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If you have travel plans this weekend and dont necessarily need to travel, you may be in luck. A massive winter storm is forecasted this weekenddubbed Winter Storm Fern by the Weather Channeland could bring crippling ice and heavy snow to more than 30 states stretching from Arizona to Maine. With some 230 million Americans potentially affected, many airlines are preemptively warning travelers about potential weather-related disruptions and offering travel waivers in advance. The major U.S. carriers have issued alerts to travelers with flights scheduled out of airports across more than 20 states, though the terms for changing your travel plans can vary significantly by airline. If you plan to change your travel plans, for example, you will generally need to rebook in the next few days and choose new travel dates within the next year. But its also important to gauge your expectations: Dont expect to score some cash from this storm. In September, the Department of Transportation updated its lengthy fly rights guidelines and cautioned that amenities to stranded passengers vary by airline, even if the cause is weather or something else beyond the carriers control. Each airline has its own policies about what it will do for delayed passengers waiting at the airport; there are no federal requirements, according to information from the Transportation Department. Contrary to popular belief, for domestic itineraries, airlines are not required to compensate passengers whose flights are delayed or canceled. Here are how the big four airlinesAmerican Airlines, Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, and Southwest Airlinesare preparing for this weekends storm, along with some of the other popular U.S. carriers. AMERICAN AIRLINES: CHANGE FEES WAIVED American Airlines has issued a travel alert for more than 30 different airports and is likely to see some major disruptions, as its main hub is at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. The National Weather Service is currently forecasting that the Dallas metro area could see cold rain beginning on Friday that will gradually transition into freezing rain and sleet, before eventually becoming snow by Sunday. If you are booked on an American flight with travel scheduled for Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, you can change your trip, and the change fee will be waived. However, you must follow a few rules: The fee will be waived if you can travel some other time until next Wednesday, January 28; dont change your origin or destination city; and rebook in the same cabin or pay the difference to upgrade. To take advantage of the waiver on change fees, you will need to rebook your trip by this Sunday, and your travel must be completed within one year of the original ticket date. DELTA AIR LINES: FARE DIFFERENCES WAIVED Delta Air Lines, with its main hub at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, could fare somewhat better, as the Atlanta area is on a winter storm watch and slightly below the threat of the worst of the winter storm. That said, the airline has issued a travel advisory for more than 40 airports in 10 states. Affected travelers have until next Wednesday, January 28, to rebook traveland rebooked travel must occur on or before that date to be eligible for the fare difference to be waived. However, a fare difference may apply, the airline cautions, if you upgrade your original booking class. If youre not able to reschedule your travel to meet these rebooking guidelines, you may cancel your original reservation and apply the unused value of the ticket toward the purchase of a new ticket for travel within one year of the original issue date. UNITED AIRLINES: CHANGE FEES, FARE DIFFERENCES WAIVED With its headquarters in Chicago, United Airlines is very accustomed to dealing with winter weather disruptions, and the city isnt in the eye of this particular winter storm. Unlike American and Delta, United has issued two separate travel alertsone for the Eastern U.S. and the other for the Southern U.S.and they encompass two slightly different time periods. The travel alert for the Southern U.S. could affect airports in nine states, according to United, and applies to flights scheduled for Friday through Sunday. Meanwhile, the travel alert for the Eastern U.S. could affect airports in 14 states and the District of Columbia, and applies to flights scheduled for Saturday and extending through Monday. The options for United travelers who face potential disruptions are the same: Reschedule your travel plans, and the airline will waive change fees and fare difference. To qualify, the new flight must depart on or before next Wednesday, January 28, for flights on the East Coast, and on or before next Thursday, January 29, for flights in