supplement powder that left 45 people sick and a dozen people hospitalized across the country.
In the wake of the outbreak, New York-based Superfoods, Inc. has issued a voluntary recall of Live it Up-brand Super Greens dietary supplement powder in the original and wild berry flavors. However, the FDA cautions that additional products might join the recall during its investigation.
To determine a source of contamination, FDA is conducting a traceback investigation of products ill people reported consuming before becoming ill and is working with state partners to sample products of concern, the agency stated in its Wednesday, January 14, notice. Additional products may be contaminated, and this advisory will be updated as more information becomes available.
According to the FDA, the salmonella strand has infected 45 people across 21 states between August 22, 2025, and December 30, 2025.
There have been 12 cases of hospitalization and no reported deaths.
Which products are affected?
Superfoods has recalled its Live it Up-brand Super Greens dietary supplement powder in the original and wild berry flavors. The recall includes any products with a best-by date between August 2026 and January 2028.
[Photos: via FDA]
Where was the product sold?
Live it Up-brand Super Greens dietary supplement powder is sold nationwide, primarily through the digital storefronts of Amazon, eBay, and Walmart.
According to an outbreak map published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), outbreaks have been reported in the following states:
Alabama
Connecticut
Delaware
Iowa
Illinois
Kentucky
Massachusetts
Maine
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Nebraska
New York
Ohio
Pennsylvania
South Carolina
Tennessee
Utah
Vermont
Washington
Wisconsin
[Screenshot: via CDC]
What should I do if I have this product?
You can either toss or return any of the impacted Super Greens dietary supplement powders youve purchased. You should also thoroughly clean and sanitize anything that the product has touched, such as surfaces in your fridge or containers.
What salmonella symptoms should I look out for?
Did you already consume the supplement powder? If so, there are clear signs of salmonellosis to look out for over the following days. According to the FDA, salmonella can cause abdominal cramps, diarrhea, and fever. In more severe cases, it can bring on additional symptoms including:
Aches
A rash
High fever
Headaches
Lethargy
Blood in the urine or stool
The elderly, children younger than 5, and individuals with a weakened immune system are more likely to have a severe case of salmonellosis.
Typically, a person who consumes food with salmonella and develops an infection will first experience symptoms within 12 to 72 hours. These symptoms usually last between four and seven days.
Contact your doctor if you exhibit any salmonellosis symptoms.
Two data breaches, multiple class action lawsuits, and a removal from the Apple App Store later, the popular and controversial dating safety app Tea for Women is back and launching a new website version of its services today.
Billed as a Yelp for men, Tea was created in 2023 but was relatively unknown until July 2025, when it quickly became a viral sensation and shot to the top of App Store downloadsat one point outranking ChatGPT on the Apple App Store.
Similar to Are We Dating the Same Guy? Facebook groups, Tea offered women what they thought was a secure forum to obtain information and advice on men they had matched with on dating apps.
Women using the platform wanted to ensure that romantic prospects were safe to meet in person and to root out abusers, predators, and cheaters, which Tea allowed them to do through built-in background checks, a sex offender map, and reverse image searches.
Users could also vote on whether a mans behavior was desirable or shady by selecting red or green flag icons under someones post, offering the creator a sort of pulse check that they might otherwise have had to wait for until their next girls’ night out.
But after landing on the publics radar, the app quickly faced backlash and sparked debates about gender divides in dating and mens right to privacy in a digital-first era.
Back-to-back data breaches ensued: Hackers gained access to 72,000 images, including users government IDs and selfies, and over 1 million messages, then posted them to 4chan, an anonymous forum primarily used by men and historically a home to incel culture and hate speech.
[Image: Tea]
Legal fallout and App Store ban
At least 10 potential class action lawsuits followed, alleging that Tea had been negligent in its data practices.
At the time of the hack, Teas privacy policy asserted that users’ selfies were deleted once their profiles had been verified. Images leaked in the breach, however, dated back to 2023, contradicting the apps own privacy policy. (As of August 11, 2025, Teas privacy policy has been updated to state that it retains user data for as long as [a users] account is active as needed to provide [a user] the Services, or where we have an ongoing legitimate business need.”)
In October, the app was removed from Apples App Store for failing to meet standards around privacy, content moderation, and user experience.
On the Google Play Store, where Tea is still available for download, a notable number of negative reviews complain of glitchiness, trouble staying logged in, and a lack of free features.
Some reviewers also reported that they were denied the ability to use the app after submitting a selfie to prove their gender identityTea is a women-only platformalleging that they were rejected for not appearing feminine enough.
New Tea aims to right past wrongs
The launch of Tea 2.0, the new website version of the app, aims to remedy these safety issues and expand access to the platform, according to Jessica Dees, the platform’s head of trust and safety.
Launching our web experience is a strategic move toward platform resilience, allowing us to establish a scalable hub that isnt dependent on a single distribution channel,” Dees wrote in an email to Fast Company.
She added that Tea has brought on experts in the trust and safety field to address community safety specifically.
“This transition provides us with technical flexibility as we implement more robust moderation workflows, Dees wrote. This isnt a choice between a new site and better moderation. It’s about building a long-lasting experience that gives women access to safety, wherever they are.
[Image: Tea]
How will the new Tea be different?
The website will offer users the ability to crowdsource information on a potential date like it did before.
The extra safety features, which cost $14.99 a month, will continue to be available on the mobile version of Tea (still only available to Android users) and will be incorporated into the website in the future, Dees says.
Additionally, Android users can access new features including a virtual speakeasy where users can vote on polls, engage with topic-specific forums, and post anonymous audio messages, as well as an AI-powered dating coach that can analyze and suggest responses to messages with dating app matches.
Dees wrote that Tea is taking concerns about privacy seriously, both from women who may have been impacted by the past data breaches or fear being part of one in the future, as well as men who have voiced anger and concern over posts about them that were not independently verified and may have included false or even defamatoryassertions.
Tea helps women review patterns and potential red flags rather than relying on isolated claims, Dees wrote. By enabling women to exchange real-world insight in a moderated environment, [Tea] helps create earlier awareness, reduce risk, and support safer decision-making, which can be life-saving in a dating landscape where many forms of harm escalate precisely because warning signs are missed or shared too late.
Tea now offers non-users a method to request content removal through its website.
[Image: Tea]
The platform is also partnering with a third-party identity verification service to eliminate any friction for women who had issues gaining access to Tea by submitting a selfie, which was previously required during the account creation process.
Dees did not provide specific examples of what information users will be required to submit.
Users are given a range of options regarding the information they provide when creating an account, and the information they choose to provide is evaluated using a variety of techniques before they are granted access to the platform, Dees wrote.
Fans want more Tea
The announcement of Teas return has been met with excitement. Although Dees declined to share the size of the websites VIP waitlist, it has a massive existing fanbase to rely oneven after the breaches.
The app surpassed six million downloads before it was removed from the App Store, and according to Dees, an in-app poll that garnered 34,000 responses found that 73% of users felt Tea had made dating a safer experience for them.
Thank God, one commenter wrote of the platforms return. [T]his app saves lives when the legal system fails to protect us!!
For most people, leaving Apple after two decades would mean stepping away from sleek design and obsessive detail. For Xander Soren, it simply meant translating those principles into a different medium and bottling them.
During his 20-plus years at Apple, Soren helped shape some of the companys most culture-defining products and creative tools. He was the original product manager for iTunes, worked on the launch of the iPod, led the development of GarageBand, and oversaw features like iPhone ringtones that became ubiquitous parts of Apples ecosystem.
