More than two dozen privacy and advocacy organizations are calling on California Governor Gavin Newsom to remove a network of covert license plate readers deployed across Southern California that the groups believe feed data into a controversial U.S. Border Patrol predictive domestic intelligence program that scans the country’s roadways for suspicious travel patterns.“We ask that your administration investigate and release the relevant permits, revoke them, and initiate the removal of these devices,” read the letter sent Tuesday by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Imperial Valley Equity and Justice and other nonprofits.An Associated Press (AP) investigation published in November revealed that the U.S. Border Patrol, an agency under U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), had hidden license plate readers in ordinary traffic safety equipment. The data collected by the Border Patrol plate readers was then fed into a predictive intelligence program monitoring millions of American drivers nationwide to identify and detain people whose travel patterns it deems suspicious.AP obtained land use permits from Arizona showing that the Border Patrol went to great lengths to conceal its surveillance equipment in that state, camouflaging it by placing it inside orange and yellow construction barrels dotting highways.The letter said the groups’ researchers have identified a similar network of devices in California, finding about 40 license plate readers in San Diego and Imperial counties, both of which border Mexico. More than two dozen of the plate readers identified by the groups were hidden in construction barrels.They could not determine of the ownership of every device, but the groups said in the letter that they obtained some permits from the California Department of Transportation, showing both the Border Patrol and Drug Enforcement Administration had applied for permission to place readers along state highways. DEA shares its license plate reader data with Border Patrol, documents show.The letter cited the AP’s reporting, which found that Border Patrol uses a network of cameras to scan and record vehicle license plate information. An algorithm flags vehicles deemed suspicious based on where they came from, where they were going and which route they took. Agents appeared to be looking for vehicles making short trips to the border region, claiming that such travel is indicative of potential drug or human smuggling.Federal agents in turn sometimes refer drivers they deem suspicious to local law enforcement who make a traffic stop citing a reason like speeding or lane change violations. Drivers often have no idea they have been caught up in a predictive intelligence program being run by a federal agency.The AP identified at least two cases in which California residents appeared to have been caught up in the Border Patrol’s surveillance of domestic travel patterns. In one 2024 incident described in court documents, a Border Patrol agent pulled over the driver of a Nissan Altima based in part on vehicle travel data showing that it took the driver six hours to travel the approximately 50 miles between the U.S.-Mexican border and Oceanside, California, where the agent had been on patrol.“This type of delay in travel after crossing the International Border from Mexico is a common tactic used by persons involved in illicit smuggling,” the agent wrote in a court document.In another case, Border Patrol agents said in a court document in 2023 they detained a woman at an internal checkpoint because she had traveled a circuitous route between Los Angeles and Phoenix. In both cases, law enforcement accused the drivers of smuggling immigrants in the country unlawfully and were seeking to seize their property or charge them with a crime.The intelligence program, which has existed under administrations of both parties, has drawn scrutiny from lawmakers since the AP revealed its existence last year.A spokesperson for the California Department of Transportation said state law prioritizes public safety and privacy.The office of Newsom, a Democrat, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Courts have generally upheld license plate reader collection on public roads but have curtailed warrantless government access to other kinds of persistent tracking data that might reveal sensitive details about people’s movements, such as GPS devices or cellphone location data. Some scholars and civil libertarians argues that large-scale collection systems like plate readers might be unconstitutional under the Fourth Amendment.“Increasingly, courts have recognized that the use of surveillance technologies can violate the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. Although this area of law is still developing, the use of LPRs and predictive algorithms to track and flag individuals’ movements represents the type of sweeping surveillance that should raise constitutional concerns,” the organizations wrote.CBP did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but previously said the agency uses plate readers to help identify threats and disrupt criminal networks and their use of the technology is “governed by a stringent, multi-layered policy framework, as well as federal law and constitutional protections, to ensure the technology is applied responsibly and for clearly defined security purposes.”The DEA said in a statement that the agency does not publicly discuss its investigative tools and techniques.
Burke reported from San Francisco. Tau reported from Washington.
Contact AP’s global investigative team at Investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/tips/.
Garance Burke and Byron Tau, Associated Press
At work, we still talk about careers like theyre ladders. As if success must be a straight line upward: more responsibility, bigger title, better office.
