Tis the season of holiday celebrations with friends, family and, yescoworkers.
Work holiday party attendees can typically be divided into two camps: those who look forward to donning an ugly sweater and doing shots with Lloyd in accounting, and those who have their I cant make it excuses locked in long before December 1st.
Good news for the latter camp: the number of companies hosting any kind of holiday party is on the decline.
In 2007, 90% of firms said they were hosting one, according to data from (the coincidentally named) Challenger, Gray & Christmas. In 2024, that number dropped to just 64%.
After spending 40-plus hours a week already with coworkers, do you really need to give up an evening in the busiest time of the year to small talk over bought-in-bulk canapés?
Short answer: if you can, you probably should.
Despite having the word party in the name, it is still a work event. Even if your company claims the party is optional, the subtext here is skipping the party may be frowned upon, or, at the very least, who does and doesnt attend will be noted by management.
And if you are in a leadership position, you pretty much have no choice in the matter.
Opting out without good reason could make workers seem disengaged from the job or the team. (A fair assessment considering employee engagement is at a ten-year low). This may come back to bite when being considered for promotions down the line: being visible and building relationships are key to getting promoted.
For many employees, though, that mindset feels old-fashioned: People are increasingly focused on maintaining a firm line between their job and their personal life. Their schedules are packed, they may be juggling childcare or health conditions, or they might simply not want to go without needing to justify the decision.
It all comes at a time in which tolerance for forced fun in the workplace feels at an all-time low, from retirement parties to after-work happy hours, which Gen Z has become particularly averse to.
A 2023 survey of 1,000 U.S. workers by people analytics platform Visier found nearly two-thirds said they had cut back or stopped attending work events outside normal hours, including holiday parties. If your boss doesnt plan to go, and a large chunk of your coworkers usually skip it anyway, then youre probably fine doing the same.
Still, young professionals in particular are largely pro-office party, with 95% of workers between 18 and 34 believing holiday soirees boost engagement, according to an Indeed study. Holiday parties can be fun if you make them so. (Even if they can be HRs worst nightmare.)
If youre keen to skip, there are ways to say no to work events while still being considered a team player. But if forced festive fun is your own personal hell, remember, you dont have to stay for the full length of the party if you dont want to.
Make sure your boss sees you, swipe a couple of hors d’oeuvres, and stealthfully dip after an hour. (And you dont even need to wish anyone seasons greetings on the way out.)
In the high-stakes premium travel race of 2025, every major credit card issuer is trying to claim the loyalty of affluent travelersand airport lounges have become the most visible battleground.
American Express is refreshing its Platinum Card and launching a new fast-format Sidecar lounge. Capital Ones Venture X card has become a darling among travelers, thanks to its hyperlocal boutique-style lounges. And Citi has returned to the ultra-premium arena with the $595 Strata Elite card.
As for Chase? Fresh off raising its Sapphire Reserve annual fee to $795 and launching its Sapphire Reserve for Business card, the finance giant is now signaling that its lounges arent meant to be carbon copies of existing models.
Theyre meant to be destinations.
That direction becomes unmistakable with the opening of the newest Chase Sapphire Lounge by The Club at Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas.
The two-story space arrives on Wednesday, December 3, with a marquee feature: Chases first-ever champagne parlor offering bar cart service, sparkling wine, mimosas, seasonal spritzes, and tray-passed bites.
[Photo: Chase]
Its theatrical, indulgent, and distinctly Vegasan early clue to how Chase sees the next phase of luxury travel benefits.
Were super excited about this lounge, Dana Pouwels, head of airport lounge benefits at Chase, tells Fast Company. A key focus for us with the Sapphire Lounge strategy is really bringing the best of the city into the lounge and really creating a destination that customers want to go to and visit different locations so they can learn something new.
In a year when premium cards are escalating their lounge and concierge offeringsand, in many cases, their feesChases champagne lounge doesnt just offer bubbles. It offers brand differentiation.
Why Las Vegasand why now
Las Vegas was Chases sixth-most booked domestic travel destination in 2025, and it plays an outsize role in Sapphire Reserve customer behavior.
