Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers said on Monday he will step back from all public commitments, days after President Donald Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate his and other prominent Democrats’ ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Summers, a former president of Harvard University, where he is a professor, told the university’s student newspaper that the move was to allow him “to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.”
The announcement came after the House Oversight Committee released thousands of files related to Epstein last week, including documents that showed personal correspondence between Summers and Epstein.
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused. I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein, Summers told The Crimson.
“While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort,” Summers added.
Summers, a Democrat, served as former President Bill Clinton‘s Treasury Secretary and former President Barack Obama’s National Economic Council director. He currently serves on the board of OpenAI and as a director of the Harvard Kennedy Schools Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government.
OpenAI and Harvard did not immediately respond to requests for comments. Summers also did not immediately respond.
The Epstein scandal has been a political thorn in Trumps side for months, partly because he amplified conspiracy theories about Epstein to his own supporters.
Many Trump voters believe Bondi and other Trump officials have covered up Epsteins ties to powerful figures and obscured details surrounding his death by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019.
The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on Tuesday on forcing the release of investigative Epstein files after Trump, who had initially opposed the vote, called on fellow Republicans to support it.
Jasper Ward, Reuters
Over the last decade, dozens of cities have reshaped streets around cycling and slower, safer, healthier travel. Take Paris: at rush hour, boulevards that were once packed with cars are now filled with thousands of people on bikes, newly planted trees, and cleaner air.
In a detailed new analysis, the urban design consultancy Copenhagenize ranked 100 global cities on how far they’ve come to make it easier to bikeexamining everything from changes in bike infrastructure to whether cities are promoting cargo bikes for delivery and teaching kids to bike in school.
Nearly all top-ranked cities are in Europe, where strong pro-bike policies have lowered speed limits, added separated bike lanes, and created new bicycle streets where bikes take priority over cars. But the benchmarking report, the most comprehensive of its kind, also looks at progress in cities worldwide, from Nairobi, Kenyawhere “bike trains” of hundreds of riders make commuting by bike saferto Minneapolis, where some car lanes have been converted to two-way bike paths.
If any politicians have doubts about adding new bike infrastructure, “they can look at this report and see that everywhere in the world, other cities are investing in cycling, and they are getting back all the benefits from active mobility,” says Clotilde Imbert, director of Copenhagenize. Cities like Paris show that massive changes can happen fast. “If you want to transform your city quickly, you can,” says Imbert. For the full breakdown, see the reportbut here’s a snapshot of the top 30 cities for cyclists.
[Photo: Konstantinos/Adobe Stock]
1. Utrecht, Netherlands
In the index’s top-ranked city, nearly a third of all trips happen by bike. The Dutch city continues to shrink space for cars, taking away some parking spots and car lanes to make room for more bike lanes and trees. A new car-free neighborhood designed for 12,000 residents is now under construction. The city also includes amenities like the worlds largest bike parking garage, part of more than 100,000 bike parking spots throughout the city. Low-income residents can buy refurbished bikes for 30 ($34) through a program that also includes a year of free repairs.
[Photo: Lightfield Studios/Adobe Stock]
2. Copenhagen
Protected bike lanes cover more than half of the streets in the Danish capital, and other roads have been converted to “bicycle streets” that prioritize bikes over cars. The city is continuously improving its bike infrastructure; 29% of all trips happen by bike and nearly half of all commutes to work or school are on bikes. On a typical weekday, Copenhageners collectively ride 2.75 million kilometers (1.7 million miles).
[Photo: Dmitry Rukhlenko/Adobe Stock]
3. Ghent, Belgium
Over the last few decades, Ghent has redesigned streets to prioritize biking, walking, and public transportation. With more than 300 kilometers (186 miles) of protected bike lanesalong with low speed limits for cars and two dozen bicycle streets, the number of car trips keeps dropping. More than a third of trips now happen by bikes, up from 22% a decade ago.
[Photo: Kirill/Adobe Stock]
4. Amsterdam
One of the worlds most famous cycling cities keeps improving. Amsterdam now has around 560 kilometers (350 miles) of protected bike lanes and 11,000 bike parking spaces, including the worlds first underground bike garage. Most city streets now have a 30-kilometers-per-hour (18-miles-per-hour) speed limit. A school street program blocks off traffic in front of schools when kids are arriving and leaving, making it safer for kids to walk or bike to school. Thirty-seven percent of all trips happen on bikes.
[Photo: UlyssePixel/Adobe Stock]
5. Paris
Over the past decade, Paris has transformed. Some major streets are now car free, and on others, parking spaces and car lanes have been removed to put in bike lanes. A 30-kilometers-per-hour (19-miles-per-hour) speed limit is the norm. There are more than 122,000 public bike parking places. Local businesses have used city subsidies to buy 1,500 cargo bikes. The bikeshare system had 56 million trips in 2024. In the last five years, bike trips jumped from 5% of all trips taken to 11%.
[Photo: Lev Karavanov/Adobe Stock]
6. Helsinki
To help make it easier to bike in Finlands frigid winters, the city clears snow from 150 kilometers (93 miles) of bike lanes. The city now has an extensive network of separated lanes, along with traffic calming, redesigned intersections, and awareness campaigns focused on safety. It also continues to add bike parking, including a new parking garage at the central train station.
[Photo: Schroptschop/iStock/Getty Images Plus]
7. Münster, Germany
In Münster, a compact university town, 40% of city streets have protected bike lanes. The city also has a network of bicycle streets, coated in red to remind drivers that bikes have priority, and a new scenic bike route along a canal. Nearly half of all trips take place on bikes. To nudge people to bike even more, the city uses public billboards to display stats from bike counters that show how many people are riding.
