When work was drying up for freelance writer Megan Carnegie, she found herself compulsively hopping between apps and social media. LinkedIn, WhatsApp, emailsand it was just terrible for my focus, she says. I was anxious about getting work.
On a whim, Carnegie (whos also contributed to Fast Company) popped into a store selling secondhand computer equipment and bought an old Nokia burner phone. During the workday, she would use the burner for calls, and in the evening, switch back to her smartphone. With no access to apps and one fewer way to access the internet, her urgency and anxiety dissolved. I just loved the quiet, she says.
The effects of social media on mental health have been a popular topic of conversation in 2025. Social psychologist Jonathan Haidts best-selling book, The Anxious Generation, describes the effects on adolescents, including being a significant contributor to anxiety and depression among young adults.
Whats less-frequently studied is how it affects people at work. But a new report begins to demonstrate how what we see online can bleed into our professional lives.
The new study out of Rutgers University, published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior, found that what you see on social media while at work can shape your mood, motivationeven how you treat your coworkers.
Social medias effect on your work
Researchers surveyed 133 workers twice a day for two weeks. They asked them to describe the most salient, or memorable, post they saw that day, then describe how they felt and how productive they were at work. Later, the survey was repeated with 141 new participants, this time including their coworkers, who would also rate the subjects behavior and productivity.
The researchers segmented posts into four categories: attractive (thirst traps), family (kids first day at school), contentious (politics or rage bait), and accomplished (job promotions). They then measured how these content types affected employees self-assurance, anxiety, productivity, and social withdrawal.
They found that while posts about family or friends tend to boost confidence, political rants spike anxiety and make people withdraw. Posts about accomplishments can either spur you or kill your drive, depending on your personality. Those with competitive natures are prone to feeling motivated by achievement-related content, while those who arent particularly competitive are more likely to feel demotivated.
The results indicate that some workers might benefit from limiting their social media use at work. But for those whose job involves regularly scrolling social feeds, breaking the habit can prove difficult.
The LinkedIn star who barely scrolls, and the PR person who just can’t help it
Alison Taylor is an author and professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business who writes about corporate ethics. Despite being named a LinkedIn superuser by the Financial Times thanks to her more than 60,000 followers, she spends very little time on the platform.
I wake up, I have coffee, I write the post, I dont worry about it being perfect, I correct typos later, she says.
Taylor knows better than to feed the trolls, but she loves a good argument, and cant help but respond to some followers who needle her. While she might come back throughout the day to comment, she goes in and gets out quickly. Its not worth the distraction.
As for those whose job involves spending time on social medialike PR reps, marketers, and social media managersthe stress can be inescapable. Some 77% of people who work in social media are burned out, says a reader survey by Rachel Karten, who writes the popular Link in Bio Substack newsletter.
Nicholas Budler, who works in public relations for enterprise tech companies, scopes opportunities for his clients all day.
The LinkedIn doomscroll has only gotten more endless for me. And its open at work 9-to-5, he says, noting that when engagement is high, it feels good. But when its not, he questions whether social media is worth his time at all.
I think you get a bit stressed in general to have social media open at work, Budler says. While he used to do a lot of social media strategy for clients, he does less and less these days, saying, I consider it brain rot.
Doomscrolling can carry Budler down a deep, dark rabbit hole of looking through peoples job updates and news. And a lot of that news is not good, right? Especially in media, there are a lot of layoffs, he says. Those leave him anxious.
Cutting back on ingrained habits
The anxiety and malaise social media can cause is a common problem: In one small survey by the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, 45% of adults reported being stressed at least once a week because of social media, and 16% reported being stressed every day. Frequent social media use has already been linked to increased irritability in adults, as well as worsened depression.
Some researchers have even submitted the idea of meta-stress, that is, stressing about the stress generated by social media.
Thats made worse by the fact that most adults in the U.S. use social media: 68% use Facebook, 83% use YouTube, and 47% use Instagram, according to the Pew Research Center. Yet theres money to be made in keeping people away from these platforms.
Apps like Freedom, AppBlock, and SelfControl block access to certain apps for periods of time. Some cant be disabled until a set timer expires. Many workers told Fast Company that they rely on these apps to keep them from doomscrolling.
But even those tools may nt be enough to cut back on deeply ingrained habits. Budler is a prolific social media user in his personal life, with accounts on Instagram, the running app Strava, reading platform Goodreads, and TikTok, the latter of which he says is most addictive. His latest screen-time report on his phone recorded just over 20 hours on his phone in the past week, with 9 of those hours on social media.
