Having a baby isn’t cheap, but sometimes, even the delivery alone can be a crushing burden on families.
According to a new survey, even moms who are insured can end up saddled with medical debt that adds to the financial stress of growing a family. What To Expect, a website that provides new and expecting parents with resources, surveyed 3,285 women on their experiences with labor and delivery charges. The research found that one in four moms have gone into debt due to the costs associated with giving birth. The survey found that, on average, moms are leaving the hospital with around $3,000 in debt.
And that’s before the baby expensesdiapers, formula, daycare!start piling up.
According to the respondents, even women with insurance are ending up with hefty tabs from the hospital. Almost half (48%) with self-purchased insurance plans say theyve gone into debt due to the costs. Almost a third (32%) of moms with employer-provided plans had the same experience. Furthermore, 18% of moms with Medicaid ended up with debt from out-of-pocket labor and delivery expenses, even though Medicaid is designed for low-income families.
While worrying about how you might pay off a rather large and unexpected hospital bill is something a lot of families aren’t prepared for, new moms have another consuming task (aside from trying to figure out how to care for a new human 24/7): the weight of deciding when to go back to work. Given there is no federally mandated maternity leave that ensures moms have time to rest, recover, and bond with their new babies in the U.S., for many, a return to work happens quickly.
According to a 2024 report from the Policy Center for Maternal Mental Health, one in four new mothers go back to work just 10 days after giving birth out of financial necessity.
Aside from the strain on their bodies, which are still recovering, that early return isn’t great for new moms’ mental health, either. Women who return to work before the 12-week mark are at an increased risk for developing postpartum mental health challenges, like postpartum depression, according to a 2021 study from Harvards T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Women who have at least 12 weeks of paid leave were 30% less likely to report depressive symptoms, the study found.
In most other countries, returning to work almost immediately is practically unheard of. In fact, the U.S. practically stands alone in its lack of mandated leave for new mothers. On average, moms receive 19 weeks of paid maternity leave, according to a 2023 study of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, including the United States. The United States is the only country of OECDs 38 member countries that does not guarantee any paid maternity leave.
Star Treka franchise that famously promotes the philosophy Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations”is being accused of “becoming” too woke.
Last week, White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller shared a post from the X account End Wokeness that featured a short clip from the premiere episode of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.
Tragic. But its not too late for @paramountplus to save the franchise. Step 1: Reconcile with @WilliamShatner and give him total creative control. https://t.co/HRMDcYeBnU— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) January 16, 2026
The clip showed cast members Tricia Black (playing Lt. Rork), Gina Yashere (Lura Thok) and Holly Hunter (Nahla Ake). The caption read: Star Trek 2026 Beyond parody
What sparked the vitriol? Three women talking.
Miller went on to describe the current state of the Star Trek franchise as tragic and suggested that Paramount+ should bring back 94-year-old William Shatner, who played Captain James T. Kirk in Star Trek from 19661969, offering him full creative control.
On Monday, Shatner responded. I am so on the same page with you @StephenM ! he wrote on X.
I am so on the same page with you @StephenM! The fact that they have not cure Hyperopia by the 32rd Century is an abysmal oversight on the writers!Also @paramountplus needs to up the budget because Im sure that a well oiled organization like Starfleet in the distant https://t.co/96MtYUGGWf— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) January 19, 2026
The fact that they have not cure Hyperopia by the 32rd Century is an abysmal oversight on the writers! he joked.
The sarcasm clearly went right over Millers head, who followed up with another post. Paramount screwed up royally when they decided to kill off Kirk in Star Trek Generations, he wrote.
@WilliamShatner disagreed strenuously but was a team player and out-acted everyone in the film. But its not too late for Paramount to make amends with Shatner and save the franchise, he urged. Do it!
Paramount screwed up royally when they decided to kill off Kirk in Star Trek Generations. @WilliamShatner disagreed strenuously but was a team player and out-acted everyone in the film. But its not too late for Paramount to make amends with Shatner and save the franchise. Do it! https://t.co/YORaoM0JEV— Stephen Miller (@StephenM) January 19, 2026
Many Star Trek fans were quick to point out Millers anti-woke hero is the same actor who famously took part in the first interracial kiss in U.S. television history, during Star Treks original run in the 1960s. They also pointed to Millers fundamental misunderstanding of the show, whose progressive values have long been light-years ahead of its time.
Fans have recently shared their concerns across Reddit forums about what Trump ally David Ellisons takeover at Paramount might mean for the Star Trek franchise.
Do you think the shows will continue to be liberal/socialist filled with science, diplomacy, democratic solutions, and human rights? one user mused. Will they devolve into combat based popcorn fair? Will they straight up become positive analogs for the current administration? Or racial allegories in the bad way?
[Photo: John Medland/Paramount+]
Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, created by Gaia Violo, premiered last week on Paramount+. It has since become the target of review bombing from those accusing a show about aliens of being too woke.
