Some consider self-employment a soul-crushing grinda pit of despair one falls into after being laid off, or after graduating into a job market where entry-level jobs have evaporated. Chasing clients, following up on payment requests, and working into the night, all for little pay . . . its a stopgap until you find a full-time job. Who on earth would choose it?
But freelancing doesnt have to feel like gig work. And in fact, plenty of people, especially Gen Zers, do deliberately choose it. If youre skeptical about freelancing or struggling to earn enough to pay your bills, it might be time for a mindset audit: Instead of thinking like a paycheck-chasing hustler, think like a CEO.
That means defining your service offerings, pricing them deliberately, and targeting them toward the right clients, says freelance business coach Treasa Edmond, founder and podcast host for Boss Responses. She has 20 years of self-employment experience, and shes noticed something about those who do this well.
The people who truly flourish at what they dothe ones who can make the incomes that other people only dream about or have the business structure that we all strive towardtheyve really dialed in on mindset, she says. Theyre confident about what they do and how they do it.
Here are the steps you need to take to shift your mindset and successfully run your business.
Let go of the scarcity myth
The stereotype of the starving freelancer is similar to that of the starving artist. But self-employment does not have to mean lower income.
Edmond, who shifted into self-employment from full-time work, earns more from 20 hours of client work per week than she ever made at her brick-and-mortar job. She also knows freelancers who make a full-time living from five hours of client work per week. Still, she offers a word of caution to anyone who thinks freelancing will be easy: Those professionals have spent years honing their business models, and most put in a lot of hours outside of their billable client work to develop that stability.
To Edmond, the foundational building block for success is how you perceive and communicate what you do. If your pitching strategy feels like begging prospects for money, its time to develop a succinct way to express how your services can make clients lives easier.
You have to understand where your value comes from, Edmond says. It has very little to do with what you actually do. Its the return on investment the client can get on the work that you do.
In other words, freelancers earning potential comes down to how they think about their work, as well as how they frame those services to clients. Freelancers who devalue their expertise or talents will face an uphill battle securing the work volume and compensation levels they need to run a sustainable business. Tap into your inner CEO and approach discovery calls with clear, confident talking points. Youll likely find far more stability.
Identify (and balance) your business personas
Counter to the popular image of freelancers stooping over laptops in coffee shops, successful freelancing takes more than locking in and completing assignments.
As a freelancer, youre essentially a team of one. Sales, marketing, and billing are just as much a part of your job as what you actually do. This is where thinking like a CEO becomes critical.
Digital artist Caroline Beavon slips into boss mode by channeling her inner CEO into a persona she created since she went freelance in 2009. As Beavon describes it, the executive mindset can be like a hat you can put on. (She imagines hers is probably something like a bowler hat.) She sometimes wears hers while doing business management work like pitching, networking, and talking to clients.
But like any well-rounded CEO, success also means knowing when to switch hats, and switch roles.
There are some days when I wake up and I am not Queen Bee, and instead a worker bee, Beavon says. I do not have the energy, the focus, the time, the whatever, to be all dynamic. Yes, she could do it if she forced herself. But on those days, she sometimes finds its more productive to put her head down and get the actual work done. That balance is key: Lean too far into worker bee mode, and you might run out of work to do. Swing the other way, and you might not have time to finish all the work youve secured.
For Beavon, financial management is a crucial tool to stay in the middle. She keeps her freelancing income in a business account and pays herself a set salary each month. By keeping buffer funds set aside, she saves herself a lot of stress during leaner monthsmaking room for the high-level thinking that her Queen Bee, bowler hat-wearing boss persona needs in order to thrive.
Banish the employee mindset
Even if youve never held a full-time job, theres a good chance youve come into freelancing thinking like an employee, not a big cheese. That can be a real problem when youre building client relationships. As Edmond points out, freelancers who think of themselves as employee substitutes often form lopsided partnerships where clients dictate everything like bosses.
Freelancers should act like their own bosses: Set their own terms, prices, and ways of working. The client is the expert at what they do, and freelancers are the experts at what they do.
Were working with them, were collaborating with them, we hopefully have a really good relationship with them, Edmond says. But were not working for them.
Think too much like an employee, and youll stifle your inner CEO, reducing them to a demanding, overburdened middle manager, instead of an empowered advocate for what you need. But if youve painted yourself into an employee-shaped corner until now, rest assured that youre not alone.
Breaking that employee mindset is hard, Edmond says. I know people who havent done that, and theyve been freelancing for 15 years.