[Photo: Matthias De Boeck/iStock/Getty Images Plus]
8. Antwerp, Belgium
Antwerp has nearly 600 kilometers (372 miles) of protected bike lanes and continues to expand them through its 100 Missing Links program, which includes underpasses and bridges for direct, continuous routes. About 70% of streets are limited to 30 kilometers per hour (19 miles per hour). To help add more bike parking in dense neighborhoods with little extra space, the city has been converting some unused buildings into secure subscription-based bike parking. They now have more than 60 neighborhood sites with 1,600 spaces. Cycling in the city is inclusive, with children and seniors on the road, and women make over half of daily commuting bike trips.
[Photo: pony/Unsplash]
9. Bordeaux, France
Nearly 90% of Bordeauxs streets have speed limits of 30 kilometers per hour (19 miles per hour) or less, and the city has been closing major gaps in its bike network, including new two-way cycle tracks along both riverbanks. Former car lanes on streets like the Quai des Queyries have been converted into continuous, green-framed bikeways. Bicycletteries in the historic center offer video-protected, resident-only parking. The city also uses cargo bikes for waste pickup and deliveries.
10. Nantes, France
Nantess Grandes Voies Vélo network provides high-quality, well-marked bike routes across the city. Almost 90% of streets have low speed limits, complemented by car-free areas, shared streets, and low-traffic neighborhoods. The main train station offers 1,200 secure parking spaces, with more on-street racks throughout the city. Awareness campaigns support a steadily growing bike culture.
[Photo: Andreas Rentz/Getty Images]
11. Bonn, Germany
Bonn is shifting from painted lanes to a growing protected network; about 20% of streets now have protected bike lanes, and over half the city has 30-kilometer-per-hour (18-mile-per-hour) speed limits. The city remains relatively car-dependent, but bike counters show rising use, and cycling mode share has increased from 15% in 2017 to 21% in 2024.
[Photo: oliver de la haye/Adobe Stock]
12. The Hague, Netherlands
The Hague has an expanding network of protected bike routes, with 60% of streets at or below a 30-kilometers-per-hour (18-miles-per-hour) speed limit and major investments since 2020. The central station holds 8,500 bikes, with 47,000 more spaces on streets. The city continues linking suburban routes and opened the 335-meter (1,099-foot) Jan Linzel bike bridge over the A4. Its “Den Haag Fiets!” program includes kids bike lessons from age 2, free or low-cost bikes for families, and subsidies for shared and cargo bikes.
[Photo: Kseniia Penkova/Unsplash]
13. Strasbourg, France
Strasbourgs Velostras network links the entire metro area, giving the city one of the most recognizable and complete bike systems in Europe. It still needs slower speed limits and redesigned streets, but cycling culture is strongits annual Bike to Work challenge brings new riders, and the city offers over 400 bike parking spaces per 1,000 residents, among the worlds highest. Cargo bikes are widely used for deliveries.
[Photo: Chris Barbalis/Unsplash]
14. Lyon, France
Nearly three-quarters of Lyons streets have 30-kilometers-per-hour (18-miles-per-hour) speed limits or below, and the branded Voies Lyonnaises network makes navigation easy. The city is redesigning major corridors with protected routes, tunnels, and new riverside bikeways, and opened Frances largest secure bike parking hub at its main station in 2025. Its long-running bikeshare now includes low-cost plans for broad access.
[Photo: imageegami/Adobe Stock]
15. Montreal
The highest-ranked non-European city on the list, Montreal has rapidly expanded its protected network with clear, cohesive design and safer intersections. The Saint-Denis corridor hit 1.3 million trips in the first nine months of 2025, helping revive local businesses. Bixi, the city’s bikesharing program, set a record 13 million rides in 2024 and now operates year-round with bike trailers. Montreal pioneered North Americas first bicycle streets and continues to grow ridership.
[Photo: Marek Lumi/Unsplash]
16. Malmö, Sweden
Malmös bike mode share reached 27% in 2024, supported by a dense network with 49 kilometers (30 miles) of protected lanes per 100 kilometers of road. A new regional bike highway is adding underpasses and bridges to close gaps. The city provides extensive parkingincluding 5,000 spaces at train stationsplus air pumps, footrests, and school streets. Cargo bikes are common, and developers are encouraged to include bike pools in new housing.
Before Waymo was Waymo, it was Googles self-driving car project. Starting in 2009, the effort spent many years in test modewith humans in the drivers seats ready to take over, just in casethat its vision of vehicular autonomy often felt far from practical reality.
Since last year, however, Alphabets robotaxi service has begun to scale up quickly. Its now fully open to the public in Atlanta, Austin, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area. And today the company is announcing that its testing fully autonomous trips, sans human driver, in Miami, and plans to do so in Orlando, Florida; Dallas; Houston; and San Antonio in the coming weeks.
For now, the only passengers will be Waymo employees. But the news is one of the final big milestones before the company offers rides to the public in those five cities, which it says it expects to do next year once all the necessary logistics are in place. In most of the cities, Waymo began driving with an in-car supervisor late last May. (Remote human monitoring and control remain part of the system in all service areas.)
By autonomy standards, taking the human out of the drivers seat in five cities over such a short period is a one-fell-swoop sort of move. According to Waymo Chief Product Officer Saswat Panigrahi, the 10 million driverless rides the company has already completed helped it reach this point.