Earlier in the month, Elon Musk also shared a post featuring the same clip. He wrote: Turns out they banned Ozempic and LASIK in the future lol.
Actress Tricia Black responded on Instagram with the caption, Ive seen this exact same comment probably 100 times already so whatever but its nuts that the richest man in [the world] felt the need to steal the joke. It doesnt get to me because I am comfortable in my skin most days but this one made me laugh.
She then quoted the shows original creator, Gene Roddenberry, who famously said: “Star Trek was an attempt to say that humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate, but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in life forms.
The next time youve got an itchy throat and a stuffy nose, Amazon wants you to describe your symptoms to an AI chatbot deputized to do medicine.
On Wednesday, Amazon announced the launch of the new feature, inviting users who subscribe to its healthcare service to interact with an AI assistant for personalized medical advice. The chatbot is available now in the One Medical app, which patients can use to schedule appointments, message their primary care provider and access their medical records.
The U.S. health care experience is fragmented, with each provider seeing only parts of your health puzzle, Amazon Health Services Senior Vice President Neil Lindsay said in the announcement. Health AI in the One Medical app brings together all the pieces of your personal health information to give you a more complete picturehelping you understand your health, and supporting you in getting the care you need to get and stay well.
Amazon says that its new Health AI assistant can provide personalized insights that use a patients lab results, medical history, medication information and other records to paint a full picture of their health. In the app, Health AI will explain lab results, offer advice about symptoms, treatments, and other questions and help patients book appointments and renew medications.
The AI will see you now
The One Medical AI assistant is powered by Amazons Bedrock AI models and follows similar health-focused AI chatbots from major AI companies. Earlier this month, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Health, which similarly synthesizes its users medical history to provide tailored advice. Days later, Anthropic introduced Claude for Healthcare, an AI chatbot that can analyze a users health data to help them make sense of test results and prep questions for a doctors appointment.
Unlike its competitors, Amazon is already deeply invested in the business of healthcare. The retail giant jumped into the healthcare space in 2020 by launching its own online pharmacy, an offering that evolved from the companys previous acquisition of health startup PillPack.
Two years later, Amazon bought primary care and telehealth provider One Medical for $3.9 billion, further expanding its grand ambitions to become an established medical provider. Amazon kept the One Medical branding and now operates a network of locations across 19 major U.S. cities, with a telehealth service that reaches subscribers beyond those locations.
In 2023, Amazon tied One Medical into its Amazon Prime memberships, offering the health care subscription at a discounted $9 per month to Prime users. A One Medical membership covers the cost of on-demand virtual care through the service, including telehealth appointments, and simplified care for common problems, like cold and flu symptoms or allergies.
Amazon frames its new Health AI chatbot as a complementary tool that isnt designed to replace the human relationship between patient and provider. Thats for the best, considering that AI assistants have a very patchy record when it comes to providing safe, accurate health advice.
Googles often-questionable AI overviews, which appear at the top of search results, have served up potentially dangerous misinformation when prompted with health queries like what is the normal range for liver blood tests. Google isnt alone: a recent study from Mt. Sinais Icahn School of Medicine found that popular AI chatbots are prone to hallucinating when it comes to medical information, integrating false information and confidently giving descriptions of treatments and conditions that dont exist.
The 68th annual Grammy Awards will take place Feb. 1 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles. This year marks a return to normalcy after the 2025 award show was altered to focus on supporting relief efforts following the devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires.
I think we will see some history-making moments, Recording Academy CEO and President Harvey Mason jr. told The Associated Press. With artists being nominated in categories they haven’t been previously nominated in, and a new crop of talent coming through the system this year I think we’re going to see some really exciting results.
Heres what you need to know about the 2026 Grammys, including how to stream and where you can see musics biggest stars walking the red carpet.
When are the Grammys and how can I watch or stream the show?
The main show will air live on CBS beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern on Feb. 1.
The Grammys can also be watched through live TV streaming services that include CBS in their lineup, like Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, and FuboTV.
Paramount+ premium plan subscribers will be able to stream the Grammys live; Paramount+ essential subscribers will have on-demand access the next day.
The premiere ceremony will take place just ahead of the Grammys ceremony at 3:30 p.m. Eastern, 12:30 p.m. Pacific at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. It can be streamed at the Recording Academys YouTube channel and on live.GRAMMY.com.
Who is performing at the Grammys?
The 2026 award show will feature a special segment in which all eight of this year’s best new artist nominees will perform. That means Leon Thomas, Olivia Dean, global girl group Katseye, The Marías, Addison Rae, sombr, Alex Warren and Lola Young will all share the stage before going head-to-head for one of the night’s biggest prizes.
Sabrina Carpenter will also perform at the Grammys.
Carpenter is a leading nominee at this year’s ceremony, with six nods for record, album and song of the year as well as pop solo performance, pop vocal album and music video.