But that old image isnt just outdated. It can be harmful. Ladders come with an unspoken message: if youre not climbing, you must be falling. If you experience job loss, the ladder metaphor makes you feel like you slipped off and cant recover. If you take a step sideways, it makes you look like you stalled and arent motivated. If you change careers completely, it can feel like you have to start from scratch.
Most people dont need any more pressure or extra worry about what others think, when theyre already trying to make hard decisions about their work and their lives.
Thats why I think we need a better metaphor.
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Why a quilt is a better model than a ladder
Imagine a quilt. Its not one long piece of cloth that stretches up into the sky. Instead, its many pieces, each with its own shape, material, color, and history, stitched together into something useful and uniquely meaningful.
Thats what modern careers look like:
Pieces of skill you build over time
Patterns of work that overlap and influence one another
Mistakes, leaps, and detours that add texture
Priorities and goals that can shift as life changes (sometimes by your own choice, and sometimes because a square ended before you expected)
A career quilt has direction, purpose, and depth. And unlike a ladder, it doesnt require you to constantly compare your height to someone elses.
How to think about your own career
If youve been picturing your career as a ladder, its easy to fall into critical self-talk about where you should be. You might feel behind or worry that a change means youve lost everything youve worked for. The ladder metaphor leaves very little room for lifes unexpected turns, or for choices that dont look like a straight climb upward.
A quilt gives you a different way to look at your past, and your future. A job loss isnt slipping off the ladder, its simply a square that ended before you expected. A pivot isnt failure, its a new piece of fabric. A sideways move isnt stalling, its part of your quilt that builds depth, resilience, and new skills.
So instead of asking, Whats my next rung? try asking, What do I want my next square to be? What skills do you want to strengthen? What kind of work feels most important to you right now? What chapter are you ready for, even if it doesnt look like a promotion on paper?
Careers dont have to be explained in a straight line to be valid. Youre allowed to choose your next piece intentionally, without worrying about how it looks from the outside.
How to support your team members career quilts
You dont just stitch your own quilt. Managers (from first-line leaders through senior executives) have an enormous influence on whether your team members feel boxed into ladders or supported in building something broader. One of the most helpful things you can do is expand the conversation beyond titles and promotions, and focus instead on skills, experiences, and growth that can happen in many forms.
If someone feels stuck waiting for a promotion, instead of saying, You just have to wait for the next role, a manager might say: Lets look at the skills you want to build and how you can grow and demonstrate them in this role so youll be ready when the time comes. That feels empowering and grounded, instead of simply waiting to be chosen.
If someone shares that theyre interested in trying something new, even if theyre not 100% sure its for them, respond with openness: Im glad you let me know. Lets think about ways you can start getting exposure – maybe by shadowing someone, sitting in on a project, or meeting a few people on that team. This acknowledges that growth often starts with exploration, not certainty.
And if someone shifts direction entirely – for example, moving from people leadership back into an individual contributor role – your words matter. Reminding them that it isnt a step down, but another meaningful square in their career quilt can help make that transition successful, and it may matter more to them than you realize.
Redefining success
Ladders measure success by how high you climb. Quilts measure success by what you build along the way.
When we help people (including ourselves) see their careers in a different light, we stop equating promotions with progress. We start valuing depth over direction, learning over hierarchy, and stories over status. And careers become something people shape, rather than something they endure while waiting for their turn.
Because real growth isnt about how high you goits about shaping a career that reflects who you are and allows you to contribute something uniquely valuable along the way.
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Mark Zuckerbergs new house in Miami Beach has sweeping waterfront views. It also sits at ground zero for climate change.
Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, are the latest in a string of billionaires and celebrities to move to Indian Creek, a private island in Miamis Biscayne Bay. Neighbors include Jeff Bezos, who owns three homes on the island, as well as investor Carl Icahn, Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner.
Like much of Miami, the area faces mounting climate risks. Its very subject to flooding and rising seas, says Stephen Leatherman, an environmental professor at Florida International University who studies the states islands.
Miamis sea levels have risen eight inches since 1950. By 2040, the water is projected to be 10 to 17 inches higher than it was in 2000. As the water rises, thats making sunny day flooding from high tides more commonup 400% over the last 20 years in Miami Beachand storm surges are increasingly dangerous.