Having dealt with high-speed roads in Phoenix and very narrow corridors in San Francisco, L.A. was faster, he told me. Austin was faster than that. Atlanta was faster than that. So this is just the next step.
The five cities that are part of todays announcement represent only a portion of those where Waymo has announced its intention to add service. Seven moreDenver, Detroit, Las Vegas, London, Nashville, San Diego, and Washington, D.C.are coming soon but not yet ready to do without a human driver aboard. Yet another sevenBoston, Buffalo, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Tokyoare in an earlier stage, where the company is driving and collecting data.
Thats a lot of places that are at least partway down the road to being Waymo cities. Each is different when it comes to their roads and the challenges they present. As Panigrahi notes, even specific intersections can present idiosyncrasies that the companys Waymo Driver platform must map out individually. But he says that localities that might at first blush seem quite different can boil down to similar problems for the Waymo Driver to solve.
You can imagine how when we’re serving the civic center in San Francisco, [after] a Warriors game, he says. It’s not that dissimilar to a whole host of pedestrians coming from the beach and crossing over in Miami Beach.
Panigrahi adds that Waymo highway drivingwhich came to Los Angeles, Phoenix, and the San Francisco Bay Area last week, after years of anticipationshould also scale up to new markets more quickly.
Highway is a super hard technical problem, and that’s why we took our time to build it and validate it over multiple years, he says. But once you do get that, then the highways do look much more similar across states. There are more nuances in surface streets.
Waymos time as the only company offering a fully commercialized robotaxi service in the U.S. may be winding down. When I tried Teslas robotaxi service last month in San Francisco, a human attendant was in the drivers seat, greatly reducing the amazingness of the experience. But Tesla plans to offer truly autonomous rides to the public by the end of this year, at least in Austin. Earlier this month, the company said that it also plans to deploy robotaxis in Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, Miami, and Phoenix, portending eventual head-to-head competition with Waymo in all those areas.
Tesla also says it intends to begin mass production of its two-seater Cybercab in April and is rethinking its original plan to remove the drivers seat and steering wheel altogether.
Meanwhile, Amazon-owned Zoox just announced that its begun Zoox Explorers robotaxi service in San Francisco. That means its allowing waitlisted members of the public into its app and giving them free rides in return for feedback. Zoox is already in Explorers mode in Las Vegas.
Should a critical mass of American cities grow thick with driverless Waymo, Zoox, and Tesla robotaxis, it might turn autonomy from a futuristic novelty into mundane workaday transportation. That exposure could boost the technologys reputation, which still isnt great among people who havent been for a ride. For example, a February AAA study reported that only 13% of respondents said they trusted self-driving vehicles.
In Waymos home turf of San Francisco, its cars are omnipresent and public attitude toward self-driving vehicles has been on the rise. Yet the recent death of a bodega cat who was struck by one of its vehicles sparked more of an uproar than the hundreds of animals who are killed by human drivers in the city each year. Waymos own data, based on 96 million passenger-only miles its cars have driven, shows its record is dramatically safer than that of humans. For instance, cars have been in 92% fewer crashes that caused pedestrian injuries.
Panigrahi argues that merely seeing Waymos driving carefully reassures pedestrians and cyclists. After theyve taken a trip in one, its a lot harder to hate them. (In August, The Information wrote that 99% of the 69% of its subscribers whod been in a self-driving car were satisfied with the experience.)
Pedestrians notice that we stop to give them that confidence that they can cross and not play a game of chicken, he says. Even skeptical or on-the-fence folks, once they take their first ride, that magical experience changes their heart.
The most anticipated quarterly earnings of the month will be announced on Wednesday, November 19, as AI chip giant Nvidia Corporation (Nasdaq: NVDA) reveals financial results for its 2026 fiscal third quarter.
A lot is riding on these resultsand not just for Nvidia.
Investors are increasingly on edge about a possible AI bubble, and if Nvidia posts good or better than expected earnings, it could give those investors faith that AI infrastructure is on solid ground and has plenty of room to grow.
But if Nvidias earnings disappointor show signs of upcoming weaknessit could spell bad news not just for NVDA stock, but for the stock prices of all companies operating in the AI space.
Here is what Nvidia has previously forecast for its Q3 2026, and what investors are expecting when the company releases its earnings results tomorrow after markets close.
Nvidias Q3 2026 guidance
On August 27, Nvidia announced its Q2 2026 results. That same day, the company released its forecast for the quarter that it is currently operating in. Here is what the company said it expected for its Q3 2026, which ran from July 28 to October 26:
Revenue: $54 billion (plus or minus 2%)
GAAP gross margins: 73.3% (plus or minus 50 basis points)
Non-GAAP gross margins: 73.5% (plus or minus 50 basis points)
GAAP operating expenses: approximately $5.9 billion
Non-GAAP operating expenses: approximately $4.2 billion
Heres what analysts are expecting from Nvidias Q3 2026
Nvidias estimates above are the best guess the company had for its Q3 based on the data it had at the time, which in this case was in August.
But analysts calculate their own estimates, which fluctuate as the quarter progresses and additional data is assessed. Thats why analyst estimates will typically not entirely align with what a company has forecast.
Also, nearly every individual analyst will have a different estimate. These estimates are often pooled to produce a consensus figure, and yet even those consensus figures will differ depending on what analysts are included.
The number that analysts usually care most about is revenue. Nvidia forecast its Q3 2026 revenue to come in at $54 billion plus or minus 2%, which would equate to a range of roughly $52.9 billion to $55 billion.