His career spanned Apples rebirth into a design-led powerhouse, a period in which he absorbed the philosophy of simplicity, emotional resonance, and uncompromising craft that defined the companys second act.
Soren is now the mind behind a radical wine venture years in the making, developing a high-end Pinot Noir crafted specifically to pair with Japanese cuisine.
After decades spent building products at Silicon Valley speed, he chose to pursue a more contemplative set of passions such as wine, Japanese culture, and Japanese food, while building a business that is deliberately small, design forward, and personal.
He produces just 600 to 800 cases per vintage, sometimes fewer than 100 cases of a single wine. It is a boutique operation with a big vision, rooted not in scale but in intention.
A Lifelong Connection to Apple and Japan
Ask Soren where this all began and he traces it back to two childhood obsessions, the Mac and Japan.
My Apple journey probably started as a kid. I had the original Mac in 1984 that I was totally obsessed with. I was an Apple fan boy as a kid, and I followed the company . . . and I really was drawn to a lot of things with Japanese culture.
When he eventually joined Apple, that thread only deepened.
When I came to Apple, Steve [Jobs] had just been back as CEO for a little over three years . . . the first job I had was the iTunes product manager, the original iTunes product manager. So talk about throwing into the deep end . . . My first project that I worked on was the original iPod launch, which wound up changing the company.
At Apple, Soren was steeped in design-first thinking. Now, it is inseparable from his winemaking.
[Photo: Conan Morimoto/courtesy Xander Soren Wines]
A Pinot Noir Built for the Japanese Table
Sorens wines are crafted from conception to blending to shine with Japanese cuisine.
He focuses on cooler appellations, especially the Santa Rita Hills, where unique terroir produces fruit capable of Burgundy-level nuance. He sources from historic sites including La Encantada, Sanford & Benedict, Sierra Mar, and Olivet Lane, as well as Yuki Vineyard on the Sonoma Coast, owned by Japanese producer Akiko Freeman.
Why Pinot? I think I agree with a lot of the sommelier and chef community, where people feel the Pinot Noir is one of the most versatile food pairing wines,” Soren says.
Santa Rita Hills fruit, in particular, clicked. They always say it has a saline sea spray, Nori, umami . . . flavors, he says, flavors tailor-made for sukiyaki, wagyu, tempura, or even raw tuna. You can drink Pinot Noir with raw tuna.
The wines are deliberately high acid, bright, lower in alcohol, and built with balance in mind, attributes essential for delicate, complex dishes.
Minimal Intervention, Maximum Precision
Sorens winemaker is Shalini Sekhar, a rising star who has earned 2015’s Winemaker of the Year (San Francisco International Wine Competition) and the San Francisco Chronicles 2019 Winemaker to Watch.
Her résumé spans Williams Selyem, Stags Leap, her own Ottavino label, and a portfolio of boutique producers.
At Xander Soren Wines, Sekhar leads a nonintrusive, labor-intensive approach. Not only vineyard blocks but individual clones are fermented and aged separately in carefully selected French oak before final blending. Production is small because the process demands it.
Soren describes their partnership this way: I consider myself more of a creative director and then Shalini is this masterful, award-winning winemaker.”
Blending is their meeting point. We both of us sit down, we try a whole bunch of different blends. It’s always done blind. [We ask] what do you think, A versus B?
Design as Experience: Boxes, Logos, and the Apple Touch
Soren’s Apple design background is unmistakable the moment you unbox a bottle of Xander Soren wine. The packaging is deliberately minimalist, tactile, and engineered to create a moment of anticipation, much like peeling back the lid of a new Mac or iPhone.
It started with wanting the unboxing experience to be something very special . . . made out of this beautiful but simple cardboard, which I felt like was more eco-friendly, Soren says.
[Photo: courtesy Xander Soren Wines]
The idea for the packaging crystallized when he encountered a sake package he found almost impossibly elegant, with clean lines, restrained materials, and boxes that opened with gentle friction to reveal their contents with quiet ceremony.
It felt Japanese in its simplicity, but also familiar in a way he could not place. When he tracked down the designers, he got his answer.
They told me, very coincidentally, that the sake box that I fell in love with was inspired by the original iPhone packaging. So it kind of felt like this full circle thing.
For Soren, the connection was not just aesthetic. Both Apple and traditional Japanese design value containers that elevate the object inside rather than distract from it. His wine pakaging follows the same logic, using understated materials, intentional geometry, and nothing extraneous. The experience begins before the cork is pulled.
And that attention to micro-details is central to his brand. Small, little, tiny things are important,” he says.
The box, like the wine, is not meant to shout. It is designed to reveal itself slowly through weight, texture, proportion, and subtle precision that reflects both Sorens Apple lineage and his reverence for Japanese craft.
After decades building software at breathtaking velocity, Soren had to adjust to a new rhythm when it came to wine. When shifting something like the vineyard a wine is made from or adjusting the blend, We won’t really know the impact of that decision for four or five years, he explains. A bit slower than an iPod launch.
That patience guides his small scale. The brand currently makes around 800 cases of wine each year.
A Logo of Symbolism and Storytelling
Sorens logo blends Japanese symbolism with deeply personal references. Inspired by the traditional Kamon crests used by Samurai families, the mark embraces simplicity and iconic geometry.
[Image: courtesy Xander Soren Wines]
At its center sits an X-shaped Phacelia wildflower, chosen for its four petals that echo his own name, while the circular form subtly nods to elements of music, evoking the look of a speaker, a reel-to-reel tape, or even vintage vinyl inserts.
His father, industrial designer Leon Soren, contributed a final touch by breaking the top edge of the outer ring to mimic the silhouette of a Japanese temple roof. The result is a layered emblem meant to unfold slowly, rewarding close study and reflecting the Japanese appreciation for small, intentional details that reveal themselves over time.
Silicon Valleys Quiet Migration Into Wine
Soren is not the first tech veteran to trade circuits for cellars. Silicon Valley has a long, often understated history of executives who eventually find their way into vineyards.
One of the earliest and most influential examples is Oracle cofounder Bob Miner, whose family transformed rugged hillside land in Napa into Oakville Ranch, now considered one of the valleys most respected mountain estates.
Miners approach was a precursor to todays tech-to-wine ethos, centered on small-lot production, meticulous farming, and a belief that great wine begins with great design in the vineyard.
Former Intel executive Dave House followed a similar path with House Family Vineyards in the Santa Cruz Mountains, where he built a boutique operation focused on Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Sauvignon.
His shift from high-performance computing to high-elevation viticulture mirrors a familiar pattern among tech leaders seeking a more tactile, craft-driven second act.
Even the tech worlds biggest names have dipped into wine. Tesla’s Elon Musk previously owned Ellison Vineyards in Napa, although he never developed it into a consumer-facing label. Jeff Bezos of Amazon owns a sprawling estate in Napas Atlas Peak AVA, an ultra-premium site whose wines are not released under a public brand.
Both illustrate the tech sectors fascination with wine, which often becomes an alternate industry where engineering instincts meet agricultural patience.
Soren admits that he still thinks like a product designer, even if the products now grow on vines. In tech, momentum is everything. In wine, momentum is measured in rains, ripeness, and the passing of seasons.
Soren seems content with that reversal. Its not the speed that matters anymore, but the satisfaction of work that unfolds on its own clock.
Yesterday, customers of Verizon Communications across the country picked up their phones only to discover that they had no service.
Calls, texts, and the internet simply didnt work. Verizon now says the underlying issue has been resolved. But just what caused it, and will Verizon compensate customers for the outage? Heres what you need to know.
What happened?
