Shares of Palantir Technologies slumped more than 13% on Tuesday, after quarterly results and a raised forecast failed to meet the high expectations of Wall Street investors, who had driven the stock price up significantly ahead of earnings.
The data analytics company’s stock had gained 63% ahead of earnings this year, following a more than fourfold increase last year, fueled by AI-powered growth and government contracts.
“We believe we have reached a point where respectable earnings beats and raised guidance aren’t enough to materially move the stock to the upside,” Morningstar analyst Mark Giarelli said.
Palantir is set to lose more than $40 billion from its market valuation of $292.06 billion if losses hold.
The Denver, Colorado-based company is a significant beneficiary of increased AI-driven demand and strong government contracts, with its AI software solutions being widely used across U.S. commercial sectors such as healthcare, energy, and automotive.
Palantir’s total revenue grew 39% in the first quarter to $883.9 million, with U.S government revenue up 45% from a year earlier. Analysts had expected quarterly revenue of $862.8 million, according to data compiled by LSEG.
Despite the seasonally light quarter, analysts noted strong demand for Palantir’s solutions, with its U.S. business driving results and securing the “lion’s share” of new customers in the quarter.
“Despite recent uncertainty introduced from tariff announcements, Palantir continues to see underlying momentum in the business, landing a record number of $1M deals,” analysts at D.A. Davidson said.
The company now expects full-year revenue to be between $3.89 billion and $3.90 billion, up from its earlier forecast of sales between $3.74 billion and $3.76 billion.
At least 9 brokerages raised their price target for Palantir after earnings, bringing the PT median to $96.46.
Palantir’s 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio is 202.07, compared with Snowflake’s 131, Salesforce’s 23.48 and Datadog’s 54.81.
Harshita Mary Varghese, Reuters
When then-former president Donald Trump introduced a line of NFTs in December 2022, he was widely mocked for it. The digital trading cards alternately depicted Trump as a muscle-bound superhero, a cowboy, and an astronautlike some antiquated fever dream of inspirational masculinity. Coming so soon after a stinging midterm election, in which nearly as many Trump-backed candidates in competitive races lost as those who won, it seemed like a desperate, cringy cash grab from a political supernova, mid-explosion.
All the ridicule around Trumps stratospheric self-image, however, turned out to be a blip. Crucially, the NFTs sold out in less than 24 hours, raising an estimated $4.4 million, and like seemingly every obstacle in Trumps charmed political career, he incurred no lasting damage from the episode. Now that Trump has resumed his presidency, his White House has apparently internalized this lesson. Its official X account now regularly blasts out similarly cringy portraiture, culminating over the weekend in AI-assisted images of Trump as the next pope and a shredded Sith Lord from Star Wars. Government channels are reaching uncharted levels of embarrassment, having ratcheted up the 4chan factor both to emphasize Trumps world-beating dominance and communicate official policy. And they may just be getting warmed up.
Ever since the inauguration in January, the White Houses X account has served up a cosmic gumbo of horn-tooting and antagonistic trolling. Reflecting the presidents relentless command of the attention economy, it often retweets various characters from the Trump Cinematic UniverseJD Vance, Elon Musk, and Kristi Noem, for instancein between provocative posts designed to reach maximum eyeballs. The account codified its house style for the latter early on with an exhibition of mirthful hostility. Viral entries in this genre included an ASMR video about deportations, a Valentines Day card about deportations, and a Studio Ghiblistyle AI rendering of, well, more deportations.
Last weekend, however, the account went into overdrive. Beyond the AI rendering of Pope Trump, in the wake of Pope Franciss recent death, and the May the Fourthtimed image of the president wielding a red lightsaber, there were similar posts celebrating the ostensible defunding of PBS and NPR, several posts mocking the groundswell of support for mistakenly imprisoned immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, some celebrating Trumps attacks on DEI, and a 46-hour video entitled Lo-Fi MAGA Video to Relax/Study To, slowly listing Trumps accomplishments next to a cartoon-Trump writing from the Resolute Desk. (The use of the word study in that title suggests which age group this account is tweeting for.)
While the tweet depicting Trump as Pope Franciss successor had the furthest reach, with 103 million views, and proved the most contentious, with Catholics responding in an uproar, the Star Wars post might be the most mortifying of the bunch. Why is Trump more yoked than a Wrestlemania contestant, for instance? And why is his lightsaber incorrectly the color of the bad guys in the Star Wars universe? (Or correctly colored, as Luke Skywalker himself joked.)
Theres a world of difference between Candidate Trump selling worthless digital trinkets cosplaying various boyhood fantasies, and the White House tweeting such pap from the perch of the presidency. Now that these dispatches come from the communications apparatus of the U.S. government, theyre more than just embarrassing or cringe. Considering that, as some are pointing out online, all White House tweets are preserved in the Library of Congress, these goofy-cruel schoolyard taunts will now have a permanent echo in American history.