Heres what analysts are expecting:
CNBC reports that LSEG analysts expect revenue of $54.9 billion.
Investors Business Daily (IBD) says analysts polled by FactSet expect revenue of $54.8 billion.
Yahoo Finance says Bloomberg consensus data shows analysts expect revenue of $55.2 billion.
What this means for NVDA and AI as a whole
As you can see, three separate analyst roundups show that Wall Street expects Nvidia to come in at the high end of its $52.9 billion to $55 billion Q3 revenue estimate.
That means that if Nvidia doesnt meet these lofty expectations, investors could get spooked and the stock could drop.
But a miss in these revenue estimates could also add fuel to the fire over growing concerns that the AI sector is in a bubble. And if Nvidias results fuel bubble fears, the companys earnings could have an adverse knock-on effect on the stock prices of other companies operating in the space.
How have AI-related stocks been performing?
Nvidia’s shares have been strong so far in 2025. As of yesterdays close, the stock is up more than 38% for the year. And back in October, Nvidia made history when its share price rose to as high as $212, making Nvidia the worlds first public company ever to be valued at $5 trillion.
But since then, the companys stock has fallen almost 10%. In the run-up to its Q3 earnings tomorrow, investors are hoping that strong results will mean that NVDA shares can make back some of those losses.
Most of the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks (Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla) are down over the last five days, as is the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite.
Each year after Thanksgiving, people flock to TikTok to show off the elaborate sandwiches they build out of their holiday meal leftovers. The ritual, going strong for at least four years now, is often paired with a viral audio clip from the quintessential ’90s sitcom Friends describing the perfect sandwich made out of holiday leftovers. The sandwich, starring an extra slice of gravy-soaked bread in the middle, is known as the moist maker.
This Thanksgiving, Heinzmaker of ubiquitous and inoffensive condiments like ketchup and mustardis escalating matters considerably by introducing a squeeze bottle gravy designed to engineer the ultimate Thanksgiving leftovers sandwich. The squeeze bottle, labeled leftover gravy, actually comes empty in a special kit paired with a jar of Heinz turkey gravy and instructions that quote the Friends episode. The limited edition kit will be for sale through Walmart.com.
A social media favorite among millennial sitcom-lovers, the Moist Maker epitomized an obsession with holiday food crafted with care and detail, Heinz Associate Director of Brand Communications Jamie Mack said in a press release, adding that the gimmick is a celebration of fans who share an irrational love of the moist maker.
The concept of squeeze bottle gravy prompts many further lines of inquiry. Heinz already sells a surprisingly diverse array of jarred gravies with flavors like caramelized onion and thyme (for the adventurous) and regular turkey gravy for traditionalists who wont be cooking a gigantic hunk of poultry for hours and savoring its juices the old fashioned way. While the jars make sense, does a squeeze bottle really add any convenience? Would anyone try it? Is the gravy cold?
The TV moment, from 1998s fittingly titled Friends episode The one with Ross’s sandwich, is capped off by Ross discovering that his boss keeps eating his sandwiches at work, including his prized moist maker, and absolutely crashing out.
[Image: Heinz]
FoodTok trends
Brands hot on the trail of food-related TikTok trends is nothing new. Food and cooking are extremely popular enduring topics on TikTok, regularly launching micro-trends, viral one dish meals, horrifying products, dubious historical recipes, and massive content categories. Like all things on TikTok, these trends come and go quickly (mini pancake cereal, we miss you), but videos that hop on a food trend at the right time can easily rack up millions of views and a ton of engagementa tempting prize for any brand trying to stay relevant.
While Gen Z generally powers TikToks viral food scene, Heinz says its gravy stunt is aimed squarely at a generation thats old enough to have watched Friends as the show aired. According to Heinz, the new condiment is aimed at the growing demographic of millennial hosts who are redefining holiday traditions. And redefine them you will, if you invite squeezable gravy to mingle with your precious post-Thanksgiving leftovers.
Heinz isnt the first brand to hop on the gravy train. Last year, the upscale kitchen store Williams Sonoma posted its own version of the moist maker. Kings Hawaiian bread company, maker of excellent rolls for Thanksgiving leftover sandwiches, did too. The grocery chain Kroger was even earlier to the trend, quizzing its audience on the audio clip of Ross describing his sisters culinary flash of genius back in 2022.
The TikTok account cooking panda appears to have originally uploaded the sound in 2021, juxtaposing the Friends clip with video of a moist makers step-by-step construction process and racking up 1.7 million likes in the process. Heinz might not be early to the moist maker trendnow ancient by TikTok standardsbut what it lacks in timeliness it plans to compensate for with sheer commitment to the bit.
Imagine youre watching a basketball game. Youre not focused on the stat sheetyoure watching how the players read the court, pivot when a play breaks down, and celebrate their teammates. Those moments tell you a lot more about how someone performs under pressure than any metric ever could.
I think about hiring the same way. Like a stat sheet, a résumé might list someones achievements, but it wont show how they adapt under pressure or support a team.
Yet in the age of AI, companies often overlook that, prioritizing technical skills instead. According to a 2024 report from Microsoft and LinkedIn, 71% of employers said they would choose an AI-fluent candidate with less experience over someone more experienced but with limited AI knowledge.
Technical ability matters, of course. But in a world where technology is evolving by the week, so are the skills needed to keep up. Thats why I dont screen for skillI scout for character.
Because when everything else is changing, character is the one thing that cant be automated or learned from a prompt. Its the foundation for building a culture that wins together, not just works together.