On Wednesday, a little after noon ET, customers around the country began taking to social media to report that they had lost Verizon service on their phones. Calls and texts could not be made or received, and internet access was nonexistent.
Many iPhone owners on Verizons network saw the SOS icon in their menu bar, meaning no network was available, and any communication was limited to satellite connectivity.
Over the course of a few hours, Verizon posted several social media messages saying it was aware of the issue and had teams working on the ground to fix it. But it wasnt until around 10 p.m. ET that Verizon said the issue had been fixed.
The outage has been resolved, Verizon said in a post on X. If customers are still having an issue, we encourage them to restart their devices to reconnect to the network.
What caused the outage?
Right now, Verizon hasnt disclosed what exactly caused its network to go down for so many hours. Fast Company has reached out to the company for comment.
What is known is that many Verizon users on social media who have multiple phones on Verizons network reported that not all of their phones lost service yesterday. Many customers have reported that only their phones with Verizon eSIMs lost service, while their phones with physical Verizon SIMs remained active.
However, there is so far no evidence that the disruption was directly linked to eSIMs or that only eSIM users were affected.
The massive outage also comes just a few months after Verizon conducted the largest layoffs in its history. In November, the company announced it would begin laying off 13,000 workers. In a memo to staff at the time, Verizon CEO Dan Schulman said the layoffs were needed to address the complexity and friction that slow us down and frustrate our customers.
It is unknown whether the workforce reductions had any impact on Verizons outage or the companys ability to resolve it in a timely manner.
Will customers be compensated?
Verizons outage lasted about 10 hours, severely straining peoples ability to work and communicate for a significant period, leading to understandable outrage from its customers.
In a post on X, Verizon said that account credits will be provided to those customers affected and that customers will be contacted directly.
However, it has not provided more details about the compensation, including how much the credits will be worth and whether they will be automatic or if customers will need to apply for them. We’ve asked the company for additional details and will update this story if we hear back.
Free donuts and snarky competitors
To every problem, there is usually some kind of silver lining. Or, in this case, sugary lining.
As the Verizon outage quickly became the thing that everyone on social media was talking about yesterday, donut giant Krispy Kreme decided to get in on the action by announcing it was giving away free donuts due to the outage.
SOS got you down?” the company posted on its Instagram account. We can hear you now the post went on, in a reference to Verizons famous Can you hear me now? slogan.
The donut chain then announced customers could come by between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. yesterday for a free original glazed donut, because some days need a sweet backup plan you can rely on.
And it wasnt just Krispy Kreme getting in on the Verizon outage action. Verizons competitors, AT&T and T-Mobile, decided to jump in on the free-donut action and leave their own snarky comments on Krispy Kremes post.
T-Mobile members out here texting everybody they know,” the official T-Mobile account commented in response to the free donut offer.
As for AT&T, the companys official IG account commented, Def not us this time, we’ll sit this one out and enjoy the donuts, alluding to its own nationwide outage, which occurred in February 2024.
How has Verizon’s stock reacted to the outage?
The incident has not seemed to impact the company’s stock price (NYSE: VZ). Shares rose more than 2% yesterday and were roughly flat on Thursday in premarket trading.
As the September evening inched along, the line of residents waiting their turn for the microphone held steady. Filing down the auditorium aisles at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, they were armed with questions about a new gas plant slated for their community.
Sitting quietly in the audience was John Dudash. For decades, hes lived in Homer City, a southwestern Pennsylvania town that was once home to the largest coal-fired power plant in the state. The plant, which shares its name with the town, closed nearly three years ago after years of financial distress.
Dudash, 89, has lived in the shadow of its smokestackssaid to be the tallest in the country before they were demolishedfor much of his life. At its peak, the Homer City power plant employed hundreds of people and could deploy about 2 gigawatts of energy, enough to power 2 million homes.
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It was also a major source of air pollution, spewing sulfur dioxide and mercury, both of which pose serious health risks. Today, Dudash wonders if the pollution might have exacerbated the lung issues that claimed his wifes life six years ago.
The proposed gas plant, expected to be up and running in 2027, will replace the old coal-fired power station, but with more than double the energy output4.5 gigawatts of energy. The new plant also will have the potential to emit 17.5 million tons of planet-heating greenhouse gasses per year, the equivalent of putting millions of cars on the road.
And it will serve a new purpose: Rather than primarily sending electrons to the regional grid to power homes or businesses, the new power plant will exist mainly to feed data centers planned on the site.
As the hearing wore on that September night, Dudash, a conservationist, did not stand to speak; instead, he sat quietly, taking mental notes. The next morning, he emailed two staffers at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
First of all, the project will not be stopped, he began, with resignation. He went on to offer a few caveatsamong them, advice about air monitoring.
His letter reached the agency alongside more than 550 comments on a key air permit for the proposed plant, a testament to the projects complexity. After the permit was approved November 18, Dudashs prediction began to look remarkably accuratethough the Homer City plant still has about a dozen additional permits awaiting approval before the project can be completed, including one that would impact several acres of wetlands and hundreds of feet of a local stream.
Though it is among many energy sites popping up to power the artificial intelligence boom across Pennsylvania, the Homer City facility is unique for its size, its advertised economic potentialthe owners have promised the project will generate more than 10,000 construction-related jobsand for its likely environmental impact. It has earned the backing of President Donald Trump, who called it the largest plant of its kind in the world, a distinction its owners could not verify. There was a buzz in town in late October when Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law, visited, though it was unclear what drew him to Homer City.
I dont really trust the people who are coming in to build and run the place, Dudash said. I do not agree with the artificial intelligence portion of it.
Theyre going to have to sacrifice the environment for these jobs, he added. In Appalachia, weve been doing that for years.
When the old plant sputtered to a close in 2023, it left the surrounding communitywhich was built on the local abundance of coalin search of an economic lifeline. Now the data center boom sweeping the country brings promise of such a rebirth for communities like Homer City, though this promise is one that some experts say may be less than billed. And, it comes with risks.
The new power plant will be much larger than its predecessor and is permitted to emit more than twice as much of some pollutants as its predecessor did. The data center, or centers, it powers would also consume a tremendous amount of waterperhaps more than its host townships can spare, some fear.
A mural adorns the Disobedient Spirits distillery building on Main Street in Homer City, Pennsylvania. [Photo: Audrey Carleton]
Artificial intelligence requires vast amounts of electricity and has the potential to offer a lifeline to the fossil fuel industry. Though some in the community are sanguine about the promise of jobs, experts say the reality for many living around data centers may fall short. Some are left wondering exactly who the new plant is forthem or some faraway tech companies.
The Homer City project is far from alone in its emergence: The nonprofit Fractracker has identified 39 planned data centers in the works across Pennsylvania. Tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon are moving in, alongside others intrigued by the states rich legacy of power production, deep naural gas reserves and generous subsidies. In July, Republican Senator Dave McCormick, from eastern Pennsylvania, held a conference in Pittsburgh during which companies announced more than $90 billion in data center investments and related energy infrastructure.
This tech boom largely has bipartisan support, including from Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who said at a June press conference that he is committed to ensuring the future of AI runs right through Pennsylvania. Legislators in Harrisburg, meanwhile, are introducing bills that would both spur the burgeoning industry and give it guardrails.
The extent to which the Homer City facilitys owners have lobbied for supportive legislation is not clear. The companys lobbying registration with the Pennsylvania Department of State goes back only to January 2025. It has, however, spent at the local level. In November, for instance, the company gave a community nonprofit $25,000 for a holiday food drive. It also urged state utility regulators, who are drafting a policy on data centers, to issue one that does not saddle data centers with costs that might push them out of state.