First Street, an organization that analyzes climate risk for specific properties, doesnt yet have data for Zuckerbergs house, which was newly built. But it estimates that a home down the street faces severe flood risk, with the potential for 5.9 feet of flooding in an extreme event. That property also faces possible 184-mile-per-hour hurricane winds and more than three weeks per year of extreme heat.
Indian Creek is an artificial island, created in the early 1900s by dredging sediment from the bay. It was once a mangrove forest, dense with trees and shrubs that helped shield Miami from storms. Today, only about 2% of mangroves remain in the area. Ironically, wealthy homeowners have often cut down mangroves in front of their own homes to have better views, increasing their flood risk.
The island sits around seven feet above sea level, slightly higher than some other parts of Miami. But other parts of Miami are sinking, and its not clear if the island, built on soft sediment, may also be subsiding. And if a hurricane comes, theyre going to get a big storm surge in there, says Leatherman. In theory, the water could surge as high as 15 feet to 20 feet in parts of Miami in a worst-case hurricane.
Of course, Zuckerberg and his neighbors have money to throw at the problem. If youre willing to build to a higher standard to mitigate against wind by putting concrete gables on your house, and you basically build a bunker, you can do that, says Ed Kearns, chief science officer at First Street. And if you raise that bunker up 10 feet, then youre above the storm surge. He points to a house that survived Hurricane Michael when every nearby house was destroyed. (Zuckerberg and Chan did not immediately respond to Fast Company‘s request for comment.)
Climate change also poses other threats to infrastructure in the areafor example, saltwater is beginning to contaminate drinking water, and critical power stations are more exposed to flooding. Still, a billionaire has the option to easily leave in a disaster: Zuckerberg, for example, also owns other houses in California and Hawaii. The new house, worth perhaps $150 to $200 million, is only 0.087% of his net worth; if it was destroyed in a hurricane, he could handle the loss. (Its worth noting that Zuckerberg may be changing his primary residence to avoid the possibility of a 5% wealth tax in California, which could put him on the hook for an $11 billion tax bill; so far, the proposed tax hasn’t yet been approved as a ballot measure for this fall’s election, but some wealthy residents are already moving.)
The same isnt true for non-billionaires in the area. Floridians are already grappling with rising insurance premiumsor the challenge of getting insurance at allas extreme storms keep hitting the state. As Miamis population grows, housing costs are climbing, potentially pushing lower-income residents into more flood-prone neighborhoods. The city as a whole has far fewer resources to invest in resilience than the small, heavily fortified Billionaire Bunker island of Indian Creek.
The contrast is stark. Most Miami residents face increasing vulnerability to climate change. Billionaires like Zuckerberg can mitigate many of the risks, but doing so comes at a price and raises broader questions about whether $200 million might be better spent strengthening public resilience rather than building private fortifications.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is refusing to consider Moderna’s application for a new flu vaccine made with Nobel Prize-winning mRNA technology, the company announced Tuesday.The news is the latest sign of the FDA’s heightened scrutiny of vaccines under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., particularly those using mRNA technology, which he has criticized before and after becoming the nation’s top health official.Moderna received what’s called a “refusal-to-file” letter from the FDA that objected to how it conducted a 40,000-person clinical trial comparing its new vaccine to one of the standard flu shots used today. That trial concluded the new vaccine was somewhat more effective in adults 50 and older than that standard shot.The letter from FDA vaccine director Dr. Vinay Prasad said the agency doesn’t consider the application to contain an “adequate and well-controlled trial” because it didn’t compare the new shot to “the best-available standard of care in the United States at the time of the study.” Prasad’s letter pointed to some advice FDA officials gave Moderna in 2024, under the Biden administration, which Moderna didn’t follow.According to Moderna, that feedback said it was acceptable to use the standard-dose flu shot the company had chosenbut that another brand specifically recommended for seniors would be preferred for anyone 65 and older in the study. Still, Moderna said, the FDA did agree to let the study proceed as originally planned.The company said it also had shared with FDA additional data from a separate trial comparing the new vaccine against a licensed high-dose shot used for seniors.The FDA “did not identify any safety or efficacy concerns with our product” and “does not further our shared goal of enhancing America’s leadership in developing innovative medicines,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement.It’s rare that FDA refuses to file an application, particularly for a new vaccine, which requires companies and FDA staff to engage in months or years of discussions.Moderna has requested an urgent meeting with FDA, and noted that it has applied for the vaccine’s approval in Europe, Canada, and Australia.In the last year, FDA officials working under Kennedy have rolled back recommendations around COVID-19 shots, added extra warnings to the two leading COVID vaccineswhich are made with mRNA technologyand removed critics of the administration’s approach from an FDA advisory panel.Kennedy announced last year that his department would cancel more than $500 million in contracts and funding for the development of vaccines using mRNA.The FDA for decades has allowed vaccine makers to quickly update their annual flu shots to target the latest strains by showing that they trigger an immune response in patients. That’s a far more efficient approach than running long-term studies tracking whether patients get the flu and how they fare. In an internal memo last year, Prasad wrote that the streamlined method would no longer be permittedleading more than a dozen former FDA commissioners to pen an editorial condemning the statements.-The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Lauran Neergaard and Matthew Perrone, Associated Press
This year, the number of mothers with young children exiting the U.S. labor market saw the sharpest January-to-June decline in more than four decades. That isnt a coincidenceand it isnt a lack of ambition.
