The national taxpayer advocate is cautioning that the 2026 tax filing season is likely to present challenges for taxpayers who encounter problems with filing their taxes given the exodus of IRS workers since the start of the Trump administration.
National Taxpayer Advocate Erin M. Collins released her annual report to Congress on Wednesday, two days after the start of the 2026 season. She finds that while the IRS was able to process returns in 2025 without major disruptions, entering 2026, the landscape is markedly different.
The IRS is simultaneously confronting a reduction of 27% of its workforce, leadership turnover, and the implementation of extensive and complex tax law changes mandated by Republicans’ tax and spending measure that President Donald Trump signed into law last summer, Collins said in her report.
Collins says most taxpayers should be able to file their returns and receive their refunds without delay, but she notes the success of the filing season will be defined by how well the IRS is able to assist the millions of taxpayers who experience problems.
The tax filing season began on Monday, and agency leaders, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and IRS CEO Frank Bisignano, have said they expect a smooth season.
Bisignano last week announced new priorities and a reorganization of IRS executive leadership in a letter addressed to the agencys 74,000 employees, saying that he is confident that with this new team in place, the IRS is well-prepared to deliver a successful tax filing season for the American public.
Bessent as well as others in Trump’s second administration have also promised American taxpayers substantial tax refunds, as part of the Republican administration’s solution to an ongoing affordability crisis.
Still, other IRS watchdogs have outlined major concerns at the start of the 2026 tax season.
Diana M. Tengesdal, deputy inspector general for audit at the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, wrote a letter to IRS leadership on Monday and pointed to IRS staffing at October 2021 levels, combined with thousands of unprocessed tax returns and taxpayer correspondence.
The IRS started 2025 with about 102,000 employees and finished with about 74,000 after a series of firings and layoffs brought on by the Department of Government Efficiency. While last year IRS employees involved in the 2025 tax season were not allowed to accept a buyout offer from the Trump administration until after the taxpayer filing deadline, this year many of those customer service workers have left.
Tengesdal’s office says despite new efforts to modernize tax administration, initiatives to offset staffing losses may not yield expected benefits during the 2026 Filing Season.
More than 165 million individual income tax returns were processed in 2025, with 94% submitted electronically. The average refund was $3,167.
___
Follow the AP’s coverage of the IRS at https://apnews.com/hub/internal-revenue-service.
Fatima Hussein, Associated Press
As a continuation of President Donald Trump‘s pitch to Americans on affordability and the economy under his administration, the U.S. Treasury and White House are celebrating the upcoming launch of a program they view as a key milestone: Trump Accounts.
A provision of Trump’s tax legislation, Trump Accounts are meant to give $1,000 to every newborn, so long as their parents open an account. That money is then invested in the stock market by private firms, and the child can access the money when they turn 18.
A U.S. Treasury event Wednesday brings together an assortment of politicians and celebrities from Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz to rapper Nicki Minaj to discuss the program and its potential impact on the economy. Backers of Trump Accounts have said they’re a way to help children from low-income households build wealth.
Heres what you need to know about Trump Accounts and how to claim them.
What is a Trump Account?
Its a new savings tool where money is invested in the stock market on behalf of a child. The child cant access the money until they turn 18 and can only use it for specific purposes, such as paying tuition, starting a business or making a down payment on a home.
After a parent opens an account, the U.S. Treasury will contribute $1,000 for newborns. Private banks and brokerages will manage the money, which must be invested in U.S. equity index funds that track the stock market and charge the accounts no more than 0.10% in annual fees.
Parents can contribute up to $2,500 annually in pretax income, much like they do for retirement accounts. Parents employers, relatives, friends, local governments and philanthropic groups can also pitch in. Yearly contributions are capped at $5,000, but contributions from governments and charities dont count toward that total.
Who gets $1,000?
As part of the initiatives launch, parents of older children are also encouraged to open accounts, but they wont get the $1,000 bonus. That money is only reserved for babies born during the calendar years of the Trump administration.
To qualify for the $1,000 seed money, a baby must be a U.S. citizen, have a Social Security number and be born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2028. Any parent can open an account for a qualifying child, regardless of the parents immigration status.
