Why does uncertainty make us less rational with money? And who should we trust for financial advice online? Vivian Tu, financial educator and CEO of Your Rich BFF, breaks down todays personal finance risks and opportunities, from lifestyle inflation and the most common money mistakes smart people make to how Gen Z is navigating 2026 volatility and a shifting job market.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
Today there’s so much uncertaintyin prices, jobs, politics. Do you see that shaping how people behave with their money? Are they less rational in financial decision-making?
It’s like, well, if you don’t think you’re going to be able to afford a home or you don’t think you’re going to be able to go on that actual vacation you want, it becomes like the Estée Lauder lipstick index of, “Oh, well, I can’t afford a new TV, so I’m going to go to the drugstore and get myself a little lipstick.” Or, “I’m in a dollar dribble for a little coffee, I’m going to do this.” You’re spending on things that you will not ultimately derive true happiness out of, true pleasure, true joy, just to get a dopamine hit. When you are in a position of uncertainty, it is more important than ever to have a plan, because if you just leave it up to hope, it’s not going to get you there.
Lots of folks are using AI tools these days for financial decisions, budgeting, investing, even taxes. But a lot of surveys say that for a lot of these folks, it’s led them to some bad decisions sometimes. Where do you think AI can genuinely help with money? Where should we be more wary?
Well, I want to be very clear that none of the AI LLMs, like the ChatGPTs of the world, none of them are financially licensed. Not to be so self-serving, but that is in part why I built out my venture called Ask Dolly. Askdolly.com, check it out. We are actually an SEC-registered RIA, and if you ask Ask Dolly too complex of a question that is not knowledge-based, but rather personal-based, we transfer you to one of our CFPs.
I just want to say RIA is registered investment advisor. CFP is certified financial planner, right?
Oh, sorry, guys. Yeah.
We saw that AI is the next iteration of financial exploration and it really does help people on their financial journeys. They get to ask the embarrassing questions that they’re too ashamed to ask. But I don’t think that AI can operate independently of a little bit of human touch, and frankly, someone who is licensed to provide you financial advice, because it is so personal and there are so many factors to take into account.
There are a lot of people online, creators like yourself who offer financial advice. Not all of them are licensed.
Reputable.
Or registered. How do you know if something you come across on a social platform or online, that it’s reputable, that it’s worthwhile? We get this with health advice, we get with money advice.
What I say is, even with my content, if you see something and you’re like, “I wonder if this is true,” you need to be doing your own research. Watch my video and then go online and check, “Can I find three reputable sources that back up what she’s saying?” You’ll always be able to because I actually research my topics. But go look at articles from The Wall Street Journal, from the Financial Times, from Barron’s, from law firms or banks. Compare them. We have unfettered access now, so there is no excuse for falling for a trap. You actually have to do your own research.
And you have to understand how the people who you’re engaging with, how they make their money, right?
Exactly. Exactly.
Are there things you’ve learned as a creator yourself that you think people don’t really understand about how creators make money?
Yeah, 100%. You wonder why all of those lifestyle influencers were pushing Stanley Cups and all of the little charms that then go on the Stanley Cup and then all of thethey make an affiliate commission on the backend. She doesn’t love her Stanley Cup, she wants you to buy one so she gets money.
I always am very, very honest. When I do brand partnerships, I’m like, “These keep my content free. This is why you don’t have to pay a subscription fee for this. This is why I can do all of this editorial work unpaid: Because I make money.” But at the end of the day, whether or not you get the high-yield savings account I recommend, you should just get one anyway.
Are you saying that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck don’t love Dunkin’ Donuts? Is that what you’re saying?
I’m saying that I have tasted Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. It’s good, but it’s not the only coffee out there.
I’d love to ask you a few rapid fire questions if I can, get your advice on things.
Let’s do it.
All right. So what’s the biggest money mistake that smart people make?
I think it’s just lifestyle inflation, especially for people who start to make more money. You make a little bit more money, you spend a little bit more money, you make a little bit more money, you spend a little bit more money, and at the end of the year you’re like, “How come I don’t have any additional money saved?” All of us fall victim to the comparison trap where we compare our lives with everybody we see on social media, and suddenly you think that if you don’t have X, Y, and Z, you have a bad life. You don’t need to be spending on stuff just to impress other people.
All right. Next question. If I could focus on just one thing financially this year, what should it be?