the South. SOUTHWEST AIRLINES: LONGER WINDOW FOR REBOOKING Southwest Airlines, the fourth-largest U.S. carrier, has always done things a little differently than its bigger competitorsand that extends to how it is handling potential disruptions from the winter storm. Its main hub is at the Dallas Love Field Airport, so like American, Southwest is likely to see some impact to its flights and has issued a travel advisory for airports in 15 states and D.C. The airline was just deemed the best in The Wall Street Journals ranking of airlines for 2025, beating out rivals in every category measured. If youre a Southwest passenger with a reservation to, from, or through one of the airports on its list, you can enjoy a longer rebooking period of 14 days within the original date of travel to take advantage of the waiver in fare difference. Whats more, if you decide to cancel your trip, you may be eligible for a refund for the unused ticket, along with any optional travel charges you have already paid for on affected flights. As is true of all of the airlines, be sure to read the specific rules before making changes. HOW OTHER AIRLINES ARE PREPARING Airlines have more leeway than many passengers may realize on how they handle travel disruptionsand thats quite evident if you scroll through the Department of Transportations < href="https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/airline-cancellation-delay-dashboard">airline cancellation and delay dashboard. That dashboard details how 10 different U.S. carriers handle controllable disruptionsa cancellation or delay that was due to circumstances within the airlines control. As the agency cautions, airlines similarly can chart their own route for how to handle weather disruptions. If you have a ticket issued by Alaska Airlines or Hawaiian Airlines, which are under the same ownership, you can change or cancel your trip without a fee. The same is true for passengers on flights with Frontier Airlines and JetBlue, though the latter offers a slightly longer rebooking period (through January 31). Finally, low-fare and regional airlines may provide even fewer accommodations to travelers affected by this weekends disruptions.If you have a ticket with Spirit Airlines, the carrier will waive fare differences on rebooked tickets, though its travel advisory makes no mention of what happens if you cancel your trip. Allegiant Air has issued a travel alert for 15 cities it serves, but makes absolutely no mention of what accommodations it will offer to impacted travelers. And Breeze Airways has similarly issued a travel advisory, though the airline indicates that affected travelers will be notified with optionsand its typical accommodations vary widely, depending on the length of the delay or type of disruption.
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E-Commerce
With birth rates down around the world, Procter & Gamble is leaning into premium diapers to bolster sales figures. Specifically, the conglomerate is planning to sell diapers made with silk fibers in China, the companys second-largest market, in hopes of attracting new parents. The news came out of Procter & Gambles earnings conference call on Thursday, during which president and CEO Shailesh Jejurikar discussed the logic behind leaning into the premium diaper category with Pampers Prestige. The China team created a product, he said, that leveraged Chinese history with silk. The shiny, soft-yet-strong, luxurious material has been a status symbol for more than 2,000 years, he said. Pampers Prestige is the only leading diaper brand that has real silky ingredients in the product. Delivering the ultimate experience of skin comfort and protection. The shiny soft feel package conveys superiority at first touch. The data does support the decision, too. Jejurikar noted that P&Gs latest earnings report showed that in Greater China, the companys baby care business line has seen robust organic sales growth and increased its market share by almost 3%. Meanwhile, in North America, organic sales were down 2%. But again, with fewer babies in China and elsewhere, the company needs to find ways to keep sales figures upso, its going with higher-priced, premium products, rather than aiming for volume. Overall, the global diaper market is huge, valued at around more than $72 billion as of 2025, according to data from Precedence Research. That number is expected to grow to nearly $118 billion by 2035. Also important: Research indicates that Gen Z and millennial parents have expressed a willingness to pay more for premium, sustainable products, such as diapers. That includes diapers that use plant-based materials and fibers, which could include silk or bamboo. P&Gs pre-market earnings announcement was met positively by investors, and as of 12 p.m. ET, shares were trading up more than 2%.