While tech keeps shifting, culture endures
Were in what Goldman Sachs economists are calling a period of jobless growthan era where the economy is expanding but hiring lags behind. There are fewer openings, more applicants, and slower movement on both sides.
At the same time, AI is reshaping the definition of work and what companies think they need. Everyones racing to hire the candidate who knows the latest model or has experience with the newest tools. But no one really knows what AI skills will mean six months from now. PwC found that requirements for AI-exposed roles are shifting 66% faster than in other jobsmore than twice the rate of change just a year ago. Whats cutting-edge today could be obsolete by next quarter.
Even with a deeper pool of applicants, many companies are still hiring against moving targets, chasing technical standards that continue to evolve. And in a job-hugging economy where employees are staying put longer and hiring cycles have slowed, every decision carries more weight. The people you hire today will shape your company for years to come.
Thats why culture matters more than ever. Too often its treated like an elusive vibesomething that magically appears when the right mix of people land in the same room. Or worse, its reduced to sameness: hiring people who share the same background, and likely talk and think the same way. Thats not culture, thats comfort.
Real culture is chemistry. Its intentionally built on how people think, collaborate, and recover together when things go wrong. As technology keeps rewriting job descriptions, that chemistry is what helps teams move faster, grow stronger, and stay resilient through cycles of disruption and reinvention.
Build a resilient culture one character interview at a time
After years of conducting culture interviews, I know that one great hire can lift a team, and the wrong one can just as easily unravel it. Im looking for people who stay calm under pressure, think critically, and are driven by purpose, not titlestraits that endure long after roles, tools, and technologies change.
Culture interviews are where you see that come to life; they strip away polish and show why someones really sitting across from you. These are a few ways I approach interviews to get a truer sense of the person behind the résumé.
Be in the room
As an HR executive, I make it a point to lead every culture interview I can, because who you hire shapes the culture, and culture shapes the business. Thats a responsibility no senior leader should be removed from.
When senior leaders make time for interviews, it signals to candidates that culture isnt just talkits taken seriously and owned at every level. As an executive, being in the room gives you a better read on the energy, mindset, and values someone will bring to the team.
Its also an opportunity to establish a mutual sense of respect and investment right out of the gate. If leaders expect candidates to show up with honesty and humility, we have to do the same. That starts with being fully present, making clear that their time matters as much as yours.
Use consistency to reveal character
In every culture interview, I ask the same core questionsnot because Im looking for perfect answers, but to see the level of energy behind them. When candidates are given the same starting point, you start to notice characteristics that cant be rehearsed, like thoughtfulness, curiosity, and excitement.
Confidence can easily be mistaken for competence, especially when people have polished their right answers. But consistency helps surface patterns: Who takes a beat to reflect? Who connects ideas instead of reciting them? Who lights up when they talk about their career goals?
In a time when ChatGPT and Copilot can write a résumé and coach candidates through mock interviews, a consistent framework helps cut through the performance and surface honesty and self-awareness.
Remember that questions are a two-way street
Some of the most revealing moments in a culture interview are when the questions go both ways. I pay close attention to what candidates ask, because their questions can say just as much as their answers.
Are they trying to understand how decisions get made, how teams collaborate, what growth looks like? That tells me they care about more than a title or a paycheck. They are thinking about the environment they might step into.
Curiosity signals investment. When a candidate asks me a tough questionthe kind that makes me pauseI respect it. It shows theyll bring that same honesty and initiative once theyre on the team, and thats what strengthens culture.
Look for the same values, not the same story
Great talent exists everywhere; the key is knowing what to look for. Whether Im interviewing in Milwaukee or Medellín, Im scouting the same core traits: curiosity, drive, honesty, and self-awareness.
What changes is how people express those valueswhat ambition looks like to them, what stability means in their world, how they define success. Recognizing those nuances is how you build a culture that scales across borders, departments, and generations.
The framework stays the same, but the conversation flexes. By knowing what to hold constant and what to adapt, you build and maintain a culture that lasts through technologies.
Skills will change, but character is consant
Technology will keep evolving faster than any job descriptionthats a given. But character doesnt run on an update cycle. Its what keeps companies steady when everything around them is in motion.
Great hiring isnt about predicting the next trending skill. Great hiring means building teams that can adapt and problem-solve together, regardless of the new tools that come along.
Whether or not your company has the shiniest or newest tech stack, organizations need people who can show up for each other and grow with the work. Skills will shift. Platforms will change. But your culture? Thats what gives you staying power.
You might not know it from the headlines, but there is some good news about the global fight against climate change.
A decade ago, the cheapest way to meet growing demand for electricity was to build more coal or natural gas power plants. Not anymore. Solar and wind power arent just better for the climate; theyre also less expensive today than fossil fuels at utility scale, and theyre less harmful to peoples health.
Yet renewable energy projects face headwinds, including in the worlds fast-growing developing countries. I study energy and climate solutions and their impact on society, and I see ways to overcome those challenges and expand renewable energybut it will require international cooperation.
Falling clean energy prices
As their technologies have matured, solar power and wind power have become cheaper than coal and natural gas for utility-scale electricity generation in most areas, in large part because the fuel is free. The total global power generation from renewable sources saved $467 billion in avoided fuel costs in 2024 alone.
As a result of falling prices, more than 90% of all electricity-generating capacity added worldwide in 2024 came from clean energy sources, according to data from the International Renewable Energy Agency.