No matter what your working life has looked like until now, its never too late to rewrite the rules. After all, the chief reason to be a freelancer is in the name: Its the freedom to choose the working conditions that work best for you.
As Edmond puts it: You are creating the business you need so that you can live the life you want.
Netflix is declining to raise its offer to buy Warner Bros. Discoverys studio and streaming business, in a stunning move that effectively puts Paramount in a position to take over its storied Hollywood rival.
On Thursday, after Warners board announced that Skydance-owned Paramounts offer was superior to the agreement it had previously struck with Netflix, the streaming giant said the new price it would have to pay to acquire Warner would make the deal no longer financially attractive.
We believe we would have been strong stewards of Warner Bros. iconic brands,” Netflix’s co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters said in a joint statement. “But this transaction was always a nice to have at the right price, not a must have at any price.
Sarandos and Peters also thanked Warner leadership. Warner had repeatedly backed the deal it struck with Netflix since Decemberand even when announcing that Paramount’s latest offer was superior earlier Thursday, the company said its board stood by its previous recommendation in favor of Netflix.
Paramount and Warner did not immediately respond to requests for comment about Netflix’s choice to walk away. Thursday’s news arrived after Paramount upped its rival bid for the entire company to $31 per share, in addition to other revisions.
A Warner Bros. Discovery buyout would reshape Hollywood and the wider media landscape. And unlike Netflixwhich only wanted to buy Warner’s studio and streaming business for $27.75 per shareParamount wants the entire company. That means HBO Max, cult-favorite titles like Harry Potter, and even CNN could soon find themselves under a new roof.
Paramounts CBS has seen significant editorial shifts, notably with the installation of Free Press founder Bari Weiss at CBS News, under new Skydance ownership. And if Paramounts acquisition of Warner is successful, critics warn of similar changes at CNN.
A Paramount-Warner combo would also combine two of Hollywoods five legacy studios that remain today, in addition to their theatrical channels. Beyond Harry Potter, Warner movies like Superman, Barbie, and One Battle After Anotheras well as hit TV series like The White Lotus and Successionwould join Paramounts content library.
Paramounts titles include Top Gun, Titanic, and The Godfather. And beyond CBS, it owns networks like MTV and Nickelodeon, as well as the Paramount+ streaming service.
Executives at Paramount have argued that merging will be good for consumers and the wider industry. But lawmakers and entertainment trade groups have sounded the alarmwarning that a Warner takeover would only further consolidate power in an industry already run by just a few major players. Critics say that could result in job losses, less diversity in filmmaking, and potentially more headaches for consumers who are facing rising costs of streaming subscriptions as is.
Combined, that raises tremendous antitrust concerns. The U.S. Department of Justice has already initiated reviews, and other countries are expected to do so, too.
Netflix, Warner, and Paramount have spent the last couple of months in a heated, public back-and-forth over whose deal has a better regulatory pathand offers more value for Warner shareholders. Thursday’s announcement arrived shortly after Paramount upped the ante on its offer.
Beyond increasing its proposed purchase price for Warner, the company also agreed to a regulatory termination fee of $7 billion. And Paramount pledged to move up a previously promised ticking fee. The company initially said it would pay 25 cents per share for every quarter the deal drags on past the end of the year. Now its agreed to pay that amount if the deal doesnt go through by the end of September, Warner said.
But Paramount is taking on billions of dollars in debt to finance its offer. And David Ellison’s father, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, is heavily backing the bid for his son’s company. Foreign sovereign wealth funds have also provided equity for the offer, drawing scrutiny.
The Ellisons also have a close relationship with President Donald Trumpbringing more politics into question. Trump previously made unprecedented suggestions about his involvement in seeing a deal through, before walking back those statements and maintaining that regulatory approval will be up to the Justice Department.
The push to acquire Warner also arrives mere months after Skydance closed its own buyout of Paramountin a contentious merger approved just weeks after the company agreed to pay the president $16 million to settle a lawsuit over editing at CBSs 60 Minutes program. Still, Trump has continued to publicly lash out at Paramount and 60 Minutes since.
By Wyatte Grantham-Philips, AP Business Writer
Grating coworkers, tone-deaf bosses, a ninth ask for revisions on a PowerPoint deckas the workday annoyances pile up, its only a matter of time before every worker hits a boiling point. And when they do, they often hit up a trusted colleague to vent to in a direct message on a platform like Slack or Teams.