Rebecca Greenbaum, a coauthor of the Rutgers study, isnt against social media. I think it can be a fun break. It can be a useful break. It can add interestingness to a persons day, she says.
But to avoid the mindless, automatic scroll, treat it like the smoke break of the 1980s, she says. Get up from your desk, go elsewhere, and devote a limited amount of time.
Its a strategy that works for Megan Carnegie. Im trying to be more intentional about how I use those platforms. The burner has been a good exercise in that. Now Im a bit less anxious about work.
Todays job market is more ruthless than ever, leaving many desperately clinging to their roles amid mass layoffs and side-eyeing the competition.
In such environments, a rival colleague or workplace nemesis may make themselves known. Watching a smug colleague get called out for a mistake in a meeting or blundering a promotion is often deeply satisfying (even if we may not admit it).
Many know the German name for this impulse, schadenfreude: pleasure derived by anothers misfortune. But another, more work-related term that has emerged recently is fail watching: a coping strategy born from todays challenging job market as a way to make us feel better about our own position.
Research has shown that seeing others fail can give us a self-affirming boost. Those with low self-esteem are more likely to be threatened by overachievers (and to enjoy watching them fall flat on their face). These reactions are simply human nature.
Yet there are nuances to reveling in others’ misfortunes: from a fleeting, vindictive thought to public gloating or workplace bullying.
This phenomenon is a symptom of a lack of trust within the team, with employees waiting with bated breath for someone to mess up, Peter Duris, CEO of Kickresume, tells Fast Company. Youre much less likely to see it in a healthy workplace where everyone feels supported.
Fail watching is far likelier to occur in workplaces that dont recognize and reward their employees’ contributions. At present, only 30% of U.S employees feel that someone at work encourages their development, down from 36% in March 2020, one 2025 Gallup survey found.
Duris also links fail watching to Gen Z employees due to the immense pressure younger workers are facing from all angles. Many have had to really fight to get their foot in the door, he says. In the current hiring slump, applicants submitting a résumé today have just a 0.4% chance of actually landing the job, according to Business Insider. Fresh graduates are being hit hardest, with global entry-level job postings falling 29% since January 2024, according to World Economic Forum data.
The competition doesnt stop there. Researchers from Zurich University found that highly competitive working environments foster the perfect conditions for emergence and development of schadenfreude.
Its understandable to feel somewhat reassured if someone else is finding things tough at work when you are too. But theres a big difference between this and praying for someones downfall.
If you notice someone struggling, the best way to respond is to offer help if you can, or just be kind and supportive. If another colleague tries to gossip with you about a coworkers recent failure, change the subjector at least save it for outside of work hours.
As the age-old adage goes: If you dont have anything nice to say, dont say anything at all.
Lately, at every networking event or leadership roundtable, Im hearing the same things on repeat.
CEOs are focused on growth in an uncertain context. HR leaders are worried about retention and employee burnout. Managers are trying to figure out how to build connection in hybrid workplaces that feel more transactional by the day. Everyone is chasing new strategies for engagement, inclusion, and belongingyet most are overlooking one of the simplest, most powerful tools we all have: mentorship.
In an age where technology evolves faster than people can keep up, mentorship is the real accelerator. Its how knowledge sticks, how culture travels, and how innovation spreads. The companies that will win the next decade arent just the ones adopting AItheyre the ones teaching their people how to keep learning, growing, and lifting the next generation of leaders as they climb.
The reality is that the workforce is changing in ways that we have never experienced before. Innovations have shifted the way we operate. Roles and responsibilities have changed. And in August, U.S. unemployment rose again, all while the number of new entrants getting jobs decreased by almost 200,000 (compared to the previous month).
Were watching a generational disconnect unfold in real time. The Harris Poll found that nearly half (45%) of Gen Z job seekers feel AI has made their college education irrelevant, and over half (51%) viewed their degrees as a “waste of money.” This is a striking signal that the promise of education no longer feels aligned with the realities of todays workplace. This isnt just about the cost of collegeits about the gap between whats taught in classrooms and whats needed to thrive beyond them. Employers see the same cracks: Theyre struggling to find qualified candidates even as millions of capable young people are eagerbut unsure howto start.