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E-Commerce
Large language models feel intelligent because they speak fluently, confidently, and at scale. But fluency is not understanding, and confidence is not perception. To grasp the real limitation of todays AI systems, it helps to revisit an idea that is more than two thousand years old. In The Republic, Plato describes the allegory of the cave: prisoners chained inside a cave can only see shadows projected on a wall. Having never seen the real objects casting those shadows, they mistake appearances for reality, and they are deprived from experiencing the real world. Large language models live in a very similar cave. LLMs dont perceive the world: they read about it LLMs do not see, hear, touch, or interact with reality. They are trained almost entirely on text: books, articles, posts, comments, transcripts, and fragments of human expression collected from across history and the internet. That text is their only input. Their only experience. LLMs only see shadows: texts produced by humans describing the world. Those texts are their entire universe. Everything an LLM knows about reality comes filtered through language, written by people with varying degrees of intelligence, honesty, bias, knowledge, and intent. Text is not reality: it is a human representation of reality. It is mediated, incomplete, biased, and wildly heterogeneous, often distorted. Human language reflects opinions, misunderstandings, cultural blind spots, and outright falsehoods. Books and the internet contain extraordinary insights, but also conspiracy theories, propaganda, pornography, abuse, and sheer nonsense. When we train LLMs on all the text, we are not giving them access to the world. We are giving them access to humanitys shadows on the wall. This is not a minor limitation. It is the core architectural flaw of current AI. Why scale doesnt solve the problem The prevailing assumption in AI strategy has been that scale fixes everything: more data, bigger models, more parameters, more compute. But more shadows on the wall do not equal reality. Because LLMs are trained to predict the most statistically likely next word, they excel at producing plausible language, but not at understanding causality, physical constraints, or real-world consequences. This is why hallucinations are not a bug to be patched away, but a structural limitation. As Yann LeCun has repeatedly argued, language alone is not a sufficient foundation for intelligence. The shift toward world models This is why attention is increasingly turning toward world models: systems that build internal representations of how environments work, learn from interaction, and simulate outcomes before acting. Unlike LLMs, world models are not limited to text. They can incorporate time-series data, sensor inputs, feedback loops, ERP data, spreadsheets, simulations, and the consequences of actions. Instead of asking What is the most likely next word?, they ask a far more powerful question: What will happen if we do this? What this looks like in practice For executives, this is not an abstract research debate. World models are already emerging (often without being labeled as such), in domains where language alone is insufficient. Supply chains and logistics: A language model can summarize disruptions or generate reports. A world model can simulate how a port closure, fuel price increase, or supplier failure propagates through a network, and test alternative responses before committing capital. Insurance and risk management: LLMs can explain policies or answer customer questions. World models can learn how risk actually evolves over time, simulate extreme events, and estimate cascading losses under different scenarios, something no text-only system can reliably do. Manufacturing and operations: Digital twins of factories are early world models. They dont just describe processes; they simulate how machines, materials, and timing interact, allowing companies to predict failures, optimize throughput, and test changes virtually before touching the real system. /ul> In all these cases, language is useful, but insufficient. Understanding requires a model of how the world behaves, not just how people talk about it. The post-LLM architecture This does not mean abandoning language models. It means putting them in their proper place. In the next phase of AI: LLMs become interfaces, copilots, and translators World models provide grounding, prediction, and planning Language sits on top of systems that learn from reality itself In Platos allegory, the prisoners are not freed by studying the shadows more carefully: they are freed by turning around and confronting the source of those shadows, and eventually the world outside the cave. AI is approaching a similar moment. The organizations that recognize this early will stop mistaking fluent language for understanding and start investing in architectures that model their own reality. Those companies wont just build AI that talks convincingly about the world: theyll build AI that actually understands how it works. Will your company understand this? Will your company be able to build its world model?
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E-Commerce
Valentino, who died on Monday at 93, leaves a lasting legacy full of celebrities, glamour and, in his words, knowing what women want: to be beautiful. The Italian fashion powerhouse has secured his dream of making a lasting impact, outliving Karl Lagerfeld and Yves Saint Laurent. Valentino was known for his unique blend between the bold and colourful Italian fashion and the elegant French haute couturethe highest level of craftsmanship in fashion, with exceptional detail and strict professional dressmaking standards. The blending of these styles to create the signature Valentino silhouette made his style distinctive. Valentinos style was reserved, and over his career, he built upon the haute couture skills he had developed, maintaining his signature style while he led his fashion house for five decades. But he was certainly not without his own controversial views on beauty for women. Becoming the designer Born in Voghera, Italy, in 1932, Valentino Clemente Ludovico began his career