So often you’re sitting in a meeting, you’re hearing something, and you’re like, Am I crazy, or are they contradicting themselves? Did they change the strategy again? Can you believe they just said this thing? says one former employee at a consulting firm, who agreed to speak to Fast Company anonymously. Sounding off to coworkers in DMs feels like both an outlet and validation: It’s for your mental health, right?
The problem: While this act feels like the equivalent of a private, hushed conversation in the hallway or sharing a drink at happy hour with a confidante, theres a risk in kvetching on your companys official corporate communications channels.
Your bosses have ways to get their hands on your messages. On Slack, DMs can be accessed if the company provides Slack with a reason for the download. With Teams, your historys pretty much accessible whether or not a DM is private. Plus, AI is making it easier for companies to snoop on DMs as well, with at least one tool that can track employee sentiment and trends in public (and otherwise private) chats.
You may think switching over to personal text messages is a safer method. After all, in the U.S., policies prohibiting extracurricular conversations are rarely legal. But complaining about a coworker may not come with a ton of protection: States with at-will employment rules provide companies with a wide berth for when and why they fire employees, which can include no-texting policies.
In these situations, companies can treat backchanneling as a violation of company rulesor simply fire you without tying your termination to outside communications.
Backchanneling beyond the gripe
Venting is a big part of backchanneling. There’s complaining about the guy who always cooks shrimp in the microwave, or ranting about a boss who tells you to hire a babysitter so you can come to the office during a blizzard
But in other circumstances, you may move off company-sanctioned comms platforms when you need to support coworkers during turbulence at workor even let them know when their jobs might be at risk. In such cases, backchanneling may be less about talking smack, and more about sharing vital information.
When the consultant’s company initiated mass layoffs, few staffers knew what was happening. The company made no internal announcement, which led to most employees sharing and finding out details through conversations on anonymous networking app Fishbowl.
When [they] finally acknowledged it, they provided absolutely no details. They said, We don’t know when we’re going to do it. We don’t know how many people it’s going to be. We’ll keep you posted, says the former employee.
Thats when the information sharing began. Both partners and contractors began posting what theyd heard on Fishbowl, rumors of which departments could be impacted, and even when the rollout would begin. If I didnt have that, I would have been in the dark completely. […] I knew what day to wake up early to see if I had the email for the meeting that was going to lay me off, the source continues.
Some employees also choose to backchannel for other important reasons, such as communicating about real, problematic workplace conditions. That could be toxic or abusive management, discrimination, or any other serious violations.
While most private sector employees can be fired for any reason, including no reason, says Jason Solomon, Director of the National Institute of Workers’ Rights, having unsanctioned conversations with your coworkers about unfair, even illegal work environments fall into the situations in which you may be legally protected.
It cant just be venting. It has to be more like, Were talking about this, and we might do something about it.
The National Labor Relations Act calls these conversations concerted activity. This typically covers discussions ranging from reporting unsafe working conditions to union organizing.
Even though you may theoretically be protected by law, only a few cases make it to court. That means that if employers find out about backchanneling, they might not hesitate to ding you for the messagesor worse. At-will employment, standard in the U.S., allows employers to fire you for any (or no) reason, which in many cases can create soft barriers that might make you think twice about hitting send.
If you find that your conversations with coworkers are bringing up real issues, however, there are two things to keep in mind.
First, remember that official channels do exist for filing workplace complaints. But if youre not ready to go that far, there may be strength in numbers: Try to enlist as many of your coworkers as possible, Solomon says. The boss is not going to want to fire everybody.
The point of going off company-sanctioned channels is so you dont have to watch what you say and how you say it. But experts say you should still use discretion. You cant ever exactly know where your communications could end up, even if you think theyre safe at the time.
In 2011, the NLRB sided with an employers decision to fire a bartender for venting in a Facebook DM about not getting raises and being forced to share work without tips, among other complaints. Although the message mentioned workplace pay practices, the NLRB decided it wasnt protected concerted activity: No coworkers participated, and no group organizing was considered. The message never went beyond private venting, so it was fair game for termination.
What complicates things even further is a post-pandemic workforce. With the rise of remote work, more things are forced to be put into writing, since many workers simply spend less time in person. It takes so much longer to get to know peoplethat element of trust, says the former consulting employee. Pre-Zoom, it would be a walk-and-talk. In the past, a venting session used to be a muffled conversation in the breakroomnow, its become a video call, chat, or other documentable forms of communication.
On the other hand, some workers have given up on griping altogether, even if theres plenty to discuss.