I talk to a lot of peoplenonprofit professionals, business leaders, researchers, and parents of young adults like myself. But its often the conversations directly with young people that reveal the challenge, and the solution, most clearly.
Take Josue. He graduated from college this spring and possesses a sharp wit, a creative mind, and a dream of working in the legal field. But like so many first-generation and lower-income students, he was weighing that dream against financial reality. Was law school even an option?
Through a network of mentors, Josue connected with a seasoned legal professional who opened his eyes to career paths he didnt even know existed, roles in the legal field that didnt require a law degree. In just a few conversations, that mentor helped him explore options, prepare applications, and gain the confidence to take the next step.
Josue is currently working at a law firm, in a job that he loves. This simple act of mentorship provided career exposure and set Josue on a new trajectory in life.
But thats not the reality for all young people navigating the workforce today. Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, in partnership with the Harris Poll, surveyed 1,000 Gen Z youth from across the country and found that only 41% felt high confidence navigating todays job market. At the same time, the data showed that 83% of young adults believe a mentor could help them as they enter the workforce.
Young people want mentorship support, even if the mentor doesnt have all the answers. In fact, 84% of mentored young people attribute their mentors to opening doors to opportunities they didnt know existed.
Guidance from a mentor can not only help a young person navigate their entrance to the workforce but can also cultivate the next generation of leaders, foster loyalty, and strengthen workplace culture.
Consider also that HR leaders need confident employees with durable skills, like communication, adaptability, and teamwork. These are all skills that young people attain through mentorship. Companies with mentoring cultures see increased retention, innovation, and employee engagement.
In fact, it benefits them just as much as it benefits young people. For example, UPS has created career exploration opportunities for young people so they can see the careers that exist within the shipping and logistics industry and ask questions. Mentorship holistically supports a stronger, more diverse talent pipeline.
Todays leaders are leaning in by creating access for young people in ways that we can scale. Think back to a moment when you needed a nudge or a champion, who was the person who did that for youthe mentor who helped you see possibilities you couldnt yet imagine? Where would you be without them?
So, before your next strategy meeting or AI pilot, ask a Gen Z employee whats helping them navigate the uncertainty of work and life right now. You wont hear about new tools or training modulesyoull hear about people. Someone who listens, believes in them, and shows them the next step forward.
Thats the opportunity in front of us. To make sure every young person, in every workplace, has access to mentorship. Because the real measure of leadership isnt just how fast we moveits how many people we bring with us.
The average U.S. employee clocks nearly 21 full business days working from their phone each year. Thats according to new research from Adobe Acrobat, who surveyed over 1,000 full-time employees on their habits and opinions around work phone etiquette.
As worklife boundaries continue to blur, the work doesnt stop when you step out of the offices four walls. For many employees, they now carry it with them in their pocket, checking emails first thing from bed, or making calls on the go between meetings.
In the early days of the iPhone, the sent from my . . . signature conveyed status. Back in 2013, The Atlantic referred to it as a humble brag. More than a decade on, and over half have used the brief disclaimer that youre simply too busy to be sat at a desk typing out a response.
Turns out those three words are dividing the office: Gen Z are more likely to say it looks rushed or informal, while older generations consider it normal work culture.
Gen Z respondents report spending 23% less time on their phones for work than older workers, with over one in four reporting it makes them anxious. And 21% even worried it will get them fired.
This generation gap may simply be a case of seniority. Only 41% of entry-level employees have sent an email with a Sent from my . . . signature, the lowest of any job level.
Junior employees may feel they still have something to prove and fear that the same signature could be perceived as harried or unprofessional. Higher-level employees have no such fears.
Instead, the Sent from my . . . signature can signal authority, the same way in which a painstakingly typed email is met with a curt thumbs-up from the CEO.
In fact, a 2012 paper entitled Sent From My iPhone: The Medium and Message as Cues of Sender Professionalism in Mobile Telephony found that those receiving a message containing spelling and grammatical errors were more forgiving of mistakes with a sent from my email than those sent from a desktop or laptop.
Of course, not every task is suited to a small screen. (Theres a time and a place for laptop purchases, for example, despite what Gen Z may think.) Sensitive or high-importance tasks probably arent worth risking an accidental emoji, or hitting send with a photo of your lunch attached.
For those surveyed, the convenience of being able to fire off emails on the fly also comes with its own drawbacks: 56% say that work-related notifications have blurred the line between their personal and professional lives.