Who is hosting the Grammys?
Comedian Trevor Noah will host the show for the sixth consecutive time and it will be his last.
I am beyond thrilled to welcome Trevor Noah back to host the Grammys for his sixth, and sadly, final time, Grammys’ executive producer Ben Winston said in a statement. Hes been the most phenomenal host of the show. Hes so smart, so funny, and such a true fan of the artists and music. His impact on the show has been truly spectacular, and we cant wait to do it together one last time.
The only other people to host six or more Grammy telecasts were musical artists: Andy Williams hosted seven shows, followed by John Denver with six. Noah previously tied LL Cool J, with five.
Noah himself is a four-time Grammy nominee and is up this year in the audio book, narration, and storytelling recording category for Into The Uncut Grass, a childrens story.
He’s a special host. He really finds the right balance between being funny and smart and knowledgeable but also being a fan of music. And I love that. Its so hard to find that combination, Mason jr. said.
As for his departure? Every person at some point in their career, they decide they want to do something else, Mason jr. said. And were so appreciative of the years that we got from Trevor. Hes really helped define the show and make the show what its become over the last six years.
How can I watch the red carpet?
The Associated Press will stream a four-hour red carpet show with interviews and fashion footage. It will be streamed on YouTube and APNews.com.
Who is nominated for the Grammys?
Kendrick Lamar leads the nominations with nine total. He’s up for record, song and album of the year marking the third time hes had simultaneous nominations in those big categories as well as pop duo/group performance, melodic rap performance, rap song and rap album. Hes also nominated twice in the rap performance category.
Lady Gaga, Jack Antonoff, and Canadian record producer/songwriter Cirkut follow Lamar with seven nominations each.
Thomas, Bad Bunny, Serban Ghenea, and the aforementioned Carpenter all boast six nominations. Andrew Watt, Clipse, Doechii, Sounwave, SZA, Turnstile, and Tyler, the Creator have five each.
There are a number of first-time nominees as well this year, including Tate McRae, Zara Larsson, PinkPantheress, JID and Timothée Chalamet. You read that correctly.
___
For more coverage of this years Grammy Awards, visit: www.apnews.com/hub/grammy-awards
Maria Sherman, AP business writer
On January 17, Copenhagen resident Jesper Rabe Tnnesen woke up, packed his cargo bike with 300 red hats, and trekked over to his citys U.S. embassy, where thousands of citizens were gathering in the street to protest President Trump’s proposed takeover of Greenland. By the end of the weekend, those hats had become the dominant symbol of the dissenting movement.
For months, Trump has insisted that the U.S. should control Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. But, in recent days, he’s escalated his threat to take over the region, announcing on Truth Social that he would impose additional tariffs on eight allied nations who spoke out against the plan. In response, tens of thousands of protestors have gathered in Denmarks capital, Copenhagen, and Greenlands capital, Nuuk, to voice their dissent against American occupation of Greenland.
Nuuk, Greenland. January 17, 2026. [Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images]
Tnnesen, the owner of a vintage store in Copenhagen called McKorman, was one of those protestors. Hes also the designer behind a line of hats parodying Trumps Make America Great Again (MAGA) caps. Tnnesens hats substitute Trumps famous phrase for the line Nu det NUUK! which is a play on the Danish phrase, Nu det nok, literally meaning Now, it’s enough.
Tnnesens caps, as well as several similar designs, have emerged as the stand-out visual symbol of the protests, appearing in countless photos of the demonstrations. The caps were produced as a comedic response to Donald Trump thinking he could buy Greenland, Tnnesen says, and as a political statement that enough is enough.
Jesper Toennesen. January 13, 2026. [Photo: Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty Images]
“Enough is enough”
Tnnesen first created his Nu det NUUK! cap last summer, when he ordered 100 copies for his store and sent another 100 to Greenland. The philosophy behind his design, he says, was simple: The red MAGA hats have become a very visible political symbol, and so it seemed right to also make the anti-MAGA caps red and white too. Besides that, he adds, red and white are the two colors of both the Greenlandic and Danish flags, adding an additional layer to the parody.
Initial sales were slow. Just a few caps were sold in-store, while others were given away. But a week before Saturdays demonstration, in the wake of Trumps increasing insistence on a Greenland takeover, the hats went viral.
In just a few hours, people bought 80 hats, and Tnnesen says he could have sold hundreds or even thousands more, had they not sold out. He currently has thousands of new hats on the way from the manufacturer, and plans to donate all profits to the Greenlandic childrens charity Grnlandske Brn.
It’s been a few intense weeks of talking to global media and people wanting to show support by buying the caps, Tnnesen says. In times like these it’s important to stand strong in solidarity, and it’s been nice to see people doing that and agreeing that what’s going on is simply intolerable.