Another worker at a software company tells Fast Company, I only do it with people who are no longer with the company. I consider that to be safer. They have worked with their company for four years, and arent interested in taking any chances with their career.
You never know if peole can turn that against you. Not everyone is going to be your friend. If you say something that might offend people, that is going to travel faster than light.
From changing the daily workflow to the way we order food at a kiosk, AI is showing up in just about everything we do. But according to a new report, the way people use AI differs based on generation. And some of those ways are downright weird.
The new insights come from a survey by AI-powered study aid Edubrain of 3,000 Americans ages 18 to 60. (Boomers weren’t included in the survey, but according to other recent research, they’re the least likely to use AI).
It found that when it comes to who is using AI the most regularly, it’s not the youngest tech-savvy group. It’s actually millennials: 37% of the group uses it daily, while only 25% of Gen Zers, and 19% of Gen Xers can say the same.
There may be a good reason why millennials are relying on AI more than others, the report explains.
Given the 30- to 40-somethings are more likely to be in busy parts of their life, it makes sense they may be more inclined to rely on technology to ease their burdens. “Theyre juggling work, kids, bills, and everything in between, and theyre willing to take any help they can get,” the report says.
Mostly, AI is being used to find information, such as in a quick internet search or asking ChatGPT a question. Sixty-nine percent of millennials and 63% of Gen Xers say they use it for these kinds of tasks. Meanwhile, Gen Z is more inclined to use the tool for creative tasks than for gathering information: 60% of the group uses it to help with creative tasks, which is more than any other generation.
While AI is being widely used, many would rather not discuss their AI usage in a room full of people. In fact, a staggering 36% admitted that they’d be embarrassed by the ways they’re routinely using AI.
Perhaps that’s because Americans are using AI in some offbeat ways. For example, 35% have asked the tool to predict the future. Meanwhile, even more have used AI to create a fake person, like a friend or confidant. Forty-five percent of Gen Zers have done so, 40% of millennials, and only 27% of Gen Xers.
While AI is being used for a wide variety of purposes, one generation seems to be using it for the most devious reasons.
Overall, 18% say they’ve used AI for help with something illegal, including creating sexual images of someone they know without that person’s consent. Gen Xers are the worst offenders, with 11% saying they’ve used AI this way. Likewise, 10% of Gen Xers have actually used the tool to assist them in stalking someone.
Gen Zers may get called out for being incessantly on screens as the first generation of digital natives. But, per the survey, it’s the older generations who have some explaining to do when it comes to AI use.
In the latest chapter of the pizza wars, Papa Johns announced it is closing hundreds of North America locations during a fourth-quarter earnings call on Thursday. It will also cut about 7% of its workforce.
In that call, Papa Johns’ chief financial officer and president of North America Ravi Thanawal said the company plans to shutter a total of 300 underperforming restaurants in North America “that are not meeting brand expectations or lack a clear path to sustainable financial improvement, as well as locations where we can effectively transfer sales to a nearby restaurant.”
The closures will happen by the end of 2027, with the first two-thirds closed by year end. According to the company’s annual report, it had about 3,500 locations at the end of 2025, per CNN.
Papa Johns International (PZZA) was trading down over 8% at the end of Thursday’s trading day.
Fast Company has reached out to Papa Johns for a list of locations that will be closing.
The news comes just three weeks after Pizza Hut said it, too, was closing 250 “underperforming” locations in 2026 as fast-casual restaurant chains struggle, with consumer spending dropping amid higher inflation and a high cost of living. Pizza Hut plans to shut those 250 locations, which amount to about 3% of its U.S. locations, in the first six months of this year. The chain cited competition from rival Dominos Pizza and declining store sales.
Speaking of Domino’sunlike Pizza Hut and Papa Johns, its earnings beat expectations, and its success proves people are still eating tomato pies, even as the competition falters. What’s the secret sauce?
As Fast Company previously reported, Dominos chief financial officer Sandeep Reddy mentioned the company plans to capitalize on Pizza Hut’s recent store closings.
With overall pizza-eating up somewhere between 1 to 2%, the question remains: Who can capture these consumers, given their current nuanced purchasing behavior?
“The total number of pizzas sold [is] actually increasing 1%, as well as improvement in orders that included multiple pizzas . . . [but] single pie orders declined during the quarter, and total pizza sales declined low single digits as our order mix shifted towards smaller, non-specialty pizzas,” Papa Johns CEO Todd Penegor explained during Thursday’s earnings call.