But in an always-on work culture, as digital devices continue to embed further into our work and personal lives, the sent from my . . . isnt going anywhere soon.
Sent from my iPhone.
The Bezos vs. Musk battle for satellite internet service is heating up
In whats rapidly becoming the new space race: Amazon will start testing its high-speed internet service that its building out to compete with SpaceXs Starlink service.
With a broader rollout planned for next year, Amazon announced on Monday some updates to its Leo networkincluding a new program that will see select businesses taking part in an enterprise preview of the forthcoming service. In turn, Amazon can collect feedback to tailor services for specific industries.
“Amazon Leo represents a massive opportunity for businesses operating in challenging environments,” Chris Weber, vice president of consumer and enterprise business for Amazon Leo, said in a statement. “Weve designed Amazon Leo to meet the needs of some of the most complex business and government customers out there, and were excited to provide them with the tools they need to transform their operations, no matter where they are in the world.”
BILLIONAIRES IN SPACE RACE
Amazon Leo is part of the broader retail giants business, and not Blue Origin, the space technology company that was also founded by Jeff Bezos. It will compete with Starlink, which is owned by SpaceX, the space technology company founded by Elon Musk. That means the billionaires are competing both with space exploration and internet-from-space services for hard-to-reach places.
[Photo: Amazon]
Since April, Leo has launched more than 150 satellites into space. By comparison, Starlink has more than 7,800 satellites in orbit, according to figures released this month by the company, along with more than 6 million customers worldwideincluding major cruise lines and commercial airlines.
Some of the companies that have signed on for early adoption of Amazon Leo include JetBlue, Hunt Energy Network, and Connected Farms.
Amazon announced earlier this month that it had rebranded its low Earth orbit satellite network to Leo from Project Kuiper. The company said it plans to eventually launch 3,000-plus satellites as part of its mission to provide fast and reliable internet to customers beyond the reach of existing networks.
COMPETING FOR THE LIONS SHARE
For Leo, taking a bite from the lions share of this specific industry thats dominated by Starlink may be diffuclt, but Amazon seems intent to compete at least on speedif not price.
On Monday, the Seattle-based company showed off the final production design of Amazon Leo Ultra, the enterprise-grade terminal that will provide download speeds of up to 1 gigabits per second (Gbps) and upload speeds of up to 400 megabits per second (Mbps). By comparison, Starlink said earlier this month the median download speed across 2 million-plus active Starlink users during times of peak demand is nearly 200 Mbps as of July 2025.
How the two companies will compete on pricing is harder to know yet, as Amazon has yet to disclose pricing. Starlink prices its residential service starting at $40 per month and going up to $165, and business plans ranging from $65 per month to more than $2,150.
President Donald Trump said he has accepted an invitation from Chinese leader Xi Jinping to visit Beijing in April and that he reciprocated by inviting Xi for a state visit to the U.S. later next year.
Trump made the announcement a few hours after he spoke with Xi on the phone on Monday morning, in which he said the two men discussed issues including Ukraine, fentanyl, and soybeans. The phone call came nearly one month after the two men met in person in the South Korean city of Busan.
Our relationship with China is extremely strong! Trump said.
Beijing, which announced the phone call first, said nothing about the state visits but said that the two leaders discussed trade, Taiwan and Ukraine.
Xi told Trump in the phone call Monday that Taiwans return to mainland China is an integral part of the post-war international order, and he expressed hope for a fair, lasting and binding peace agreement over Ukraine, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.
The conversation came after Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi recently said Japans military could get involved if China were to take action against Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing says must come under its rule. Japan is an important ally of the U.S. in the region. The phone call also coincided with the latest push by the Trump administration to end the war in Ukraine.
The Chinese, who in the past always pointed out that their leader picked up the call upon request, didnt say such for Mondays call. That means China called Trump, said Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center
My best guest is China is worried about the escalation (in tensions) with Japan. The reference to Taiwan and the post-WWII order directly points to the spat with Japan over Taiwan, said Sun Yun, director of the China program at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center. They also talked about Ukraine. That is an issue China is interested in due to the new peace negotiation.
China’s relations with Japan sour
China-Japan relations have plunged to a new low following Takaichi’s remarks, with Beijing denouncing her words. Over the weekend, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Japan crossed a red line that should not have been touched.