Its important to note that the child wont be able to access the money until they turn 18, except in rare circumstances, so it cant help with immediate expenses. And disbursements from the accounts will be subject to taxes.
What about older children?
Children born before 2025 wont qualify for the $1,000 incentive, but parents can still open accounts for them as long as theyre under 18. Parents can still invest up to $2,500 pretax for those kids.
In December, billionaires Michael and Susan Dell announced a $6.25 billion donation that will allow some children who are 10 and under to receive $250 in seed money if their parents open an account. That money is reserved for kids who live in ZIP codes with a median family income of $150,000 or less and who wont get the $1,000 seed money from the Treasury.
A few weeks later, hedge fund founder Ray Dalio and his wife Barbara pledged $75 million for kids under 10 in Connecticut, where Dalio lives. That would amount to $250 for 300,000 children in qualifying ZIP codes. Those large contributions are part of an effort by the U.S. Treasury dubbed the 50 State Challenge by Secretary Scott Bessent to encourage wealthy philanthropic donors to pitch in.
Other corporations participating in the program include Uber, MasterCard, BlackRock, Visa and Charles Schwab, according to the Trump Accounts website.
How do I open a Trump Account for my kids?
The accounts wont be open for contributions until July 2026, but parents of eligible kids can sign up using Form 4547 from the Internal Revenue Service. Parents can fill out the form when filing taxes this year or when the administration opens an online portal this summer, according to the Trump Accounts website.
Registering for a Trump Account is required for a child to receive the money. In May, parents who sign up will get information about how to finish opening the accounts.
Whats the idea behind the accounts?
Backers of the accounts say they want to introduce more people to the stock market and give even children born into poverty a chance to benefit from it. Supporters also say the accounts bolster capitalism at a time when openly socialist candidates are growing more popular.
About 58% of U.S. households held stocks or bonds in 2022, according to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, though the wealthiest 1% owned almost half the value of stocks in that same year.
Before Trump created the accounts, California, Connecticut and the District of Columbia were piloting baby bonds programs that are similar to Trump Accounts in some ways. Several other states, including Maryland, are weighing programs.
But those programs are targeted for youth growing up in poverty or foster care, plus children who lost a parent to COVID-19. Wealthier children dont benefit. Theyre also managed by the state, not private investment firms.
What do critics say?
Critics point out the accounts do little to help children in their early years, when theyre most vulnerable and most likely to be in poverty. The accounts, they say, also fail to offset cuts the Trump administration and congressional Republicans have made to other programs that benefit young people and their families, including food assistance and Medicaid. Republicans created the accounts in the same Trump tax bill that reduced spending for some of those programs.
And even with the contribution from the government, critics say the Trump Accounts will widen the wealth gap. Affluent families that can afford to make the maximum pretax contribution to the accounts will realize the greatest benefits. Poor families who cant afford to set aside money for the accounts will benefit the least. Assuming a 7% return, the $1,000 in seed money would grow to roughly $3,570 over 18 years.
___
The Associated Press education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Makiya Seminera and Moriah Balingit, AP education writer
Virtues such as compassion, patience, and self-control may be beneficial not only for others but also for oneself, according to new research my team and I published in the Journal of Personality in December 2025.
Philosophers from Aristotle to al-Frb, a 10th-century scholar in what is now Iraq, have argued that virtue is vital for well-being. Yet others, such as Thomas Hobbes and Friedrich Nietzsche, have argued the opposite: Virtue offers no benefit to oneself and is good only for others. This second theory has inspired a lot of research in contemporary psychology, which often sees morality and self-interest as fundamentally opposed.
Many studies have found that generosity is associated with happiness, and that encouraging people to practice kindness increases their well-being. But other virtues seem less enjoyable.
For example, a compassionate person wants to alleviate suffering or misfortune, but that requires there be suffering or misfortune. Patience is possible only when something irritating or difficult is happening. And self-control involves forgoing ones desires or persisting with something difficult.
Could these kinds of virtues really be good for you?