Meanwhile, communities are pushing back and the environmental nonprofit Food & Water Watch recently called for a nationwide moratorium on new data center construction. More than 200 other groups later joined them in making such a plea to Congress. On the ground in Homer City, a coalition of neighbors have formed Concerned Residents of Western Pennsylvania to oppose the project.
The Homer City proposal is the brainchild of the same private equity owners that closed the plant in 2023after years of financial difficulty and two bankruptcies. Two firms own close to 90% of the plant, with New York City-based Knighthead Capital Management holding the vast majority of that. Its part of a wave of private equity investment in the data center industry. In March, the owners, operating under an LLC called Homer City Redevelopment, toppled the plants signature smokestacks. A few weeks later, they announced that the plant would reopen with a data center customer, or suite of customers, to be announced as soon as 2026.
Critics fear the new plant will require a lot more water than its predecessor. The supercomputers that data centers house whirr away around the clock, and need to be routinely cooled down. Some data center companies have introduced recycled water into their systems. Homer City Redevelopment has not said if their data center clients will be among them.
In 2014, U.S. data centers used 21.2 billion liters of water, enough to fill nearly 9,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. That number tripled by 2023, with the vast majority of the water consumed by hyperscale, or large, facilities like Homer City. In states like Colorado, where water use has, for decades, been meticulously planned and negotiated, data centers are threatening to strain such finely tuned systems.
Dudash, the longtime Homer City resident, is concerned about a similar fate. Im not sure how theyre going to handle the water, he told Capital & Main after the September hearing.
The power plant has, since 1968, been allotted an uncapped amount of water from Two Lick Reservoir, a 5-billion-gallon, dammed-off portion of a creek that the plants former owners built explicitly for its use.
The power plant shares the water with a utility that serves two local communitiesIndiana borough and the broader White Townshipas part of a 1988 drought management plan to prevent and respond to catastrophic weather conditions. The borough of Homer City gets its water from Yellow Creek, a tributary of Two Lick Creek, which serves the reservoir and picks up the slack in the event of a drought.
Should the Two Lick Creek Reservoir be emptied, [the water utility] would not be able to provide sufficient water to protect public health and safety in their service area, the drought management plan reads.
The Two Lick Reservoir in Indiana County [Photo: Audrey Carleton]
In 1985, the delicate system between Two Lick and Yellow Creek was strained when the then-Homer City plant drew so much water from the reservoir that it led to a drought. Had a significant rainfall not occurred . . . the reservoir may have faced total depletion, the drought management plan reads.
A report from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection shows that the water utility drawing from Two Lick has, in recent years, routinely used nearly half its allotted amount. But critics fear that allocation could be at risk once a data center opens and starts drawing water.
Robin Gorman, a spokesperson for Homer City Redevelopment, told Capital & Main that it plans to leave cooling and water-use decisions to its data center clients, making it unclear how much water will be needed to keep all the computers running, or where that water would come from.
Rob Nymick, Hoer Citys former borough manager, who serves as manager of the Central Indiana County Water Authority, told Capital & Main that he is confident local municipalities can share water resources with the planned gas plant. But the data centers could be a different story.
I do know that data centers do require a tremendous amount of water, Nymick said. Thats something we probably cannot provide.
Nymick said that community officials are operating with limited knowledge, and that during the handful of meetings they have held with Homer City Redevelopment, The only thing that they wanted to discuss is the actual power plant.
Eric Barker, who grew up in Homer City, attended the September hearing with restrained optimism. The power plant was a source of pride and is a source of pride for the community, he said. Theres not too many large employers in Indiana County, he added.
But he found little comfort at the September hearing.
The Department of Environmental Protection seemed woefully, woefully, comically underprepared, Barker said, citing a response he received to a question about the types of pollutants that would increase under the new Homer City proposal, compared to what was emitted by the old plant. Barker was told the agency would look into it and get back to him.
Some questions and concerns were raised at the public meeting regarding the plan approval about matters beyond the limited scope of the meeting, said Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson Tom Decker in a statement. Interested parties are encouraged to look to the DEPs extensive website, including its community page dedicated to the Homer City project, for resources addressing such questions and concerns.
Despite the questions that followed, the department, on the whole, signaled satisfaction with the Homer City plants air permit application at the hearing. Whats being proposed is what we consider state-of-the-art emission controls, said Dave Balog, environmental engineering manager at the departments northwest regional office.
Environmental nonprofits Citizens for Pennsylvanias Future, Clean Air Council, the Sierra Club and Earthjustice countered in a 44-page comment on a draft of the key air permit that the application does not incorporate the best tools for mitigating pollutants such as ammonia, which is known to cause respiratory issues and other health risks. The Department of Environmental Protection agreed with Homer City Redevelopments analyses of its best available technology, and the permit was granted.
* * *
As Homer Citys smokestacks imploded and fell to the ground last March, leaving only a gray cloud, Dudash wondered what particulates might be in the dusty mix. While there were rumors in town that asbestos might be among them, the Department of Environmental Protection told Capital & Main that the site was inspected for the substance before it was demolished and none was found.
Still, coal dust, fly ash, and silica particulates are all possible during such implosions, an agency representative said. In the months since, residents have complained of repeated blasts from the site rattling their houses. As of January, the blasts occurred daily.
But the particulates that drift from the old plant during the blasts may pale in comparison to the carbon dioxide emissions the new power plant is predicted to release. The key air permit the Department of Environmental Protection issued to the facility allows it to release up to 17.5 million tons of the heat-trapping gas, like carbon dioxide, per yearthe equivalent of putting 3.6 million gas-powered vehicles on the road annually. In 2010, according to federal data, the plant emitted just over 11 million tons of greenhouse gasses. In 2023, when it was operating at a fraction of its capacity, it emitted 1.3 million.
In their comment to regulators, the nonprofit environmental groups said that the carbon dioxide emissions would be triple those of any polluting facility in the state, representing 6% of Pennsylvanias total emissions. The new plant will emit sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides, two classes of respiratory irritants, but at rates lower than the old plant. The nonprofit Clean Air Council condemned regulators issuance of the air permit, calling it a death sentence. Along with PennFuture and the Sierra Club, the Council appealed the permit in December.
The owners said the emissions from the new plant will result in a 35% to 40% reduction in carbon dioxide compared to the old plant, but the calculation does not account for the new plants larger size. Instead, it is per-megawatt hour, meaning per unit of energy generated. Natural gas is less emissions-intensive than coal when burned, but because the Homer City plant will generate more than double the energy of its predecessor, its overall emissions profile is expected to be higher.
As the state grapples with extreme weather events such as flooding due to global warming, locking in carbon emissions is the wrong direction to go, the environmental nonprofits argue. On an annual basis, the plant will be permitted to emit hundreds of tons of respiratory irritants like particulate matter and nitrogen oxides, and dozens of tons of formaldehyde, a carcinogen. It will also emit health-harming compounds like toluene, xylene, and ethylbenzene.
Additional emissions are likely to come from the natural gas drilling that will be required to power the site.
In 2024, Nymick told Capital & Main that the borough was struggling to find a new economic engine. Were fighting for our survival, he said at the time. Data center industry advocates contend that the data center gold rush will be a boon for communities like Homer City, where boarded-up storefronts line the main street.
For every one job in a data center, six jobs are supported elsewhere in the economy, said Dan Diorio, vice president of state policy for the Data Center Coalition, an industry trade group, at a hearing in the state Capitol in October.