Other issuers have staked new ground in Vegas, too:
American Express is preparing to open its Sidecar by the Centurion Lounge location there sometime in 2026.
Capital One is adding another of its boutique-style lounges at LAS as part of its 2025 expansion.
[Photo: Chase]
Chase’s stepping in with its own conceptrooted in sense of placeunderscores the citys growing importance as a travel loyalty battleground.
This lounge is really about capturing the vibrant energy of Las Vegas, Pouwels says. We went for bold, shimmering finishes . . . but then we paired that with desert-themed touches that celebrate the unique landscape of the region.
Chase uses each lounge to test new ideas, an approach that contrasts sharply with the uniformity seen in many airline-branded lounges. A highlight, specifically for me, of this lounge is we are doing our first-ever champagne parlor . . . another fun way for us to do something unique and different on this lounge, Pouwels says.
This experimentation is part of Chases signature. Its Phoenix lounge introduced a pre-bookable Airstream kitchen. San Diego features hyperlocal seafood dishes. And Boston brought wellness treatments into the fold.
We test different concepts in each market . . . due to customer feedback, Pouwels says. That is a differentiating factor for us as we think about the lounge landscape overall.
[Photo: Chase]
Culinary partnerships as a national strategy
In Vegas, that means chef David Chang’s Momofuku brand.
Momofuku has been part of the Las Vegas community for nearly a decade, and so they’re really the perfect partner for us here, Pouwels says. Theyll be bringing some favorites . . . like spicy cucumber salad, crispy nori potatoes, and then their famous pork bun.
Other markets showcase similarly intentional partnerships:
Philadelphia: Middle Child Clubhouse dishes, Elixr Coffee, and a local craft beer garden celebrating the citys brewing heritage.
LaGuardia: Fairfax dishes and coffee from NYCs famed Joe Coffee.
San Diego: Oscar’s Mexican Seafood and Groundwork Coffee anchor a West Coastinspired menu.
This consistent commitment to locality differentiates Chase from other airline lounges and gives Sapphire Reserve a culinary identity distinct from the Platinm Cards chef collective or Venture Xs local brewery collaborations.
The fee hikeand what lounges have to do with it
Chases decision to raise the Sapphire Reserve annual fee to $795 earlier this year puts it squarely in competition with the Amex Platinum ($895) and Citi Strata Elite ($595). Meanwhile, Capital Ones Venture X remains significantly lower, at $395, drawing attention from cost-conscious premium travelers.
To justify a nearly $800 price tag, Chases lounges must deliver real, experiential value.
[Photo: Chase]
The lounge strategy is really based on creating experiences for our card members on the end-to-end travel journey, Pouwels says. The reason that we open lounges in the first place is really to make travel better for card members.
And even as some competitors are tightening guest access, Sapphire Reserve and Sapphire Reserve for Business card members can bring two guests for freea meaningful differentiator as United Airlines, Delta Air Lines, and Amex adjust their policies to curb crowding.
What sets a Sapphire Lounge apart from competitors?
Pouwels frames it in terms of personalization and flexibilitytwo things travelers increasingly demand across card ecosystems.
We really think our lounges are differentiated, unique, personalized, and really focused on elevating that customer’s travel journey, she says.
Chase aims to meet travelers where they are:
Guests with hours to spare can enjoy sit-down dining, wellness spaces, and private suites.
Guests with mere minutes can benefit from grab-and-go options, specialty coffee, and quiet seating zones.
It doesn’t really matter whether you have 15 minutes or whether you have an houryou still want a great lounge experience, Pouwels says.
A lounge as a loyalty engine
In a year when premium cards are redefining what luxury meanswhether its Amexs chef-driven menus, Venture Xs locally brewed perfect airport beers, or Citis sweep of high-value lifestyle creditsthe Las Vegas Sapphire Lounge shows how Chase plans to compete: through curated destination immersion.
The champagne parlor is more than a novelty. Its a glimpse of Chases long-term bet that the future of loyalty isnt just about pointsits about places.
And if Chases evolving lounge strategy stays on this course, the airport might soon become travelers first taste of their destinationnot just the place they pass through to reach it.