My colleagues and I investigated this question in two studies, using two different methods to zoom in on specific moments in peoples daily lives. Our goal was to assess the degree to which, in those moments, they were compassionate, patient, and self-controlled. We also assessed their level of well-being: how pleasant or unpleasant they felt, and whether they found their activities meaningful.
One study, with adolescents, used the experience sampling method, in which people answer questions at random intervals throughout the day. The other, studying adults, used the day reconstruction method, in which people answer questions about the previous day. All told, we examined 43,164 moments from 1,218 people.
During situations that offer opportunities to act with compassion, patience, and self-controlencountering someone in need, for example, or dealing with a difficult personpeople tend to experience more unpleasant feelings and fewer pleasant ones than in other situations. However, we found that exercising these three virtues seems to help people cope. People who are habitually more compassionate, patient, and self-controlled tend to experience better well-being. And when people display more compassion, patience, and self-control than usual, they tend to feel better than they usually do.
In short, our results contradicted the theory that virtue is good for others and bad for the self. They were consistent with the theory that virtue promotes well-being.
Why it matters
These studies tested the predictions of two venerable, highly influential theories about the relationship between morality and well-being. In doing so, they offered new insights into one of the most fundamental questions debated in philosophy, psychology, and everyday life.
Moreover, in the scientific study of morality, lots of research has examined how people form moral judgments and how outside forces shape a persons moral behavior. Yet some researchers have argued that this should be complemented by research on moral traits and how these are integrated into the whole person. By focusing on traits such as patience, compassion, and self-control and their roles in peoples daily lives, our studies contribute to the emerging science of virtue.
What still isnt known
One open question for future research is whether virtues such as compassion, patience, and self-control are associated with better well-being only under certain conditions. For example, perhaps things look different depending on ones stage of life or in different parts of the world.
Our studies were not randomized experiments. It is possible that the associations we observed are explained by another factorsomething that increases well-being while simultaneously increasing compassion, patience, and self-control. Or maybe well-being affects virtue, instead of the other way around. Future research could help clarify the causal relationships.
One particularly interesting possibility is that there might be a virtuous cycle: Perhaps virtue tends to promote well-being, and well-being, in turn, tends to promote virtue. If so, it would be extremely valuable to learn how to help people kick-start that cycle.
The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.
Michael Prinzing is a research and assessment scholar at Wake Forest University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
A federal judge said Tuesday that a nearly completed Massachusetts offshore wind project can continue, as the industry successfully challenges the Trump administration in court.
At U.S. District Court in Boston, Judge Brian Murphy halted the administration’s stop work order for Vineyard Wind, citing the potential economic losses from the delays and the developers’ likelihood of success on their claims. Vineyard Wind is one of five big offshore wind projects on the East Coast that the Trump administration froze days before Christmas, citing national security concerns and the fourth that has since been allowed to go forward.
A spokesperson for the company, Craig Gilvarg, said in a statement that it would work with the Administration to understand the matters raised in the Order.
Vineyard Wind will focus on working in coordination with its contractors, the federal government, and other relevant stakeholders and authorities to safely restart activities, as it continues to deliver a critical source of new power to the New England region, Gilvarg added.
Developers and states sued seeking to block the administration’s order. Prior to Vineyard Wind’s hearing, federal judges had allowed three of the five to restart construction: the Revolution Wind project for Rhode Island and Connecticut by Danish company Orsted, the Empire Wind project for New York by Norwegian company Equinor, and Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind for Virginia by Dominion Energy Virginia. Those three judges essentially concluded that the government did not show that the national security risk is so imminent that construction must halt, said Carl Tobias, a University of Richmond Law School professor who has been following the lawsuits.
Orsted is also suing over the administration halting its Sunrise Wind project for New York the fifth paused project but has not had a hearing yet.
Vineyard Wind is a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, located 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of Marthas Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts. It is 95% complete and partially operational, able to produce nearly 600 megawatts of power for the New England electric grid, according to the complaint. Before the pause, it was on track to be complete by the end of March, with 62 turbines generating a total of 800 megawatts. That is enough clean electricity to power about 400,000 homes.
Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell said the completion of this project is essential to ensuring the state can lower costs, meet rising energy demand, advance its climate goals and sustain thousands of good-paying jobs.