early, knowing from a young age he would pursue fashion. He drew from a young age and studied fashion drawing at Santa Marta Institute of Fashion Drawing in Milan before honing his technical design skills at École de la Chambre Syndicale de la Couture Parisienne, the fashion trade association, in Paris. He started his fashion career at two prominent Parisian haute couture houses, first at Jean Desss before moving to Guy Laroche. He opened his own fashion house in Italy in 1959. His early work had a heavy French influence with simple, clean designs and complex silhouettes and construction. His early work had blocked colour and more of a minimalist approach, before his Italian culture really came through later in his collections. He achieved early success through his connections to the Italian film industry, including dressing Elizabeth Taylor fresh off her appearance in Cleopatra (1963). Elizabeth Taylor wearing Valentino while dancing with Kirk Douglas at the party in Rome for the film Spartacus. [Photo: Keystone/Getty Images] Valentino joined the world stage on his first showing at the Pritti Palace in Florence in 1962. His most notable collection during that era was in 1968 with The White Collection, a series of A-line dresses and classic suit jackets. The collection was striking: all in white, while Italy was all about colour. He quickly grew in international popularity. He was beloved by European celebrities, and an elite group of women who were willing to spend the moneythe dresses ran into the thousands of dollars. In 1963, he travelled to the United States to attract Hollywood stars. The Valentino woman Valentinos wish was to make women beautiful. He certainly attracted the A-list celebrities to do so. The Valentino woman was one who would hold themselves with confidence and a lady-like elegance. Valentino wanted to see women attract attention with his classic silhouettes and balanced proportions. Valentino dressed women such as Jackie Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn, Julia Roberts, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Anne Hathaway. Anne Hathaway and Valentino Garavani attend the 2011 Oscars. [Photo: Fairchild Archive/Penske Media/Getty Images] His aristocratic taste inherited ideas of beauty and old European style, rather than innovating with new trends. His signature style was formal designs that had the ability to quietly intimidateincluding the insatiable Valentino red. Red was a signature colour of his collections. The colour provided confidence and romance, while not distracting away from the beauty of the woman. French influence Being French-trained, Valentino was well acquainted with the rules of couture. With this expertise, he was one of the first Italian designers to be successful in France as an outsider with the launch of his first Paris collection in 1975. This Paris collection showcased more relaxed silhouettes with many layers, playing towards the casual nature of fashion. A model in the Valentino Spring 1976 ready to wear collection walks the runway in Paris in 1975. [Photo: Fairchild Archive/WWD/Penske Media/Getty Images] While his design base was in Rome, many of his collections were shown in Paris over the next four decades. His Italian culture mixed with the technicality of Parisian haute couture made Valentino the designer he was. Throughout his career, his designs often maintained a classic silhouette bust, matched with a bold Italian colour or texture. Unlike some designers today, Valentinos collections didnt change too dramatically each season. Instead, they continued to maintain the craftsmanship and high couture standards. Quintessentially beautiful is often the description of Valentinos work however this devotion to high beauty standards has seen criticism of the industry. In 2007, Valentino defended the trend of very skinny women on runways, saying when girls are skinny, the dresses are more attractive. Critics said his designs reinforce exclusion, gatekeeping fashion from those who dont conform to traditional beauty standards. The Valentino runways only recently have started to feature more average sized bodies and expand their definition of beauty. The $300 million sale of Valentino The Valentino fashion brand sold for US$300 million in 1998 to Holding di Partecipazioni Industriali, with Valentino still designing until his retirement in 2007. Valentino sold to increase the size of his brand: he knew without the support of a larger corporation surviving alone would be impossible. Since Valentinos retirement, the fashion house has continued under other creative directors. Valentino will leave a lasting legacy as the Italian designer who managed to break through the noise of the French haute couture elite and make a name for himself. The iconic Valentino red will forever be remembered for its glamour, and will live on with his legacy. A true Roman visionary with unmatched craftsmanship. Jye Marshall is a lecturer of fashion design at the School of Design and Architecture at Swinburne University of Technology. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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In 2019, during his first term, U.S. President Donald Trump expressed a desire to buy Greenland, which has been a part of Denmark for some 300 years. Danes and Greenlanders quickly rebuffed the offer at the time. During Trumps second term, those offers have turned to threats. Trump said on his social media platform Truth Social in late December 2024 that, for purposes of national security, U.S. control over Greenland was a necessity. The president has continued to insist on the national security rationale into January 2026. And he has refused to rule out the use of military force to control Greenland. From my perspective as an international relations scholar focused on Europe, Trumps national security rationale doesnt make sense. Greenland, like the U.S., is a member of NATO, which provides a collective defense pact, meaning member nations will respond to an attack on any alliance member. And because of a 1951 defense agreement between the U.S. and Denmark, the U.S. can already build military installations in Greenland to protect the region. Trumps 2025 National