Across industries, women are reassessing howand whetherwork fits into their lives. Not because they want to step back, but because too many workplaces are still designed around outdated assumptions about who provides care and how work gets done. As leaders debate return-to-office mandates, women are quietly doing the mathand deciding whether staying is worth the cost.
This isnt a womens issue. Its a design failure. And its one leaders can choose to fix.
THE PERPETUAL STRUGGLE OF THE DOUBLE SHIFT
The pandemic exposed and intensified a long-standing dilemma: how working women can balance their careers with family demands. Even years later, in dual-income households, women continue to shoulder the majority of caregiving responsibilities, often juggling work, childcare, elder care, and the invisible but relentless mental load that comes with it. Even now, many women are still working two full-time jobs: one at work and another at home.
In a recent workplace study conducted by my company, 65% of working mothers reported carrying more household and childcare responsibilities than their partners, and nearly half said they shoulder most of the mental and emotional burden at home. When workplaces remain rigid and unsupportive, that strain compounds, pushing women toward burnout or out of the workforce entirely.
Now, rigid return-to-office (RTO) mandates threaten to add more fuel to the fire. For the first time since COVID, most Fortune 100 companies have reinstated full-time, in-office policies, and women are among the groups disproportionately affected. In our study, three out of four working women said RTO mandates make it harder for them to stay in the workforce long term.
THE HIGH COST OF LOSING SENIOR FEMALE TALENT
Supporting and retaining female talent isn’t only about equity; its about competitive advantage. While losing top-performing talent of either gender can hurt, when senior female leaders leave, there are broader financial and cultural ripple effects.
The business case is well established: when women hold 30% or more executive roles within an organization, the company outperforms its peers. In a competitive labor market, the ability to attract and retain top talentincluding highly educated, experienced womencan make or break a company’s growth trajectory.
THE REDESIGN: FLEXIBILITY, SUPPORT, AND TRUST
The solution isnt another round of workplace perks. Its redesigning work.
Im a strong believer in the value of coming together in person. Offices create connections and strengthen culture in ways that are hard to replicate remotely. They provide an environment for collaboration and problem-solving. But returning to the office can exacerbate the challenges many employeesespecially caregiversare navigating if not done thoughtfully. How work is structured matters just as much as where it happens.
Flexibility isnt about eliminating expectations or avoiding the office. Its about trusting employees to manage their time responsibly and deliver results within a clear, well-designed framework. Our research shows that 90% of employees believe return-to-office policieswhether hybrid or full-timeare more successful when companies pair them with real support, including mental health resources, reasonable flexibility, and leaders who model balance and trust.
Ive lived this firsthand. For nearly a decade, I built an executive career while caring for my father through repeated ICU and hospital stays and critical illness. I was fortunate to have the support of my husband, friends, and familybut what made it truly possible was the flexibility and trust my managers extended to me during that time. That trust wasnt given lightly; I earned it through commitment and performance. In return, their support during one of the hardest periods of my life made me fiercely loyal to my company and a stronger, more empathetic leader.