U.S. Sen. Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat, welcomed the judge’s ruling.
This stay is an important step in the process to fight back against the Trump administrations lawless attacks against our union jobs, grid security, and energy affordability, Markey said in a statement. Vineyard Wind 1 is currently delivering affordable and reliable power into our grid and has the permits, financing, and approval to deliver even more. Shutting off Vineyard Wind 1 would kill thousands of local union jobs, prevent power from reaching 400,000 homes, and cause us to lose out on $3 billion of energy savings.”
The administration’s announcement that paused construction did not reveal specifics about its national security concerns. But in a court filing, Matthew Giacona, acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said he reviewed classified documents in November that discussed direct impacts to national security that arise from operating offshore wind projects near early warning monitoring and radar systems. Giacona said he determined the ongoing activities for the Vineyard Wind project did not adequately provide for the protection of national security interests, absent potential mitigation measures.
Given its nearly complete status, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management decided to allow Vineyard Wind to continue partially operating during the suspension period while it consulted with defense officials and the owners, Giacona said. But he said he is not aware of any measures that would mitigate the national security risks.
Trump has targeted offshore wind power
President Donald Trump has targeted offshore wind from his first days back in the White House, recently calling wind farms losers that lose money, destroy the landscape and kill birds. Research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory shows that states with the most utility-scale wind and solar often have low electricity prices, supported by federal tax incentives. However, states with aggressive, binding programs to mandate more renewable energy have seen prices increase as a result of those policies, according to the study.
Turbines, like all infrastructure, can pose a risk to birds. The National Audubon Society, which is dedicated to the conservation of birds, thinks developers can manage these risks and climate change is a greater threat.
White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers has said the construction pause is meant to protect the national security of the American people and Trump has been clear that wind energy is the scam of the century.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has criticized the Vineyard Wind project, specifically, because of a blade failure. Fiberglass fragments of a blade broke apart and began washing onto Nantucket beaches in July 2024 during the peak of tourist season. Manufacturer GE Vernova agreed to pay $10.5 million in a settlement to compensate island businesses that suffered losses.
Kennedys family famously opposed an earlier failed wind project not far from the familys Cape Cod estate.
___
The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Jennifer McDermott and Michael Casey, Associated Press
When the Supreme Court granted an unusually quick hearing over President Donald Trump’s tariffs, a similarly rapid resolution seemed possible.After all, Trump’s lawyers told the court that speed was of the essence on an issue central to the Republican president’s economic agenda. They pointed to a statement from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warning that the “longer a final ruling is delayed, the greater the risk of economic disruption.”But nearly three months have elapsed since arguments in the closely watched case, and the court isn’t scheduled to meet in public for more than three weeks.No one knows for sure what’s going on among the nine justices, several of whom expressed skepticism about the tariffs’ legality at arguments in November. But the timeline for deciding the case now looks more or less typical and could reflect the normal back-and-forth that occurs not just in the biggest cases but in almost all the disputes the justices hear.Several Supreme Court practitioners and law professors scoffed at the idea the justices are dragging their feet on tariffs, putting off a potentially uncomfortable ruling against Trump.“People suspect this kind of thing from time to time, but I am not aware of instances in which we have more than speculation,” said Jonathan Adler, a law professor at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.The timeframe alone also doesn’t point to one outcome or the other.One possible explanation, said Carter Phillips, a lawyer with 91 arguments before the high court, “is that the court is more evenly divided than appeared to be the case at oral argument and the fifth vote is wavering.”Even if the majority opinion has been drafted and more or less agreed to by five or more members of the court, a separate opinion, probably in dissent, could slow things down, Phillips said.Just last week, the court issued two opinions in cases that were argued in October. All nine justices agreed with the outcome, a situation that typically allows decisions to be issued relatively quickly. But a separate opinion in each case probably delayed the decision.The court is generally moving more slowly in argued cases, perhaps because of the flood of emergency appeals the Trump administration has brought to the justices. The first argued case wasn’t decided until