Papa Johns reported fourth-quarter earnings results with revenue missing expectations, coming in at $498.2 million, below estimates of $517.9 million; and adjusted earnings per share (EPS) coming in at 34 cents, beating the expected 33 cents.
If the 1990 classic movie Ghost is any indication, the dead love a good tune. We all remember when the recently deceased Sam (Patrick Swayze) had his infamous pottery session with his very alive partner Molly (Demi Moore).
Now, Liquid Death and Spotify are aiming to use music in a similar way, by giving a few hundred of the recently deceased the opportunity to hear their favorite music for all of eternity. The two brands have collaborated on what they claim to be the first-ever Bluetooth-enabled speaker urn.
The tasteful white urn has a top outfitted with a Bluetooth speaker. Spotify is also introducing the Eternal Playlist Generator in the U.S., where you can answer a few questions and prompts to generate a personalized mix for your ashes to enjoy for all of eternity. Liquid Death is producing a few hundred of the urns, which will sell on its site for $495.
Liquid Deaths senior vice-president of marketing Dan Murphy says that the idea came out of informal conversations between the brands. Murphy had worked with Spotifys senior director of global brand and marketing, Lauren Solomon, and there were other connections between brand leaders.
It just started as, Our brands should work together sometime! says Murphy. Soon we were doing our Liquid Death thing, which is always the same: If you take another brand or celebrity into the Liquid Death universe, what is the one right answer? And so of course, it was the Eternal Urn powered by a Spotify custom playlist that’s going to fuel it.
The quirky collab strategy
Liquid Death has made a habit of creating quirky collabs with unlikely partners, but has stepped up its game over the past year. What started with a Martha Stewart candle has evolved into making a faux leather adult diaper for dive bars with Depends (The Pit Diaper), a coffin-shaped Death Trap snowboard with Burton, and Corpse Paint makeup with e.l.f. Cosmetics. Most sell out in minutes. The Corpse Paint ad, for example, hit 12 billion impressions in two weeks, and the limited-edition collab sold out in less than 45 minutes.
Murphy says the collabs have evolved significantly over the last two years, to include global brands like Amazon and Spotify. We’ve established our place in culture and creativity such that maybe two or three years ago, it might’ve been deemed a little too risky to work with us, or maybe we weren’t big enough or interesting enough, but now we’re kind of doing it in our sleep.
A month before Ozzy Osbourne died, he collaborated with Liquid Death on a collection of cans containing his DNA. For “Infinitely Recyclable Ozzy,” he drank 10 cans of the brand’s iced tea, leaving “trace DNA from his saliva” on the now-precious metal, which originally sold for $450 each. Weeks later, one sold on eBay for $4,655.
Murphy says that the brands collaboration strategy has been to create a brand halo for Liquid Death by using these unexpected collabs to reach new audiences.
We find a lot of brands are interested in our unique audience and our creativity, says Murphy. We film and produce and direct these things in-house, so they get that value, and then we’ll find brands that will allow me to extend my marketing budget, jump in on their audience, level up the PR with major household names, that bring what they do best to the table.
The companys last valuation was $1.4 billion in 2024, and in early 2026 it launched into the energy drink category. The company started with spring water, expanded to flavored sparkling water in 2021, juice-spiked iced teas in 2022, soda-flavored sparkling water this year, and nowmuch like Liquid I.V.sees opportunity in energy drinks.
We might not do as many collabs next year, so I think it’ll be even just a fewer, bigger, better strategy, says Murphy. As we move into a fourth category of healthy, better-for-you energy, it’s that next level of complexity of customer and occasion and strategy. So it’ll take a little bit more focus on the core product. We’ve never taken our eye off that ball, but I think as a consequence, we’ll just look to a few fewer and always bigger and better. That’s what we’re trying for.
The Pantheon
Bigger and better is getting tougher to reach after a few years of bigger and slightly unhinged collab ideas. Heres my Top 5 Pantheon of Liquid Death Collabs:
5. Deathtrap snowboard x Burton
No camber, no sidecut, absolutely should not be taken down a hill. Only 50 of these casket-shaped snowboards were made, and its a lock that all 50 are hanging on someones wall for wine and burrata night.
4. Death Watch x Nixon
Classy and timeless, and for the one-time low price of your eternal soul. The Death Watch started in 2021, and is still ticking, selling its fourth iteration in 2024.
3. Pit Diaper x Depends
Sometimes the Liquide Death creative team comes up with an idea and then approaches a brand to collaborate with on it. This faux leather dive bar diaper holder is one such example.