Practical support matters just as much. Flexible time-off policies, backup care for emergencies, elder care resources, and mental health services arent perkstheyre infrastructure and are foundational to productivity, engagement, and loyalty. Companies invest millions in office space and technology. To truly benefit from those investments, they must also invest in systems that allow people to show up consistently, focused, and ready to do their best work.
And this isnt only about women. Forty percent of men now identify as their familys primary caregiver. If organizations dont support them as well, the imbalance many women experience will only grow. I know from my own life that even today, I couldnt manage my work and family responsibilities without my husbands partnership.
BLUEPRINT FOR SUCCESS
Companies face a clear choice: cling to outdated assumptions about work and risk losing talented women or evolve how they support work. Some organizations will operate in hybrid models; others will return fully to the office. The real differentiator wont be the policy itself; it will be how thoughtfully leaders design and support work within it, especially for caregivers.
Redesigning work doesnt mean lowering standards. It means aligning expectations with how life actually works, and giving people the structure, support, and trust they need to perform at a high level. Workplaces built this way dont just retain womenthey build stronger cultures, develop better leaders, and outperform over the long term.
Alison Borland is Chief People and Strategy Officer at Modern Health.
The Federal Aviation Administration reopened the airspace around El Paso International Airport in Texas on Wednesday morning, just hours after it announced a 10-day closure that would have grounded all flights to and from the airport.The Federal Aviation Administration said in a social media post that it has lifted the temporary closure of the airspace over El Paso, saying there was no threat to commercial aviation and that all flights will resume.Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said in a post on X that the FAA and the Defense Department “acted swiftly to address a cartel drone incursion. The threat has been neutralized and there is no danger to commercial travel in the region.”He said normal flights are resuming Wednesday morning.He did not say how many drones were involved or what specifically was done to disable them.The shutdown announced just hours earlier “for special security reasons” had been expected to create significant disruptions given the duration and the size of the metropolitan area.El Paso, a border city with a population of nearly 700,000 people and larger when you include the surrounding metro area, is hub of cross-border commerce alongside the neighboring city of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. The brief closure does not include Mexican airspace.The airport said in an Instagram post after the closure was announced that all flights to and from the airport would be grounded from late Tuesday through late on February 20, including commercial, cargo, and general aviation flights. It suggested travelers contact their airlines to get up-to-date flight information.Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democrat whose district includes El Paso, had urged the FAA to lift the restrictions in a statement Wednesday morning. There was no advance notice given to her office, the city of El Paso or airport operations, she said.“The highly consequential decision by FAA to shut down the El Paso Airport for 10 days is unprecedented and has resulted in significant concern within the community,” Escobar said. “From what my office and I have been able to gather overnight and early this morning there is no immediate threat to the community or surrounding areas.”The airport describes itself as the gateway to west Texas, southern New Mexico, and northern Mexico. Southwest, United, American, and Delta all operate flights there, among others.A similar temporary flight restriction for special security reasons over the same time period was imposed around Santa Teresa, New Mexico, which is about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northwest of the El Paso airport.Southwest Airlines said in a statement that it has paused all operations to and from El Paso at the direction of the FAA.“We have notified affected customers and will share additional information as it becomes available,” Southwest Airlines said. “Nothing is more important to Southwest than the safety of its customers and employees.”
Darlene Superville, Associated Press
Kraft Heinz said Wednesday it’s pausing its plans to split into two companies.Steve Cahillane, a former Kellogg Co. chief who became CEO of Kraft Heinz on Jan. 1, said he wants to ensure that all of the company’s resources are focused on profitable growth.“I have seen that the opportunity is larger than expected and that many of our challenges are fixable and within our control,” Cahillane said in a statement.The company’s shares dropped 5.2% in early trading Wednesday as Kraft Heinz reported lower quarterly and annual results.Kraft Heinz announced in September it was splitting into two companies a decade after a merger of the brands created one of the biggest food manufacturers on the planet.One of the companies would include stronger-selling brands such as Heinz, Philadelphia cream cheese and Kraft Mac & Cheese. The other would include slower-selling brands like Maxwell House, Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles and Lunchables.At the time, Kraft Heinz said it expected the split to be finalized in the second half of this year.On Wednesday, the company said it will pivot from the split and invest $600 million in marketing, sales and product development.In its fourth-quarter earnings release Wednesday, CEO Steve Cahillane said Kraft Heinz’s balance sheet and free cash flow potential were strong.“We are confident in the opportunity ahead and believe this investment will accelerate our return to profitable growth,” Callihane said.