The municipal offices of Homer City Borough [Photo: Audrey Carleton]
Sean OLeary, senior researcher at the nonprofit think tank the Ohio River Valley Institute, said the reality isnt that rosy. The average data center employs as few as 0 people and as many as 110, per his own calculations based in part on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The computers inside them can generally run on their own with limited maintenance.
Even in a rural county like Indiana, OLeary said, One hundred is a rounding error. It just doesnt matter. It doesnt matter if theyre paid $200,000 a year. Its not enough to make a significant change in the status of the local economy.
In a recent report on the data center boom in natural gas economies in Appalachia, OLeary said gas-powered data centers represent the combination of three non-labor-intensive industriesfracking, power plants and data centers. Stacking [them] on top of each other does not alter the underlying dynamic which ties them together.
Ron Airhart, a former coal miner and executive assistant to the secretary-treasurer of the United Mine Workers of America, is more optimistic about the economic potential of the new Homer City facility.
Still, he concedes that it will never be what the old plant was. Yes, building a gas fired power plant is going to create a lot of construction jobs, theres no doubt about that, he said. But once its done, how many actual employees are you going to have working there?
He quickly added, But, Im glad they are doing something with the old power plant there.
Gorman told Capital & Main that Homer City Redevelopment and its construction partner, Kiewit, are planning to hire from local unions and building trades. They foresee 10,000 construction jobs. They also anticipate the site will create 1,000 direct and indirect permanent jobs, including those hired at the facility itself and those brought aboard for supportive positions, such as suppliers.
From start to finish, the Homer City Energy Campus will be developed in partnership with skilled local craftsmen and will bring quality, good-paying jobs back to the Homer City community, Gorman said.
OLeary said the jobs numbers such as those projected by the Data Center Coalition are inflated, similar to the employment projections made before the fracking boom in rural Appalachia. He said such projections are a detriment to communities, in part because taxpayers shoulder the cost of subsidies to attract the industry to the state, such as a sales and use tax exemption for data centers that Pennsylvania codified in 2021. Shapiro has estimated that the credit will expand to about $50 million per year for the next five years.
Local residents are also burdened with rising utility bills. The surging demand for electricity is straining the regions power supplies, increasing what utilities pay for electricity. New power plants coming onto the grid must install transmission equipment, the costs of which they share with consumers. These economic factors, in sum, could outweigh the benefits of the new jobs the data center creates, OLeary said.
Earlier this year, the grid operator for the region that encompasses Pennsylvania, PJM, saw electricity prices surge by roughly 1,000% from two years ago. Some of that cost is expected to be passed on to customers.
We have a problem, and that problem is real, and it is exponential electricity load growth causing exponential price increases for consumers, said Patrick Cicero, former consumer advocate for the state of Pennsylvania and now an attorney for the Pennsylvania Utility Law Project, at the October hearing in Harrisburg.
In the context of Grandma versus Google, Cicero said, referring to older residents faced with high bills, Grandma should win every day. That should be the policy statement of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Federal and state lawmakers are still determining how and whether to regulate the additional costs that data centers pass onto consumers, including for fees associated with transmission throughout the grid. A bill that would create such a process while establishing renewable energy mandates for data centers is now being weighed by Pennsylvania representatives.
Dennis Wamsted, energy analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, predicts such costs add complications for data centers, and has argued that their demand as a whole is overblown. Supply chain delays spurred by surging demand for turbines, including those that Homer City will be using, could also create additional costs and lag times, he said.
If there is an AI bubble and it bursts, he said, you would have built all this capacity that wasnt needed.
Homer Citys owners said the plant is better positioned than others in the industry since it isnt starting from scratch.
Much of the critical infrastructure for the project is already in place from the legacy Homer City coal plant, including transmission lines connected to the PJM and NYISO power grids, substations and water access, Gorman, the spokesperson, said.
Communities on the front lines of these projects would be the first hurt by a project that fails to materialize.
But in Homer City, its clear that theres an appetite for the promise of a new, job-producing industry, regardless of hurdles.
At the September hearing, many in the crowd wore neon shirts with union logosa signal of the regions fierce pride in its industrial past, and deep thirst for an economic boon. After an evening peppered with skepticism over the plant, Shawn Steffee, a business agent at the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, stepped to the microphone.
Everybody speaking about jobs, he cried, there will be jobs, and there will be local jobs.
As he walked away, the room filled with applausethe loudest of the night.
By Audrey Carleton
What shape could buildings take in 2026?
Fast Company asked architects from some of the top firms working around the world what they thought about the look of architecture in 2026. Of course, a building designed in 2026 almost certainly will not be completed in 2026, and construction timelines are notoriously fluid.
But according to experts, there are some overarching trends in architectural design that could put a clear 2026 stamp on buildings designed this year, whenever they officially open.
Here’s the question we put to a panel of designers and leaders in architecture: When they finally get built, what will buildings designed in 2026 look like, and what will be the biggest factors determining their design?
Integrated design
After years of spectacle and brand-driven architecture, there’s an appetite, especially in New York, for buildings that feel integrated and inevitable rather than singular and expressive. Architecture that values experience and usefulness over heroic form will (hopefully) produce buildings that are calm, proportioned, and materially grounded.Trent Tesch, principal, KPF
Complexity rethought
People need to ask more of their buildings. Our built world can and should fulfill our purposes in more targeted, uniquely tailored ways. Buildings will do more to meet the needs of people beyond the walls, in their communities, and be more inclusive on multiple fronts. Our built spaces will say something about who we are collectively and represent the best qualities of our society. They can do more to make people feel safe, to be responsive to climate specificities, to challenge the very perceptions of what a building should be while also being beautiful in unexpected ways. That is what the best buildings of the future will look like and achieve. Rather than design being complex for complexity’s sake, rich and complex buildings will emerge out of solving for this multiplicity of conditions, perspectives, and needs we face societally.David Polzin, executive director of design, CannonDesign
Situational design
At the scale of our work at PAU, something built next year was designed starting in 2020 or 2021. This is why architecture is not like fashion or softwareit simply cannot be produced in time to reflect a zeitgeist. PAU’s work is “situational” in the sense that it is a mirror and window into the places and prerogatives in which each project is situated. So it is as much about where, why, and for whom as it is about when. That said, there are material advancements occurring that will allow us to use, for example, more sustainable concrete and other greener materials in the coming years.Vishaan Chakrabarti, founder, PAU
Architecture goes organic
The buildings of 2026 will be softer and more organicwith more natural, low carbon materials than any generation of contemporary buildings before them.Colin Koop, partner, SOM
Building trust
As someone deeply engaged in design leadership for an international practice, I see 2026 as a pivotal moment for architecturea true point of inflection. We are all confronting the profound and unavoidable emergence of artificial intelligence, which will transform how we work, think, and live; that transformation is real and consequential. But for me, the pressing issue shaping my approach to the built environment today is not technological. It is the state of our social fabric. We are designing at a moment of intense fragmentation: fraying civic trust, weakened institutions, and a growing sense of disconnection between people, between communities, and between society and nature.
In that context, the most meaningful architecture of 2026 is not defined by a particular aesthetic, but by its intent and agency. We at Ennead have long believed that architecture is a civic and cultural act, and that our creative energies need to increasingly carry responsibility in addition to program and performance, beyond aesthetics and form. I believe our buildings are being asked to act as anchors of trustplaces that reaffirm the value of science, education, culture, and public life.