Trying to increase your income, because my mentor told me this one line and it’s stuck in my brain forever, she said, “You can only save as much as you earn, but you can always earn more money.” We talk so much like, “Cut out the avocado toast, don’t buy the latte, don’t get the little treat.” Imagine how many little joys in your life you would have to cut out to save $5,000. Now imagine how easy it is to ask for a $5,000 raise. Frankly, people get much larger raises than that. It is so much easier for you to make more money than to try and cut every little thing out.
Home ownership. Rent or buy in 2026? How do we decide?
This is an insane question because real estate is so geographically focused. I cannot sit here and be like, “You should rent or buy.” I don’t know where you live. And in some cases, the answer is different based on were you live. What I do know is that it is currently cheaper to rent than buy in 70% of all major metros. And frankly, we should all be looking at our own lifestyles and asking ourselves a couple questions.
One, do we plan on being here for longer than five to seven years at a minimum? If not, you’re not buying. Are you in a position in your career to potentially have the opportunity to make massive leaps and bounds for a little bit of flexibility? So is there a chance you might be transferred to the Tokyo office? You being able to be flexible might be the reason why you get that position versus somebody else, and having that flex might help you. So renters win.
But there is something to be said about building equity. Ask yourself this question. Do you want to build that equity in your primary residence or would it be smarter to maybe just buy an investment property somewhere that is a little cheaper and then continuing to rent your primary residence? If you are planning on building out a family and you really want to paint the walls and you want to have the nursery and you want to do all of these things, maybe renting is not the right move. Maybe you want to buy.
Again, we go back to that five to seven years at a minimum, because the fixed costs of buying a home are very expensive. You have mortgage origination fees and youve got to pay some broker fees. Youve got to pay fee-fi-fo-fum. If you’re going to pay all that, youve got to be staying there for at least a little bit.
As a consultancy owner, I’ve been experimenting heavily with the headline AI applications for the better part of two years now. Our teams have tested it across dozens of products and use cases. Some experiments worked immediately. Others failed at first but succeeded six months later when the models improved. Some we’re still figuring out.
The results keep evolving.
A lot of leaders are obsessing over AI strategies right now. Detailed roadmaps, implementation plans, and resource allocation. I get it. Leadership wants clarity, stakeholders want commitments, and everyone wants to know the plan.
But here’s the issue. Technology is moving way faster than traditional planning cycles can handle. What seemed impossible in January becomes a commodity by June. GPT-4 launched in March 2023. By year-end, teams were already building multimodal AI and voice interfaces that didn’t exist when they started planning.
So, we’ve developed a posture instead of just a strategy.
WHAT DOES POSTURE MEAN?
A posture is a consistent way of thinking about when, why, and how to experiment as things evolve. It’s the framework you use to make decisions in real-time when conditions keep changing.
For us, that starts with a simple filter. Before we experiment with AI on any problem, we ask: Does this fit our criteria?
We built a framework called SPARK to help us decide:
Scale: High volume or time-intensive tasks
Pattern: Repeatable structures or behaviors
Ambiguity: Needs perspective or ideation
Redundancy: Been done before, will be done again
Knots: Bottlenecks that slow people down
If a potential concept hits at least two of these markers, we move forward with an experiment. If not, we wait. Screening helps us focus on high-value opportunities instead of throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks.
WHY THIS COMPOUNDS OVER TIME
Here’s what happens when you develop a clear posture: You get faster at recognizing valuable opportunities. You build institutional knowledge about what works in your specific context. You learn when to push forward and when to wait for technology to mature.
One team we work with started experimenting with AI for customer support triage in early 2023. The initial results were mixed. AI frequently misrouted tickets and gave generic responses.
Six months later, we came back to it. Better models, better prompting techniques, and a better understanding of what the AI could handle. This time it worked. They now process 60% of tier-one support interactions with AI, freeing their human team to focus on complex customer issues.
The difference wasn’t a better strategy. It was having a posture that included “when to come back to something we already tested.”
DEFINE YOUR OWN POSTURES
You don’t need to copy our framework. Build something that fits your business context, risk tolerance, and team’s capabilities. But it may be helpful to think through these questions:
What types of problems are we willing to experiment with?
What results would make an experiment worth scaling?
How do we balance speed with responsibility?
What triggers a decision to invest more deeply or move on?
How do we capture and share learnings across experiments?
Having clear answers matters more than having perfect answers.
THE LONG VIEW
AI capabilities will only continue to evolve, and new use cases will emerge. Some of today’s cutting-edge applications will become commodities. Others will reach dead ends.
I believe that the companies who will thrive will be the ones who can consistently evaluate new opportunities, learn from results, and adjust as conditions change. They’ll have trusted experts who know where to experiment and when to scale. That’s what I mean when I say our AI point of view isn’t a snapshot. It’s a posture.