Michael Dell, along with his wife, Susan, announced on Tuesday that they are donating $6.25 billion to so-called “Trump accounts”a program that gives $1,000 of “free money” from the federal government to children in the U.S. born on, or after, January 1, 2025, through the end of 2028, while President Donald Trump is in office.
The Dells’ contribution will allocate about $250 per child to 25 million children. The accounts are basically long-term savings vehicles. Michael Dell is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Dell Technologies, known for its computer equipment and services.
Parents will be able to contribute to the accounts starting in July 2026, according to USA Today. That money will be invested in stock market mutual or index funds.
Here’s what to know.
Who is eligible for a “Trump account”?
Accounts are available to all children in the U.S. younger than 18 with a Social Security number, and will be managed and activated through the U.S. Treasury, according to the fact sheet for Invest America.
The contributions come as part of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), which was signed into law this past summer.
The $250 Dell Foundation contribution is separate and will go to children born from 2016 through 2024 in zip codes where the median household incomes are below $150,000 per year, according to The New York Times.
What are the contribution rules?
Parents “and community” (such as employers) can collectively contribute up to $5,000 per year to an Invest America account. There is no cap or limit for philanthropists, charitable organizations, or state or local government contributions.
At what age can the money be withdrawn? Can it go toward college?
Starting at age 18, a child with one of these accounts can use a portion of the savings for education or job training, starting a business, or buying a first home.
Note: The accounts automatically convert into traditional IRAs, or individual retirement accounts, at age 18, allowing any unused funds to continue to grow. (A traditional IRA is a tax-advantaged personal savings plan in which contributions may be tax-deductible.)
How can parents open an account?
Learn more about the “Trump accounts” at the website for investment firm Charles Schwab, which notes: “At this time, it isn’t clear who will open the account or where it will be held.”
Apples AI boss, John Giannandrea, is stepping down after seven years on the job. Apples stock price got a slight boost on the news, as some investors saw Apple signaling a new urgency to bring AI to its devices.
Following a transition period, Giannandrea will retire next spring, Apple said in a press release Monday. Most of Giannandreas AI group will now be tucked into Craig Fedherigis software development group, which owns development of the various operating systems in Apple devices.
While the reasons for Giannandreas departure are no doubt complicated, its a wonder he lasted so long. For years, hes been linked to Apples failure to seize on generative AI to improve its Siri voice assistant and make the iPhone and other iDevices smarter and more personalized.He may have made errors in judgement. Reports said he waffled several times on the preferred architecture for Siri — on how much of the assistants AI processing should run on the device versus a server in the cloud. But its also possible that his plans for integrating AI into Apple products encountered friction from other Apple leaders, or were hampered by fears among the leadership team that generative AI would compromise user privacy or create new legal exposure. At any rate, by 2024 Apples leadership — including Tim Cook — had lost confidence that Giannandreas group could turn AI research into useful (and safe) AI features and products.
Before coming to Apple, Giannandrea had been prolific as the head of search and AI at Google. Under his leadership, the search giant began relying on AI to refine its understanding of certain user-preferred search terms, in hopes of returning more relevant and useful results. He was at the helm of Googles AI efforts when its researchers invented the transformer language model architecture that sparked the generative AI boom and new apps like ChatGPT.
Apple poached Giannandrea in 2018 to inject new life into its floundering AI efforts. This gave Apple the time and leadership it needed to develop its own models and inject its devices and services with new intelligence. Apple combined the Siri and AI/machine learning groups and put them under Giannandreas control, creating a single point of accountability for infusing the companys operating systems, services, and developer tools with AI.
Giannandreas work during his first years at Apple was kept largely under wraps by the company. Fast Company, which had been granted meetings with the companys AI group, was repeatedly denied access to Giannandrea. As the starting gun of the generative AI revolution sounded with the release of ChatGPT in late 2022, Apple stayed largely silent and remained so even as its peers raced to develop their own large AI models and apps. Then in June 2024, Apple announced at its developer conference that it would bring Apple Intelligence” features to its devices, enabling them to offer intuitive and proactive help based on the users personal data. It also announced plans to use generative AI to create a smarter next-gen Siri. For a time, hope was restored that Apple would catch up with the AI revolution.