Coming right on the heels of the Bidens administrations blissfully boring institutional tone, the Trump 2 White Houses X account is giving rocket-ship-level whiplash. Social channels during Bidens term were so comparatively tame, it was kind of a big, boundary-pushing deal in 2022 when some of Bidens staffers and a Democratic Senator posted Dark Brandon memes, depicting Biden as a supernatural mastermind equipped with fiery eye-lasers. It was an even bigger deal when Biden himself posted the meme in a playful tweet following last years Super Bowl.
What is happening on the official White House X account these days, however, would seem like an escalation even if it came straight after Trumps first term. Between 2017 and 2020, the presidents Twitter account was a constant source of brazen, combative, and often inflammatory posts, while the official accounts generally maintained a more traditional posture. With sanitized summaries of all the unfurling chaos, the official White House account acted as a normalizing Zamboni, cleaning up after Trumps headline-generating posts, to preserve the thin veneer of politics as usual.
Now, the administrations official communications channels are in sync with Trumps belligerent, reality-defiant brand, but with the juvenile posting sensibility of X owner Musk to boot. Any given day on X might find the White Houses account framing Trumps personal beliefs as those of the U.S. governmentand woe betide those who share any opposing views. This unified front suggests a deep erosion within the U.S. government of any remaining distance between Trump and Not Trump. Its a show of supremacy so clear, one couldnt even miss it from a galaxy far, far away.
It seems to be gaining a following, too. On Monday morning, Semafor released a report that the White Houses X account had< href="https://www.semafor.com/newsletter/05/04/2025/semafor-media-never-go-back"> garnered two billion impressions in Trumps first 100 days. For an administration that so clearly thrives on generating attention of any kind, it seems like a big win. The billions of impressions the White Houses Trump-y posts keep racking up only underscores how all of this will look in posterity, though.
Theres a good reason the Library of Congress has no wood engravings of a buff Abe Lincoln freeing Americas slaves with a turbo-musketand its not because AI didnt exist back then.
Prioritizing growth to sell is a perfectly reasonable business strategy. Being acquired by a larger group at some point (like Poppis recent sale to PepsiCo) makes sense for manyto generate cash flow for expansion, take a shortcut to economies of scale or market penetration, or just cash in for early retirement. But not for me.
Early on in my business journey at Bulletproof, we considered a buyout from a renowned global comms agency. But when they starting asking for growth projections and questioning whether we could achieve them, we walked away. We went on to smash those projections within three yearsthats when I truly started to realize we would be better off independent. Really, who would want to report to someone who doesnt believe in your vision?
Putting independence first
Growing a good business is about relevance, internal culture, and excellencequalities that risk dilution under a larger group. You can so easily lose your way and what you stand forjust look at the recent headlines around Ben and Jerrys, with original CEO, David Stever, ousted for the political activism that was always at the heart of the original business. Also, as you relinquish control, you invariably compromise on how you pursue innovation or map the future. Its why Ive always put independence first.
But if you dont want to bank on acquisition in your strategy for scale, how can you nurture expansion, while retaining your independent spirit? In fact, independence and global success go together quite nicely, you just need to embrace the right mindset.
Always striving for relevance
Different leaders will always have different qualities, but independence, to me, is about embracing a certain restlessness. A business shouldnt just be about creating great work, but about being at the cutting edge of cultureabout being relevant.
For that, you need to be constantly moving, searching, never settling. We could be a perfectly good business of 50 people in London, sticking to a clearly defined nichevery well-off but ultimately very bored. Or we can be the business that doesn’t settle, one that embraces new technology, new opportunity and innovation without having to deal with interminable layers of approval. Its a choice you need to actively make and embrace.
Embracing imperfection
To do so, though, you need to allow yourself to make mistakes. In fact, being able to make mistakes, without being dragged over the coals for every misstep, is one of the biggest luxuries of independence.
Weve made many mistakes at Bulletproof. For example, we messed up when we thought we could crack New York without having people on the ground and soon learned that it wouldnt work. From a personal point of view, I made the mistake of thinking I could do it allrun the business and be the creative head. For a long time, I didnt accept that there were people better suited to running parts of the business. Its a mistake I wish Id made a lot earlier. You dont grow a business, you grow people.
So being independent is about embracing that imperfection and learning from those gaffes along the way. If you dont, you never progress. It goes hand-in-hand with persistence. As a business founder or leader, you take things personally, so youre protective over the business and its people. But you have to learn from mistakes and move on quickly.
The right approach to scale
Pursuing scale as a marker of success has its place. But progress means that you must grow for the right reasonsand without compromising quality. For us, scale is about growing talent and capabilities to complement our strengths. Its never about scale for the sake of it.
For example, we dismissed the idea of franchising our name for global expansion, even though we received a few approaches. Maintaining control over quality was far more important than spreading our name in this way.