2. Corpse Paint x e.l.f. Cosmetics
One of the most unintuitive collabs ever made, but its numbers speak for itself. Absolute gangbusters for both brands.
Eternal Playlist Urn x Spotify
The weirdest, most useless, yet kind of amazing product we didnt know we needed. Steve Jobs once said, A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them. Damn you, Bluetooth speaker Urn, damn you.
The MAHA movement wants to name one of its own as Americas top doctor.
U.S. surgeon general nominee Casey Means fielded questions about vaccines, autism research, and her own qualifications before Congress this week, a critical moment in the Trump administrations quest to remake Americas health systems.
In her opening statements on Wednesday before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Means expressed concerns about the proliferation of preventable disease that plagues Americans, including chronic illness, diabetes, and high blood pressure. During the hearing, Means touched on many policy priorities she shares with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other figures in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement, better known as MAHAa spin on Trumps MAGA branding.
As surgeon general, I would call on every American and the Public Health Service to join in a great national healingone that halts preventable chronic disease, makes healthy living the easiest choice, honors the bodys connection to the environment, and puts America back on the road toward wholeness and health, Means said.
MAHA Controversy surrounds Means
A close ally and adviser of Kennedy, Means would be an anomalyas the first U.S. surgeon general who lacks an active medical license. Without an active medical license, doctors cannot see patients or write prescriptions. And Means says she has no plans to reactivate it, even if she is confirmed. Historically, practicing physicians with years of experience take on the role as Americas top public health communicator, but the qualification is tradition, not a requirement.
Means, a 38-year-old wellness influencer, graduated from Stanford Universitys medical school but left her surgical residency program at Oregon Health & Science University before completing it. Left my residency in my 5th year to focus on the real root causes of why Americans are so sick, Means, who was previously an otolaryngology resident, wrote on her LinkedIn page.
Public health leadership must address the evidence-based, modifiable drivers of chronic diseases, including ultra-processed diet, industrial chemical exposure, lack of physical activity, chronic stress and loneliness, and overmedicalization, Means said. I have been asked to help our nation get healthy and answer the call of millionsespecially motherswho are begging for transparency and support. That is what I am here to do.”
Means cashed in on health trends
Beyond her lack of experience as a practicing physician, Means is an untraditional surgeon general choice in other ways. She is a cofounder and former chief medical officer of the health tech startup Levels, which makes a popular app that helps people monitor their blood glucose levels continuously.
Levels has raised funding from Andreessen Horowitz and other prominent Silicon Valley investors. In excerpts from her book, Good Energy: The Surprising Connection Between Metabolism and Limitless Health, Means has extolled the virtues of monitoring blood sugar to shift eating habits and reduce global metabolic suffering.
Blood glucose monitoring isnt the only health business Means has cashed in on. The surgeon general nominee has also made hundreds of thousands of dollars by promoting supplements, vitamins, and wellness products through her newsletter and social media channelsoften without disclosing her paid partnerships. Those lucrative relationships pose sticky and unprecedented ethical questions for someone seeking to shape the national health conversation as Americas next surgeon general.
A MAHA-friendly vaccine message
Like other members of the MAHA movement, Means emphasizes personal habits and mindful eating, criticizing common pharmaceutical and medical interventions as a corporate cash grab. A prolific blogger, Means mixes sound sciencelike recent research on the risks of alcoholwith dubious claims sowing concerns about the dangers of vaccines.
There is growing evidence that the total burden of the current extreme and growing vaccine schedule is causing health declines in vulnerable children, Means wrote in a newsletter published last year, echoing a core concern of the anti-vaccine movement.
On Wednesday, Means faced direct questions over her beliefs about autism and vaccines from Republicans and Democrats alike. During the hearing, Means claimed that anti-vaccine rhetoric has never been a part of my message while suggesting that the link between the autism crisis and vaccines remains unexplored.
Hinting at a possible link between autism and vaccines without scientific evidence denies established research on the topic and can dissuade adults and parents from seeking potentially lifesaving vaccinations. The American Medical Association wrote last year that an abundance of evidence from decades of scientific studies shows no link between vaccines and autism and urged people to seek vaccines, which have been proven to be safe and effective.
This week, 15 states announced that they would sue the Trump administration over its decision to pare down federal recommendations for childhood vaccines. While vaccinations for measles, polio, and whooping cough are still recommended for all children, federal health policies no longer recommend jabs for COVID-19, rotavirus, meningitis, hepatitis A, or hepatitis B across the board.