Xi in the phone call said China and the U.S., which fought together during the war against fascism and militarism, should jointly safeguard the victory of World War II. The U.S. has taken no side on the sovereignty of the self-governed island but is opposed to the use of force to seize Taiwan. It is obligated by a domestic law to provide sufficient hardware to the island to deter any armed attack.
Trump has maintained strategic ambiguity about whether he would send U.S. troops in case of a war in the Taiwan Strait. His administration has urged Taiwan to increase its defense budget.
Earlier this month, Taiwan’s foreign ministry said it received official notification that the Trump administration approved a US$330 million arms sales to Taiwan, including fighter jet parts. Beijing immediately protested the arms sale, saying it grossly violated the one-China principle, by which Beijing considers Taiwan to be part of Chinese territory. China deplores and opposes that, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said then.
The two leaders also discussed the Ukraine crisis, the Chinese side said, with Xi saying the crisis should be resolved at its root. The Chinese leader stressed Beijing’s support for all efforts that are conducive to peace, according to the statement. However, western governments have accused Beijing of enabling the war through its industrial support for Moscow.
Trump and Xi discussed trade
Trump said he spoke with Xi about Fentanyl, Soybeans and other Farm Products, etc.
We have done a good, and very important, deal for our Great Farmers and it will only get better, Trump wrote.
Since he met Xi in Busan, there has been significant progress on both sides in keeping our agreements current and accurate, Trump said.
In the call, Xi said the bilateral relationship has generally maintained a steady and positive trajectory following the Busan summit, and he said the two sides should strive to make more positive progress, according to the Chinese foreign ministry. It didn’t reveal any concrete agreements on matters such as purchases of American soybeans.
Seung Min Kim and Didi Tang, Associated Press
Two things that made massive cultural splashes this year Labubu and KPop Demon Hunters will fill the sky and streets of New York when the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade kicks off this year. Conan Gray and Lainey Wilson will bring the tunes.
The Nov. 27 parade begins rain or shine on Manhattans Upper West Side and ends at Macys Herald Square flagship store on 34th Street, which serves as a stage and backdrop for performances. It will feature 34 balloons, four mini-balloons, 28 floats, 33 clown groups and 11 marching bands all leading the way for Santa Claus.
Heres key things to know about the parade and how to watch it.
What time does the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade start?
It starts at 8:30 a.m. Eastern and airs at that time in all time zones.
What channel is the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade on?
It will be on NBC, available with an antenna or through cable and satellite providers.
What if I want to stream it?
For cord cutters, the parade is being simulcast on Peacock and an encore telecast begins at 2 p.m. EST/PST. A Spanish language simulcast will also be on Telemundo.
Last year, more than 31 million people tuned in on NBC and Peacock, up 10% from the previous year and marking the biggest audience ever for the parade.
Whats the weather going to be like?
The Weather Channel predicts a high of 48 degrees and a partly cloudy day, with winds up to 13 mph. AccuWeather also predicts 48 degrees with intervals of clouds and winds at 12 mph. New York City law prohibits Macys from flying the full-size balloons if sustained winds exceed 23 mph or wind gusts are over 35 mph.
Who are some of the stars performing?
In addition to Gray and Wilson singing, Wicked star Cynthia Erivo will kick off the starry moving show. Audrey Nuna, EJAE and Rei Ami of HUNTR/X, the fictional girl group at the heart of the Netflix hit KPop Demon Hunters, will feature alongside Ciara, Foreigner, Lil Jon, Kool & the Gang, Busta Rhymes, Mickey Guyton and Teyana. An eclectic group of stars from ballet dancer Tiler Peck to YouTubes Hot Ones host Sean Evans will join the annual holiday kick-off.
Broadway will be represented by cast members from Buena Vista Social Club, Just in Time and Ragtime, while the Radio City Rockettes will be there and some serious athletes three-time U.S. national champion figure skater Ilia Malinin and U.S Paralympian Jack Wallace. Alumni and students at LaGuardia High School in New York City the school featured in the movie and TV series Fame will help celebrate the 50th anniversary of A Chorus Line.
Others on hand will be Alison Brie, Jewel, Debbie Gibson, Drew Baldridge, Matteo Bocelli, Colbie Caillat, Gavin DeGraw, Meg Donnelly, Christopher Jackson, Darlene Love, Roman Mejia, Taylor Momsen, Calum Scott, Shaggy, Lauren Spencer Smith and Luísa Sonza.
Who is hosting the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade?
