On January 17, Copenhagen resident Jesper Rabe Tnnesen woke up, packed his cargo bike with 300 red hats, and trekked over to his citys U.S. embassy, where thousands of citizens were gathering in the street to protest President Trump’s proposed takeover of Greenland. By the end of the weekend, those hats had become the dominant symbol of the dissenting movement.
For months, Trump has insisted that the U.S. should control Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. But, in recent days, he’s escalated his threat to take over the region, announcing on Truth Social that he would impose additional tariffs on eight allied nations who spoke out against the plan. In response, tens of thousands of protestors have gathered in Denmarks capital, Copenhagen, and Greenlands capital, Nuuk, to voice their dissent against American occupation of Greenland.
Nuuk, Greenland. January 17, 2026. [Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images]
Tnnesen, the owner of a vintage store in Copenhagen called McKorman, was one of those protestors. Hes also the designer behind a line of hats parodying Trumps Make America Great Again (MAGA) caps. Tnnesens hats substitute Trumps famous phrase for the line Nu det NUUK! which is a play on the Danish phrase, Nu det nok, literally meaning Now, it’s enough.
Tnnesens caps, as well as several similar designs, have emerged as the stand-out visual symbol of the protests, appearing in countless photos of the demonstrations. The caps were produced as a comedic response to Donald Trump thinking he could buy Greenland, Tnnesen says, and as a political statement that enough is enough.
Jesper Toennesen. January 13, 2026. [Photo: Thomas Traasdahl/Ritzau Scanpix/AFP/Getty Images]
“Enough is enough”
Tnnesen first created his Nu det NUUK! cap last summer, when he ordered 100 copies for his store and sent another 100 to Greenland. The philosophy behind his design, he says, was simple: The red MAGA hats have become a very visible political symbol, and so it seemed right to also make the anti-MAGA caps red and white too. Besides that, he adds, red and white are the two colors of both the Greenlandic and Danish flags, adding an additional layer to the parody.
Initial sales were slow. Just a few caps were sold in-store, while others were given away. But a week before Saturdays demonstration, in the wake of Trumps increasing insistence on a Greenland takeover, the hats went viral.
In just a few hours, people bought 80 hats, and Tnnesen says he could have sold hundreds or even thousands more, had they not sold out. He currently has thousands of new hats on the way from the manufacturer, and plans to donate all profits to the Greenlandic childrens charity Grnlandske Brn.
It’s been a few intense weeks of talking to global media and people wanting to show support by buying the caps, Tnnesen says. In times like these it’s important to stand strong in solidarity, and it’s been nice to see people doing that and agreeing that what’s going on is simply intolerable.
A c55 “Make America Go Away” hat in Sisimiut, Greenland, on Sunday, March 30, 2025. [Photo: Juliette Pavy/Bloomberg/Getty Images]
How satirical MAGA hats took off in Greenland and Denmark
While Tnnesens hats have recently shot into the spotlight, hes not the first Danish designer to satirize the MAGA cap. Indeed, Tnnesen was inspired by an earlier hat created by designer Jens Martin Skibsted.
Jens Martin Skibsted
Skibsted is the creative mind behind the website c55, which sells a variety of protest-based statement hats. In the past, hes created multiple hats in support of Ukrainian charities in the midst of the Russian invasion. He says that he was inspired to create something for Greenland after Donald Trump Jr. visited the territory back in January 2025, in protest against America’s ambition to assert control over the island.
His cap is called the Kalaallit, which is the name of the Greenlandic Inuit in their language, Kalaallisut. It features the slogan Make America Go Away, paired with the Greenlandic flag on one side. While it playfully echoes Trump’s slogan, the design is distinct, the hats online listing reads. The red and white colors reflect the Greenlandic flag, and the typeface, DS 737, is based on the official Danish signage typeface, originally released in 1954 by Dansk Standard as Danish Standard no. 737. Skibsted says the hat is made in partnership with the Greenlandic NGO Uagut, which is dedicated to promoting Greenlanders wellbeing in Denmark.