TL;DR The technology keeps moving. Our posture helps us move with it.
George Brooks is the CEO and founder of Crema.
Big Tech is on a spending spree, forecast to drop a staggering $650 billion on artificial intelligence (AI) in 2026 aloneand that’s just for Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon. The companies are ramping up their investment in an increasingly competitive, high-stakes arms race, pouring hundreds of billions into massive data centers and semiconductors, in hopes of establishing a long-term strategic advantage in their quest to dominate the future of technology.
With all four reporting earnings within the last week, Wall Street’s reaction may be an indication that investors are increasingly worried about the large spend, and relative payoffs, from the AI investments.
The spending also coincides with mass layoffs across the tech industry. Those layoffs, which were originally attributed to AI being able to do the jobs of human workers, are now being seen by critics as an excuse for companies to reduce headcounts, so companies can divert spending from workers to building and powering AI data centers, among other things.
Here is a look at some at the numbers as we break down Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Alphabet’s AI spend for 2026.
Amazon 2026 AI spend
Reporting fourth-quarter earnings on Thursday, Amazon said it was pouring $200 billion in capital expenditures into AI this year. News of that, plus the fact it missed first-quarter operating income due to the massive spend, sent shares of the stock down 10% in early morning trading on Friday. At the time of this writing, shares of the cloud giant (AMZN) were down over 6% in afternoon trading.
“With such strong demand for our existing offerings and seminal opportunities like AI, chips, robotics, and low earth orbit satellites . . . we anticipate strong long-term return on invested capital,” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in the earnings release.
Alphabet 2026 AI spend
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, said in Wednesday’s earnings report that it estimated AI spending would hit $175 billion to $185 billion this year.
Despite its recent performance and positive earnings report, Wall Street reacted with caution, sending shares of Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL, GOOG) down nearly 2% at the time of this writing on Friday afternoon.
Meta 2026 AI spend
By comparison, Meta‘s capital expenditure for AI lags behind, but is significantly higher and more aggressive than just one year ago.
The companywhich owns and operates Facebook and Instagram, as well as Threads, Messenger, and WhatsAppsaid it was hiking capital investment for AI development by 73% in 2026, to between $115 billion and $135 billion.
For some context, at the beginning of 2025, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had said the social technology company planned to invest between $60 billion and $65 billion, showing just how quickly this AI arms race has ramped up.
Shares of Meta (META) were trading down less than 2% at the time of this writing on Friday afternoon.
Microsoft 2026 AI spend
Finally, Microsoft (MSFT)whose shares were up 1% Friday afternoon, bucking the trend of the three other Big Tech stocksis on course for AI capital expenditures of $145 billion by the end of its fiscal year in July, according to Yahoo Finance.
The stock is down 41% from its October high.The company recently reported second-quarter 2026 earnings, including $81.3 billion in revenue (up 17% year-over-year), and diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $4.14 (up 24% year-over-year).
We are only at the beginning phases of AI diffusion and already Microsoft has built an AI business that is larger than some of our biggest franchises,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a statement. We are pushing the frontier across our entire AI stack to drive new value for our customers and partners.
On Thursday, OpenAI released GPT-5.3-Codex, a new model that extends its Codex coding agent beyond writing and reviewing code to performing a much wider range of work tasks. The release comes as competition continues to heat up among AI companies vying for market share in the AI-powered coding tools space.
OpenAI says GPT-5.3 combines the coding performance of GPT-5.2-Codex with the reasoning and professional-knowledge capabilities of GPT-5.2, while running 25% faster. This allows GPT-5.3-Codex to handle long-running tasks that involve research, tool use such as web search or database calls, and complex execution and planning across both general work tasks and software development.
Codex has reached over 1 million developers, OpenAI claims. And while Anthropics Claude Code has also seen rapid adoption, head-to-head data comparing the two tools remains scarce. SemiAnalysis reports that 4% of GitHub public commits, or new code uploaded to repositories, are currently being authored by Claude Code, and projects that figure could reach 20% or more by the end of 2026.
Benchmark one-upsmanship
OpenAI says GPT-5.3-Codex now has the best score of any model on SWE-Bench Pro, which evaluates real-world software engineering across four programming languages. Same goes for Terminal-Bench 2.0, which measures the terminal skills coding agents need.
Anthropic says its new Claude Opus 4.6 model, also announced Thursday, achieved top scores on several industry benchmarks including Humanity’s Last Exam (complex multidisciplinary reasoning), GDPval-AA (economically valuable knowledge work), and BrowseComp (hard-to-find information search).