But neither Apple Intelligence nor next-gen Siri have shown up. (Apple now says theyll arrive in 2026.) In lieu of its own AI, Apple tried to integrate OpenAIs ChatGPT into Siri, but the user experience is clunky. In March, Apple announced it would be taking Siri out of Giannandreas control and placing it inside Fedherighis software group. Just six weeks later, Apple removed its robotics research group (which it hoped would lay the groundwork for future Apple home devices) from Giannandreas AI group.
Apple believes Amar Subramanya, the Microsoft executive theyve tapped to replace Giannandrea, can and will get things back on track. A 16-year veteran of Google, Subramanya led engineering for the companys Gemini Assistant. He has an impressive resume, and very likely a price tag to match. His hire, along with Giannandreas departure, should be read as Apples acknowledgment of falling behind its peers in AI — and a signal that it intends to catch up. Interestingly, it was Giannandreas departure that got top billing in the press release Apple put out Monday, not the arrival of a new AI chief in Subramanya.
Apple stock got a slight bump on the announcement, closing up $4.25 (1.52%) at $283.10.
Giannandreas departure is very much about what kind of tech company Apple wants to be in the long term. Does it want to develop and control its own AI models, or pay to rely on big AI models like Googles Gemini? Apple has distinct advantages with its sticky and trusting relationship with users, and control over both its software and hardware, including the chips inside the devices. Its in a unique position to leverage smaller, more specialized AI models running on those chips to deeply understand and effectively assist users.
Whatever the move, you can expect to see a lot more focus and pressure within Apple to realize new AI features and a smarter Siri in iDevices.
The U.S. stock market is holding relatively steady on Tuesday as both bond yields and Bitcoin stabilize.
The S&P 500 rose 0.1%, coming off its first loss in six days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 115 points, or 0.2%, as of 1:02 p.m. ET, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% higher.
MongoDB helped lead the market and jumped 23.4% after the database company delivered stronger results for the latest quarter than analysts expected. United Natural Foods also climbed after reporting a stronger profit than expected, and it rose 7.3%.
They helped offset a 4% drop for Signet Jewelers, which gave a forecast for revenue in the holiday shopping season that fell short of analysts expectations. The jeweler said its expecting a measured consumer environment.
Another potential warning about U.S. shoppers’ strength came from the chief financial officer of Procter & Gamble, the giant behind Tide detergent, Ivory soap, and Oral-B toothbrushes. Andre Schulten said the landscape for U.S. consumers is volatile” at the moment, though still within the company’s expectations. Procter & Gamble fell 2.3%.
The U.S. economy has been holding up overall, but thats masking sharp divisions beneath the surface. Lower-income households are struggling with inflation thats still higher than anyone would like. Richer households, meanwhile, are benefiting from a stock market thats within 1% of its all-time high set in late October.
In the bond market, Treasury yields were calming following their jumps the day before. The 10-year yield was holding at 4.09%, where it was late Monday, while the two-year yield eased to 3.52%, from 3.54%.
Higher yields can drag prices lower for all kinds of investments, and those seen as the most expensive can take the biggest hit.
Bitcoin, which tumbled below $85,000 on Monday as bond yields worldwide marched higher, pulled back above $91,000. That helped stocks of several crypto-related companies bounce back from sharp slides on Monday.
Strategy Inc. climbed 6.9% and more than made up for Monday’s loss. Coinbase Global gained 3.3%, and Robinhood Markets rose 3.6% to recover much of their drops from the day before.
Mondays climb in yields came after the Bank of Japan hinted that it may raise interest rates there soon. But hopes are still high that the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut its main interest rate when it meets in Washington next week.
What comes after that for the Fed, though, is uncertain. The Fed has already cut its overnight interest rate twice this year in hopes of shoring up a slowing job market. But lower rates can fan inflation higher, and inflation has stubbornly remained above the Feds 2% target.
Complicating things is the U.S. governments earlier shutdown, which delayed reports on the job market and other areas of the economy.
Investment giant Vanguard said its data suggests the U.S. labor market remains stable but is still soft compared with last year.