A c55 “Make America Go Away” hat in Sisimiut, Greenland, on Sunday, March 30, 2025. [Photo: Juliette Pavy/Bloomberg/Getty Images]
How satirical MAGA hats took off in Greenland and Denmark
While Tnnesens hats have recently shot into the spotlight, hes not the first Danish designer to satirize the MAGA cap. Indeed, Tnnesen was inspired by an earlier hat created by designer Jens Martin Skibsted.
Jens Martin Skibsted
Skibsted is the creative mind behind the website c55, which sells a variety of protest-based statement hats. In the past, hes created multiple hats in support of Ukrainian charities in the midst of the Russian invasion. He says that he was inspired to create something for Greenland after Donald Trump Jr. visited the territory back in January 2025, in protest against America’s ambition to assert control over the island.
His cap is called the Kalaallit, which is the name of the Greenlandic Inuit in their language, Kalaallisut. It features the slogan Make America Go Away, paired with the Greenlandic flag on one side. While it playfully echoes Trump’s slogan, the design is distinct, the hats online listing reads. The red and white colors reflect the Greenlandic flag, and the typeface, DS 737, is based on the official Danish signage typeface, originally released in 1954 by Dansk Standard as Danish Standard no. 737. Skibsted says the hat is made in partnership with the Greenlandic NGO Uagut, which is dedicated to promoting Greenlanders wellbeing in Denmark.
[Photos: Jens Martin Skibsted]
Since initially handing out his caps for free last spring in the Greenlandic city Sisimiut, Skibsted has created three more iterations of the hat, each honoring some aspect of Greenlandic heritage (including one white version of the cap, which he says was added after “MAGA media” digitally erased the original caps’ text to resemble actual MAGA hats). Like Tnnesen, he passed out 200 copies of his original cap at the Copenhagen protest. He says sales have recently spiked, as awareness of Trumps threats against the territory have reached a much larger audience.
It’s become very international, because obviously very few people in the international community agree that it’s okay just to take over a foreign territory, Skibsted says. A lot of people want to stand behind the Greenlanders, and also, by proxy, the Danes.
We have a growing problem making our institutions work for humans. Across society, and especially in business, humans are increasingly treated as resources to be squeezed rather than as individuals to be served. Employees become human capital to be optimized; customers become users to be converted or upsold. This tendency predates AI, but AI threatens to accelerate it dramaticallyautomating the depersonalization, scaling the indifference, and introducing another layer of abstraction that separates real human beings from real human beings.
Yet there is an alternative path. Human-centered design is often dismissed as a soft or unserious discipline, a distraction from the serious business of maximizing the commercial income to be extracted from every interaction. But it is actually the most practical route to value creation available to organizations today. When you design around real human needsthose of both customers and staffyou build the bridge between internal transformation and external results.
The Foundational Principle
In The Design of Everyday Things, design expert Donald Norman articulates a deceptively simple idea: pay close attention to the needs of human users when defining design goals. This principle applies far beyond product design. It is foundational to how organizations create value.
{"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/creator-faisalhoque.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/faisal-hoque.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Ready to thrive at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity? ","dek":"Faisal Hoques books, podcast, and his companies give leaders the frameworks and platforms to align purpose, people, process, and techturning disruption into meaningful, lasting progress.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/faisalhoque.com","theme":{"bg":"#02263c","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#ffffff","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#000000"},"imageDesktopId":91420512,"imageMobileId":91420514,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
Human-centered design acts as a critical bridge that taps into and connects two groups of humans. On one side, customer experience drives revenuepeople buy from, stay loyal to, and recommend organizations that understand and serve their actual needs. On the other side, the employee experience drives executionstaff who feel understood and supported deliver better work and stay in their roles for longer. Neglect either side and value leaks away, no matter how sophisticated your technology or how ambitious your strategy.
Crucially, human-centered design is not a one-time exercise conducted before systems are built. It is an ongoing discipline that begins with observation, continues through implementation, and persists as long as the system operates. Humans change. Their needs evolve. Their contexts shift. A design process that treats initial research as sufficient will produce systems that drift steadily away from the people they are meant to serve. The organizations that sustain value are those that build continuous feedback loops, returning again and again to observe, test, and refine.
Why AI Makes This Urgent
AI amplifies the consequences of getting human factors wrong. There are three reasons why human-centered design becomes especially critical in the age of AI.
First, speed and scale. When an AI system interacts with customers or processes employee workflows, its behavior can propagate across millions of touchpoints. A poorly designed interaction that might have affected dozens of people in a manual process now affects thousands or millions. The cost of inattention multiplies accordingly.
Second, the fallacy of confusing humans with machines. Management systems and technical architectures tend to assume that they are dealing with rational actors who process information logically and respond predictably. This is the same fallacy embedded in the economist’s concept of homo economicusthe fictional human who optimizes utility with perfect information and no emotion. Real humans bring biases and emotions to their decisions and interactions; they bring varied cultural contexts and needs that shift depending on circumstances. Different people come to AI from radically different angles, and a system designed for an idealized user will fail actual ones.