OpenAI says its new model is capable of taking into account larger bodies of information while working on a task, as well as thinking about those tasks for longer periods without human intervention. In testing, OpenAI says it saw GPT-5.3-Codex autonomously iterate on game development over millions of tokens using generic prompts like “fix the bug” or “improve the game.”
Similarly, Anthropic says its new Opus 4.6 model can comprehend larger code bases and make more thoughtful decisions about how to add new code.
OpenAI says GPT-5.3-Codex is built to support the full software lifecycle, including debugging, deploying, and monitoring code, as well as writing product requirement documents and conducting research.
Beyond coding to knowledge work
The same agentic capabilities that expand Codexs coding skill can apply to tasks well outside the realm of software development, OpenAI says, extending to things like creating slide decks, analyzing data in spreadsheets.
On GDPval, an OpenAI evaluation measuring performance on well-specified knowledge-work tasks across 44 occupations, GPT-5.3-Codex matches GPT-5.2 while adding stronger coding capabilities. On OSWorld-Verified, which tests computer use in a visual desktop environment, GPT-5.3-Codex achieved 64.7% accuracy compared to 38.2% for its predecessor.
Anthropic has taken its Claude Code tool in the same directionto help a wider pool of information workers with a far broader set of business tasks.
GPT-5.3-Codex is the first model OpenAI classifies as “High capability” for cybersecurity-related tasks under its Preparedness Framework, and the first the company has directly trained to identify software vulnerabilities. OpenAI is committing $10 million in API credits to accelerate cyber defense, particularly for open source software and critical infrastructure systems.
GPT-5.3-Codex is now available to paid ChatGPT subscribers in the Codex app, command line interface, IDE extension, and web. OpenAI says it is working to enable API access (used by enterprise and independent developers) to the model soon.
HBO Max’s Heated Rivalry, a gay hockey romance TV series based on the Game Changers book series by Rachel Reid, is the breakout hit no one saw coming. With almost no promotion, it quickly became one of the most talked-about streaming TV shows in the U.S. after HBO Max purchased the rights from Canada’s Crave network this November, turning its two costars, Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, into overnight celebrities.
What’s unique about Heated Rivalry is just how fast its popularity has spread, and how devoted its massive fan base is. From the week it debuted to its season finale six episodes later, its viewership grew from 30 million to 324 million streaming minutes, according to the data and research firm Luminate, per The New York Times.
The story is about two rival hockey players who fall in love: Canadian Shane Hollander and Russian Ilya Rozanov. It is a slow-burn romance spanning a decade, and includes explicit sexual sceneswhich some attribute to the great success of the series. Writer-director-producer Jacob Tierney has described the show as pure queer joy.
Now, those die-hard romance fansmostly women and gay menhave an unlikely new interest: ice hockey. It sets the stage for what looks like the newest audience crossover from entertainment to sports, after Taylor Swift fans found football a few years ago when the singer began dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce (now her fiancé). Swift is estimated to have generated over $1 billion in publicity and revenue for the NFL, according to a MarketWatch report.
The Heated Rivalry effect
Turning to ice hockey, ticket reseller SeatGeek says interest in hockey has surged, thanks to Heated Rivalry. And that could translate into increased viewing for the Olympics.
The Winter Olympics always cause interest to spike for hockey, and this time demand is already at a fever pitch following the breakout success of Heated Rivalry, Chris Leyden, SeatGeeks director of growth marketing, tells Fast Company.
After the shows first episodes aired, we saw weekly hockey ticket sales on SeatGeek jump more than 20%, with revenue up over 30%, Leyden adds. Its certainly great for the NHL that hockey is top of mind for the broader American public for such an extended period.
Building on that momentum, less than two weeks ago, Heated Rivalry costars Williams and Storrie carried the Olympic torch in Feltre, Italy, in the run-up to the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games, wearing matching Olympic tracksuits as they made their way through the crowded streets on the 49th leg of the torch relay. (The Games begin Friday, February 6, broadcasting on NBC and streaming on Peacock.)
Meanwhile, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) tells Fast Company there is “strong anticipation for the Olympic ice hockey tournaments, particularly with the return of NHL players,” adding that ice hockey “is traditionally among the most popular and followed sports at the Olympic Winter Games.
And in Bostonwhere Heated Rivalry‘s Russian character Ilya Rozanov plays for the fictional Boston Raiders teamsome fans are getting ready to watch the Olympics.