Overall, hiring numbers are slower on a month-to-month basis. But fewer workers are going after job openings because of weaker immigration and an uptick in retirements, according to Adam Schickling, a senior U.S. economist at Vanguard. That, in turn, means hiring doesn’t need to be as strong in the past to keep the unemployment rate steady.
In stock markets abroad, indexes moved modestly across much of Europe and Asia.
South Koreas Kospi was an outlier and jumped 1.9% for one of the worlds bigger moves. Tech stocks helped lead the way, including rises of 2.6% for Samsung Electronics and 3.7% for chip company SK Hynix.
By Stan Choe, AP business writer
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
A Pennsylvania police officer responding to a tip from the manager of a McDonald’s testified Tuesday about confronting Luigi Mangione during the intense manhunt last year for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killer.
As soon as Mangione doffed his medical mask at the restaurant in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Officer Joseph Detwiler said, I knew” he was the suspect whose face had been all over the news since the shooting five days earlier on a Manhattan sidewalk.
It’s him I’m not kidding. Hes real nervous, and he didnt talk too much, Detwiler told a supervisor by phone from the restaurant parking lot moments after meeting Mangione, according to the officer’s body-camera video. It was played in court Tuesday, the second day of a hearing about evidence in the case.
Mangione indeed said little initially to Detwiler and another officer, giving only what turned out to be a false name, home state and driver’s license. But Detwiler testified that hed noticed the man’s fingers shaking as they interacted and officers patted him down.
Over the ensuing minutes, Mangione placidly ate a hash brown as the officers waited for colleagues and claimed they were simply responding to loitering concerns at the eatery.
I was trying to keep him calm, Detwiler told the court, adding that he at one point started whistling over the restaurant’s holiday-season music to make him think that nothing was different about this call than any other call.
Lawyers for Mangione, 27, want to block prosecutors from showing or telling jurors at his eventual Manhattan trial about statements he allegedly made and items authorities said they seized from his backpack during his arrest. The objects include a 9 mm handgun that prosecutors say matches the one used in the killing and a notebook in which they say Mangione described his intent to wack a health insurance executive.
The defense contends the items should be excluded because police didn’t get a warrant before searching Mangione’s backpack. They also want to suppress some statements Mangione made to law enforcement personnel, such as allegedly giving a false name, because officers started asking questions before telling him he had a right to remain silent.
The laws concerning how police interact with potential suspects before reading their rights or obtaining search warrants are complex and often disputed in criminal cases.
In Mangione’s case, crucial questions will include whether he believed he was free to leave at the point when he spoke to the arresting officers, and whether there were exigent circumstances that merited searching his backpack before getting a warrant.
Detwiler testified that he never told Mangione he couldn’t leave, nor mentioned the New York shooting. Defense lawyers, however, have argued in court filings that officers strategically stood in a way that prevented him from leaving.
Mangione, the Ivy League-educated scion of a wealthy Maryland family, has pleaded not guilty to state and federal murder charges. The state charges carry the possibility of life in prison, while federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. Neither trial has been scheduled.
Mangiones lawyers want to bar evidence from both cases, but this weeks hearing pertains only to the state case.
Manhattan prosecutors haven’t yet laid out their arguments for allowing the disputed evidence. Their federal counterparts have said in court filings that police were justified in searching the backpack to ensure there were no dangerous items and that Mangione’s statements to officers were voluntary and made before he was under arrest.
Five witnesses testified on Monday, including a Pennsylvania prison officer who said Mangione told him that, when arrested, he had a backpack with foreign currency and a 3D-printed pistol.
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind as the executive walked to a midtown Manhattan hotel for his companys annual investor conference on Dec. 4, 2024. Prosecutors say delay, deny and depose were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase insurance industry critics use to describe how companies avoid paying claims.
Thompson, 50, worked at the giant UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and became CEO of its insurance arm in 2021. He was married and had children who were in high school.
Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press
Students applying to college know they cantor at least shouldntuse AI chatbots to write their essays and personal statements. So it might come as a surprise that some schools are now using artificial intelligence to read them.
AI tools are now being incorporated into how student applications are screened and analyzed, admissions directors say. It can be a delicate topic, and not all colleges are eager to talk about it, but higher education is among the many industries where artificial intelligence is rapidly taking on tasks once reserved for humans.