A better way to think about scale is that its all about the right talent. Hard work, determination, nurturing, kind individuals who attract the right work and embody your values. If you get this right, you can scale.
Articulate your vision
To ensure that quality, you also need convictionand vision. People can help you with every other aspect of running a business, but the vision needs to come from the top. It needs to be both externally and internally facing. That way you will always have a road map of what you want to achieve and why, and youll always know how to take your team on that journey,
At Bulletproof, our vision is to challenge the creative agency networks through doing the most compelling, commercially creative work on the planet. To prove there is a different way of doing things.
Keep your fighting spirit
But underpinning it all needs to be a fighting spirit. Things start to fall apart when you think youve made it Dont forget the early days, which invariably are hard. I didnt come from a lot, for example.
You should always nurture the mindset to spot the opportunities when they present themselves. Diageo is now one of our largest clients, but it all started with a $20,000 brief for a cocktail in a can. Sometimes businesses reach a certain size and only go for the million-dollar briefsbut thats not how you grow, especially not as an independent business.
You can see this fight, this alertness to opportunity, in many of the worlds most respected entrepreneurs. These leaders always look to evolve their enterprises, both into new markets and within their business practices, and their fight and drive keeps them relevant. Nikes Phil Knight is a great example. His book Shoe Dog is a personal favorite. In it, he speaks so honestly about what they went through, and the hustle of the early days.
Its what makes running a fiercely independent business so rewarding. With it will come the growth that is truly rewardingand the freedom to say no when a buyer comes knocking.
“Well, it took a minute,” said Spike Lee, surveying the glittering Met Gala crowd during cocktail hour through bright orange glasses that matched his New York Knicks cap. “But we’re here now, that’s the most important thing.”Lee was referring to the fact that for the very first time, the Met Gala was making a point of celebrating Black style and Black designerssomething he felt was an overdue milestone, but a very welcome one.
Tonya Lewis Lee, left, and Spike Lee attend The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition on Monday, May 5, 2025, in New York. [Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP]
“Long overdue,” Lee repeated. “But we’re here to celebrate. And who knows what’s gonna happen because of this event? There’s gonna be reverberations around the world.”
Serena Williams attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition on Monday, May 5, 2025, in New York. [Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP]
Lee was echoing an excitement that many of the approximately 400 guestsluminaries in sports, music, fashion, film, theater and moreshared as they sipped cocktails or toured the gala’s accompanying exhibit, “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style.” The show is an exploration of Black menswear from the 18th century onward, with dandyism as a unifying theme.
Alex Newell attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition on Monday, May 5, 2025, in New York. [Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP]
Another film director, Baz Luhrmann, was touring the exhibit, designed by curator Monica L. Miller, a Barnard professor who literally wrote the book on dandyism: “Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. He, too, mused on the importance of this year’s theme.“Sometimes the subjects are fun, sometimes you go, that’s interesting. But this is a subject where you go, why has light not been shone on this before?” Luhrmann said. “Black sartorial power on culture is so great but how much talk has there been about it?”
Whoopi Goldberg attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition on Monday, May 5, 2025, in New York. [Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP]
Thinking of a departed friend
For Whoopi Goldberg, the most important person of the evening wasn’t actually there. It was her late friend, André Leon Talley, the fashion editor and personality who was so important to Black style, and with whom she’d attended previous galas.Talley, who died in 2022, is honored in the exhibit; there’s a caftan he wore, among other objects. And Costume Institute curator Andrew Bolton has said he was an inspiration for the show.
Colman Domingo attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition on Monday, May 5, 2025, in New York. [Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP]
“I think they did him proud,” Goldberg said during cocktails. “I’m very happy to be here again, but spectacularly happy to see how they took care of him.”Asked what Talley would have thought of the show, she guessed he’d say: “I’m glad you understand.” And she added: “What better way to honor him?”Goldberg was dressed head to toemeaning mini-top hat to spats-inspired shoes, to handbagin Thom Browne.“He said. ‘Will you come?'” Goldberg said of Browne, whose suits, particularly, are hugely popular. “And I said, when you’re done, just put it on me, and I’m good. I feel incredible.”
Lupita Nyong’o attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition on Monday, May 5, 2025, in New York. [Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP]
So what is dandyism?
It was a favored topic of conversation; every guest had a slightly different way of defining what a dandy is.
For director Lee, it was simple: “Doing your own thing.”
For Audra McDonald, it was about “a sense of reclaiming” one’s own identity and worth. The Broadway actor, currently starring in “Gypsy,” was among the first guests examining the exhibit, along with her husband and fellow actor, Will Swenson.
Al Sharpton attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition on Monday, May 5, 2025, in New York. [Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP]
Over at cocktails, the Rev. Al Sharpton was describing dandyism as a form of activism: the silent kind.“It means to me that even in the midst of being in a socially limited situation, we celebrate. I refuse to submit to just having a menial job. I’m gonna dress up . I’m gonna tip my hat. It’s a sense of rebellion without having to speak it.”