Dee-Ann Durbin, AP Business Writer
U.S. employers added a surprisingly strong 130,000 jobs last month, but government revisions cut 2024-2025 U.S. payrolls by hundreds of thousands.The unemployment rate fell to 4.3%, the Labor Department said Wednesday.The report included major revisions that reduced the number of jobs created last year to just 181,000, weakest since the pandemic year of 2020, and less than half the previously reported 584,000.The job market has been sluggish for months even though the economy is registering solid growth.But the January numbers came in stronger than the 75,000 economists had expected. Healthcare accounted for nearly 82,000, or more than 60%, of last month’s new jobs. Factories added 5,000, snapping a streak of 13 straight months of job losses. The federal government shed 34,000 jobs.Average hourly wages rose a solid 0.4% from December to January.The unemployment rate fell from 4.4% in December as the number of employed Americans rose and the number of unemployed fell.Weak hiring over the past year reflects the lingering impact of high interest rates, billionaire Elon Musk’s purge last year of the federal workforce and uncertainty arising from President Donald Trump’s erratic trade policies, which have left businesses unsure about hiring.Dreary numbers have been coming in ahead of Wednesday’s report. Employers posted just 6.5 million job openings in December, fewest in more than five years.Payroll processor ADP reported last week that private employers added 22,000 jobs in January, far fewer than economists had forecast. And the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported that companies slashed more than 108,000 jobs last month, the most since October and the worst January for job cuts since 2009.Several well-known companies announced layoffs last month. UPS is cutting 30,000 jobs. Chemicals giant Dow, shifting to more automation and artificial intelligence, is cutting 4,500 jobs. And Amazon is slashing 16,000 corporate jobs, its second round of mass layoffs in three months.The sluggish job market doesn’t match the economy’s performance.From July to September, America’s gross domestic productits output of goods and servicesgalloped ahead at a 4.4% annual pace, fastest in two years. Consumer spending was strong, and growth got a boost from rising exports and tumbling imports. And that came on top of solid 3.8% growth from April through June.Economists are puzzling out whether job creation will eventually accelerate to catch up to strong growth, perhaps as President Donald Trump’s tax cuts translate into big tax refunds that consumers start spending this year. But there are other possibilities. GDP growth could slow and fall into line with a weak labor market or advances in AI and automation could mean that the economy can roar ahead without creating many jobs.Wednesday’s report included the government’s annual benchmark revisions, meant to take into account the more-accurate jobs numbers that employers report to state unemployment agencies. They cut 898,000 jobs from payrolls in the year ending March 2025.Despite recent high-profile layoffs, the unemployment rate has looked better than the hiring numbers.That is partly because President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has reduced the number of foreign-born people competing for work.As a result, the number of new jobs that the economy needs to create to keep the unemployment rate from risingthe “break-even” pointhas tumbled. In 2023, when immigrants were pouring into the United States, it reached a high of 250,000, according to economist Anton Cheremukhin of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. By mid-2025, Cheremukhin found, it was down to 30,000. Researchers at the Brookings Institution believe it could now be as low as 20,000 and headed lower.The combination of weak hiring but low unemployment means that most American workers are enjoying job security. But those who are looking for jobsespecially young people who can be competing at the entry level with AI and automationoften struggle to land one.
Paul Wiseman, AP Economics Writer
There are few things everyone can rally behind as much as finding a lost dog. But what if that mission is actually a workaround for mass surveillance?
Thats the question many people are asking following a Super Bowl commercial from Ring, Amazon’s doorbell camera and home security brand. The 30-second video shows a series of missing dog posters and claims that 10 million pets go missing every year.
It pitches Rings Search Party feature as the solution.
Launched in November, Search Party takes a photo of the pet and taps into Ring cameras across the area. They can then use AI to identify the missing pet and send an alert. The ad claims that at least one dog a day has been found since the feature launched.
It sounds like a happy ending, except that critics of Search Party see the ads framing as a way to normalize widespread biometric identification and a loss of privacy.
Take a response from WeRateDogs, a dog-lovers’ account connected to 15/10 Foundation, a nonprofit raising money to get necessary medical help for shelter dogs.