“I read the books, watched the series, and went from Heated Rivalry to actually learning about ice hockey, and watching YouTube videos about the history of the game,” Rodrigo Pérez Ortega, a science journalism fellow at MIT, tells Fast Company. I looked at the schedule and the teams for the Olympics hockey . . . I will watch them, especially womens hockey,” he says, adding that “I think in general, a lot of womens sports are under appreciated.”
A federal jury in Arizona has ordered Uber to pay $8.5 million in a lawsuit brought by a passenger who said was sexually assaulted by one of the ridesharing apps drivers. The case marks the first time that Uber has been found liable for the safety of its drivers in a sexual assault case.
The plaintiff, Oklahoma resident Jaylynn Dean, sued Uber in 2023. Dean alleged that an Uber driver sexually assaulted her that November during a late ride to a hotel in Tempe, Arizona. Deans legal team argued that Uber avoided extra safety measures like more extensive background checks and in-ride cameras because while those steps could protect riders from sexual assault, they might also stifle the ridesharing apps growth.
The jury determined that the driver was an apparent agent of Uber, but stopped short of finding the ridesharing company liable for design defects in its app or negligence related to the incident. The jury did not order the company to pay punitive damages.
In a statement to Fast Company, an Uber spokesperson highlighted that the $8.5 million was far less than the $144 million in damages sought. This verdict affirms that Uber acted responsibly and has invested meaningfully in rider safety, the spokesperson said. We will continue to put safety at the heart of everything we do. Uber plans to appeal the verdict.
Internal documents revealed during the trial also showed that the apps safety algorithm flagged Deans ride as higher risk before it began, information that was not passed along to the passenger. After the assault, Dean contacted police and Uber, which removed the driver from the platform.
I want to make sure it doesnt happen to other women, Dean said during witness testimony. Im doing this for other women who thought the same thing I did, that they were making the safe and smart choice but that, you know, there are risks of being assaulted.
A long history of concerns
Deans case may be the first time that Uber has been found liable in a case involving the sexual assault of a passenger, but the company faces more than 3,000 similar lawsuits. Her case is not determinative for future cases, but will serve as a test trial for the backlog of other sexual assault and misconduct lawsuits that the ridesharing company faces. Late last year, a San Francisco jury found that Uber was not liable in a different sexual assault case involving a driver and a female passenger.
Uber insists that it has taken every measure to make its rides safer, but court records reported by The New York Times last year paint a picture of a company that stopped short of implementing some safety programs it knew would help protect riders. Our purpose/goal is not to be the police, an internal 2021 Uber brainstorming document stated. Our bar is much lower and our goal is to protect the company and set the tolerable risk level for our operations.
Concerns about rider safety and sexual assault have followed Uber for years. According to the recently revealed court records, the company received one report of sexual misconduct or sexual assault in the U.S. every eight minutes between 2017 and 2022. During that period, more than 400,000 Uber rides prompted those reports an order of magnitude more than the 12,500 disclosed incidents of sexual assaults during the same time frame.
The Olympics are best known as a moment for the worlds most elite athletes to demonstrate their physical prowess on the world stage. But, for a handful of apparel brands, the Games are also one of the most coveted advertising moments of the year.
This year, teams at the Milan Cortina Games will be outfitted in plenty of the usual activewear suspects, including Adidas, Nike, and Asics. Team USA will once again appear in preppy, ultra-Americana-inspired looks designed by Ralph Lauren, which has exclusively partnered with the team since 2008.
The terms of this deal are unclear, but its likely an intensely expensive (and lucrative) undertaking for Ralph Lauren that would be financially inaccessible to smaller brands. The result is that Team USAs Olympic garb has looked safe at best and stale at worst for the past several years (recall the widely panned skinny jeans and blazer combo worn in 2021).
But while big brands remain the most visible apparel players at the Olympics, some of this years most stand-out garments come from smaller designers. Here are three of the collaborations to look out for:
Team Mongolia x Goyol Cashmere
Before the Games have even begun, theres already a clear fan favorite for the best-dressed team. Team Mongolias ceremonial outfits have taken off on X, where commenters are praising the garments for their couture quality; while the uniforms official announcement post has accrued more than 100,000 likes.
Mongolian athletes will be sporting garments made by the brand Goyol Cashmere, which has produced both a line of casual ski sweaters and a stunning collection of ceremonial uniforms. The sweater line pulls inspiration from Western aprs-ski aesthetics, mixed with references to the Mongolian nomadic life, including imagery of a ger (one-man tent), sheep pens, and a horse.