January this year. Typically, that happens in December, if not November.Over the last 20 years, the average turnaround time for a Supreme Court opinion was just over three months, according to data gathered by Adam Feldman, creator of Empirical SCOTUS. The timeline has increased in recent years, with the court releasing half or more of its cases in June.Decision times can vary widely. The court can move quickly, especially in cases with hard external deadlines: The landmark Bush v. Gore case that effectively decided the 2000 presidential election took just over a day. The recent case over TikTok took seven days.On the higher end, when the justices are on their own timelines, cases can take much longer to resolve. Gundy v. U.S., a case argued in 2018 about how the sex offender registry is administered, took more than eight months to be decided.Major decisions on expanding gun rights, overturning Roe v. Wade and ending affirmative action in college admissions were handed down six to eight months after the cases were argued.Also undecided so far is a second major case in which the court sped up its pace over redistricting in Louisiana and the future of a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.The tariffs case took on added urgency because the consequences of the Trump administration’s policy were playing out in real time, in ways that have been both positive and negative.“Like many, I had hoped that the Supreme would rush the decision out,” said Marc Busch, an expert on international trade policy and law at Georgetown University. “But it’s not a surprise in the sense that they have until June and lots of issues to work through.”The separation of powers questions central to the case are complicated. Whatever the majority decides, there will likely be a dissent and both sides will be carefully calibrating their writing.“It is the language at the end of the day that’s going to make this more or less meaningful,” he said.Meanwhile, as the justices weigh the case, Trump continues to invoke the threat of tariffs, extol their virtues and refer to the case as the court’s most important.“I would hope, like a lot of people, the justices have been watching the tariff threats over Greenland and realize the gravity of this moment,” Busch said.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.
Mark Sherman and Lindsay Whitehurst, Associated Press
Remember the Flip video recorder? In 2009, it was a sensationa dead-simple, pocket-size recorder that let ordinary people capture and share moments without lugging around a camcorder or figuring out complicated settings. Cisco acquired Flip’s maker, Pure Digital Technologies, for $590 million in stock. Two years later, Cisco shut Flip down entirely.
The Flip wasn’t a failure. It solved a real problem elegantly. But it was what I call a “gateway product”an innovation that reveals what customers want but that gets supplanted by something that delivers the same outcome more simply, cheaply, or conveniently. In this case, the rise of smartphones made a dedicated device obsolete.
The history of innovation suggests that most game changers proceed through a series of gateways. We had fax machines before email, PalmPilots before BlackBerrys before iPhones, TiVo before streaming, MapQuest and GPS units before Google Maps. Each one mattered. Each one made money. And each one was eventually swept aside.
The strategic challenge is to figure out what the shelf life of your gateway offering is.
Gateways solve real jobswith inherited constraints
Gateway products genuinely solve customer problems. That’s what makes them successful, and that’s what makes them dangerous. Their success validates the desire of customers to achieve given outcomes while obscuring the fact that the method of doing so may be temporary.
The fax machine eliminated the delay of postal mail. But it still required paper, a dedicated phone line, and a compatible machine on the receiving end. It imported friction from the old system even as it improved upon it. Email didn’t just do the fax’s job fasterit eliminated the infrastructure entirely.
When your product requires customers to maintain scaffolding from a previous era, you’re building on borrowed time.
The dedicated device trap
One of the clearest gateway signals is a stand-alone device built for a job that could eventually migrate to a general-purpose platform. GPS units, point-and-shoot cameras, MP3 players, handheld translators, portable DVD playersall were gateways. The job each one performed was real and enduring. The form factor was not.
This doesn’t mean dedicated devices always lose. Sometimes they win on performance or experienceprofessional cameras, high-end gaming consoles, studio monitors. But the burden of proof is on the dedicated device to justify its separate existence. If a product’s primary advantage is that nothing else can do the job yet, leadership needs to plan for “yet” becoming “now.”
When your moat is mastery, you’re vulnerable
Gateway products often develop loyal followings among people who’ve invested time in learning them. PalmPilot users mastered Graffiti. BlackBerry devotees became virtuosos of the physical keyboard. TiVo owners learned the interface and programming logic.
The learning curve feels like a moatcustomers have sunk costs, and they’re reluctant to switch. But mastery-based loyalty evaporates the moment a competitor makes it unnecessary. Smartphones didn’t require users to learn a new input language; they just worked. Streaming didn’t demand programming skills; it just played.