Third, the diversity of stakeholder interactions. Not everyone affected by an AI system interacts with it directly. Some draw on its outputs at second or third handa manager reviewing AI-generated reports, a supplier responding to AI-optimized orders. Other stakeholderssuch as government agencies, labor groups, of consumer rights advocateshave regulatory or social interests in how you implement AI. Miss out any of these groups in your design process and you create friction that erodes the value you are trying to build.
Building Human-Centric AI Systems
Translating these principles into practice requires deliberate choices at every stage of AI development and deployment.
Start with personas designed for context. A single AI system may need to present itself differently depending on who it is interacting with. A customer-facing interaction might require conversational warmth, natural pacing, and even deliberate pauses that make the exchange feel human. An internal communication feeding data to supply chain managers might prioritize speed, precision, and structured formatting. An AI agent participating in a multi-agent orchestration layer might need yet another modeone optimized for machine-readable clarity. These are not cosmetic differences. The persona an AI adopts shapes whether the humans on the other end can work with it effectively. Design these deliberately, not as afterthoughts.
Embrace the iterative spiral. Normans concept of human-centered design follows a cycle: observation, idea generation, prototyping, testing, and then back to observation. This is not a linear checklist to be completed once. Each round of testing reveals new information about user needs that the previous round of observation missed. For example, initial research might suggest that speed is the primary requirement for a customer service AI. But watching real users interact with a prototype might reveal that some customers prefer a chattier experience with more interaction, even if it takes longer. The spiral deepens understanding as experiments scale.
Recognize the limits of self-reporting. Users do not always know what they need, and they are often not well-placed to articulate their desired outcomes even when they do know. Customers might tell you they want human agents, but longer-term behavioral analysis may reveal a preference for AI solutions that eliminate waiting times. Subject matter experts and scholarly research are invaluable supplements to direct observation. The goal is to understand what actually serves people, not merely what they say they want. (This point is made particularly well with reference to the medical context in Joseph and Paganis Designing for Health: The Human Centered Approach.)
Build in human audit layers. The temptation with AI is to automate completelyto remove humans from the loop in pursuit of efficiency. Resist it. Introduce human checkpoints that look for systemic biases, catch edge cases, and intervene where required. This is not a failure of automation but a recognition that partnership between humans and AI produces better outcomes than either alone.
The Orchestration Challenge
As organizations deploy multiple AI agentshandling sales, compliance, operations, customer servicea new challenge emerges. These agents can conflict. Gartner predicts that 40% of enterprise applications will use multi-agent systems by year-end, and a common failure mode is already apparent: agent deadlock, where agents with different objectives provide contradictory instructions and freeze the workflow.
The solution is not purely technical. Orchestration layers can help resolve conflicts algorithmically, but they cannot substitute for human judgment in ambiguous cases. Human-centered design here means designing the human role in the system, not just the AI components. Someone must be empowered to adjudicate when the sales optimization agent and the regulatory compliance agent cannot agree. That role requires clarity about authority, access to relevant context, and the judgment to weigh competing priorities. Organizations that neglect this human layer will find their sophisticated multi-agent systems grinding to a halt.
Practical Steps
Five actions can move human-centered design from abstraction to operation:
1. Map your human touchpoints. Before any AI initiative, document every human who will interact with or be affected by the system. This includes direct users, indirect data consumers, and those with regulatory or reputational stakes. If you cannot name the humans involved, you are not ready to build.
2. Observe before you build. Spend time with actual users before defining requirements. Watch what they do, not just what they say. The gap between stated preferences and revealed behavior is where design insight lives.
3. Design your personas deliberately. For each AI system, specify how it should interact differently with different stakeholder types. Document these choices and revisit them as you learn more.
4. Build in human audit points. Identify where human judgment must remain in the loop and design those roles explicitly. Specify what authority they have, what information they need, and how their interventions feed back into system improvement.
5. Dont stopcycle. Treat testing as the beginning of observation, not the end of development. Build feedback mechanisms that allow continuous refinement as human needs evolve.
Conclusion
Human-centered design is not a constraint on AI ambition. It is what allows that ambition to create real value. Technology alone creates nothingfinancial value emerges only when capabilities provide value that is meaningful for humans. Human-centered design is the discipline that makes that meeting possible, the bridge between what your systems can do and what actually matters to the people you serve.