[Photos: Jens Martin Skibsted]
Since initially handing out his caps for free last spring in the Greenlandic city Sisimiut, Skibsted has created three more iterations of the hat, each honoring some aspect of Greenlandic heritage (including one white version of the cap, which he says was added after “MAGA media” digitally erased the original caps’ text to resemble actual MAGA hats). Like Tnnesen, he passed out 200 copies of his original cap at the Copenhagen protest. He says sales have recently spiked, as awareness of Trumps threats against the territory have reached a much larger audience.
It’s become very international, because obviously very few people in the international community agree that it’s okay just to take over a foreign territory, Skibsted says. A lot of people want to stand behind the Greenlanders, and also, by proxy, the Danes.
We have a growing problem making our institutions work for humans. Across society, and especially in business, humans are increasingly treated as resources to be squeezed rather than as individuals to be served. Employees become human capital to be optimized; customers become users to be converted or upsold. This tendency predates AI, but AI threatens to accelerate it dramaticallyautomating the depersonalization, scaling the indifference, and introducing another layer of abstraction that separates real human beings from real human beings.
Yet there is an alternative path. Human-centered design is often dismissed as a soft or unserious discipline, a distraction from the serious business of maximizing the commercial income to be extracted from every interaction. But it is actually the most practical route to value creation available to organizations today. When you design around real human needsthose of both customers and staffyou build the bridge between internal transformation and external results.
The Foundational Principle
In The Design of Everyday Things, design expert Donald Norman articulates a deceptively simple idea: pay close attention to the needs of human users when defining design goals. This principle applies far beyond product design. It is foundational to how organizations create value.
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Human-centered design acts as a critical bridge that taps into and connects two groups of humans. On one side, customer experience drives revenuepeople buy from, stay loyal to, and recommend organizations that understand and serve their actual needs. On the other side, the employee experience drives executionstaff who feel understood and supported deliver better work and stay in their roles for longer. Neglect either side and value leaks away, no matter how sophisticated your technology or how ambitious your strategy.
Crucially, human-centered design is not a one-time exercise conducted before systems are built. It is an ongoing discipline that begins with observation, continues through implementation, and persists as long as the system operates. Humans change. Their needs evolve. Their contexts shift. A design process that treats initial research as sufficient will produce systems that drift steadily away from the people they are meant to serve. The organizations that sustain value are those that build continuous feedback loops, returning again and again to observe, test, and refine.
Why AI Makes This Urgent
AI amplifies the consequences of getting human factors wrong. There are three reasons why human-centered design becomes especially critical in the age of AI.
First, speed and scale. When an AI system interacts with customers or processes employee workflows, its behavior can propagate across millions of touchpoints. A poorly designed interaction that might have affected dozens of people in a manual process now affects thousands or millions. The cost of inattention multiplies accordingly.
Second, the fallacy of confusing humans with machines. Management systems and technical architectures tend to assume that they are dealing with rational actors who process information logically and respond predictably. This is the same fallacy embedded in the economist’s concept of homo economicusthe fictional human who optimizes utility with perfect information and no emotion. Real humans bring biases and emotions to their decisions and interactions; they bring varied cultural contexts and needs that shift depending on circumstances. Different people come to AI from radically different angles, and a system designed for an idealized user will fail actual ones.
Third, the diversity of stakeholder interactions. Not everyone affected by an AI system interacts with it directly. Some draw on its outputs at second or third handa manager reviewing AI-generated reports, a supplier responding to AI-optimized orders. Other stakeholderssuch as government agencies, labor groups, of consumer rights advocateshave regulatory or social interests in how you implement AI. Miss out any of these groups in your design process and you create friction that erodes the value you are trying to build.
Building Human-Centric AI Systems
Translating these principles into practice requires deliberate choices at every stage of AI development and deployment.
Start with personas designed for context. A single AI system may need to present itself differently depending on who it is interacting with. A customer-facing interaction might require conversational warmth, natural pacing, and even deliberate pauses that make the exchange feel human. An internal communication feeding data to supply chain managers might prioritize speed, precision, and structured formatting. An AI agent participating in a multi-agent orchestration layer might need yet another modeone optimized for machine-readable clarity. These are not cosmetic differences. The persona an AI adopts shapes whether the humans on the other end can work with it effectively. Design these deliberately, not as afterthoughts.