If your customer retention depends on what people have learned rather than what they love, you’re more vulnerable than your churn numbers suggest.
5 questions to ask about your product
What frictions or complexities does our product require that customers would prefer to eliminate entirely? Every negative is an opening for a competitor who does away with it.
Are we competing on getting to an outcome or on the current method of doing it? If your differentiation is about how rather than what, you’re racing against obsolescence.
If someone started fresh today with current technology, would they build this the same way? This is the greenfield test. If the answer is noif they’d build something that makes your product unnecessaryyou have a gateway.
What temporary technological gap are we exploiting? Flip cameras existed because smartphone cameras weren’t good enough yet. GPS units existed because phones lacked sensors and software. Identify your gap, and monitor it relentlessly.
What’s our plan for when the gap closes? This is the question most leaders avoid. Acknowledging that your hit product has an expiration date feels like disloyalty. But the alternative is being caught flat-footed.
The right strategic stance
None of this means gateway products are bad businesses. Nokia and Blackberry built hugely profitable business empires on technology that would eventually be supplanted.
The strategic error is being lured into believing that it will be a permanent franchise. That can lead, in turn, to overinvesting in extending the product’s life, building organizations optimized for a form factor that’s becoming obsolete, and missing the chance to be the company that makes its own product unnecessary. Apple famously undermined its own hugely profitable iPod to launch the modern smartphone revolution, leading to enormous value creation.
The smart play is to harvest margins while they last, watch for substitution signals, avoid the trap of defending your method, and position your firm to ride the next wave rather than getting swamped by it.
Gateway products can be supremely valuable. They are like paying tuition to learn about the future.
Being a night owl can be bad for your heart.That may sound surprising but a large study found people who are more active late at night when most of the population is winding down or already asleep have poorer overall heart health than the average person.“It is not like, that, night owls are doomed,” said research fellow Sina Kianersi of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who led the study. “The challenge is the mismatch between your internal clock and typical daily schedules” that makes it harder to follow heart-healthy behaviors.And that’s fixable, added Kianersi, who describes himself as “sort of a night owl” who feels a boost in “my analytical thinking” after about 7 or 8 at night.Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. The American Heart Association has a list of eight key factors that everyone should heed for better heart health: being more physically active; avoiding tobacco; getting enough sleep and a healthy diet; and controlling blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and weight.Where does being a night owl come in? That has to do with the body’s circadian rhythm, our master biological clock. It follows a roughly 24-hour schedule that regulates not just when we become sleepy and when we’re more awake but also keeps organ systems in sync, influencing things like heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormones and metabolism.Everybody’s circadian rhythm is a little different. Prior research had suggested night owls might have more health problems, as well as risk factors like higher rates of smoking and less physical activity, than people with more typical bedtimes, Kianersi said.To learn more, Kianersi’s team tracked more than 300,000 middle-age and older adults in the UK Biobank, a huge health database that includes information about people’s sleep-wake preferences. About 8% of those people classified themselves as night owls, more active physically and mentally in the late afternoon or evening and up past most people’s bedtime. About a quarter were early-birds, most productive in the daylight hours and likewise early to bed. The rest were average, somewhere in the middle.Over 14 years, the night owls had a 16% higher risk of a first heart attack or stroke compared to the average population, the researchers found.The night owls, especially women, also had overall worse cardiovascular health based on meeting the heart association’s eight key factors, the researchers reported Wednesday in the Journal of the American Heart Association.Unhealthy behaviors smoking, insufficient sleep and poor diet appear to be the main reasons.“It comes down to the problem of a night owl trying to live in a morning person’s world. They’re getting up early for work because that’s when their job starts but it may not align with their internal rhythm,” said Kristen Knutson of Northwestern University, who led recent heart association guidance on circadian rhythms but wasn’t involved in the new study.That affects more than sleep. For example, metabolism fluctuates throughout the day as the body produces insulin to turn food into energy. That means it might be harder for a night owl to handle a high-calorie breakfast eaten very early in the day, during what normally would still be their biological night, Knutson said. And if they’re out late at night, it can be harder to find healthy food choices.As for sleep, even if you can’t meet the ideal of at least seven hours, sticking to a regular bedtime and wake time also may help, she and Kianersi said.The study couldn’t examine what night owls do when the rest of the world is asleep. But Kianersi said one of the best steps to protect heart health for night owls and anyone is to quit smoking.“Focus on the basics, not perfection,” he said, again, advice that’s good for everyone.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Lauran Neergaard, AP Medical Writer
When Mikala Mahoney was laid off from her marketing job last summer, first she was shocked. Then the anxiety flooded in.