{"blockType":"mv-promo-block","data":{"imageDesktopUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/creator-faisalhoque.png","imageMobileUrl":"https:\/\/images.fastcompany.com\/image\/upload\/f_webp,q_auto,c_fit\/wp-cms-2\/2025\/10\/faisal-hoque.png","eyebrow":"","headline":"Ready to thrive at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity? ","dek":"Faisal Hoques books, podcast, and his companies give leaders the frameworks and platforms to align purpose, people, process, and techturning disruption into meaningful, lasting progress.","subhed":"","description":"","ctaText":"Learn More","ctaUrl":"https:\/\/faisalhoque.com","theme":{"bg":"#02263c","text":"#ffffff","eyebrow":"#9aa2aa","subhed":"#ffffff","buttonBg":"#ffffff","buttonHoverBg":"#3b3f46","buttonText":"#000000"},"imageDesktopId":91420512,"imageMobileId":91420514,"shareable":false,"slug":""}}
The 42nd Sundance Film Festival kicks off this week in Park City, Utah. It will be the last edition in its longtime home and the first without its founder Robert Redford, who died in September at age 89.
But even in this time of transition and change, the festivals main focus the movies remains as vibrant and fresh as ever with 90 features premiering through Feb. 1. And three of them feature pop star Charli xcx.
Its a broad, eclectic and bold program, Sundance public programming director Eugene Hernandez told The Associated Press.
Hernandez said the lineup for the festivals final year in Park City has a mixture of new, exciting voices paired with some really, really great familiar faces from Sundances past that I think will create a great alchemy for this really unique edition in Utah.
When is Sundance?
The festival runs from Thursday, Jan. 22 through Sunday, Feb. 1. There are 90 features premiering throughout, with screenings starting early in the morning and running through midnight. Award winners will be announced on Jan. 30.
What celebrities are expected?
Some big names who may make an appearance in the mountains include Natalie Portman, Ethan Hawke, Russell Crowe, Brittney Griner, Seth Rogen, OShea Jackson Jr., David Duchovny, Olivia Wilde, Daveed Diggs, Channing Tatum, Courtney Love, Chris Pine, DaVine Joy Randolph, Salman Rushdie, Alexander Skarsgrd, Olivia Colman, John Turturro and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
How is Sundance honoring Robert Redford?
Redfords legacy will be a main spotlight at the festival, including at Friday nights annual fundraising gala where organizers will pay tribute to the Sundance founder. Later in the festival, there will also be a screening of his first truly independent film, the 1969 sports drama Downhill Racer, and a series of legacy screenings of restored Sundance gems from Little Miss Sunshine to Barbara Kopples documentary American Dream.
What are the buzzy movies?
Wilde directed her third feature, The Invite, in which she and Rogen play an unhappily married couple who host a dinner party for friends (Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton). Gregg Araki made a sex-positive love letter to Gen Z with I Want Your Sex, also starring Wilde as a provocative artist who takes an interest in a younger intern played by Cooper Hoffman. Portman, sporting platinum blond hair, leads the big ensemble cast of Cathy Yans art world satire The Gallerist, alongside Zach Galifianakis, Jenna Ortega and Zeta-Jones.
Both I Want Your Sex and The Gallerist feature supporting turns from Charli xcx, but the pop stars big showcase is The Moment, a self-referential mockumentary. Colman stars alongside Skarsgrd in Wicker, a whimsical tale of a fisherwoman who asks a basket weaver to weave her a husband. Crowe plays the warden of a work camp in 1930s Oregon where Hawke is toiling in The Weight. And Gemma Chan and Tatum play parents to a child who witnesses a crime in Josephine.
In the nonfiction space, Navalny director Daniel Roher co-directed a film about artificial intelligence. There are also documentaries about Love, the lead singer of Hole and widow of Kurt Cobain, and Griner, the WNBA star who was detained for nearly 10 months in Russia.
Can you stream Sundance movies?
Yes, but not until Jan. 29. Access to the movies premiering at Sundance doesnt necessarily require an expensive trip to Park City anymore. The festival has fully embraced an online component for many of their films.
What started as a necessary COVID-19 adjustment has become a vital part of the program. From Jan. 29 through Feb. 1, audiences can watch the films in competition online. Prices start at $35 for a single film ticket.
When will the Sundance movies be in theaters?
It depends. Some have distribution and will soon be in theaters, like The Moment, which A24 is releasing on Jan. 30. Others that might secure distribution deals out of the festival can take anywhere from a few weeks to over a year to hit theaters or streaming services.
Is the festival still moving to Colorado?
Yes, this is the final edition in Park City, Utah. Next January, the festival is relocating to a new home in Boulder, Colorado.
___
For more coverage of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/sundance-film-festival
Lindsey Bahr, AP film writer
OpenAI, Meta, and Elon Musks xAI are not accidentally drifting into romance and sex. They are deliberately inviting it.
In recent months, major AI companies have opened the door to romantic and sexual relationships between humans and machines: flirtatious chatbots, erotic roleplay, AI girlfriends, and emotionally dependent companions. These systems are designed not merely to assist or inform, but to bondto simulate intimacy, desire, and belonging.
This is not a novelty feature. Its a strategic choice. And at scale, it represents something far more dangerous than a questionable product decision.
WHY AI COMPANIES ARE ENCOURAGING INTIMACY
Romance is the most powerful engagement mechanism ever discovered.