[Photo: Goyol/Mongolian Olympic Comittee]
The ceremonial uniforms are Goyols take on the Mongolian deel, which is a traditional robe-like garment. A navy color palette makes up the base of the uniforms, accented by pops of light blue, gold, and red. In an email to Fast Company, the Goyol team said that the uniforms are inspired by the Great Mongol Empire of the 13th through 15th centuries, one of the most powerful periods of our nations history.
[Photo: Goyol/Team Mongolia]
Traditional elements woven throughout the uniforms include a functional skirt slit for ease of movement, a raised collar to protect against the wind and cold, silk trimmings embroidered with horn motifs, and a fully closed overlapping front, which represents “warmth, unity, and protection.”
[Photo: Goyol/Team Mongolia]
This is Goyol’s first time outfitting the Olympic team, and, according to the designers, “It has truly been incredible to see the outpouring of positive feedback online.”
They added, “Our team is deeply honored and grateful for the trust placed in us by the National Olympic Committee. We believe this marks a defining momentnot only for our country, but for Mongolias fashion industry and the recognition of our prestigious cashmere on a global stage.”
Team Haiti x Stella Jean
At this year’s Games, Team Haiti’s two skiers will be the only athletes to take to the slopes in fully hand-painted uniforms.
The outfits were created by Italian-Haitian designer Stella Jean. They feature an eye-catching jewel-toned design, painstakingly brushed over ski pants, boots, jackets, and even a puffer skirt. In an interview with the AP, Jean said that the designwhich centers a galloping red horsewas inspired by the 2006 painting Toussaint Louverture by Haitian artist Edouard Duval-Carrié.
[Photo: courtesy Stella Jean/Team Haiti]
Duval-Carrié’s painting depicts Louverture, a formerly enslaved man who successfully led the Haitian independence movement against French imperialists and established the first Black republic in 1806, riding atop the red steed. Jean told the AP that her uniform designs initially included Louverture, but she was told by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that the image broke Olympic rules barring political symbolism.
[Photo: courtesy Stella Jean/Team Haiti]
In order to preserve her work, she painted over Louverture for the final garments. Rules are rules and must be respected, and that is what we have done, Jean told the publication. But for us, it is important that this horse, his horse, the generals horse, remains. For us, it remains the symbol of Haitis presence at the Olympics.
In an Instagram caption revealing the designs, she added, “What you see is not decoration.It is visibility as a form of survival.”
Team Great Britain x Tom Daley
Anyone who watched the Paris 2024 Olympics will recall that the best garment from those Games was former platform diver Tom Daleys hand-knitted sweater.
[Photo: Tom Daley/Team Great Britain]
Over the past several years, Daley has parlayed his knitting hobby into a side gig as a kind of knitting influencer, sharing images of creations like a sweater for a greyhound and video tutorials on new patterns. At the Paris Olympics, he was seen knitting multiple different garments, including a custom blue-and-red sweater featuring an image of the Eiffel Tower.
[Photo: Tom Daley/Team Great Britain]
This year, Daleys work will be worn as official Olympic garments by the flagbearers for his home team of Great Britain. Daley collaborated with the British clothing brand Ben Sherman (which is also creating Great Britain’s opening and closing ceremony looks) on a series of knitwear inspired by his countrys flag. The chunky scarves, hats, and snoods have the same charming quality as Daleys poolside projects that previously captured the hearts of viewers worldwide.
Move over, figure skating and ice hockey: Theres a new Olympic sport taking to the slopes of Italy.
Ski mountaineering, or skimo, is the first entirely new sport at the Winter Olympics since 2002. As its name suggests, skimo combines elements of skiing and mountaineering, requiring competitors to climb up a mountain slope before heading back down. Its a more rugged take on the winter sport genre, and it involves rougher terrain than a cross-country or alpine ski course, calls for athletes to change their own gear mid-race, and balances both technical skill and endurance.
A total of 36 athletes will be competing in this years skimo events. That includes the two Americans representing Team USA, Anna Gibson and Cameron Smith, who narrowly qualified for the event back in December. Heres everything you need to know about skimo before it becomes your next Olympic obsession.
Where does skimo come from?
According to an article on the official Team USA website, skimo traces all the way back to prehistoric times, when humans traversed Europe’s snow-covered landscapes on foot. In the modern era, the first official record of the sport comes from 1897, when the German geologist Wilhelm Paulcke crossed Switzerlands Bernese Oberland mountain range on a pair of skis.
The sport held its first world championship in 2002, enjoying the most popularity in Europe’s wintery climes. Per the article, Italy has become a hotbed for skimo, with the sports popularity booming over the past decade: In 201011, there were 33,000 participants in the country, compared with more than 94,000 today. This expansion makes skimos debut at the Milan Cortina Games especially fitting. The races are being held in the town of Bormio.