I realized that over the past few years in my career I had created a false sense of steadiness, she tells Fast Company. Friends had regularly told Mahoney she was fortunate to have landed a good, stable job as a marketing coordinator at Paramount+. In a moment, that illusion was in pieces.
Mahoney threw herself into the job hunt, quickly landing her next role. A few months later, she was laid off again.
After losing her job twice in less than a year, this time she decided to bet on herself.
Following the traditional path as a salaried employee with a steady paycheck, healthcare, and benefits had long been viewed as the safe bet. But with many peoples paychecks from their 9-to-5 barely covering the cost of housing and groceries, layoffs at their highest in the U.S. since 2020, and nearly 26% of unemployed people having been jobless for more than six months, the unemployed-to-self-employed pipeline has never been stronger.
Mahoney spent two months unemployed before she made the decision to go all in on her content creation business. She has also been documenting the process for her following on TikTok.
Ive always been making content, Mahoney tells Fast Company. Still, she never envisioned herself as a solopreneur, or what that might look like in practice.
I think there’s a different sense of hustle that you need to have in your self-employment, that you aren’t necessarily forced to confront when you are working with a consistent paycheck, she says.
Mahoney is not alone. The unemployed-to-self-employed pipeline has become its own content niche on TikTok. This sits within a wider trend of solopreneurship in the U.S.: Nearly 36% of traditional workers now have side gigs, according to MBO Partners’s 15th annual State of Independence in America Report.
Whether a backup plan in the face of forever layoffs or a first step toward breaking free from the shackles of a boss, the rising number of people wanting to go it solo and run their own company of one reflects a shift in the balance of power from companies to workersespecially as the social contract has broken down.
Increasingly, workers are turning their side gigs into full-time gigs, either taking the leap to solopreneurship on their own initiative, or as a result of factors outside their control.
Then, there are those who have yet to experience traditional employment in the first place. Recent college graduates are struggling to find entry-level jobs and, while the overall unemployment rate edged up to 4.4%, for younger workers ages 16 to 24, unemployment in September 2025 was 10.4%.
When 24-year-old Sophia Stern graduated from college in 2024 she spent hours scouring LinkedIn each day, an effort she kept up for roughly six months.
I was desperate for anything, she tells Fast Company, noting that all she received in return were rejection emails from AI bots.
At the time, she started a side hustle helping local businesses with their social media marketing. I realized, like, oh, this doesn’t need to be a middle ground in between different jobs. This can be a job. If it didnt work out, she would at least gain valuable experience in an industry she was hoping to break into.
And it honestly might be better than continuing to search for a job, because the job market is just so terrible right now, she recalls thinking.
After launching a website for SoSo Social, offering social media management and community outreach to small businesses around New Jersey, New York, and Philadelphia, Stern landed her first two clients within a month. Less than a year on, her client base has quadrupled.
From launching an online business or monetizing a social media account, to selling templates or paid subscriptions, it has never been easier for workers to take their talents back into their own hands and find ways to monetize them.
In fact, the MBO Partners report counted 72.9 million independent workers in the U.S., 5.6 million of whom reported earning more than $100,000 annually.
Still, being pushed into self-employment before youre ready, versus taking the leap on your own timeline, makes a big difference. That was never what I envisioned for myself, Mahoney admits. My goal has always been to grow my platform, but I always wanted to do it alongside a steady and stable job.
Stern, too, wouldnt have considered starting out on her own this early in her career if other options had presented themselves. I really was forced into it, but in the best way possible, she says.