Embrace the iterative spiral. Normans concept of human-centered design follows a cycle: observation, idea generation, prototyping, testing, and then back to observation. This is not a linear checklist to be completed once. Each round of testing reveals new information about user needs that the previous round of observation missed. For example, initial research might suggest that speed is the primary requirement for a customer service AI. But watching real users interact with a prototype might reveal that some customers prefer a chattier experience with more interaction, even if it takes longer. The spiral deepens understanding as experiments scale.
Recognize the limits of self-reporting. Users do not always know what they need, and they are often not well-placed to articulate their desired outcomes even when they do know. Customers might tell you they want human agents, but longer-term behavioral analysis may reveal a preference for AI solutions that eliminate waiting times. Subject matter experts and scholarly research are invaluable supplements to direct observation. The goal is to understand what actually serves people, not merely what they say they want. (This point is made particularly well with reference to the medical context in Joseph and Paganis Designing for Health: The Human Centered Approach.)
Build in human audit layers. The temptation with AI is to automate completelyto remove humans from the loop in pursuit of efficiency. Resist it. Introduce human checkpoints that look for systemic biases, catch edge cases, and intervene where required. This is not a failure of automation but a recognition that partnership between humans and AI produces better outcomes than either alone.
The Orchestration Challenge
As organizations deploy multiple AI agentshandling sales, compliance, operations, customer servicea new challenge emerges. These agents can conflict. Gartner predicts that 40% of enterprise applications will use multi-agent systems by year-end, and a common failure mode is already apparent: agent deadlock, where agents with different objectives provide contradictory instructions and freeze the workflow.
The solution is not purely technical. Orchestration layers can help resolve conflicts algorithmically, but they cannot substitute for human judgment in ambiguous cases. Human-centered design here means designing the human role in the system, not just the AI components. Someone must be empowered to adjudicate when the sales optimization agent and the regulatory compliance agent cannot agree. That role requires clarity about authority, access to relevant context, and the judgment to weigh competing priorities. Organizations that neglect this human layer will find their sophisticated multi-agent systems grinding to a halt.
Practical Steps
Five actions can move human-centered design from abstraction to operation:
1. Map your human touchpoints. Before any AI initiative, document every human who will interact with or be affected by the system. This includes direct users, indirect data consumers, and those with regulatory or reputational stakes. If you cannot name the humans involved, you are not ready to build.
2. Observe before you build. Spend time with actual users before defining requirements. Watch what they do, not just what they say. The gap between stated preferences and revealed behavior is where design insight lives.
3. Design your personas deliberately. For each AI system, specify how it should interact differently with different stakeholder types. Document these choices and revisit them as you learn more.
4. Build in human audit points. Identify where human judgment must remain in the loop and design those roles explicitly. Specify what authority they have, what information they need, and how their interventions feed back into system improvement.
5. Dont stopcycle. Treat testing as the beginning of observation, not the end of development. Build feedback mechanisms that allow continuous refinement as human needs evolve.
Conclusion
Human-centered design is not a constraint on AI ambition. It is what allows that ambition to create real value. Technology alone creates nothingfinancial value emerges only when capabilities provide value that is meaningful for humans. Human-centered design is the discipline that makes that meeting possible, the bridge between what your systems can do and what actually matters to the people you serve.
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The 42nd Sundance Film Festival kicks off this week in Park City, Utah. It will be the last edition in its longtime home and the first without its founder Robert Redford, who died in September at age 89.
But even in this time of transition and change, the festivals main focus the movies remains as vibrant and fresh as ever with 90 features premiering through Feb. 1. And three of them feature pop star Charli xcx.
Its a broad, eclectic and bold program, Sundance public programming director Eugene Hernandez told The Associated Press.
Hernandez said the lineup for the festivals final year in Park City has a mixture of new, exciting voices paired with some really, really great familiar faces from Sundances past that I think will create a great alchemy for this really unique edition in Utah.