At the end of 2024, renewable energy accounted for 46% of global installed electric power capacity, with a record 585 gigawatts of renewable energy capacity added that yearabout three times the total generating capacity in Texas.
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Health benefits of leaving fossil fuels
Beyond affordability, replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy is healthier.
Burning coal, oil, and natural gas releases tiny particles into the air along with toxic gases; these pollutants can make people sick. A recent study found air pollution from fossil fuels causes an estimated 5 million deaths worldwide a year, based on 2019 data.
For example, using natural gas to fuel stoves and other appliances releases benzene, a known carcinogen. The health risks of this exposure in some homes has been found to be comparable to secondhand tobacco smoke. Natural gas combustion has also been linked to childhood asthma, with an estimated 12.7% of U.S. childhood asthma cases attributable to gas stoves, according to one study.
Fossil fuels are also the leading sources of climate-warming greenhouse gases. When theyre burned to generate electricity or run factories, vehicles, and appliances, they release carbon dioxide and other gases that accumulate in the atmosphere and trap heat near the Earths surface. That accumulation has been raising global temperatures and causing more heat stress, respiratory illnesses, and the spread of disease.
Electrifying buildings, cars, and appliances, and powering them with renewable energy reduces these air pollutants while slowing climate change.
So whats the problem?
In spite of the demonstrated economic and health benefits of transitioning to renewable energy, regulatory inertia, political gridlock, and a lack of investment are holding back renewable energy deployment in much of the world.
In the United States, for example, major energy projects take an average of 4.5 years to permit, and approval of new transmission lines can take a decade or longer. A large majority of planned new power projects in the U.S. use solar power, and these delays are slowing the deployment of renewable energy.
The 2024 Energy Permitting Reform Act introduced by Senators Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, and John Barrasso, a Republican from Wyoming, to speed approvals failed to pass. Manchin called it just another example of politics getting in the way of doing whats best for the country.
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An een bigger challenge faces developing countries whose economies are growing fast.
These countries need to meet soaring energy demand. The International Energy Agency expects emerging economies to account for 85% of added electricity demand from 2025 through 2027. Yet renewable energy development lags in most of them. The main reason is the high price of financing renewable energy construction.
Most of the cost of a renewable energy project is incurred up front in construction. Savings occur over its lifetime because it has no fuel costs. As a result, the levelized cost of energy for those projects varies depending on the cost of financing to build them. The chart shows what happens when borrowing costs are higher in developed countries. It illustrates the share of financing in each projects levelized cost of energy in 2024 versus the weighted average cost of capital. The yellow dots are solar projects; black and gray are offshore and onshore wind. [Chart: adapted from the International Renewable Energy Agencys Renewable power generation costs in 2024 report, CC BY 4.0]
In many developing countries, wind and solar projects cost more to finance than coal or gas. Fossil projects have a longer history, and financial and policy mechanisms have been developed over decades to lower lender risk for those projects. These include government payment guarantees, stable fuel contracts, and long-term revenue deals that help guarantee the lender will be repaid.
Both lenders and governments have less experience with renewable energy projects. As a result, these projects often come with weaker government guarantees. This raises the risk to lenders, so they charge higher interest rates, making renewable projects more expensive upfront, even if the projects have lower lifetime costs.
To lower borrowing costs, governments and international development banks can take steps to make renewable projects a safer bet for investors. For example, they can keep energy policies stable and use public funds or insurance to cover part of the lenders investment risk.
When investors trust theyll get paid, interest rates drop dramatically and renewable energy becomes the cheaper option.
Without international cooperation to lower finance costs, developing economies could miss out on the renewable-energy revolution and lock in decades of growing greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, making climate change worse.
The path ahead
To avoid the worst effects of climate change, countries have agreed to cut their greenhouse gas emissions over the next few decades.
Achieving this goal wont be easy, but it is significantly less difficult now that renewable energy is more affordable over the long run than fossil fuels.
Switching the worlds power supply to renewable energy and electrifying buildings and local transportation would cut about half of todays greenhouse-gas emissions. The other half comes from sectors where it is harder to cut emissionssteel, cement, and chemical production, aviation and shipping, and agriculture and land use. Solutions are being developed but need time to mature. Good governance, political support, and accessible finance will be critical for these sectors as well.
The transition to renewable energy offers big economic and health benefits alongside lower climate risksif countries can overcome political obstacles at home and cooperate to expand financing for developing economies.
Jay Gulledge is a visiting professor of practice in global affairs at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Tennessee.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) was never really meant to serve Pittsburgh. When the modern airport opened in 1992, it was built as a hub for U.S. Airways, primarily serving as a connection point for passengers heading elsewhere. Tens of millions of passengers used PIT annually, though only a small number of them were actually flying into or out of Greater Pittsburgh. Most stayed in the terminal, leaving one gate only to enter another, which was fineuntil it wasn’t.
“In 2004, the hub went away. Passengers plummeted. All those connecting passengers left,” says Christina Cassotis, who came on as CEO of the Allegheny County Airport Authority in 2015. After years of waiting for the hub, or any hub, to return, the airport authority decided it was time to accept that what PIT had become is an airport meant for people flying into or out of Pittsburgh. “We needed the facility to match the business plan,” Cassotis says.
[Photo: Ema Peter]
This month, more than 20 years after the U.S. Airways hub left town, Pittsburgh is opening a new $12.7 billion airport terminal building that embraces its status as an origin-and-destination airport, and one that puts its local passengers first.