In a video posted to Bluesky on Tuesday, the brands creator, Matt Nelson, states, Neither Rings products nor business model are built around finding lost pets, but rather creating a mass surveillance network by turning private homes into surveillance outposts and well-meaning neighbors into informants for ICE and other government agencies.
Solutions for finding lost dogs already exist
Nelson further claims that Rings success rate of one dog found per day equals about 0.03% of reports shared.
Instead of using Search Party, he suggests dog owners get their pet microchippeda common means of tracking lost dogs. Vets and some shelters can microchip dogs.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a nonprofit focused on defending civil liberties in the digital world, takes a similar stance on Ring.
“The addition of AI-driven biometric identification is the latest entry in the companys history of profiting off of public safety worries and disregard for individual privacy, one that turbocharges the extreme dangers of allowing this to carry on, EFF wrote in response to the ad.
The nonprofit continues: People need to reject this kind of disingenuous framing and recognize the potential end result: a scary overreach of the surveillance state designed to catch us all in its net.
EFF points to instances such as in 2023, when Ring had to pay $5.8 million to settle with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after Ring employees were found to have had extensive access to customer footageincluding in intimate spaces. In reaching the settlement, Ring denied violating the law.
[Photo: Amazon]
In early 2024, Ring claimed it would stop providing footage to the police without a warrant.
But both Nelson and the EFF point to Rings late-2025 partnerships with Flock Safety and Axon. The companies can request footage from Ring customerswithout a warrantfor a case and then send it to thousands of law enforcement agencies.
Fast Company has reached out to Ring for comment and will update this post if we hear back.
A May 2025 report by 404 Media found that police using Flocks AI license plate reader regularly put the reason as ICE. In a specific case, the Johnson County Sheriffs Office in Texas, used Flock in its search for a woman who self-administered an abortion.
How to turn off Rings Search Party feature
Rings Search Party feature is on by default, but users can turn it off. According to Amazons Ring support, you can turn off the Search Party feature by:
Going to the Ring app and tap the menu icon (three lines)
Clicking Control Center
Choosing Search Party
Tapping Enable or Disable Search for Lost Pets (Click the blue Pet icon next to it if you want to turn it on or off for specific cameras)
Nelson’s post on Bluesky has attracted thousands of shares and hundreds of comments, with some pointing to a Reddit thread in which users are saying they plan to return their Ring camera for a refund.
The trove of documents released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) in relation to Jeffrey Epstein have revealed just how close the convicted child sex offender and financier was to all sorts of politicians, academics, business leaders, and other prominent figures.
These figures not only talked about visits to Epsteins private island, but also shared news articles, discussed personal events, and had long debates about science and philosophy.
Epsteins views, those conversations reveal, included peddling climate denialism and ecofascismand illustrate how the ultra-wealthy undermine meaningful climate action.
‘Potentially a good thing for the species’
In a series of July 2016 emails with Joscha Bach, a German philosopher, AI researcher, and cognitive scientist, Epstein brings up climate change in the middle of a discussion about cognition and race.
Maybe climate change is a good way of dealing with overpopulation, Epstein writes. the earths forest fire. potentially a good thing for the species.
Linking the conversation back to the earlier topic of how brains function, Epstein adds: too many people . . . [it] is the fundamental fact that everyone dies at some time. make it [impossible] to ask so why not earlier. if the brain discards unused neurons, why [should] society keep their equivalent.
(Regarding his correspondence with Epstein, Bach recently told SFGate that he hadn’t been aware of Epstein’s crimes after his 2008 conviction and that “his second arrest came as a shock.”)
Citing climate change as a solution to overpopulation isnt a totally surprising position for someone like Epstein, says Michael Mann, a climatologist and coauthor, with Peter Hotez, of the 2025 book Science Under Siege: How to Fight the Five Most Powerful Forces That Threaten Our World.
The overpopulation quote is entirely keeping with the ethos of this group, Mann tells Fast Company via email, referring to Epstein and his elite associates.
Studies suggest that becoming richer makes you less empathetic, and that those with more power often care less about those with little power; the ultra-wealthy can then therefore be more dismissive of the needs of poor people, communities in developing countries, and their lived realities.