How does it work?
Skimo can best be broken down into two component segments: the ascent and descent.
Competitors start with the ascent. During some portions of the climb, marked by green flags, they must proceed with their skis on. Special rubber membranes, called skins, are attached to the bottom of each ski to prevent backward sliding. One explainer video published by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) describes these skins as akin to a sticky carpet.
When the courses flags turn yellow, athletes have to affix their skis to their backpacks and proceed on foot (this is called bootpacking). If a competitor follows these flag cues incorrectlyeven because of a gear malfunctionpoints will be deducted.
Once the athletes reach the top of the slope, red flags mark their descent. Here, they remove the skins from their skis, fasten on a helmet, and shoot down a cross-country style course.
Unlike many other Olympic events, a large portion of success during skimo rests on athletes ability to quickly change their own gear. The faster we switch gear, the quicker we can move through the race, the IOC video explains.
What are the events?
Skimo at the Olympics will involve three different events: mens sprint, womens sprint, and mixed relay.
Each sprint event consists of just one ascent and descent, with races lasting less than three minutes on average. The mixed relay is a longer, more endurance-based event, comprising two ascents and two descents. Teams of one male and one female take turns navigating the course, and the first athlete to cross the finish line clinches gold for their team.
Valentines Day is just a week away, and is one of the most popular holidays for consuming chocolates. But according to two notices from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), buyers of select M&M products are at risk of adverse health consequences due to undeclared allergens. Heres what you need to know.
Whats happened?
On January 26, Beacon Promotions Inc initiated a voluntary recall of some of its M&M products. Beacon Promotions, based in Minnesota, sells third-party products featuring its clients logos and branding.
Businesses use promotional product companies like Beacon to produce everything from tote bags to chocolate with their logos, which they then give out as freebies to employees or customers.
One of the products Beacon offers is packages of candies, including M&Ms. It is some of these M&M products that Beacon produced that the company is now recalling.
But according to two FDA enforcement reports, the M&M products arent being recalled because there is nothing abnormal about the candy itself. Instead, the promotional M&M products Beacon made that are included in the recalls did not have the required allergen warnings on the packages.
The lack of these warnings means that people who are vulnerable to allergens, including milk, soy, and peanuts, may mistakenly believe that M&M candies are safe for them to eat.
Class II recall may cause adverse health consequences
The FDAs enforcement reports for both recalls state that each recall is classified as a Class II recall.
According to the agency, a Class II recall means the recalled product may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote.
What M&M products are included in the recalls?
The two recalls cover more than 6,000 units of M&M products.
The first recall covers 541 units of the following:
Repackaged M&Ms Peanut candies, Net Wt 1.3 oz.
Item BB471BG.
Lot M1823200
Best By dates: 4/30/2026
Labeled as Make Your Mark.
The second recall covers 5788 units of the following:
Repackaged M&Ms candies, Net Wt 1.3 oz.
Item BB458BG.
Lot L450ARCLV03, Best By 12/1/2025 Lot L502FLHKP01, Best By 1/1/2026 Lot L523CMHKP01, Best By 6/30/2026 Lot L537GMHKP01, Best By 9/1/2026.
Labeled with the following promotional company names. 1. Next Up, 2. Smith Pro, 3. Jaxport, Jacksonville Port Authority, 4. Climax Molybdenum, A Freeport-McMoRan Company, 5. University of Maryland, School of Public Policy, 6. Liberty University Environmental Health & Safety, 7. Subaru, 8. Trinity Cyb3r, 9. Candy Treats, 10. JSE, Jordan & Skala Engineers, 11. Dropbox DocSend, 12. PP, Prosperity Promotions, 13. Northwest Indian College Foundation, 14. FES Branding Solutions, 15. Berkshire Hathaway Guard Insurance Companies, 16. merry maids Annual 26 Conference, 17. BW, Best Western, 18. Morgan Stanley, 19. tufin, 20. Compliments of Pioneer, 21. A.D. Morgan, Construction Manager, Design Builder, General Contractor, 22. Adobe, 23. xfinity, 24. Fundermax Interiors, 25. White Cup, 26. Acadia Commercial, 27. Aviagen, 28. ORG Expo, 29. Make Your Mark.
Where were the recalled products distributed?
According to the FDA enforcement reports, the recalled M&M products were distributed in 20 states, including:
Arizona
California
Florida
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Massachusetts
Maryland
Minnesota
North Carolina
New York
Ohio
Pennsylvania
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Virginia
Washington
Wisconsin
What should I do if I have the recalled M&Ms?