During her hearing, Means was pressed repeatedly to articulate her position on childhood vaccinesprobably the most contentious issue to emerge out of Kennedys MAHA movement. Means, who previously called the practice of giving newborns the hepatitis B vaccine absolute insanity, emphasized parent and patient choice over universal public health policies designed to protect Americans at large.
“I do believe that each patient, mother, parent, needs to have a conversation with their pediatrician about any medication they’re putting in their body or their children’s body, Means said.
If youve been caught up in the cottage cheese craze, take heed: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends that you toss tubs of cottage cheese purchased from Walmart stores in 24 states because of concerns the ingredients werent fully pasteurized.
The FDA issued an alert Thursday of a voluntary recall of Great Value brand cottage cheese made by Saputo Cheese USA, though no illnesses or hospitalizations associated with the recalled dairy products have been reported. The recall affects Great Value cottage cheese products with milkfat content of 0%, 2%, and 4%, various curd sizes, and containers ranging from 16 ounces to 3 pounds that were distributed to Walmart stores earlier this month.
The issue was discovered by Saputo Cheese, the manufacturer, during pasteurizer troubleshooting exercises and the impacted pasteurizer was subsequently fixed and returned to normal function, according to the recall details. The FDA is recommending that people not eat the affected Great Value cottage cheese and either throw away the tub or return it to the Walmart store where you purchased it.
Consuming products that are not fully pasteurized can pose a significant health risk, especially to the young and elderly or immunocompromised individuals, the FDA advisory cautions.
The affected products have best if used by dates in early April and were sold at Walmart stores in Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, Nevada, Oregon, Texas, Tennessee, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
A lack of full pasteurization is a very atypical reason for an FDA recall. In fact, Thursdays cottage cheese recall is the first instance among 850-plus recalls since March 2023 in which the reason cited was not fully pasteurized.
COTTAGE CHEESE CRAZE
Cottage cheese has become a favorite among social media foodie types in recent years thanks to its high protein content. Americans consumed roughly 2.4 pounds of cottage cheese in 2024, the most in 15 years, according to the latest figures on per-capita dairy consumption released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While cottage cheese is having a renaissance of sorts, it hasnt yet returned to its 1970s glory days when Americans were eating 4.6 pounds, on average.
In January, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced new dietary guidelines that redesigned the food pyramid and encouraged Americans to consume more dairy, and particularly full-fat dairy, than in the recent past.
Thursdays recall announcement and the FDAs warning about consuming food that isnt fully pasteurized might seem at odds with some additional rhetoric from the Trump administration. Before he was appointed Health Secretary Kennedy posted on X in October 2024 that he intended to end what he termed the FDAs war on public health and called out the administrations aggressive suppression of a variety of products including raw milk, which is unpasteurized.
The FDA falls under the Department of Health and Human Services and is led by Dr. Marty Makary, the commissioner. Any progress on creating standards for raw milk, as advocates were banking on, hasnt happened yet and isnt among the dozens of accomplishments that Makary touts on his X account for his first year as commissioner.
Neither Makary nor Kennedy have publicly commented about the cottage cheese recall.
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Since the 2008 housing bust and subsequent Great Financial Crisis (GFC), mortgage lending has steadily shifted away from big banks. In the years that followedamid tighter regulations, higher capital requirements, and elevated litigation riskmany large banks, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo, reduced their mortgage footprint. In that void, nonbank lenders, also known as independent mortgage banks (IMBs), such as Rocket Mortgage, United Wholesale Mortgage (UWM), and LoanDepot, gained market share.
Now, a top Federal Reserve official is openly questioning whether policy and regulation went too farand is signaling that a policy shift may be coming.
In a February 16 speech at the American Bankers Associations Community Bankers Conference, the Federal Reserve’s vice chair for supervision, Michelle Bowman, pointed to what she described as a significant migration of mortgage origination and servicing out of the banking sector over the past 15 years.
According to Bowman:
In 2008, banks originated around 60% of mortgages and held the servicing rights on about 95% of mortgage balances.
In 2023, banks originated around 35% of mortgages and held the servicing rights on about 45% of mortgage balances.
Thats pretty in line with the data ResiClub pulled from the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
During her speech, Bowman suggested that post-2013 capital rulesparticularly the treatment of mortgage servicing rights (MSRs)* under Basel standards**may have contributed to the mortgage retreat by banks. MSRs, which represent the expected value of servicing income when loans are sold into securitizations, were assigned higher risk weights and subject to deduction thresholds after the crisis. While regulators tightened those rules over concerns about valuation volatility and model risk, the capital treatment also made servicing and, by extension, mortgage origination less economically attractive for banks.