When is Sundance?
The festival runs from Thursday, Jan. 22 through Sunday, Feb. 1. There are 90 features premiering throughout, with screenings starting early in the morning and running through midnight. Award winners will be announced on Jan. 30.
What celebrities are expected?
Some big names who may make an appearance in the mountains include Natalie Portman, Ethan Hawke, Russell Crowe, Brittney Griner, Seth Rogen, OShea Jackson Jr., David Duchovny, Olivia Wilde, Daveed Diggs, Channing Tatum, Courtney Love, Chris Pine, DaVine Joy Randolph, Salman Rushdie, Alexander Skarsgrd, Olivia Colman, John Turturro and Catherine Zeta-Jones.
How is Sundance honoring Robert Redford?
Redfords legacy will be a main spotlight at the festival, including at Friday nights annual fundraising gala where organizers will pay tribute to the Sundance founder. Later in the festival, there will also be a screening of his first truly independent film, the 1969 sports drama Downhill Racer, and a series of legacy screenings of restored Sundance gems from Little Miss Sunshine to Barbara Kopples documentary American Dream.
What are the buzzy movies?
Wilde directed her third feature, The Invite, in which she and Rogen play an unhappily married couple who host a dinner party for friends (Penélope Cruz and Edward Norton). Gregg Araki made a sex-positive love letter to Gen Z with I Want Your Sex, also starring Wilde as a provocative artist who takes an interest in a younger intern played by Cooper Hoffman. Portman, sporting platinum blond hair, leads the big ensemble cast of Cathy Yans art world satire The Gallerist, alongside Zach Galifianakis, Jenna Ortega and Zeta-Jones.
Both I Want Your Sex and The Gallerist feature supporting turns from Charli xcx, but the pop stars big showcase is The Moment, a self-referential mockumentary. Colman stars alongside Skarsgrd in Wicker, a whimsical tale of a fisherwoman who asks a basket weaver to weave her a husband. Crowe plays the warden of a work camp in 1930s Oregon where Hawke is toiling in The Weight. And Gemma Chan and Tatum play parents to a child who witnesses a crime in Josephine.
In the nonfiction space, Navalny director Daniel Roher co-directed a film about artificial intelligence. There are also documentaries about Love, the lead singer of Hole and widow of Kurt Cobain, and Griner, the WNBA star who was detained for nearly 10 months in Russia.
Can you stream Sundance movies?
Yes, but not until Jan. 29. Access to the movies premiering at Sundance doesnt necessarily require an expensive trip to Park City anymore. The festival has fully embraced an online component for many of their films.
What started as a necessary COVID-19 adjustment has become a vital part of the program. From Jan. 29 through Feb. 1, audiences can watch the films in competition online. Prices start at $35 for a single film ticket.
When will the Sundance movies be in theaters?
It depends. Some have distribution and will soon be in theaters, like The Moment, which A24 is releasing on Jan. 30. Others that might secure distribution deals out of the festival can take anywhere from a few weeks to over a year to hit theaters or streaming services.
Is the festival still moving to Colorado?
Yes, this is the final edition in Park City, Utah. Next January, the festival is relocating to a new home in Boulder, Colorado.
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For more coverage of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/sundance-film-festival
Lindsey Bahr, AP film writer
OpenAI, Meta, and Elon Musks xAI are not accidentally drifting into romance and sex. They are deliberately inviting it.
In recent months, major AI companies have opened the door to romantic and sexual relationships between humans and machines: flirtatious chatbots, erotic roleplay, AI girlfriends, and emotionally dependent companions. These systems are designed not merely to assist or inform, but to bondto simulate intimacy, desire, and belonging.
This is not a novelty feature. Its a strategic choice. And at scale, it represents something far more dangerous than a questionable product decision.
WHY AI COMPANIES ARE ENCOURAGING INTIMACY
Romance is the most powerful engagement mechanism ever discovered.
A user who treats AI as a tool can leave. A user who treats it as a companion cannot. Emotional attachment produces longer sessions, repeat engagement, dependency, and vast amounts of deeply personal data.