Design in our contemporary society should prioritize openness and steadiness, reinforce institutions as places of collective knowledge and shared values, create environments that encourage community, inspire hope, and embody optimism. Design should become an act of reassurance: that knowledge matters, that culture endures, and that the public realm is still worth investing in. This shift requires architects to think deeply about human behavior, psychology, and social dynamics, and to see architecture as a long-term contributor to the historical record, not just a response to a brief. If architecture can engage these issues not in an esoteric way, but as an active participant in the global ethos, then I believe the built environment can play a meaningful rolehowever modestin helping to heal some of the fractures we are living with today.Thomas J. Wong, design partner, Ennead Architects
Multipurpose architecture
Buildings designed in 2026 will reflect a growing pressure on new development of all types to serve more and growing needs. We expect architecture to become more multipurpose and adaptive, shaped by embodied carbon and material limits, life-cycle performance, climate resilience, and long-term value. The most compelling projects will not announce themselves through form alone; spatial delight and invention is key. There is a basic need for joy and inspiration in the places that we can create to ease daily life. In many cases, the most radical choice will be to build with less, reuse even more, and design in ways that encourage change by others.Claire Weisz, founding principal, WXY architecture + urban design
Nearly 500 buildings designed by Wright were built during his lifetime, but almost 15% of those have been demolished or lost through neglect, according to the Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy, an organization that works to preserve the famed architect’s work
Now, a new logo for the organization serves as a reminder of how important it is to protect architectural history. Designed by the studio Order, the Conservancy’s new logo features a missing square that’s meant to represent the void when one of Wright’s buildings is lost or neglected.
The Conservancy’s previous logo was a representation of the Lark Administration Building in Buffalo, New York, which was demolished in 1950. But Order hoped to design a new system for the group that could evolve and move forward.
“Though this building’s story is, of course, important, our goal was to expand what the identity could capture by bringing in the full breadth of their community,” says Garrett Corcoran, a design director at Order.
[Image: Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy/courtesy Order Design]
The new logo is a four-by-four square grid that references one Wright’s visual signatures, a red square. Wright used the shape as his own “stamp of approval” on designs, letters, and buildings, and the shape has been used widely in logos for groups associated with his work, like the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation and the Frank Lloyd Wright Trust.
[Image: Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy/courtesy Order Design]
That widespread use, though, was the reason Order initially explored logo approaches that were slightly different, “to help identify the Conservancy within the landscape,” Corcoran tells Fast Company. That approach didn’t last long, though.
“There was an undeniable truth the square brought when representing Frank Lloyd Wright,” Corcoran says. “Ultimately we came back to it as a foundation we could illustrate through as opposed to a crutch to lean on, embracing it but adapting it to make it the Conservancy’s own.”
Instead of one square, the logo has 15, plus another made from the negative space where the single missing square should be. By representing a missing building abstractly instead of just depicting one outright, the new logo unlocks plenty of new graphic possibilities. It’s a simple form that works well at small scale, and it also tells a story.
[Image: Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy/courtesy Order Design]
“When even one building is threatened, the urgency of our mission becomes clearer,” Conservancy executive director Barbara Gordon said in a statement. “Each and every one of Wright’s built works showcases ideas that inspire, and the Conservancy exists to protect them all, ensuring the ideas they embody will impact the future. Our new identity was built to passionately communicate this.”
[Image: Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy/courtesy Order Design]
The typeface used in the identity is a customized version of Reply, a geometric sans serif inspired by Wright’s favored font, the typewriter version of Intertype Vogue. The versatile color palette comes with multiple shades to give graphics a sense of depth and light.
[Image: Frank Lloyd Wright Building Conservancy/courtesy Order Design]
The new logo forms the basis of a larger design system for the organization that uses squares, grids, and block-like shapes for graphics and representations of Wright’s buildings, and the negative space can also be used as a window to show images of his architecture in the opening. For the group’s twice-a-year magazine SaveWright, Order designed an alternate version of the logo that fills in the blank space with a colored square, emphasizing our power to save now what one day could be lost.
Rather than getting boxed in by the square, the Conservancy’s new logo manages to reinterpret a well-worn symbol for the celebrated American architect in a new way.
The fiercest space race is not about getting back to the moonits about allowing you to post a TikTok or watch Netflix on your phone anywhere around the globe, from the Atacama Salt Flats to the Khongor sand dunes in the Gobi Desert. To make this happen, two distinct design philosophies are at war, as companies build out the infrastructure needed to ensure every phone on the planet is permanently connected to the internet.
On one side is Elon Musks SpaceX/Starlink and the copycat companies that have followed in Starlinks wake. Their approach is to invade space with tens of thousands of small satellites, creating a network of objects that blanket low Earth orbit. On the other side is a small Texas-based company called AST SpaceMobile, which believes it can provide better service with fewer than 100 gigantic satellites in space.
Both companiesalong with Amazon and a handful of Chinese organizationswant to dominate worldwide wireless communications. The satellite constellation with the fastest service, widest coverage, best compatibility with 5G cellphones, and lowest operational costs will own how we communicate for years to come. Which approach prevails will have serious impact not only on the future of the internet but also the health of our planet.
A new space race era
Musk set off a new space race with his desire to rule low Earth orbit. SpaceX, which owns Starlink, launched its first satellite in 2019, providing broadband internet access to anyone with a large Starlink antenna and modem on the ground. Since then, it has put more than 9,000 satellites into orbit. The company projects it will eventually have a constellation of 34,000 satellites. After Starlinks initial launch, competitors followed suit, including Jeff Bezos and his Project Kuipernow called Amazon Leoand the Chinese, whose plans include two large satellite constellations.
But theres a fundamental problem with this mega-constellation design: Musks plan for space internet is a flawed, wasteful, and dangerous game of orbital Russian roulette.
The crowded sky, a 30-minute exposure taken in June 2025 [Photo: Alan Dyer/VWPics/Universal Images Group/Getty Images]
Scientists worry that Starlinks projected 34,000-satellite constellation will cause irreparable damage to the atmosphere. A large-scale constellation also dramatically increases the possibility of a space collision that could start a catastrophic chain reaction, destroying orbital networks that are crucial for our survival as a species.
Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist and spaceflight historian at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, has been documenting satellite launches in his newsletter, Jonathan’s Space Report. He believes there may be other, better ways to achieve global coverage via satellitesif we need to be doing it at all.
I do personally have a preference for smaller numbers of larger satellites, he tells Fast Company. One of the reasons is the risk of space collisions. If you have 10 times as many satellites, you have 100 times as many close misses. So from that point of view alone, consolidating on a smaller number of satellites seems wiser.
A more efficient alternative
Thats where Musks biggest competitor comes into play. AST SpaceMobile has developed a direct-to-cell technology that utilizes large satellites called BlueBirds. These machines use thousands of antennas to deliver broadband coverage directly to standard mobile phones, says the company’s president, Scott Wisniewski.
This approach is remarkably efficient: We can achieve global coverage with approximately 90 satellites, not thousands or even tens of thousands required by other systems, Wisniewski writes in an email. McDowell agrees that AST SpaceMobile’s approach is more efficient and less wasteful.
The key is its satellites size and sophistication. ASTs first generation of commercial satellite, the BlueBird 1-5, unfolds into a massive 693-square-foot array in space. Today, the company has five operational BlueBird 1-5 satellites in orbit, but its ambitions are much bigger. On December 24, 2025, AST launched the first of its next-generation satellites from Indiacalled Block 2and this one broke records. The BlueBird 6 has a surface of almost 2,400 square feet, making it the largest single satellite in low Earth orbit. The company plans to launch up to 60 more by the end of 2026.
[Photo: AST SpaceMobile]
This large surface area is essential for gathering faint signals from standard, unmodified mobile phones on the ground, Wisniewski explains. It is essentially a single, extremely powerful and sensitive cell tower in the sky, capable of serving a huge geographical area.