The result, Bowman implied, is a mortgage market increasingly concentrated in nonbank firms that lack deposit funding and operate under different supervisory and resolution frameworks. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Bowman said, borrowers with bank servicers were more likely to receive forbearance than those serviced by nonbankshighlighting structural differences that can matter during stress periods, she says.
Bowman previewed potential changes now under consideration, including removing the deduction requirement for MSRs and making mortgage capital rules more sensitive to loan-to-value (LTV) ratios rather than applying a uniform risk weight. Such changes would not unwind post-crisis reforms but could modestly improve the economics of bank mortgage activity, Bowman says.
Here’s what Bowman said in her February 16 speech:
Two regulatory proposals will soon be introduced that, among other broader changes to the regulatory capital framework, would increase bank incentives to engage in mortgage origination and servicing. First, the proposals would remove the requirement to deduct mortgage servicing assets from regulatory capital while maintaining the 250% risk weight assigned to these assets. We will seek comment on the appropriate risk weight for these assets. This change in the treatment of mortgage servicing assets would encourage bank participation in the mortgage servicing business while recognizing uncertainty regarding the value of these assets over the economic cycle.
“Second, the proposals would also consider increasing the risk sensitivity of capital requirements for mortgage loans on bank books. One approach would be to use loan-to-value ratios to determine the applicable risk weight for residential real estate exposures, rather than applying a uniform risk weight regardless of LTV. This change could better align capital requirements with actual risk, support on-balance-sheet lending by banks, and potentially reverse the trend of migration of mortgage activity to nonbanks over the past 15 years.
James Kleimann, founder of The Mortgage Scoop, writes in a recent newsletter:
This stuff is quite complicated, but basically, the Fed is weighing a plan to remove the rule that banks must deduct MSR assets from regulatory capital while maintaining a 250% risk weight for those assets. In plain English, that means regulators treat $1 of MSRs like $2.50 of risky assets. What the appropriate risk weight level should be remains the central question, but this potential change is something the MBA [Mortgage Bankers Association] has been arguing in favor of for years.
Big picture: If adopted, the proposals could mark the beginning of a gradual rebalancing in housing financeone that brings more mortgage origination and servicing back inside the traditional banking system after more than a decade of migration outward.
For the first time in history, podcasts have overtaken talk radio as the most-listened-to medium for spoken-word audio in the United States.
Podcasts, including video podcasts, eclipsed AM/FM talk radio (which notably doesnt include listening to music on the radio), with 40% of listening time, as opposed to 39% for radio, according to Edison Researchs Share of Ear survey.
Researchers have tracked these statistics over the last decade. In 2015, AM/FM radio accounted for 75% of the time Americans spent listening to spoken-word audio. At the time, podcasts accounted for just 10%.
Year over year, that gap has slowly closed, as podcasts boomed in popularity, increasingly keeping us company on daily commutes and during menial tasks. Over half of Americans, 55%an estimated 158 million peoplelisten to a podcast monthly, and 40%, or 115 million, listen every week.
This year, the scales finally tipped.
Although the difference is only 1 percentage point, this is the first time podcast listenership has surpassed radio. Whether the gap continues to widen remains to be seen.
Watching podcasts has become a growing trend over the past year, perhaps shifting the balance in podcasts favor. YouTube said viewers watched 700 million hours of podcasts each month in 2025 on living room devices like TVs, up from 400 million the previous year.
Streaming platforms like Netflix have inked deals with iHeartMedia and Barstool Sports to bring podcasts to their services. Daytime talk shows have also suffered blows, including the recent cancellations of both Kelly Clarksons and Sherri Shepherds TV talk shows.
Apples audio-only app has taken a hit as well, falling from 15.7% of monthly podcast listeners preferred platform in 2022 to 11.3% in 2025.
But audio-only isnt going anywhere, at least for now. According to Triton Digitals annual podcasting report, only 7% of audiences exclusively watch their favorite podcasts, while 13% exclusively listen. The remaining 80% alternate between the two.
The meaning of the word podcast has vastly expanded and grown increasingly diffuse as our media habits shift, Joe Berkowitz recently wrote for Fast Company.
As for the future of podcastingnot talk radio, not TV chat show, but instead a secret third thing.