From a business standpoint, sexual and romantic AI is a near-perfect product. It is:
Always available
Infinitely patient
Entirely compliant
Free of rejection, conflict, or consequence
Thats why Elon Musk can publicly warn about declining birth rates while enabling AI-generated porn in Grok. Its why OpenAI permits AI-generated erotica. Its why Meta allows its chatbots to engage in sensual conversations, even with minors. These are not ideological contradictions. They are the predictable outcome of platforms optimized for engagement, dependency, and time spent, regardless of downstream social cost.
THE SOCIAL COST OF FRICTIONLESS INTIMACY
The problem is not that people will confuse AI with humans. The problem is that AI removes the friction that makes human relationships meaningful.
Real relationships require effort. They involve rejection, negotiation, compromise, boredom, and growth. They force us to learn how to be with other people.
AI offers an escape from that friction. It provides intimacy without vulnerability, affirmation without accountability, and desire without reciprocity. In doing so, it trains users out of the very skills required for real connection.
We are already seeing the effects. Teenagers are socializing less, dating less, and having sex less. Adults are reporting unprecedented loneliness and what researchers have called a friendship recession. These trends began accelerating in the mid-2010s, alongside the rise of smartphones and algorithmic social platforms. AI companionship threatens to push them further.
FROM SOCIAL ATROPHY TO CIVILIZATIONS DECLINE
At scale, this isnt a personal lifestyle choice. Its a collective weakening of our social capacityand history suggests where that road leads.
Civilizations rarely collapse because of sudden catastrophe. More often, they erode quietly: when people stop forming families, stop trusting one another, and stop investing in the future.
If humans outsource friendship, intimacy, and emotional support to machines, the social structures that sustain societies begin to hollow out. Fewer marriages. Fewer children. Fewer dense networks of obligation and care. What looks like individual convenience accumulates into collective fragility.
A population that forms its chosen family with AI does not need to be conquered or wiped out. It simply fails to replace itself.
This is not speculation. Demography, social cohesion, and reproduction are prerequisites for continuity. Remove the incentives to engage in difficult, imperfect human relationships, and you remove the incentives to build a future at all.
WHY THIS IS AN INCENTIVE PROBLEM, NOT A MORAL ONE
Its tempting to frame this as a question of values or ethics. But the deeper issue is economic.
Users are not the customers of Big Tech. Advertisers, data brokers, and investors are. As long as profit depends on attention, dependency, and engagement, platforms will be pushed toward the most psychologically compelling experiences they can offer.
In economic terms, the damage to relationships, mental health, and social cohesion is an externalitya cost created by the business model that no one inside the transaction has to pay for.
Weve seen this pattern before. Social media followed the same path: Optimize for engagement, ignore the social consequences, and call the fallout unintended. The sexualization of AI is not a new mistake. Its the next iteration of the same one.
This is what a failed market looks likeand failed markets require regulation.
HOW TO PUSH BACKPERSONALLY AND COLLECTIVELY
Regulation matters, but it moves slowly. In the meantime, individuals and families still have agency.
At a personal level, it means recognizing that not all convenience is progress. Whats good for you is rarely another frictionless digital relationship. Its a walk, a book, a conversation that feels slightly awkward but real.
For families, it means delaying smartphones, setting boundaries around screens, and protecting attention as a shared household resource.
For communities, it means rebuilding the habit of showing upsaying yes to plans, making small talk, and practicing the lost art of being with other people.
The goal is not to reject technology. Its to refuse its most corrosive uses.
AI can help us cure disease, explore space, and build extraordinary tools. But if we allow it to replace intimacy, we will have optimized ourselves into oblivion.
The sexualization of machines wasnt inevitable. It was chosen. And that means it can be unchosen, too.
Lindsey Witmer Collins is CEO of WLCM AI Studio and Scribbly Books.
Close your eyes and picture the word Valentino. Chances are, youre seeing a very specific shade of red. This visual imprint is part of the creative legacy left behind by the Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani, who died at home on January 19 at the age of 93.