In some cases, schools are quietly slipping AI into their evaluation process, experts say. Others are touting the technologys potential to speed up their review of applications, cut processing times, and even perform some tasks better than humans.
Humans get tired; some days are better than others. The AI does not get tired. It doesnt get grumpy. It doesnt have a bad day. The AI is consistent, says Juan Espinoza, vice provost for enrollment management at Virginia Tech.
This fall, Virginia Tech is debuting an AI-powered essay reader. The college expects it will be able to inform students of admissions decisions a month sooner than usual, in late January, because of the tool’s help sorting tens of thousands of applications.
Colleges stress they are not relying on AI to make admissions decisions, using it primarily to review transcripts and eliminate data-entry tasks. But artificial intelligence also is playing a role in evaluating students. Some highly selective schools are adopting AI tools to vet the increasingly curated application packages that some students develop with the help of high-priced admissions consultants.
The California Institute of Technology is launching an AI tool this fall to look for authenticity in students who submit research projects with their applications, admissions director Ashley Pallie said. Students upload their research to an AI chatbot that interviews them about it on video, which is then reviewed by Caltech faculty.
Its a gauge of authenticity. Can you claim this research intellectually? Is there a level of joy around your project? That passion is important to us, Pallie said.
The prevalence of AI usage is difficult to gauge because it is such a new trend, said Ruby Bhattacharya, chair of the admission practices committee at the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC). NACAC updated its ethics guide this fall to add a section on artificial intelligence. It urges colleges to ensure the way they use it aligns with our shared values of transparency, integrity, fairness and respect for student dignity.
Some schools have faced blowback over using AI
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) faced a barrage of negative feedback from applicants, parents, and students after its student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel, reported in January the school was using AI to evaluate the grammar and writing style of applicants’ essays.
The university declined to comment for this article and referred to its admissions website, which it updated after the criticism. UNC uses AI programs to provide data points about students common application essay and their school transcripts, the website says. Every application is evaluated comprehensively by extensively trained human application evaluators.
At Virginia Tech, Espinoza said he has been contacted by several colleges that are interested in the new technology but wary of backlash. The feedback from a lot of colleagues is, You roll this out, were watching you, and well see how everyones reacting, he said.
He stressed the AI reader his school spent three years developing is being used only to confirm human readers’ essay scores.
Until this fall, each of the four short-answer essays Virginia Tech applicants submit was read and scored by two people. Under the new system, one of those readers is the AI model, which has been trained on past applicant essays and the rubric for scoring, Espinoza said.
A second person will step in if the AI and human reader disagree by more than 2 points on a 12-point scoring scale.
Like many colleges, Virginia Tech has seen a huge increase in applications since making SATs optional. Last year, it received a record 57,622 applications for its 7,000-seat freshman class. Even with 200 essay readers, the school has struggled to keep up and found itself notifying students later and later.
The AI tool can scan about 250,000 essays in under an hour, compared with a human reader who averages two minutes per essay. Based on last years application pool, Were saving at least 8,000 hours, Espinoza said.
Colleges see benefits of AI tools for applicants
The messaging is sensitive for colleges, many of which now have students certify that they have not used AI unethically for essays and other parts of the application. But schools say AI tools can help admissions offices eliminate errors in tasks like uploading transcripts and can simplify the process for students.
Georgia Tech this fall is rolling out an AI tool to review the college transcripts of transfer students, replacing the need for staff to enter each course manually into a database. It will allow the school to inform applicants more quickly how many transfer credits they’ll receive, cutting down on uncertainty and wait times, said Richard Clark, the school’s executive director of enrollment management.
Its one more layer of delay and stress and inevitable errors. AI is going to kill that, which Im so excited about, Clark said. The school hopes to expand the service soon to all high school transcripts. Georgia Tech also is testing out AI tools for other uses, including one that would identify low-income students who are eligible for federal Pell Grants but may not have realized it.
Stony Brook University in New York is also using artificial intelligence to review applicants’ transcripts and testing AI tools for a variety of tasks, like summarizing student essays and letters of recommendation to highlight things an admissions officer should consider, said Richard Beatty, the schools senior associate provost for enrollment management.