The FDA enforcement notices do not give specific advice on what to do if you have the recalled M&M products.
As a best practice, a prudent course of action is to ensure the recalled M&M products do not fall into the hands of anyone who could be harmed by consuming the improperly labeled products.
Five years ago, a retired police officer spotted a 7-year-old girl walking alone in her New Jersey neighborhood. The stranger stopped her, questioned her about where she lived and whether she was alone, then called the police. When officers arrived, the girl gave them her address which was just a few blocks away. They walked her home and met her parents.
But instead of leaving, the officer demanded ID. When the parents refused, arguing they’d done nothing wrong by letting their daughter go for a walk in the neighborhood, the officer called for backup and threatened to take their daughter into protective custody. The father tried to comfort his crying daughter. Police wrestled him to the ground, arrested him for obstructing justice, and took him to jail in handcuffs. He was later found guilty and fined $133.
We Americans talk big about freedom, but when a child is learning to be independent, the cultural reaction today is to think something is terribly wrong.
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Way back in the olden days, if a stranger walked up to a child asking questions like “Where do you live?” and “Are you alone?” the stranger was considered suspicious. Countless PSAs were made about this stuff. But now, a stranger asks those questions, follows the child home, gets the child’s dad arrested, and is considered a hero.
Freedom to move
What does this have to do with urbanism? Well, it seems pointless to design streets for all ages if all ages arent allowed to freely move around.
In the 80s, when my sister and I got home from school, we’d have a snack, change clothes, and go play. If it wasn’t pouring rain, a significant amount of playtime was outsidenot because we felt some bond to nature, but because that’s just what you did. Also, mom was teaching piano lessons in the living room, so being loud in the house wasn’t an option.
We lived in a suburban neighborhood developed in the 1960s and 70s. Everything was within a 10-minute bike ride: playgrounds, soccer fields, the pool, the library, everybody else’s house, and the woods. (The woods is what we called any bigger-than-your-yard area of treesit had creeks, “secret” passageways to other streets, mysterious remains of tree forts, and places to hang out away from grown-ups.)
By 3:30pm on any given weekday, we (and kids across America) were knocking on doors asking: “Can you come out and play?” or “You wanna ride bikes?”
We’d shoot hoops until our arms got tired. We’d use saws, hammers, ropes, chains, and other found tools to make stuff. A few of us once made what in hindsight I’d call a cargo bike train. Multiple injuries followed.
Walking everywhere
My point about these neighborhood adventures isn’t that we became one with nature or longed for healthy exercise. The big difference between then and now is the getting from here to there. We were walking or biking everywhere. Parents were either at work or home doing parent things. No kid in their right mind was asking for a ride to the playground. You got yourself there.
If you didn’t have a similar childhood, I’m sure someone close to you did. We Gen Xers love sharing the glory days of when we could be left to our own devices. I think one reason my generation is so nostalgic is that our ordinary youth seems otherworldly by today’s standards.
Good urbanism isn’t any good if you’re not allowed to walk or bike. Besides the infrastructure itself, neighbors and cops now interfere with healthy childhood development. There’s a case to be made that a safe place to grow up allows for risky childhood behavior. I use “risk” loosely because expectations for child development have changed dramatically in our culture.
Childhood independence
Town councilman Keith Kaplan witnessed the New Jersey incident and was outraged. He drafted a Reasonable Childhood Independence bill stating that letting kids walk or play outside isn’t negligence unless they’re in obvious, serious, and likely danger. The bill passed and became law in 2025, making the New Jersey town a place where kids can be kids and parents can breathe a little easier.
That bonkers story about the police investigating an independent child isnt an outlier. So many parents are threatened with legal action that groups like Let Grow have been established to help restore freedom of mobility for people of all ages.
Town planners and urbanists talk about designing streets and public spaces to work for everyone, from children to elderly people, from wheelchair users to marathon runners. The idea is that if your infrastructure isn’t safe and comfortable for an 8-year-old and an 80-year-old, it’s not good design. But thats a futile exercise if the cultural norm is to be suspicious of independent children.
Personal stories are powerful tools to help convert policy jargon into infrastructure practice. It’s important to talk and write about your own experiences and what you’re hearing from others. Watch for stories that might have a headline about parenting or education but have deeper roots in land use or transportation policy.
Walk-friendly, bike-friendly neighborhoods are incredibly important for human flourishing. But they’re also only as good as the local authorities allow them to be. Legalize good urbanism and legalize healthy childhood development.
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