A crucial sense of timing
Sharpton was full of praise for the Met having chosen this moment to honor Black style.“It comes at a very important time,” he said. “To make a statement of diversity at the highest cultural levelwhich is the Met Galawhen diversity is under attack by the highest office in the land is more than if I could do a hundred marches. This is a monumental night.”Broadway actor Alex Newell agreed. It was the performer’s third Met Gala in a row, but this one had a special meaning.“It’s nice to see us represented this way,” Newell said. “Just when it is needed the most.”
Simone Biles attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition on Monday, May 5, 2025, in New York. [Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP]
A flower-filled night sky
Once gala guests climb the steps outside and enter the museum’s Great Hall, they encounter each year a monumental centerpiece, usually floral.This year, it was hundredsthousands?of flower petals suspended from the ceiling, with lighting evoking a starry sky. The petals also hung over the Great Hall staircase, which guests ascended to greet the awaiting receiving line of gala hosts.The petalsmade of fabric, truth be toldwere meant to symbolize narcissus flowers, and there were also reflecting pools, nodding to the myth of Narcissus.The greeting was not only visual but musical: An orchestra, accompanied by swaying singers, played favorites like Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” and Stevie Wonder’s “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing,”Guests then either proceeded to view the exhibit, or head straight to cocktails in the airy Engelhard Court. Often, they seem to prefer socializing, but this year the exhibit was filled with guests.
Honoring Oscar (Wilde, that is)
One of the more famous dandies, historically speaking, was Oscar Wilde. And so there was symmetry in the fact that Sarah Snook the “Succession” star was dressed in a way Wilde would have liked.It was certainly intentional. Snook now is appearing on Broadway in “The Picture of Dorian Gray,” the stage adaptation of Wilde’s 1891 novel in which she plays all 26 roles.
Sarah Snook attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition on Monday, May 5, 2025, in New York. [Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP]
“Yes, There’s definitely an echo,” Snook said with a smile, about her striking (and aristocratic-looking) black suit. “Oscar would be happy.”Snook said she was enjoying her night off at the gala conveniently for the many guests from Broadway, theaters are dark on Mondays.“I’m loving the celebration of beautiful things,” Snook said of her gala experience.
There are always first-timers
At every Met Gala, there are newbies and they’re often rather starstruck. One of them was model Christian Latchman, 19, wearing a dramatic white ensemble that combined trousers with a long skirt.If he looked familiar, that’s because Latchman is the face in the photograph on the cover of the exhibit’s massive hardcover catalog.Asked to sum up his feelings about the evening, he said simply: “Astonishment. That’s the word for it.”
Keith Powers attends The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating the opening of the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition on Monday, May 5, 2025, in New York. [Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP]
Also new to the gala was actor Keith Powers, who sat on the sidelines, soaking it in. Was it all intimidating? Overwhelming?
“All of the above,” he said. “It makes me anxious and happy, and inspired.”
A call to dinner, tuba included
Cocktails are fun, but dinner at the Met Gala sounds even more fun that’s where guests get an A-plus musical performance, for one thing.But music also accompanies the call to dinner. This time, it was the New York-based High and Mighty Brass Band who did the honors, snaking through cocktails with drums, trombones, a tuba and trumpets.Then guests headed off slowly to dinner, where they feasted on a menu by chef Kwame Onwuachi. Dinner began with papaya piri piri salad, and moved on to creole roasted chicken with a lemon emulsion, and cornbread with honey curry butter and barbecue greens. Dessert? That was a “cosmic brownie” with powdered sugar doughnut mousse.
For more coverage of the 2025 Met Gala, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/met-gala
Jocelyn Noveck, AP National Writer
When Cadillac designed its new ultraluxury EV, the handcrafted Celestiq, the design team had to completely rethink its battery pack: a standard EV battery wouldnt fit inside.
We had a challenge, because due to the low roof height and the expressive proportions, there wasnt room for a typical battery in this vehicle, says Tony Nausieda, chief engineer of electrical propulsion systems at GM. It would have been probably pretty straightforward to do something like an internal combustion powertrain, but that was not at all what anybody wanted to do. This was conceived to be an electric vehicle.
[Photo: GM]
They couldnt compromise on the low lines of the car. It also had to be spacious insideincluding in the back seat, because the type of person who owns a bespoke vehicle that starts at $340,000 often uses a driver. And the battery needed to be big enough to give the car at least 300 miles of range.
Rear drivers side view of CELESTIQ battery mounted on assembly cart, highlighting the raised tunnel area between driver and passenger seating, and recessed footwell areas for second-row passengers. [Photo: GM]
To tackle the challenge, they took a new approach to the layout of the battery cells. In other GM vehicles, the cells are stacked vertically in a tray. (The company calls the arrangement toast since it looks like slices of bread.) But for the Celestiq, the battery cells lie horizontally. And instead of having a uniform height, the battery pack varies from front to back. Its more of a topographical situation, Nausieda says.