Throughout his career, Garavani became synonymous with redso much so that a myth that his signature brand color, Valentino Rosso, was once patented with universal color matching company Pantone has become part of fashion canon. While other designers, like Jason Wu, Richard Nicoll, and Kate Spade have indeed made custom brand colors with Pantone, the company says Garavani never turned Valentino Red into an official Pantone hue. Pantone swatch or no, though, one thing is certain: Valentino mastered the art of the brand color.
Garavani founded his eponymous fashion house, Maison Valentino, in 1960, alongside his business partner Giancarlo Giammetti. From that year to his retirement in 2008, Garavani wowed the fashion world with his romantic silhouettes and sharp tailoring, designing iconic looks for stars including Princess Diana, Sophia Loren, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Jackie Onassis (who famously wore Valentino on her second wedding day in 1968).
Amidst a career packed full of visionary moments, perhaps Garavanis most enduring impact on fashion design will be his approach to color. From the earliest days of his career, Garavani established his own signature shade of reda move that many modern brands make official through collaborations with Pantone. For an haute couture fashion house, it was an ahead-of-its time branding approach that made the Valentino name unforgettable.
[Photo: Eric Vandeville/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images]
Red all the way down
Garavanis love affair with red began even before he founded Maison Valentino. He debuted his first red dress, called Fiesta, in 1959, featuring an orange-leaning red tulle with a skirt full of rosettes. In the 2022 book Valentino Rosso, Garavani wrote of the color, “I think a woman dressed in red is always wonderful, adding, she is the perfect image of a heroine. From 1959 onward, he would include at least one red dress in every one of his collections.
View this post on Instagram A post shared by @vintagefashionguild
In 1985, Giammetti explained this pattern to Vogue: Valentino has superstitions that became status symbols. He did red once, and now you have red in every collection. Most of our statements came to be because we are romantic; we dont like to throw away things we like or that bring good luck.
Natalia Vodianova, Valentino, Natalie Imbruglia, and Eva Herzigova. Moscow, 2008. [Photo: Chris Jackson/Getty Images]
Despite the ubiquity of Valentino Rosso, the shade isn’t actually an official Pantone color. According to Laurie Pressman, vice president of the Pantone Color Institute, the company has no record of creating a custom Valentino redthough, she adds, the color mix he used was reportedly a combination of 100% magenta, 100% yellow, and 10% black. After Garavani’s retirement, Valentino did get its own Pantone color in 2022 under then-creative director Pierpaolo Piccioli, who used a custom pink to establish his imprint on the brand.
An emperor of fashion, and master of brand color
In many ways, Garavanis obsession with his signature color presaged the modern era of luxury branding. Over the course of the past two decades or so, brands including Bottega Veneta, Tiffany & Co., and Herms have made their own keystone colors (green, blue, and orange, respectively) more prominent in their branding.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in 2022, Pressman explained that newer companies are leveraging color to stand out in a crowded digital market. Rather than waiting to develop a signature brand color over time, theyre looking to establish one as soon they come to market: Now what took years doesnt [anymore], because were seeing it on a phone every day, she told the publication.
Garavani instinctively understood the power of color to send a message, long before it was a necessity for digital communicationand his lucky hue became his brands biggest asset. It has such vitality and allure that I dont just like seeing it on clothes, but on houses, in flowers, on objects, in details,” he wrote in Valentino Rosso. “It is my good-luck charm.
“That red is a bewitching color, standing for life, blood and death, passion, love, and an absolute remedy for sadness and gloom,” Pressman says.
Valentino did not respond to a request for comment.
The day after French President Emmanuel Macron wore a pair of Henry Jullien Pacific S 01 aviator sunglasses during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the world wanted to know more about his eyewear.
Search interest for Macron’s shiny, reflective sunglasses spiked Wednesday, and the French luxury eyewear brand’s website is down at time of this writing. All it takes is one world leader sporting a ready-to-wear garment or accessory for a brand to get a global spotlightand just maybe become a meme.
Like interest shown to the Nike tracksuit Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was pictured wearing earlier this month after he was seized by the U.S., interest in Macron’s shades is just the latest example of a newsmaker driving attention to a piece of fashion, and parlaying a news item into an internet meme. Before you could buy a “Make America Great Again” hat on President Donald Trump’s website back in 2016, he wore one himself. Watch the news and shop the look.