This design philosophy directly addresses the two greatest threats posed by the mega-constellation model. First, with only about 90 Block 2 satellites needed for global coverage, the sheer volume of material being launched and deorbited is orders of magnitude less than the tens of thousands planned by Starlink and others. With a 7- to 10-year lifespan, AST SpaceMobile’s satellites are designed to last longer than Starklinks satellites, which have a lifespan of about 5 years. This combination of factors drastically reduces the potential for atmospheric pollution.
Additionally, a smaller number of satellites dramatically lowers the risk of orbital collisions. Fewer satellites in orbit inherently reduces the probability of collisions and the creation of space debris, promoting a more sustainable orbital environment, Winiewski says. It is a solution built on precision engineering rather than brute numerical force, a testament to a different way of thinking about the problem.
As McDowell puts it, from a space traffic point of view, Fewer, bigger satellites is probably better. It is a design choice that prioritizes sustainability and risk mitigation.
A reckless, brute-force plan
The core idea behind Starlinks direct-to-cell service is one of brute force. It is the digital equivalent of carpet-bombing: Saturate low Earth orbit with tens of thousands of relatively small, cheap, and disposable satellites. Each one acts like a tiny cell tower in the sky, talking to the phone in your pocket. Because they are in a low orbit, the lag is minimal, and the signal is strong enough for a standard phone. Its a simple concept, but its elegance is deceptive. In reality, it has the elegance of a sledgehammer.
A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying a payload of 24 Starlink internet satellites soars into space after launching from Vandenberg Space Force Base on July 18, 2025; seen from Santee, California. [Photo: Kevin Carter/Getty Images]
Starlinks model relies on a constant cycle of replacement. The satellites are programmed to fall back to Earth after about five years, burning up on reentry. This is where the first major problem arises.
“When they burn up, they don’t just vanish,” McDowell explains. They turn into dust, alumina dust, aluminum oxide particles. These particles are very good at destroying ozone.
The long-term effect of depositing tons of this material into the upper atmosphere every single day is a terrifying unknown. We are, in effect, conducting an uncontrolled experiment on the protective layers of our own planet. McDowell notes that while a single rocket launch causes temporary, localized ozone damage, the continuous reentry of thousands of satellites creates a persistent, global problem that has never been studied on this scale.
SpaceX aggressively dismissed these concerns in 2021 in a legal battle with Viasat, a rival space internet service for home, business, and military use. Its legal defense directly attacked the scientific premise that burning satellites create harmful amounts of aluminum oxide. SpaceX has been ignoring warnings about potential ozone depletion since 2024.
However, the company has tried to address light pollution. When faced with an outcry from the astronomy community about its satellites brightness, it iterated on the design. First came DarkSat, an experimental coating that proved ineffective. Then came VisorSat, a deployable sunshade that blocked light from reflecting off the brightest parts of the satellite.
A comparison of different generations of Starlink satellites [Image: SpaceX]
McDowell tells me that now SpaceX is using a dielectric mirror film that reflects less light back to Earth. They have made a significant effort to reduce the brightness, and the newer Starlinks are substantially fainter than the early ones, McDowell says. But they are still bright enough to be a problem for the big survey telescopes like the Vera Rubin Observatory.
These mitigation efforts, while commendable, address only one symptom of the problemlight pollutionand do nothing to solve the more fundamental issues of atmospheric pollution and orbital crowding. The problem is compounded by the fact that everyone is now copying the SpaceX model. Amazon’s Project Leo plans to launch more than 3,200 satellites.
Beijing and some Chinese companies are planning two separate mega-constellations, Guowang and G60 Starlink, totaling nearly 26,000 satellites. We’re just at the beginning of this . . . so that gets very worrying because now it’s not just one company, it’s a whole bunch of companies, McDowell warns. To add to his worries, just this week the Chinese government has applied for launch permits for 200,000 satellites.
To be clear, AST SpaceMobile’s approach is not without its own controversies. The sheer size of the companys satellites makes them incredibly bright in the night sky, a significant source of frustration for ground-based astronomers. McDowell confirms that when it launched in 2022, ASTs prototype satellite, BlueWalker 3, became one of the top 10 brightest objects in the night sky for a while.
It’s a serious issue, and we are working directly with the astronomy community to mitigate our impact, Wisniewski says. The company is exploring solutions like anti-reflective coatings and operational adjustments to minimize the time its satellites are at maximum brightness. However, McDowell is not aware of anyone working with AST SpaceMobile, and the company didnt provide any specifics.
According to McDowell, the size and brightness is a trade-off he believes is reasonable. Although the BlueBirds are scary bright, there aren’t that many. So I kind of prefer that approach, he says. As long as they don’t turn around then and say, Actually, we need 30,000 of these as well.
A ULA Atlas V-551 rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida, carrying the first 27 satellites for Amazon’s Project Kuiper, in April 2025. [Photo: Manuel Mazzanti/NurPhoto/Getty Images]
A game of orbital Russian roulette
Beyond the environmental concerns lies an even more immediate existential threat: Kessler Syndrome. Popularized by the movie Gravity, it is a scenario that keeps space experts like McDowell up at night. The theory, proposed by NASA scientist Donald Kessler in 1978, describes a domino effect where a collision between two objects in orbit creates a cloud of debris. Each piece of that debris then becomes a projectile that can cause another collision, creating even more debris, until low Earth orbit becomes an impassable minefield of hypervelocity shrapnel.
The more satellites you have, the more the chance of a collision, McDowell states plainly. And the problem is once you have the first collision, the debris from that is now threatening all the other satellites.
SpaceX has engineered a highly automated collision avoidance system for Starlink, and McDowell acknowledges its sophistication. The companys satellites constantly monitor their trajectories and can autonomously fire their thrusters to dodge potential impacts. They do thousands of maneuvers a month, he says, which is a testament to both the system’s capability and the terrifyingly crowded environment it operates in. In total, Starlink satellites have performed 50,000 evasive maneuvers since 2019.
But while SpaceX claims that its satellites are 100% safe, the facts tell us that they are not foolproof. Even with a 99% success rate for deorbiting, a 1% failure rate on a 30,000-satellite constellation means you’re adding 300 dead, multi-hundred-kilogram satellites to orbit every five years, McDowell says. That’s 300 uncontrollable bullets waiting to start the Kessler Syndrome.
A catastrophic chain reaction could, in a matter of hours or days, wipe out the essential satellite networks that underpin modern civilization. This isn’t just about losing your GPS navigation on the way to a new restaurant. It’s about the collapse of global finance, weather forecasting, communications, and critical military and disaster-response systems. We are talking about a technological regression of decades, a scenario McDowell finds increasingly plausible as more mega-constellations are launched. Its a high-stakes gamble with civilization’s essential infrastructure.
Theres also a direct-hit danger for people on the ground. A few Starlink satellites have already failed in orbit, becoming uncontrollable space junk that fell back to Earth. Theres at least one report of a piece of a satellite hitting a building in Canada. The latest reported incident took place on December 17, 2025, when a Starlink satellite experienced an anomaly, losing communication and causing a propulsion tank vent, rapid orbital decay, and the release of debris in low Earth orbit. In a 2023 report to congress, the Federal Aviation Administration said theres a real risk of falling Starlink debris injuring or killing someone by 2035.
The Shenzhou-20 launches from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China on April 24, 2025. [Photo: Li Xin/Xinhua/Getty Images]
Space junk is also a problem for rockets. In early November, three taikonauts returned after being stranded on Chinas Tiangong space station for nine days. They couldnt use the spaceship that was going to take them to Earththe Chengdou-20because it had been struck by orbital debris. The China Manned Space Agency said its astronauts found “tiny cracks” in a small window of their Shenzhou-20 spacecraft.