For those watching on TV or computers, the trio of hosting stalwarts Savannah Guthrie and Al Roker from Today and their former colleague Hoda Kotb. On Telemundo, the hosts will be Andrea Meza, Aleyda Ortiz and Clovis Nienow.
Kotb, who stepped down from Today in January, says working the parade was something she wanted to continue to do even after leaving the network, One was the Olympics and the other were these parades because theyre just such fun, this one especially.
The timing is good this year for the Kotb family. Her youngest daughter, Hope, is obsessed with KPop Demon Hunters, maybe even more than with Taylor Swift or Labubu. This one is next level, Kotb jokes. Ive never seen anything like it honestly. Labubu does not hold a candle to KPop Demon Hunter’ stuff.
What are the new balloons?
This year, four new featured character balloons will debut, including Buzz Lightyear, Pac-Man, Mario from Super Mario Brothers and a 32-foot-tall (9.8-meter) balloon onion carriage featuring eight characters from the world of Shrek. KPop Demon Hunters will also be represented in the sky with the characters Derpy Tiger and Sussie.
What about new floats?
Several new floats will debut this year, including the first Pop Mart float, with Labubu, Skullpanda, Peach Riot, Dimoo, Molly, Duckoo and Mokoko. There will also be floats from Holland America Line, Lego, Lindt chocolates, Stranger Things featuring members of Foreigner, and a bunch of whimsical sheep trying to get to sleep courtesy of Serta. The fish-shaped snack Goldfish is returning to the parade with a tiny float that measures just 14 Goldfish crackers long.
Is your state represented by any of the bands?
The marching bands will hail from South Carolina, California, Texas, Arizona, New Hampshire, Mississippi, Alabama, Pennsylvania and Santiago, Panama. The New York Police Departments marching band will also join. There will also be dancers and cheerleaders from Spirit of America Dance and Spirit of America Cheer.
This story first moved on Nov. 3, 2025. It was also updated Nov. 18 to add additional details about the parade, new floats and other details and on Nov. 24 to add more details and quotes from Kotb.
Mark Kennedy, AP entertainment writer
Anthropic launched its newest model, Claude Opus 4.5, putting the company back atop the benchmark rankings for AI software coding. Opus 4.5 scores over 80% on the widely-used SWE-bench, which tests models for software engineering skill. Googles impressive Gemini 3 Pro, launched last week, briefly held the top score with 76.2%. Anthropics Claude product lead Scott White tells Fast Company that the model has also scored higher than any human on the engineering take-home assignment the company gives to engineering job candidates.
Of course Opus 4.5 does a lot more than coding. Anthropic says Opus 4.5 is also the best model in the world for powering AI agents and for operating a computer, and that it’s meaningfully better than other models at tasks like deep research and working with slides and spreadsheets.
Opus 4.5 also notched state-of-the-art (best) scores in several other key benchmarks, including Agentic coding SWE-bench Verified, Agentic tool use T-2 bench, and Novel problem solving ARC-AGI-2.
A major challenge with applying AI in real-world work settings is the models ability to deal with complexity and ambiguity. White says Anthropic customers feel that Opus 4.5 is better than earlier models at dealing with uncertainty and handling trade-offs without a lot of hand-holding from human workers.
Enterprise customers are increasingly using Anthropic models for office task automation, financial modeling, and document creation, White says. Customer Fundamental Research Labs reported 20% accuracy improvements and 15% efficiency gains on Excel automation tasks using the new model, he adds.
Anthropic has been on a sprint for the past couple of months, releasing Claude Sonnet 4.5, Haiku 4.5, and new products including Claude Skills, Claude Code on the web, and industry-specific versions for financial services and life sciences.
Opus 4.5 will become the new default model for subscribers of higher-end plans, and available as a drop-down menu option for Pro, Standard, Team, and Enterprise users. Its also available to developer customers via the company’s API, as well as via the Amazon Bedrock, Google Vertex, and Microsoft Azure clouds.
Anthropic says its also extending access to a beta version of the Claude plugin for Chrome, which has been in limited preview, to all Mac users. The company is also making Claude for Excel available to Mac Team and Enterprise users in beta, expanding beyond its previous invite-only research preview.
Kohls announced on Monday that interim CEO Michael Bender will become the ailing retailer’s permanent new CEOmaking him the third chief executive to head the company in about three years.
The news comes a day before the Wisconsin-based department store releases its third-quarter earnings report, on November 25 at 9:00 a.m.