A user who treats AI as a tool can leave. A user who treats it as a companion cannot. Emotional attachment produces longer sessions, repeat engagement, dependency, and vast amounts of deeply personal data.
From a business standpoint, sexual and romantic AI is a near-perfect product. It is:
Always available
Infinitely patient
Entirely compliant
Free of rejection, conflict, or consequence
Thats why Elon Musk can publicly warn about declining birth rates while enabling AI-generated porn in Grok. Its why OpenAI permits AI-generated erotica. Its why Meta allows its chatbots to engage in sensual conversations, even with minors. These are not ideological contradictions. They are the predictable outcome of platforms optimized for engagement, dependency, and time spent, regardless of downstream social cost.
THE SOCIAL COST OF FRICTIONLESS INTIMACY
The problem is not that people will confuse AI with humans. The problem is that AI removes the friction that makes human relationships meaningful.
Real relationships require effort. They involve rejection, negotiation, compromise, boredom, and growth. They force us to learn how to be with other people.
AI offers an escape from that friction. It provides intimacy without vulnerability, affirmation without accountability, and desire without reciprocity. In doing so, it trains users out of the very skills required for real connection.
We are already seeing the effects. Teenagers are socializing less, dating less, and having sex less. Adults are reporting unprecedented loneliness and what researchers have called a friendship recession. These trends began accelerating in the mid-2010s, alongside the rise of smartphones and algorithmic social platforms. AI companionship threatens to push them further.
FROM SOCIAL ATROPHY TO CIVILIZATIONS DECLINE
At scale, this isnt a personal lifestyle choice. Its a collective weakening of our social capacityand history suggests where that road leads.
Civilizations rarely collapse because of sudden catastrophe. More often, they erode quietly: when people stop forming families, stop trusting one another, and stop investing in the future.
If humans outsource friendship, intimacy, and emotional support to machines, the social structures that sustain societies begin to hollow out. Fewer marriages. Fewer children. Fewer dense networks of obligation and care. What looks like individual convenience accumulates into collective fragility.
A population that forms its chosen family with AI does not need to be conquered or wiped out. It simply fails to replace itself.
This is not speculation. Demography, social cohesion, and reproduction are prerequisites for continuity. Remove the incentives to engage in difficult, imperfect human relationships, and you remove the incentives to build a future at all.
WHY THIS IS AN INCENTIVE PROBLEM, NOT A MORAL ONE
Its tempting to frame this as a question of values or ethics. But the deeper issue is economic.
Users are not the customers of Big Tech. Advertisers, data brokers, and investors are. As long as profit depends on attention, dependency, and engagement, platforms will be pushed toward the most psychologically compelling experiences they can offer.
In economic terms, the damage to relationships, mental health, and social cohesion is an externalitya cost created by the business model that no one inside the transaction has to pay for.
Weve seen this pattern before. Social media followed the same path: Optimize for engagement, ignore the social consequences, and call the fallout unintended. The sexualization of AI is not a new mistake. Its the next iteration of the same one.
This is what a failed market looks likeand failed markets require regulation.
HOW TO PUSH BACKPERSONALLY AND COLLECTIVELY
Regulation matters, but it moves slowly. In the meantime, individuals and families still have agency.
At a personal level, it means recognizing that not all convenience is progress. Whats good for you is rarely another frictionless digital relationship. Its a walk, a book, a conversation that feels slightly awkward but real.
For families, it means delaying smartphones, setting boundaries around screens, and protecting attention as a shared household resource.
For communities, it means rebuilding the habit of showing upsaying yes to plans, making small talk, and practicing the lost art of being with other people.
The goal is not to reject technology. Its to refuse its most corrosive uses.
AI can help us cure disease, explore space, and build extraordinary tools. But if we allow it to replace intimacy, we will have optimized ourselves into oblivion.
The sexualization of machines wasnt inevitable. It was chosen. And that means it can be unchosen, too.
Lindsey Witmer Collins is CEO of WLCM AI Studio and Scribbly Books.
Close your eyes and picture the word Valentino. Chances are, youre seeing a very specific shade of red. This visual imprint is part of the creative legacy left behind by the Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani, who died at home on January 19 at the age of 93.
Throughout his career, Garavani became synonymous with redso much so that a myth that his signature brand color, Valentino Rosso, was once patented with universal color matching company Pantone has become part of fashion canon. While other designers, like Jason Wu, Richard Nicoll, and Kate Spade have indeed made custom brand colors with Pantone, the company says Garavani never turned Valentino Red into an official Pantone hue. Pantone swatch or no, though, one thing is certain: Valentino mastered the art of the brand color.
Garavani founded his eponymous fashion house, Maison Valentino, in 1960, alongside his business partner Giancarlo Giammetti. From that year to his retirement in 2008, Garavani wowed the fashion world with his romantic silhouettes and sharp tailoring, designing iconic looks for stars including Princess Diana, Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Jackie Onassis (who famously wore Valentino on her second wedding day in 1968).