Designed by Gensler and HDR in association with Luis Vidal + Architects, the new PIT landside terminal where passengers arrive and check in to their flights is a grand and welcoming entry hall with light flooding through from all sides. It’s essentially a canopy of a building, with a soaring and undulating roof overhead. Slits in its wavy top bring light in and offer views to the skies outside while subtly directing travelers through the security checkpoint and to their gates.
[Photo: Ema Peter]
Rooted to the region
Pittsburgh’s airport design concept came from Luis Vidal + Architects, known for its work on airports including London’s Heathrow Airport Terminal 2 and Boston’s Logan Airport Terminal E. “It was very obvious the hub was never coming back and this was going to be a destination and origin or an origin and destination. That’s the first clue for this design,” Vidal says. “It’s going to be for the place. It’s going to be rooted to the region, to the city, to its people.”
[Photo: Ema Peter]
Vidal says the concept was intended to reflect what he calls Pittsburgh’s virtues: nature, technology, and community. This is most obvious in the roof, with a curvaceous form that was inspired by the region’s rolling and forested hills. The roof’s hilly forms roll alongside each other, creating space for light to pour down into the building. Vidal says the effect is akin to taking a walk in a forest. “You see pockets of light coming down through the trees and the trunks,” he says.
[Photo: courtesy Allegheny County Airport Authority]
In this case, the trunks are massive branching steel supports that hold up the roof, powder coated in bronze and poking through the pale wood ceiling. It’s not as fully organic as the recently completed mass timber terminal at Portland International Airport, but the effect is a much calmer setting than conventional terminals that are strong-armed with hard gray concrete and steel.
The connection to nature in Pittsburgh’s airport design goes even deeper. Around the terminal building’s sides and in the negative space before it connects with the airport’s X-shaped concourse, large landscaped open spaces are available for travelers and airport staff alike. Two are positioned on the landside, and accessible to the public.
[Photo: courtesy Allegheny County Airport Authority]
Two others are on the airside, past security, and offer a rare space for airport travelers to access fresh air in an almost park-like setting. In contrast to other airports, where outdoor space is small, if it is available at all, PIT’s outdoor terraces make up more than two acres. It’s an amenity that had no small cost, and one that almost got abandoned in the evolution of the design from a concept in 2018 to a completed project in 2025.
“We had actually value-engineered that out,” Cassotis admits. “We were like, we can’t do this.” But the pandemic changed minds at the airport, and there was a renewed recognition that access to the outdoors and fresh air would be a benefit to all airport users. “It really became clear to us that we needed to do this and we needed it to be available to everybody,” Cassotis says. The airport declined to disclose how much the terraces cost.
The terraces are also designed to work around Pittsburgh’s sometimes volatile weather. Carolyn Sponza, a studio director in Gensler’s Pittsburgh office, says the architects worked to ensure that at least one of the terraces would be accessible year-round, no matter the weather. “Part of that design process was working with the maintenance staff to locate every single piece of equipment they needed to make sure that the walkways were clear, and laying it out in a maintenance room with the hose bed next door,” she says.
[Photo: Ema Peter]
It’s one of the side benefits of working on an airport like Pittsburgh’s as it transforms from a major hub to a more modest origin-and-destination airport. “A lot of the places that we work in the United States, we’re trying to fix the airports or bring them into this century, but they’re space constrained,” Sponza says. “One of the unique things that this airport had was the ability to dream big and set the vision, and not just try to incrementally fix what was there before.”
As Pittsburgh’s airport design officially opens to the public, the redesign is about right-sizing a facility for its actual needs, but also about resetting the expectations of the locals who’ll be its primary users. Rather than brooding as many have for many years over the U.S. Airways hub leaving the airport, the new terminal is a chance to start again.
[Photo: Ema Peter]
AI has a writing style, or, at least, an alleged style. Tools like ChatGPT and Claude seem to communicate with a tendency toward formalism. The chatbots are earnest, sometimes too evenhanded or overly complimentary. Theres a noticeable lack of personal flair, and no deeply held opinions. According to Grammarly, AI language tends to evoke “repetitive phrasing and robotic tone. Now, there are even AI buzzwords and phrases like pivotal and delve into and underscore.
Its the verbiage of instruction booklets for middle schoolers writing their first essays. In the age of AI, these helpful crutch words are now verbata non grata. Some people are now trying to avoid using these terms, because they sound like a lowly bot God forbid.
But the problem is bigger than simply sounding like an AI. Human speech is a time-tested neologism supply chain; people have a natural inventiveness when talking and writing. But as we increasingly communicate with chatbots and rely on AI agents to dissect concepts, summarize research reports, and synthesize internet searches, we’re filtering a wide array of content through the stilted and bounded syntax of LLMs.
Its even changing how we communicate. Researchers have suggested some AI-based writing assistance models can whittle away the overall diversity of human writing, shrinking the size of our collective vocabulary.
AI may literally be putting words into our mouths, as repeated exposure leads people to internalize and reuse buzzwords they might not have chosen naturally, Tom Juzek, a professor at Florida State University, told Fast Company earlier this year. With colleagues, he recently identified a vocabulary list of AI-speak, including words like intricate, strategically, and garner. He also found that these words are now more likely to show up in unscripted podcasts, a strong sign of whats called lexical seepage.