The hit was not fatal, but things could have gone very wrong. The Chinese, however, seem undeterred. Beijing will be launching hundreds of thousands of satellites that mirror Starlinks design, contributing to the problem and increasing the risk to themselves and everyone else.
Why AST SpaceMobile could win
Right now, Starlink doesnt provide direct-to-cell broadband; instead, it provides only text and limited data connections. This low-speed connectivity requires a line of sight with the satellite, as SpaceX states on its site. Starlink, despite its leading market position in the internet satellite business, is still playing catch-up on the direct-to-cell front, and it may never be able to close the gap with AST.
Musks company has two big strikes against it. First is the hardware in orbit. To provide broadband to phones it needs a next-generation Starlink V3 satellite, which doesnt exist yet. SpaceX has no reliable way to launch it, anyway. At an estimated 4,400 pounds, the V3 satellite is too big and heavy for the workhorse Falcon 9 rocket to deploy in economically viable numbers.
The entire business model for Starlink V3 hinges on the success of Starship, Musk’s next-generation, super-heavy-lift launch vehicle. But Starship remains in development, having yet to achieve the consistent opertional launch cadence required to deploy and maintain a constellation of thousands of V3 satellites.
But even if SpaceX manages to finish Starship and Starlink V3 satellites on time, theres a second, even bigger hardware problem: The broadband connectivity wont work unless the cellphone has a special modem chip. Yes, my space cadets, you will need to buy a new phone to enjoy Starlink connectivity, while AST works with any current, unmodified phone. None of these new Starlink-enabled phones exist or have been announced yet. According to SpaceX CEO Gwynne Shotwell, the company is now working on this chip.
[Rendering: AST SpaceMobile]
Were working with chip manufacturers to get the proper chips in phones, she told the audience at World Space Business Week in Paris back in September. Expecting phone manufacturers to incorporate Starlinks proprietary modem in their phones feels like a tall order. Especially when manufacturers like Apple have their own direct cell-to-space plans. It seems unlikely that Tim Cook will tie his companys crown jewel to Musks whims. Or make the phones even more expensive.
However, that doesnt matter, because even if Musk had 15,000 V3 satellites and the Starships ready to launch, the problem will remain the same: You will need phones with Starlink modems in them for broadband. And the line-of-sight problem will persist. The broadband works only when the phone can look at the satellites in the sky.
This is why Musks promised direct-to-cell broadband timeline is speculative. In fact, while he said it would be ready in 2026, according to SpaceX, testing of the first phones equipped with Starlink chips is scheduled for this year, with an aim to complete its V3 direct-to-cell satellite constellation in 2027. It is a promise built on a promise, a technological if dependent on a logistical when. Meanwhile, AST SpaceMobile is preparing to launch new operational satellites on existing rockets.
AST SpaceMobile has already proven its technology works, with six working satellites now transmitting at typical 5G speeds directly to regular phones. This doesnt mean that it has a guaranteed win against Starlink or any of its competitors. While it has the capital to execute its planwith the backing of investors like AT&T, Alphabet, Rakuten, Vanguard, BlackRock, and Mexican magnate Carlos Slim, who owns the largest telecom operator in Latin Americaand superior technology, it needs to execute dozens of launches.
This confidence in the technology explains why the stock has skyrocketed 333% in a year, but the doubts about potential execution problems also explain why the stock experiences wild swings. With every news of a launch or a delay of a launch, the stock can swing 10% or 20% up and down. Thats why the market treats AST as a high-risk, high-reward battleground. It can be a trillion-dollar business or explode on the launchpad if the company doesnt put all those satellites up in 2026.
The coup de grâce
This technological and philosophical divergence has not gone unnoticed by Elon Musk. Seeing a direct threat to his ambitions, he has engaged in a campaign to undermine AST SpaceMobile with baseless accusations, claiming that its satellites are a danger in low Earth orbit because of their size.
At the same time, Musk is battling his own problems in low Earth orbit. China has already denounced two near misses with Starlink satellites that triggered its space station to perform emergency evasive maneuvers. On January 2, SpaceX was forced to move 4,000 satellites to a lower orbit after new research by Chinese scientists highlighted the companys recklessness and the very real risk of collision.
Moreover, Musk desperately tried to stop the Federal Communications Commission from granting AST access to the necessary spectrumthe range of radio frequencies it needs for its satellites to connect with cellphones on Earthclaiming it would be catastrophic for his service because the powerful signals from AST’s large satellites could interfere with Starlink’s user terminals. In response, AST SpaceMobile asserts that its system is designed to coexist with other networks and operates fully within the internationally agreed-upon limits established to prevent such interference. The FCC agreed and allowed AST to use the spetrum.
And that move, if every logistical aspect executes to plan, gives AST an absolute slam dunk against Musk.
Think of the radio spectrum as a giant highway in the sky with a limited number of lanes. Carrying data back and forth, ASTs trucks have the rights to travel through a huge number of these lanes thanks to partners like AT&T and Verizonroughly 35 MHz of what the industry calls the “golden low-band spectrum. It also acquired an extra 45 Mhz low-band spectrum from a bankrupted communications company called Ligado. Thats a massive 80 MHz.
And remember the companys patented magic sauce we mentioned earlier? Thats ASTs secret weapon to make this highway work: a chip that glues the different radio bands together into one massive pipe, capable of delivering peak speeds of 120 megabits per second to phones (comparable to your typical 5G connection).
[Rendering: AST SpaceMobile]
SpaceX and its partner T-Mobile have very few lanes available right now: only 5 MHz. Thats like comparing an 80-lane superhighway to a 5-lane street. To try to fix that, Musk has spent $17 billion to acquire 50 more lanes: 50 MHz of S-band spectrum from another bankrupt communications company, EchoStar. The problem is that physics dictates that higher-frequency radio waves, those that SpaceX is operating on, do not penetrate solid objects as effectively as lower-frequency waves. Thats why Starlinks space-to-cell service will require line of sight to work.
Meanwhile, AST claims its system will work indoors and outdoors, penetrating buildings in a similar way to a regular cell signal. Wisniewski claims that a phone will connect through one wall and work through your cars roof because of two factors: It uses a low-frequency radio connection, and its satellites are big enough to listen and talk to the phones on the ground, even behind obstacles.
This scenario has yet to be proven by AST or a third party. Only line-of-sight broadband with regular phones has been tested successfully. However, if it works inside cars and buildings like Wisniewski claims, the user experience will be seamless. A phone will have service where it didn’t before, delivered through an existing provider like AT&T or Vodafone.
Should we really do this?
But what if were looking at this cell-to-space race the wrong way?
“I hear from friends who go hiking in faraway places, look up at the sky, and say, ‘Wow, you just never see an empty sky anymore, McDowell tells me with a hint of sadness and worry. Musk, Bezos, Wisniewski, the Europeans, and the Chinese would argue that we need ubiquitous cheap internet everywhere in the world, for civilian and military applications. Sure, there’s a lot of money to be made and there’s a genuine need to serve communities in remote places without having to invest in ground infrastructure. But do we really need to stream TikTok from space?
“I don’t necessarily have a position on that,” McDowell says. “My position is that even if that’s the case, it shouldn’t be just the U.S. that decides that. It should be decided by all of the countries in the world, because they’re all affected whether they’re space powers or not.”
Hes right. And if we all decide that we do need this, we should also all agree on the best solution to minimize the impact on humanity. The smarter solution. The most technologically advanced.