Maybe a student was fighting a disease sophomore year. Or maybe a parent passed away, or theyre taking care of siblings at home. All these things matter, and it allows the counselors to look at the transcript differently, Beatty said.
Colleges are interested in AI summaries of transcripts, extracurricular activities nd letters of recommendation that tell human readers the students story in a more digestible way, said Emily Pacheco, founder of NACACs special interest group for AI and admission.
Humans and AI working togetherthat is the key right now. Every step along the way can be greatly improved: transcript reading, essay reviews, telling us things we might be missing about the students, said Pacheco, a former assistant director of admission at Loyola University Chicago. Ten years from now, all bets are off. Im guessing AI will be admitting students.
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The Associated Press education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Jocelyn Gecker, AP education writer
Fatherhood used to be invisible in the conversation about entrepreneurship. The story was always the same: A founder celebrated for sacrifice, for grinding through the night, taming fortune one day at a time. The world championed the grind. But that archetype is now deeply outdated.
The successful founder is no longer the one sleeping under their desk. Thats not simply dedication; its a symptom of poorly designed systems. If your company requires your constant, heroic presence, you haven’t built a businessyouve built a cage.
Today, elite performance is not measured by the hours you log, but by the resilience of the organization you leave behind. The best entrepreneurs build things that thrive when they are gonesay, to simply make breakfast or see a Little League game. The new true flex is to be out of office and unreachable.
THE STRESS TEST
Fatherhood is the ultimate stress test for an entrepreneur’s systems.
This isn’t about the impossible concept of balance. That word implies separation. This is about deep integration. Its about simply sitting on the floor with your childthe ability to be fully present for simple things. Being a father is not a distraction from ambition; it is a profound competitive advantage. The quiet moments demand tools like empathy and grace. These are the exact skills required to lead a high-trust, modern team. It forces you to operate from a position of systemic strength, not perpetual effort.
The perspective is that days are long, but the years pass like a train in the night. This accelerated sense of time, which spans decades not quarters, is the masterclass both fatherhood and entrepreneurship teach.
3 PARALLELS FOR RAISING HUMANS AND A VISION
The following three core disciplines run parallel between raising humans and scaling a vision.
1. Patience and long-term vision
You must learn to ignore the immediate market tantrums, the noise of instant feedback, and the urge to sprint. You invest, guide, and trust the process. You build, break, and grow.
2. Nurture autonomy
True leadership is not about commanding; its about creating an environment where othersyour children, your employeeslearn to lead themselves. Curiosity is the path to growth. We must empower self-sufficiency, giving room for the inevitable failure and iteration required for competence.
3. Active presence
I recall a day fishing on the Harpeth River. The August downpour had left the water swollen, filled with snags and debris. Laughing turned to silence as each child found their hole. In that stillness, I learned more about patience and waiting for the right moment to guide than I did in any boardroom. The stakes were suddenly real. The humility to wait for the fish, and the willingness to let others find their footing, perfectly mirrored the trust I had to place in my leadership team during a turbulent launch.
ACCEPTANCE
The elite leader of the next decade is the one who accepts that lifes non-negotiable anchorslike familyforce an excellence that the constant grind never could. Fatherhood demands you delegate ruthlessly and focus only on the high-leverage work. This forces a vision for the future and its unknowns that is built for endurance, not a flash.
The most successful companieslike the most resilient familiesare those built to last, not to sprint. They are sustained by presence, not absence.
So I look to the horizon. We are ready for what comes next.
Logan Mulvey is CEO of Cinq Music.
The world economy has proven surprisingly durable in the face of President Donald Trumps trade wars, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said Tuesday, upgrading its outlook for global and U.S. economic growth this year.
The 38-country OECD now forecasts that the world economy will grow 3.2% this year, down a tick from 3.3% in 2024 but an improvement on the 2.9% it had predicted for 2025 back in June. The organization, which does economic research and promotes international trade and prosperity, expects global growth to slow to 2.9% next year.
The OECD also raised its forecast for U.S. growth this yearto 2%, up from the 1.6% it had forecast in June. Still, even with the upgrade, the American economythe worlds largestwould have grown considerably more slowly than it did in 2024 (2.8%).
Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has overhauled U.S. trade policy, imposing taxes on imports to build a protectionist wall around the previously open American economy.
The trade barriers were widely expected to slow growth and push up costs. But his tariffs have come in lower than the ones he threatened to impose in the spring. Many companies beat the levies by importing foreign goods into the United States before they took effect. And the U.S. and world economies are getting a boost from massive investments in artificial intelligence.
The global economy has been resilient this year, despite concerns about a sharper slowdown in the wake of higher trade barriers and significant policy uncertainty, OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann wrote in a commentary accompanying the forecasts. Still, he added: We expect higher tariffs to gradually feed through to higher prices, reducing growth in household consumption and business investment.
The OECD expects China, the worlds No. 2 economy, to grow 5% this year, the same as in 2024. It sees the 20 economies that share the euro currency collectively expanding 1.3% in 2025, lackluster but up from 0.8% in 2024.
India, which has supplanted China as the worlds fastest-growing major economy, is expected to generate 6.7% growth this year, up from 6.5% in 2024.
Paul Wiseman, AP economics writer
More than 1 million workers in America have been laid off so far in 2025, according to the latest tally of announced job cuts from the executive outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas.
The jobs span nearly every major industry, but layoffs have hit tech and government jobs the hardest. Heres what you need to know, and which tech companies have had the largest round of layoffs in 2025.
2025 layoff announcements surpass 1 million
Nearly every week this year, there have been headlines about layoffs hitting Americas workers.
The latest report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas adds up layoff announcements from U.S. employers through the end of October. According to the report, 1,099,500 workers have lost their jobs due to layoffs.
Given that those numbers dont include November layoffs, and we are only at the beginning of December, it’s a certainty that the figure will rise before the end of the year.
Worse, the 1,099,500 job cuts are 65% higher than the 664,839 job cuts announced through October 2024.
This year’s figure also exceeds the 761,358 full-year 2024 job cuts by 44%. And to put the 2025 figures into greater perspective, Challenger, Gray & Christmas says this years job cuts are at their highest levels since 2020, when there were 2,304,755 through that Octobermany spurred by the pandemic.
Government and tech account for most layoffs
While layoffs have hit nearly every industry in 2025, two sectors were impacted more than others: government and tech.
Government worker layoffs account for the most job losses, many stemming from cuts made by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), then led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas calls this the DOGE Impact and states that it remains the leading reason for job cut announcements in 2025.
In total, those cuts amount to 307,638 for the year through October. That figure includes 293,753 direct layoffs of federal workers and contractors, along with an additional 20,976 layoffs due to a DOGE Downstream Impact.”
Challenger, Gray & Christmas says these additional layoffs are a reflection of the loss of federal funding to private and non-profit entities.
After government-related layoffs, the sector next most affected by job cuts was the tech industry. Challenger, Gray & Christmas says that through October 2025, 141,159 tech workers lost their jobs due to layoffs.
Overall, the top five sectors with the most job cuts in 2025 through October are:
Government: 307,638
Technology: 141,159
Warehousing: 90,418
Retail: 88,664
Services: 63,580
Tech companies lead private-sector layoffs in 2025
After removing sweeping federal government job cuts from the figures, the tech industry accounted for the most layoffs so far in 2025.
Thats little surprise considering that hardly a week went by this year without additional rounds of tech layoffs making the news.
Meanwhile, some Big Tech companies made an outsized contribution to 2025s tech layoffs. According to data from layoff tracking website Layoffs.fyi, the largest rounds of job cuts from U.S. tech companies so far in 2025 have come from the following:
Intel
Amazon
Microsoft
HP
Salesforce
Meta
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise
Its worth noting that while any layoffs this year are devastating to the workers involved and their families, Layoffs.fyis data shows that 2025 has so far seen fewer tech layoffs than in years past.
Layoffs.fyis data currently shows that 120,444 tech employees were laid off globally by 239 tech companies in 2025 so far. That compares to 152,922 tech employees laid off from 551 tech companies in 2024, and 264,220 tech employees laid off from 1,193 tech companies in 2023.