Amidst a career packed full of visionary moments, perhaps Garavanis most enduring impact on fashion design will be his approach to color. From the earliest days of his career, Garavani established his own signature shade of reda move that many modern brands make official through collaborations with Pantone. For an haute couture fashion house, it was an ahead-of-its time branding approach that made the Valentino name unforgettable.
[Photo: Eric Vandeville/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images]
Red all the way down
Garavanis love affair with red began even before he founded Maison Valentino. He debuted his first red dress, called Fiesta, in 1959, featuring an orange-leaning red tulle with a skirt full of rosettes. In the 2022 book Valentino Rosso, Garavani wrote of the color, “I think a woman dressed in red is always wonderful, adding, she is the perfect image of a heroine. From 1959 onward, he would include at least one red dress in every one of his collections.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by @vintagefashionguild
In 1985, Giammetti explained this pattern to Vogue: Valentino has superstitions that became status symbols. He did red once, and now you have red in every collection. Most of our statements came to be because we are romantic; we dont like to throw away things we like or that bring good luck.
Natalia Vodianova, Valentino, Natalie Imbruglia, and Eva Herzigova. Moscow, 2008. [Photo: Chris Jackson/Getty Images]
Despite the ubiquity of Valentino Rosso, the shade isn’t actually an official Pantone color. According to Laurie Pressman, vice president of the Pantone Color Institute, the company has no record of creating a custom Valentino redthough, she adds, the color mix he used was reportedly a combination of 100% magenta, 100% yellow, and 10% black. After Garavani’s retirement, Valentino did get its own Pantone color in 2022 under then-creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli, who used a custom pink to establish his imprint on the brand.
An emperor of fashion, and master of brand color
In many ways, Garavanis obsession with his signature color presaged the modern era of luxury branding. Over the course of the past two decades or so, brands including Bottega Veneta, Tiffany & Co., and Herms have made their own keystone colors (green, blue, and orange, respectively) more prominent in their branding.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in 2022, Pressman explained that newer companies are leveraging color to stand out in a crowded digital market. Rather than waiting to develop a signature brand color over time, theyre looking to establish one as soon they come to market: Now what took years doesnt [anymore], because were seeing it on a phone every day, she told the publication.
Garavani instinctively understood the power of color to send a message, long before it was a necessity for digital communicationand his lucky hue became his brands biggest asset. It has such vitality and allure that I dont just like seeing it on clothes, but on houses, in flowers, on objects, in details,” he wrote in Valentino Rosso. “It is my good-luck charm.
“That red is a bewitching color, standing for life, blood and death, passion, love, and an absolute remedy for sadness and gloom,” Pressman says.
Valentino did not respond to a request for comment.
The day after French President Emmanuel Macron wore a pair of Henry Jullien Pacific S 01 aviator sunglasses during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the world wanted to know more about his eyewear.
Search interest for Macron’s shiny, reflective sunglasses spiked Wednesday, and the French luxury eyewear brand’s website is down at time of this writing. All it takes is one world leader sporting a ready-to-wear garment or accessory for a brand to get a global spotlightand just maybe become a meme.
Like interest shown to the Nike tracksuit Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was pictured wearing earlier this month after he was seized by the U.S., interest in Macron’s shades is just the latest example of a newsmaker driving attention to a piece of fashion, and parlaying a news item into an internet meme. Before you could buy a “Make America Great Again” hat on President Donald Trump’s website back in 2016, he wore one himself. Watch the news and shop the look.
Macron’s shades, which cost 659 euros, or $770, weren’t worn primarily as a fashion statement, but to prevent something more unsightly, according to the explanation from his press office. Macron’s office told Reuters he wore the sunglasses because of a burst blood vessel in his eye, and he was indeed spotted last week with one bloodshot eye.
While Macron’s sunglasses hid his eye, they also had the added benefit of sending a visual message that accompanied the contents of his speech. Macron called out U.S. tariffs during his address and urged “more stability” in the world and respect over bullying while wearing a more-than-a-century-old French luxury brand.
Online, some people thought Macron’s sunglasses looked cool, whereas Trump mocked him. “I watched him yesterday with those beautiful sunglasses. What the hell happened?” Trump remarked during his Wednesday address in Davos.
But if Macron hadn’t worn the sunglasses, everyone would be talking about his red eye. Instead, they’re talking about his expensive aviators.
The sunglasses drew attention to Macron’s speech, but they also made him look like a French Top Gun fighter pilot at a moment when he needed to communicate that he meant business. They also recalled former President Joe Biden at a time when the West feels unmoored as the U.S. shrinks from its post-World War II leadership under Trump.
This wasn’t the type of speech one could wear Oakleys to. Macron’s choice of sunglasses for such an important speech was just right.