An example of this way of thinking, Mann notes, comes from Bjorn Lomborg, a political scientist who has been criticized for spreading climate denialism. Lomborg, who also makes an appearance in Epstein’s emails, has argued that poor people need fossil fuels.
Lomborg cynically uses his feigned concern for the poor and downtrodden people of the Global South to justify continued fossil fuel dependence, when in fact it is they who will suffer the most from continued planetary warming, Mann says.
According to the Epstein files, Lomborg had a meeting with the financier in September 2012. That conversation was about philanthropic investments, a spokesperson for Lomborg’s think tank, the Copenhagen Consensus Center, told Drilled Media. But there wasnt any contact afterward, and the think tank did not receive money from Epstein.
Epstein and climate misinformation
In some places where the topic of climate change appears in the Epstein emails, Epstein is revealed to have shared messages that perpetuate climate myths.
In December 2016, for example, Epstein sent a YouTube video featuring a climate change denier to theoretical physicist Lawrence Krauss. That video, titled Nobel Laureate Smashes the Global Warming Hoax, features Ivar Giaever (now deceased), who had long denied the climate crisis.
Krauss does push back. So you are listening to an old Nobel laureate whose expertise has nothing to do with this, who has never studied this in detail, built models, done experiments, he replies.
But Epstein isnt fully deterred. i liked the argument that more co2 is good for plants? he says, repeating a classic myth from the climate deniers playbook. (In reality, excess CO2 from the burning of fossil fuels leads crop yields to drop and also worsens drought, heat, and disasters that destroy harvests.)
In a later reply, Epstein repeats another piece of climate change misinformation: is the south pole getting colder and more ice?
Krauss responds that the west Antarctic ice sheet is melting at an unprecedented rate.
This wasnt the first time that the two discussed climate changeand seemed to disagree about it. In a 2013 email, Krauss sends Epstein an op-ed he wrote for The New York Times, headlined “Deafness at Doomsday,” which touched on how poicymakers should not ignore scientists about climate change.
As usual i dont have to agree but will support your decisions, congratulations, Epstein replies. (Krauss recently told Nature, in response to questions about his interactions with Epstein, that he did not know about the “horrendous crimes” Epstein was accused of and that he was “as shocked as the rest of the world when Epstein was arrested.)
How plutocrats promote climate denialism
Manns book details five forces that threaten science: plutocrats, pros, petrostates, phonies, and the press.
The Epstein Files is almost an advertisement for Science Under Siege because we see all of the key promoters of climate denial and anti-science that we talk about in the book, Mann says.
That includes, he notes, propagandists like Lomberg and Steven Koonina theoretical physicist who is only mentioned in the emails when others are sharing his work.
In 2014, Nathan Myhrvold, former CTO of Microsoft, sent Epstein a Wall Street Journal piece headlined Climate Science Is Not Settled, by Koonin, calling it “a good summary.”
Koonin has criticized climate science and was also an author on the Trump administrations 2025 Department of Energy report that downplayed the climate crisis.
The Epstein files also mention connections to “petrostates” (nations whose economies are heavily driven by the extraction and export of petroleum, natural gas, and other fossil fuels), including Russia and Saudi Arabia.
And finally, its filled with plutocrats, like Elon Musk and Bill Gates. (Musk has denied a personal connection to Epstein; Gates has said he “regrets” his time spent with Epstein and maintains that Epstein’s claims about him in the files are false.)
Gates often writes and lectures about climate change; the billionaire Microsoft cofounder has invested billions of dollars into technologies like carbon capture and nuclear power. But Mann has also long criticized Gates’s approach for straying from the straightforward solution of stopping fossil fuel use.
To Mann, this is a common tactic from the wealthy, one he describes as stopping short of denying the basic science of climate change, but downplaying the impacts, dismissing the real solutions (i.e., clean energy), and ultimately acting as enablers of the fossil fuel status quo.
The Epstein files have offered a glimpse into the world of billionaires and the way they collect and wield their powerincluding billionaire philanthropists who are influencing our reactions to crises like climate change.
At a time when public sentiment of billionaires has become increasingly negative, people are questioning just how much influence the ultra-wealthy should have on our society.
Mann has previously made the point that the solution to the climate crisis isnt going to come from benevolent plutocrats. If nothing else, he tells Fast Company, the Epstein Files really drive home this point.