[Photo: GM]
Underneath the passenger seat in the front, the stack of cells is slightly higher; under the second row footwell, the stack is very short to provide as much legroom as possible. Because there was much more room under the second-row seat cushions, the batteries are stacked higher there. Once the engineers had gotten to that point, they were still 25 miles short of what the car needed in range. So, they designed a new console in the interior, from front to back, and added 24 more battery cells in the tunnel theyd created. That put us comfortably above that 300-mile limit, he says.
[Photo: GM]
The unusual arrangement was possible because GMs Ultium battery system, created in a partnership with LG Energy Solution, was designed for flexibility, with cells, modules, and packs that can be built in different configurations. The Celestiq’s particular battery pack design is unlikely to be repeated in other models, since it’s more difficult to assemble; the luxury car is made by hand and doesn’t need to be made at scale. But it’s one example of the car company’s road map to move from a one-size-fits-all battery to developing the ideal battery for a particular car.
In this case, the designers didn’t have a choice. Typically, “your vehicle design and configuration is really somewhat bounded by the propulsion technologies that you have available to you,” says Nausieda. But with the Celestiq, the design came first and the engineers had to make the battery work. “We took a clean sheet of paper approach and made sure that we had the right battery to support this vehicle and not compromise,” he says.
Next week’s conclave to elect the successor to Pope Francis as leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics is a solemn affair steeped in centuries-old traditions.But far from the Sistine Chapel where cloistered cardinals will cast votes, people are placing bets on who will be chosen as the next pope. From cash bets on websites to online games modeled after fantasy football leagues and casual wagers among friends and families, the popularity of guessing and gambling on the future of the papacy is increasing worldwide, experts and participants say.It’s even topped the Europa League soccer tournament and Formula One drivers’ championship, said Sam Eaton, U.K. manager for Oddschecker, a leading online platform analyzing odds across sports, events and other betting markets.“There’s a huge level of interest globally,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve had a market like this where we’ve had so many countries interested in seeing odds.”
Around the world, thousands of bets on the next pope
Hundreds of thousands of people from some 140 countries have visited Oddschecker to review each cardinal’s chances of becoming the next pope, Eaton said. He noted special eagerness in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States.In the U.K., about 30,000 pounds (almost $40,000) have been wagered with one leading online betting platform as of this week, Eaton saida far cry from 1.2 million pounds on the singing contest Eurovision but still noteworthy as a trend, with the conclave days away.“Betting on the next pope is definitely a niche market in the grand scheme of things, but it generates global interest,” said Lee Phelps, a spokesman for William Hill, one of the U.K.’s biggest bookmakers.“Since April 21, we’ve taken thousands of bets, and it’s the busiest of all our non-sports betting markets,” said Phelps, who expects a surge in interest once the conclave begins Wednesday.Betting on elections, papal conclaves and all manner of global events is almost a tradition of its own in the U.K., but such betting is not legal in the United States. BetMGM, one of the world’s top sports-betting companies, said it would not have any bets up.But Eaton noted that in the unregulated, illegal space, one of the biggest sites has $10 million wagered so far in pope bets.
Fantasy “teams” of cardinals
In Italy, betting on the papal electionand all religious eventsis forbidden.Some people in Rome are making friendly, informal wagersthe equivalent of $20 on a favorite cardinal, with the loser pledging to host a dinner or buy a pizza night out.Others are turning to an online game called Fantapapa, or Fantasy Pope, which mimics popular fantasy football and soccer leagues. More than 60,000 people are playing, each choosing 11 cardinalsas if for a soccer teamwhom they believe have the best shot at becoming the next pope.They also draft the top contender, or captain. As with online wagers, the No. 1 choice for fantasy players has been Italian Cardinal Pietro Parolin, closely followed by Filipino Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle.“It’s a really fun game to play with friends and have a laugh,” Italian student Federico La Rocca, 23, said. “Initially my dad sent it to me ironically, but now that it’s going to be the conclave, I decided to have a go and try it.”La Rocca said he chose Tagle because “he looks like a nice guy and fun person.”Players’ selections determine the number of points they rake in. But what’s the jackpot?“Eternal glory,” joked Mauro Vanetti, who created the game when Francis was hospitalized earlier this year.Vanetti said he and his co-founder are against gambling, but they wanted to create something fun around the event.“It seems like in Italy there’s a certain inquisitiveness about the mechanisms of the Catholic hierarchy, but it’s a critical curiosity, a sarcastic and playful curiosity, so we were interested in this jesting spirit for such a solemn event,” Vanetti said. “In some ways it deflates the sacredness, in a nonaggressive way.”