Security Strategy, which stresses control of the Western Hemisphere and keeping China out of the region, provides insight into Trumps thinking. US interests in Greenland The United States has tried to acquire Greenland several times. In 1867, Secretary of State William Seward commissioned a survey of Greenland. Impressed with the abundance of natural resources on the island, he pushed to acquire Greenland and Iceland for US$5.5 millionroughly $125 million today. But Congress was still concerned about the purchase of Alaska that year, which Seward had engineered. It had seen Alaska as too cold and too distant from the rest of the U.S. to justify spending $7.2 millionroughly $164 million todayalthough Congress ultimately agreed to do it. There was not enough national support for another frozen land. In 1910, the U.S. ambassador to Denmark proposed a complex trade involving Germany, Denmark and the United States. Denmark would give the U.S. Greenland, and the U.S. would give Denmark islands in the Philippines. Denmark would then give those islands to Germany, and Germany would return Schleswig-HolsteinGermanys northernmost stateto Denmark. But the U.S. quickly dismissed the proposed trade as too audacious. During World War II, Nazi Germany occupied Denmark, and the U.S. assumed the role of protector of both Greenland and Iceland, both of which belonged to Denmark at the time. The U.S. built airstrips, weather stations and radar and communications stationsfive on Greenlands east coast and nine on the west coast. The Pituffik Space Base, formerly Thule Air Base, is pictured in northern Greenland on Oct. 4, 2023. [Photo: Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP via Getty Images] The U.S. used Greenland and Iceland as bases for bombers that attacked Germany and German-occupied areas. Greenland had a high value for military strategists because of its location in the North Atlanticto counter Nazi threats to Allied shipping lanes and protect transatlantic routes, and because it was a midpoint for refueling U.S. aircraft. Greenlands importance also rested on its deposits of cryolite, useful for making aluminum. In 1946, the Truman administration offered to buy Greenland for $100 million, as U.S. military leaders thought it would play a critical role in the Cold War. The secret U.S. project Operation Blue Jay at the beginning of the Cold War resulted in the construction of Thule Air Base in northwestern Greenland, which allowed U.S. bombers to be closer to the Soviet Union. Renamed Pituffik Space Base, today it provides a 24/7 missile warning and space surveillance facility that is critical to NATO and U.S. security strategy. At the end of World War II, Denmark recognized Greenland as one of its territories. In 1953, Greenland gained constitutional rights and became a country within the Kingdom of Denmark. Greenland was assigned self-rule in 1979, and by 2009 it became a self-governing country, still within the Kingdom of Denmark, which includes Denmark, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Denmark recognizes the government of Greenland as an equal partner and recently gave it a more significant role as the first voice for Denmark in the Arctic Council, which promotes cooperation in the Arctic. What the US may want The Trump administrations 2025 National Security Strategy identifies three threats in the Western Hemisphere: migration, drugs and crimes, and Chinas increasing influence. Two of those threats are irrelevant when considering Greenland. Greenlandic people are not migrating to the U.S., and they are not drug traffickers. However, Greenland is rich in rare earth minerals, including neodymium, dysprosium, graphite, copper and lithium. Additionally, China seeks to establish mining interests in Greenland and the Arctic as part of its Polar Silk Road initiative. China had offered to build an infrastructure for Greenland, including improving the airport, until Denmark stepped in and offered airport funding. And China has worked with Australian companies to secure mining opportunities on the island. A U.S. Air Force helicopter flies near Thule Air Base in Greenland in 1955. [Photo: James McAnally/Archive Photos/Getty Images] Those rare earth minerals appeal to the European Union, too. The EU lists some 30 raw materials that are essential for their economies. Twenty-five are in Greenland. The Trump administration has made it clear that controlling these minerals is a national security issue, and the president wants to keep them away from China. Figures vary, but it is estimated that over 60% of rare earth elements or minerals are currently mined in China. China also refines some 90% of rare earths. This gives China tremendous leverage in trade talks. And it results in a dangerous vulnerability for the U.S. and other nation states seeking to modernize their economies. With few suppliers of these rare earth elements, the political and economic costs of securing them are high. Greenland has only two operating mines. One is the Tan Breez project in southern Greenland. It produces 17 metals, including terbium and neodymium, that are used in high-strength magnets used in many green technologies and in aircraft manufacturing, including for the F-35 fighter planes. Consider for a moment that Trump is not interested in owning Greenland. Instead, he is using this threatening position to secure promises from the Greenlandic government to make economic deals with the U.S. and not China. Thus, Trumps threats could be less about national security and much more about eliminating competition from China and securing wealth for U.S. interests. This form of coercive diplomacy threatens the political and economic development of not only Greenland but Europe. In recent interviews, Trump has made it clear that he does not respect international law and the sovereignty of countries. His position, I believe, undermines the international order and removes the U.S. as a responsible leader of that framework established after World War II. Steven Lamy is a professor emeritus of political science and international relations and spatial sciences at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
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