“Over the past several months as interim CEO, Michael has proven to be an exceptional leader for Kohl’sprogressively improving results, driving short and long-term strategy, and positively impacting cultural change,” board chair John Schlifske said in a statement. Bender has served as interim CEO for the last six and a half months.
Shares in Kohl’s Corporation (KSS) rose sharply late Monday morning on the news and leveled off by midday, to just over 1% at the time of this writing.
Bender replaces former CEO Ashley Buchanan, who was removed in May after an investigation determined he had an inappropriate, personal relationship with a vendor.
Like many U.S. retailers, Kohl’s is struggling with declining in-store foot traffic and competition from online retailers like Amazon. At the same time, American consumers are pulling back on spending amid rising inflation and an increasing overall cost of living and goods.
Kohl’s financials
Kohl’s second-quarter earnings results beat expectations, but net sales fell 5.1% year-over-year to $3.3 billion with comparable sales down 4.2%. Its revised full-year earnings guidance forecast a 5% to 6% decline in net sales for fiscal 2025.
On that earnings call, Bender attributed the slower sales to economic forces, and lower-income and middle class consumers buying less expensive goods.
Its official: DOGE, the Trump administrations Department of Government Efficiency, has met an early end.
Even before Trump took office, DOGE was conceived of as an outside advisory board that would recommend government reforms and find $500 billion in annual spending to cut.
The day after Trump was inaugurated, the department was officially founded, with Elon MuskCEO of Tesla and the worlds richest manat its helm.
Within the first 100 days of Trumps second term, DOGE played a central role in cutting hundreds of thousands of jobs, nixing funds to foreign food aid and medical research, overhauling longtime government cybersecurity systems, targeting federal DEI programs for elimination, and more.
But it seems like DOGEs fate was ultimately to burn bright and fizzle out. After Musk departed from his leadership position amidst a public feud with Trump, DOGE slowly faded from news headlines and the public consciousness.
Finally, earlier this month, a Reuters reporter asked Scott Kupor, director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, about DOGEs status.
“That doesn’t exist,” Kupor responded.
He added that DOGE is no longer a centralized entity, and Reuters found that several of the department’s former employees have moved on to other roles, including two workers who are now involved with the new National Design Studio.
The agencys lackluster shutdown comes months ahead of its official conclusion, which was meant to be July 2026, according to an executive order signed earlier this year by Trump.
Here, we take a look back at some of DOGEs most egregious moves as the agency meets its untimely end.
DOGE shuts down USAID
One of DOGEs first high-profile moves was to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), a branch of the government dedicated to administering foreign aid.
At the time, Musk took to X to share that he had spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.
In 2023, USAID managed over $40 billion of appropriations provided to around 130 countries, according to the Congressional Research Service. Of that amount, $16.8 billion went toward governance, while $10.5 billion went to humanitarian aid and $7 billion to health efforts.
The USAID shutdown has had devastating ripple effects, including wasting massive food stores amidst a global hunger crisis and threatening Agent Orange cleanup efforts in Vietnam.
According to one recent analysis from Atul Gawande, a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health professor and former assistant administrator for global health at USAID, the shutdown has already resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition.
Thousands of federal workers laid off
As part of its cost-cutting initiative, one of DOGEs main focuses became eliminating federal jobs that it deemed to be redundant.
This included firings at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), and more. Kupor told the New York Times in an August interview that the DOGE cuts accounted for almost 300,000 jobs eliminated in total.
More recently, some agencieslike the General Services Administrationhave begun asking former employees to return to work ahead of the end of the fiscal year.
DOGE reportedly gains unprecedented access to federal databases
After DOGEs founding, the agency reportedly received unprecedented access to a number of government databases and computer systems, including the Department of Treasurys payment systems, sensitive IRS data, Social Security records, and data held by the Department of the Interior.
In April, David Evan Harris, a chancellors public scholar with the University of California, Berkeley, told Fast Company, Its very unclear what kinds of security protocols the DOGE team is using, and if they are taking any steps to make sure that private data of government employees and U.S. citizens, and even confidential data about U.S. government programs is not being turned into training data or retained improperly by any of these AI companies that theyre working with.
According to a September report from Senate Democrats, Harris had reason to be concerned. The report alleges that DOGE copied Americans sensitive Social Security and employment data into a cloud database without any verified security controls, putting people’s personal data at risk of foreign hacks.