Some concerns about betting on a solemn event
Beyond simply picking who the next pope will be, players and gamblers also can guess how many tries it will take the cardinals to choose the leader, which day of the week he’ll be elected, what new name he will decide on, or where his priorities will land on the progressive-conservative scale.While the game and some of the bets have a novel or fun nature, anti-gambling advocates have raised overall concerns about legal gaming and the growing popularity of wagering on all manner of events.A study published last fall found that 10% of young men in the U.S. show behavior that indicates a gambling problem, which is a rising concern in other parts of the world, too.And for gambling around the papacy in general, some have raised religious concerns. Catholic teaching doesn’t go so far as to call games of chance or wagers sinful, but its Catechism warns that “the passion for gambling risks becoming an enslavement.”It says gambling becomes “morally unacceptable” if it gravely affects a person’s livelihood.
Hui reported from London. AP writers Giovanna Dell’Orto in Rome and Mark Anderson in Las Vegas contributed.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Maria Grazia Murru and Sylvia Hui, Associated Press
The Trump administration’s layoffs across the federal workforce have already left tens of thousands of employees without jobs or on indefinite leave. But many federal agencies have since been instructed to make even deeper cuts to their workforce. In total, at least 12% of the 2.4 million workers employed by the federal government could be impacted, according to the New York Times.
For many workers, the sweeping cuts have upended the stability that federal jobs long promised. They also significantly impact women and people of color, effectively making them another attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion effortssomething that has been a priority for the Trump administration.
The diversity of federal agencies
An analysis by the National Women’s Law Center takes a closer look at how these job cuts are chipping away at the diversity of the federal workforce, which has historically mirrored the demographics of the overall U.S. workforce. As of September 2024, nearly half of federal workers (46%) were women and about 41% were people of color. (Since the administration took down current demographic data on the federal workforce in March, the NWLC analysis draws on data from September 2024.)
Among the agencies that have been ordered to further reduce headcount, women accounted for an even higher percentage of their employees relative to the overall federal workforce, according to the NWLC. The administration wants to cut 80,000 employees from the Department of Veterans Affairs, for example, where women comprise 64% of the workforce. The Department of Education’s workforce, of which 63% are women, has already been slashed in halfand President Trump is striving to shutter the agency altogether.
Proposed layoffs at a number of other cabinet departments and agencies where women and people make up the majority of the workforce could impact tens of thousands of employees. Black workers, for example, account for 36% of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, as compared to 18% of the overall federal workforce. Latinos and Indigenous workers, too, are employed at higher rates by certain federal agencies that have been marked for layoffs, relative to the overall workforce.
How probationary workers are affected
The Trump administration has targeted probationary workers, in particular, who are not entitled to the same rights as federal workers with tenure. Probationary workers are typically in their first year of service or have recently been promoted to a new role. They also lack the protections that other federal workers have against being fired without cause. Nearly 25,000 of these workers have reportedly been fired; some were temporarily reinstated in response to court orders, but a new ruling in April granted Trump the ability to fire them yet again.
Probationary workers are often younger and earlier in their career, but they’re also more likely to be women: The NWLC reports that half of probationary employees across the federal workforce are women, but in certain departments, well over 60% of them can be women. The same is true among people of color, who make up 46% of probationary workers overall and a far larger percentage of those workers at specific agencies like the Treasury Department and the Social Security Administration.
The benefits of a federal job
Beyond offering a measure of job stability, federal roles are often a source of solid benefits that are harder to come by in the private sector, like 12 weeks of paid parental leave.
Federal jobs also offer greater salary transparency and narrower wage gaps, mitigating the pay inequities that are more likely to impact women and people of color in the workplace: As of September 2024, women in the federal workforce were paid 95 cents for every dollar that men earned, a stark contrast from the 83 cents per dollar earned by women across the U.S. workforce. (The NWLC found that some departments had even narrower gender wage gaps prior to the recent layoffs.)
Lucas Krafts friends knew him as the guy who always had an antacid. His recovery from bulimia left him with gastrointestinal damage, which made him reliant on over-the-counter digestive medicines. But they were also filled with chemicals that didnt mesh with his health-conscious SoCal lifestyle.
Luckily, his brother Noah had an eye for predicting where consumer interests are headed. He founded Doppler Labs, the buzzy 2010s startup hoping to create an in-ear computer, three years before Apple launched their AirPods. Doppler Labs was too early, but Wonderbellythe brothers digestive health brandhas been right on time with its focus on clean ingredients and opposition to existing giants of OTC medicines.
In the late 2010s, clean beauty was already surging. Whole Foods and Erewhon were on the rise, but they were siloed within wealthy communities. But a new and growing swatch of health obsessivesboth within and without Robert F. Kennedy Jr.s Make America Healthy Again movementhas put Wonderbelly in an unusually dominant position. The superstores came knocking: First Target, then CVS, and now Walmart.
[Image: courtesy Wonderbelly]
Wonderbelly products now feature prominently at 2,500 Walmart stores nationwide via a fleet of endcaps. These offerings include reworked packaging as well as a debut multisymptom product designed to compete with Pepto-Bismol.