Can we plug the leak? AI companies are aware that off-the-self AI isnt always appealing. And theyre increasingly promising customization and tailoring that can bend these bots to our will and preference. You can tell ChatGPT the traits you want it to have, how you want it to talk to you, and any rules you want it to follow, OpenAI explained earlier this year upon the release of a new feature allowing users to choose preferred traits and personality features for their bots. If youre a scientist using ChatGPT to do research, youll want it to engage with you like a lab assistant. If youre caring for an elderly family member and need tips or companionship ideas, you might want ChatGPT to adopt a supportive tone.
AI what I am
In a perhaps-futile attempt to protect myself from AI speak, I told my ChatGPT agent to be more expansive with its vocabulary. Think widely-read, I told it. Also, try to use new words all the time! I want you to be varying up your vocabulary constantly. I banned the chatbot from ever using the phrases outlined by Juzeks research.
Thus far, ChatGPT seems to have improved. I think, at least. Its avoiding the banned words, and seems to be making a good-faith effort to communicate less formulaically. Its reaching for verbs that reflect better understanding of what its actually talking about.
But AI diction is a wormhole. The problem, Juzek explains, is that the nature of AI writing is about more than just our words, and extends to sentence structure and functional words like that, may, can, and should. “Asking your assistant to avoid buzzwords will probably make your writing look less AI-like to humans and reduce the chance that someone fires up a detector, he tells me. What it means for the bigger question of whether AI is homogenizing or flattening language, there — I think the jury is still out.
The great homogening
Some believe that a different approach could make AI a less rote communicator. Nathan Lambert writes in the newsletter Interconnects that the current LLMs arent trained to be good writers. These AIs are trying to be something for everyone, not platforms with voice and positionality, and are inclined to be succinct and neutral. The next step would be solving the problem of how models arent trained with a narrow enough experience. Specific points of view nurture voice, he writes. The target should be a model that can output tokens in any area or request that is clear, compelling, and entertaining.
Well need to wait for that technology, though. In the meantime, we cannot AI our way out of this AI conundrum. These companies are advertising tools to make AI extensions of ourselves, and outsource chunks of our individuality into a machine designed by finding correlations and inputting meaning from the webs surfeit.
The fear is that as we increasingly communicate with AI, well flatten human culture and speech in the process. Of course, this homogenization isnt new. Literature, radio, and television, and their linguistic evolutions, all had transnational reach. Social media created global slang. But AI is different. While it is a new technology, its not a new platform for our thoughts — its a new way of synthesizing them. This makes sense: Large language models are built by consolidating a vast trove of information into reasoning models that communicate like a digital common man. Meanwhile, we’re just here trying to be ourselves.
On November 14, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, screwdriver in hand, helped Pentagon facilities personnel install two new signs that read “Department of War.” After affixing the sign to the outside of the building, he turned toward onlookers and said, “Here we go.”
Hegseth’s handyman moment was more than a symbolic gesture: It was the first act of what he and the Trump administration hope will eventually be a wholesale rebrand of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. This rebrandwhich would require updating 700,000 buildings and facilities worldwide (not to mention all of the other places the DOD would become the DOW)could reportedly cost as much as $2 billion.
Switching signage, letterhead, placards, and more
President Donald Trump signed an executive order in September giving the DOD a secondary “War” name, but to make it official will require an act of Congress, and it won’t come cheap, according to figures shared by four senior congressional staffers and two others briefed on the cost to NBC News.
The estimated price tag would cover switching signage and letterhead, which together could cost about $1 billion alone, along with placards, badges, software, and code.
Rebrands can be tricky for any brand, but they’re especially hard when dealing with public agencies and taxpayer dollars. The public and lawmakers have taken issue with Trump’s plan to change the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, a name the U.S. used before its military agencies were consolidated following World War II.
This isn’t just adding a few letters to a building, like Trump has done at the White House. The DOD, the executive-level federal agency that oversees the branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, has more than 3 million personnel and both inward-facing and outward-facing brand assets at facilities in the U.S. and 80 countries around the world. For comparison, Walmart counts 2.1 million associates and stores in 19 countries.
Opposition to the rebrand
Hegseth said on November 14 that the DOD sign at the Pentagon was replaced “because we want everybody who comes through this door to know that we are deadly serious about the name change of this organization,” according to a press release. But YouGov polling in September found a 58% majority of U.S. adults oppose renaming the DOD, and there’s bipartisan opposition to making the secondary name formal.
In a letter to the Congressional Budget Office in October, Senate Democrats on the Budget Committee cited both brand and budget concerns, writing that the new name “risks confusion, redundancy, and unnecessary cost expenditure.”
“Given the Trump administrations repeated emphasis on fiscal restraintparticularly its aggressive use of illegal impoundments and now, unconstitutional pocket rescissionsthis symbolic renaming is both wasteful and hypocritical,” Democrats wrote. “It appears to prioritize political theater over responsible governance, while diverting resources from core national security functions.”
Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, told CNN that he believes calling the DOD the Department of War “sends a bad signal to the world.”
“In a world with nuclear weapons, I think glorifying war . . . is not something I’m in favor of,” Paul said. Republicans have introduced legislation in the House and Senate to rename the DOD, and Paul said he would “lead opposition” to it if it came before the Senate.
Hidden costs
Trump has sought to cast himself as a peacemaker this year, which a war-themed rebrand is at odds with. It’s also at odds with his campaign promises.
Trump took office pledging to lower costs and rein in government spending, but coming up on a year back in office, persistent inflation and conspicuous government spending like his White House remodel project have taken a political toll. Trump’s net approval rating is sagging, and a pricey rebrand project viewed by many as vanity might not help.
Rebranding the DOD could cost taxpayers as much as $2 billion. Its political costs for Trump could be even higher.