Whether a side hustle, stopgap, or entire career pivot, solopreneurship often offers a lifeline in a job market increasingly throttled by hiring slowdowns, increased competition, and economic uncertainty. Not dedicating 40 hours a week to one employer protects workers from the powers that be.
But solopreneurship, with its unpredictable income and lack of benefits, is not the panacea for all corporate illsjust ask any self-employed person.
Mahoney and Stern are not closing the door on full-time employment. Both are still open to the right role if it comes along. Ive learned the big lesson that nothing is permanent, Mahoney says.
This time, however, she has a safety net of her own making to fall back on.
Since Brian Niccol took over as Starbucks Chairman and CEO in 2024, hes promised a grand turnaround for the coffee giant by going back to its roots in lovingly designed, customer-centric stores.
The messaging wasnt enough to break six straight quarters of global sales decline. Global sales grew 1% at the end of the 2025 fiscal year, but they left the U.S. behind. Now, Starbuckss Q1 2026 earnings have beat analyst estimates and seem to be cementing a turnaround, marking the first time same store sales have increased in the U.S. in eight quarters.
Starbucks same store sales were up 4% in the U.S. and 5% globally during the first quarter, thanks largely to a 3% rise in overall transactions. Despite well-documented store closures, the company says it still added 128 net new stores over the last quarter.
Our Q1 results demonstrate our ‘Back to Starbucks’ strategy is working and we believe we’re ahead of schedule, said Niccol during earnings. It’s great to see the sales momentum driven by more customers choosing Starbucks more often, and this is just the beginning.
[Photo: Starbucks]
As I reported last year, Niccols thesis has been that better hospitality will drive more people to return to Starbucksand that adding seats back to stores post-COVID is a way for the company to stand out. Improved store experience is just one piece of his strategy, which has also included fresh ad campaigns, an operationally simplified menu with lots of protein, beloved merch drops, and most recently, collabs with Mr. Beast and Khloé Kardashian.
Starbucks revenue grew by 6% last quarter overall. However, Niccol is facing tighter margins than he was a year ago. Costs ranging from uplifting Starbucks stores, to increasing staffing and pay (albeit not appeasing unions), to tariffs on ever-more-expensive coffee beans have decreased margins from 16.7% to 11.9%.
When I asked Niccol about the effects of coffee pricing on Starbucks last year, he mostly shrugged off the question, noting it was actually a relatively small line item for the company. But like many of its rising costs, it no doubt adds pressure for Starbucks to continue to grow, and to sell more product from each store in order to bolster profits when margins shrink.
Need a break from the news? We thought so.
After days of dealing with Winter Storm Fernwhich has left 600,000 homes without power in the South, and thousands others digging themselves out from under more than snow (especially here in New England)overwhelmed and exhausted people everywhere have discovered one, rather dark meme that has the internet obsessed: the nihilist penguin.
What exactly is the nihilistic penguin meme?
This clip, from Werner Herzog’s 2007 documentary “Encounters at the End of the World,” of a lone penguin walking out into what looks like a never-ending tundra after stubbornly choosing to leave his penguin colony, went viral at the beginning of the year. Doomed, he seems to saunter on by himself, into his unknown fate toward the mountains.
“One of them caught our eye, the one in the center,” Herzog explains as he narrates the documentary. “He would neither go toward the feeding grounds at the edge of the ice, nor return to the colony. Shortly afterward, we saw him heading straight for the mountains, some 70 kilometers away. Doctor Ainslie explained even if he caught him, and brought him back to the colony, he would immediately head right back for the mountains. But, why?”
Well, by the looks of it, many people relate to the clip, with TikTokers sharing, commenting, and making their own version of the video. Why do they relate?
According to social media posts, there seem to be two interpretations of the clip: One, bleak as it is, is that we are all that penguin, going toward our certain deaths. (According to the Doomsday clock, we are all one step closer to destruction.)
A second is more optimistic: that the penguin’s actions are a symbol of endurance.
As one TikTok user explains, “if this penguin doesn’t penetrate your psyche so deeply that you are compelled to finally drop everything & chase your dreams. then you’re doomed forever bro.”
Doomed forever bruh, indeed.