Noah contrasts Wonderbellywhich is sold as an OTC product with health claims that are regulated by the Food and Drug Administrationwith the $53 billion supplements market. Supplements are the Wild West. They are unregulated, so when you take a supplement, its hard to determine whether it works or is a placebo, he says. As an FDA-regulated OTC medicine . . . credibility is key.
Growing the the old-fashioned way
Medicine moves slower than Noahs native tech world. The brothers incorporated Wonderbelly in 2021, before spending two years deep in product development. (Noah got antsy in this period, so he made an app to track digestive health.) When the companys clean Tums alternative was ready in April 2023, Target was immediately on board. The retailer asked to place Wonderbelly in 2,000 stores, but the Kraft brothers needed more time, eventually agreeing to 650. Even that pared-back retail presence was important to Wonderbellys vision to build its brand credibility the old-fashioned wayin brick and mortar.
People buy medicine as a bottom-of-funnel product, Noah says. You go into your supermarket, youre picking up bananas, and you grab some Tums. It is not the sort of thing where you go to someone’s website like you do with Casper.
With more stores, Wonderbelly brought more products. For the company’s CVS launch, it debuted a clean Gas-X alternative. Now, with Wonderbelly’s new placement in Walmart, it’s rolling out a clean Pepto-Bismol challenger. Wonderbelly intentionally positions itself against these name brands; it’s not interested in customers shopping for generics. Even the store placement mattersthe company isn’t interested in selling in Whole Foods or Sprouts, because they dont carry Tums. We dont want to sit next to apple cider vinegar, Noah says.
[Image: courtesy Wonderbelly]
Wonderbellys bet is that, when given the choice between a chemical-filled name brand and a cleaned up alternative, the premium customer will choose it instead. The strategy has been lucrative. While he declined to disclose specific financials, Noah notes that the company hit profitability in April. As of April 2024, Wonderbelly was valued at about $53 million, according to market insight tool PitchBooka number that Noah confirmed is still roughly accurate.
Jeff Behm, Wonderbellys VP of sales, points out that the company will double its sales year over year, having reached 100,000 points of distribution. (It helps that the company is incredibly slim: Wonderbelly has 12 employees, and Noah has no desire to hire more.) The Walmart launch is poised to skyrocket sales by introducing 2,500 colorful endcaps nationwide.
Walmart has a different customer, than the deep-pocketed shoppers that frequent the likes of Erewhon and similarly priced boutique grocers that dominate the clean space. So Wonderbelly created a new, cheaper $9.99 version of its antacidwith fewer tabletsto meet Walmarts everyday low prices mandate. It seems to have paid off: Looking at the first-week data from the brands soft launch, Noah says sales are where he expected them be after three months of a concerted marketing push.
Customers are familiar with these legacy brands, and they’re going to stay connected to these legacy brands, says Kristin Piper, Walmarts vice president of wellness merchandising. Some customers are looking for innovation, like [what] Wonderbelly is bringing to the space.
[Image: courtesy Wonderbelly]
Navigating a MAHA minefield
The Krafts grew up in Los Angeles, where their mother enforced a clean regime. Lucas describes a house full of alternative brands that always tasted so much worse. That includes drinking imitation milk at age 5. Noah points out that they werent allowed to drink Diet Coke. The brothers have mostly carried this clean ethos to their adult life, leading Lucas to count the ingredients on the back of his medicine bottles.
Though Wonderbellys antacid has six ingredients to the average of 20 in Tums, that model of ingredient numbering can be reductive, especially in medicine, where some foreign chemicals are crucial to the products transportation around the body. So Wonderbelly makes its definition even clearer: non-GMO, vegan, free of artificial dyes, sweeteners, talc, titanium dioxide, parabens, and gluten.
The siblings timing with Wonderbelly couldnt have been better. The consumer wellness market skyrocketed coming out of the pandemic. Clean beauty, once a miniscule portion of the makeup market, is now valued at more than $8 billion. Consumers are buying Oura Rings and drinking kombucha. Its also not lost on the Krafts that their product appeals to a broad enough consumer base to include those buying into the Make America Healthy Again movement.
We strongly believe in science, but we also align heavily with a lot of the things that the MAHA movement is pushing for, Lucas says, adding that he and his brand are still positioned for people eating food that can upset their stomachs. Antacids usually dont come after youve had a big meal of kale salad.
MAHAs reach is also broad, and has spurred actions that range from Sweetgreen eliminating seed oils in its food to the state of Utah banning fluoride in drinking water against prevailing medical consensus of the elements public health benefits.
As a result, the Krafts have had to be somewhat judicious about who they associate the brand with. There have been several instances where were talking to someone and then we go to their socials, and were like, Thanks for the support. Please dont mention our company name, Noah says.
Instacart is launching a new stand-alone app called Fizz, designed for groups to order snacks and drinks ahead of parties for a flat $5 delivery fee.
The platform, developed in collaboration with the hugely popular event invite app Partiful, enables partygoers in the 30 U.S. states where alcohol delivery is legal to add items to a shared cart from nearby participating grocery stores. Instead of splitting the bill, each user is prompted to pay only for what theyve added, with an option to include a tip for the shopper.
Back in February, Instacarts chief product officer, Daniel Danker, approached Partiful CEO Shreya Murthy about partnering on the app. The teams began development in earnest in March, with Danker crediting artificial intelligence and mutual enthusiasm for the app’s rapid progress.
There aren’t a lot of consumer apps being built these days, and there arent a lot of people solving some of these really core needs for customers in a simple and delightful way,” Danker tells Fast Company.
Murthy says she was intrigued by the opportunity to address the common challenge of figuring out what to bring to a partyand finding time to pick it up.
“Think about the last time you went to a house party. There was probably this implicit social expectation for you to bring a bottle of wine or a pack of beer,” Murthy says. “As for me, as a guest who would go to parties, that was actually kind of annoying because I’d forget. . . . And I can’t show up to this party empty-handed.
“We basically productized BYOB,” she adds, referring to “bring your own bottle.”
Instacart is one of the biggest players in the gig economy. It went public in September 2023, and its shares have risen nearly 57% since then. Partiful, launched in 2020, has also seen rapid growthit reported a 600% increase in user activity in 2024 and was named one of Fast Companys Most Innovative Companies of 2025.
Fizz incorporates Partifuls web-friendly design, meaning users dont need to download the Fizz app to place orders.
Party hosts can either start a cart and share the link in a group chat or create a typical Partiful invite and toggle the group order option to generate a shared cart on the event page. Guests can then add their items and see what others have selected. Each person pays for their share, while the host schedules the delivery and pays the $5 fee.
Fizz orders will be fulfilled by Instacart shoppers. Danker notes that the more items in a cart, the more shoppers will earn. He also anticipates higher tips due to the low delivery fee.
“If people didn’t feel like they spent a bunch on fees, he says, then they feel really generous when it comes to the tips.
A bipartisan group of President Donald Trump’s critics is launching a new organization, dubbed the Cost Coalition, to highlight Trump’s struggle to control rising costs in the early months of his new presidency.The group expects to be especially active ahead of upcoming elections in Virginia, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according to preliminary plans shared with The Associated Press this week ahead of a formal announcement. The Cost Coalition will push its message through a combination of paid advertising, social media, press interviews and on-the-ground events with small business leaders, veterans and the faith community.Terry Holt, a former spokesperson to former President George W. Bush and former House Speaker John Boehner, both Republicans, is serving as a senior communications adviser along with Andrew Bates, a former spokesperson for former President Joe Biden, a Democrat.“In 100 days, Donald Trump put the best-performing economy in the world on a crash course toward recession. Trump’s tariffsthe biggest middle class tax hike in modern historyare making everyday prices skyrocket and wreaking havoc for businesses large and small,” Holt and Bates said in a joint statement. “Next up are grossly inflationary tax cuts for the wealthy that will only saddle future generations with staggering debt. Whether you’re a Republican, Democrat, or anything else, Donald Trump’s agenda is an economic crisis threatening your livelihood and standard of living.”The new group enters a political landscape already packed with powerful voices fighting to shape the national conversation little more than 100 days after Trump began his second term. The Republican president vowed to “end inflation” on Day 1, but he has focused more on immigration, culture wars and exacting revenge against his political adversaries while launching a global trade war that has pushed some costs higher and threatens to send the U.S. economy into recession.Trump late last week said on his social media platform that there is “NO INFLATION” and claimed that grocery and egg prices have fallen, and that gasoline has dropped to $1.98 a gallon.That’s not entirely true: Grocery prices have jumped 0.5% in two of the past three months and are up 2.4% from a year ago. Gasoline and oil prices have declinedgas costs are down 10% from a year agocontinuing a longer-running trend that has continued in part because of fears the economy will weaken.Inflation did drop noticeably in March, an encouraging sign, though in the first three months of the year it was 3.6%, according to the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge, well above its 2% target.The Cost Coalition will be led by a team of veteran operatives who played key roles for Kamala Harris’ unsuccessful presidential campaign: Republican strategist Austin Weatherford, the leader of “Republicans for Harris”; Rev. Jennifer Butler, Harris’ national faith and engagement director; Libby Jamison, the Harris campaign’s national director of veteran and military family engagement; political strategist Leslie Gross, a veteran of the Obama-Biden administration; and George Holman, who served in the Biden administration.A spokesperson declined to say how the new group will be funded, except to say it has “seed contributions” from some large donors in both parties and will also rely on grassroots donations. As a project of the American Values Alliance, the organization will be set up as a nonprofit with a hybrid political action committee. As such, it won’t have to publicly disclose all of its funding sources.
Steve Peoples, AP National Politics Writer