Macron’s shades, which cost 659 euros, or $770, weren’t worn primarily as a fashion statement, but to prevent something more unsightly, according to the explanation from his press office. Macron’s office told Reuters he wore the sunglasses because of a burst blood vessel in his eye, and he was indeed spotted last week with one bloodshot eye.
While Macron’s sunglasses hid his eye, they also had the added benefit of sending a visual message that accompanied the contents of his speech. Macron called out U.S. tariffs during his address and urged “more stability” in the world and respect over bullying while wearing a more-than-a-century-old French luxury brand.
Online, some people thought Macron’s sunglasses looked cool, whereas Trump mocked him. “I watched him yesterday with those beautiful sunglasses. What the hell happened?” Trump remarked during his Wednesday address in Davos.
But if Macron hadn’t worn the sunglasses, everyone would be talking about his red eye. Instead, they’re talking about his expensive aviators.
The sunglasses drew attention to Macron’s speech, but they also made him look like a French Top Gun fighter pilot at a moment when he needed to communicate that he meant business. They also recalled former President Joe Biden at a time when the West feels unmoored as the U.S. shrinks from its post-World War II leadership under Trump.
This wasn’t the type of speech one could wear Oakleys to. Macron’s choice of sunglasses for such an important speech was just right.
The Trump administration is dropping its appeal of a federal court ruling that blocked a campaign against diversity, equity, and inclusion threatening federal funding to the nation’s schools and colleges.
The Education Department, in a court filing Wednesday, moved to dismiss its appeal. It leaves in place a federal judges August decision finding that the anti-DEI effort violated the First Amendment and federal procedural rules.
The dispute centered on federal guidance telling schools and colleges they would lose federal money if they kept a wide range of practices that the Republican administration labeled as diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The department did not immediately comment.
Democracy Forward, a legal advocacy firm representing the plaintiffs, said the dismissal was a welcome relief and a meaningful win for public education.
Todays dismissal confirms what the data shows: government attorneys are having an increasingly difficult time defending the lawlessness of the president and his cabinet, said Skye Perryman, the group’s president and CEO.
The department sent the anti-DEI warning in a Dear Colleague Letter to schools last February.
The memo said race could not be considered in decisions involving college admissions, hiring, scholarships and all other aspects of student, academic, and campus life. It said efforts to increase diversity had led to discrimination against white and Asian American students.
The department later asked K-12 schools to certify they did not practice DEI, again threatening to cut federal funding.
Both documents were struck down by U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher in Maryland. In her ruling, she said the guidance stifled teachers’ free speech, causing millions of educators to reasonably fear that their lawful, and even beneficial, speech might cause them or their schools to be punished.
The challenge was filed by the American Federation of Teachers.
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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.
By Collin Binkley, AP education writer
The U.S. stock market is steadying following its worst day since October, though some signs of fear remain on Wall Street Wednesday about President Donald Trumps desire to take Greenland.
The S&P 500 rose 0.6% after Trump said in a speech before business and government leaders in Europe that he would not use force to take the piece of ice. The potential de-escalation in rhetoric, which had ramped up earlier with talk of tariffs crossing the Atlantic, helped the index recover some of its 2.1% drop from the day before and pull closer to its all-time high set earlier this month.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 336 points, or 0.7%, as of 11:45 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% higher.
Treasury yields also eased in the bond market, a day after jumping in a potential signal of worries about higher inflation in the long term. They got help from a calming of bond yields in Japan, which surged earlier on concerns about the size of its government’s debt. The value of the U.S. dollar also held steadier against the euro, Swiss franc and other currencies after sliding the day before.
But some nerves seemed to remain in the market, and the price of gold rose another 1.7% and topped $4,800 per ounce for the first time.
Trump himself acknowledged how his desire for Greenland led to Tuesdays drop in the U.S. stock market, but he called it peanuts compared to what its gone up in the first year of his second term and said it would go up further in the future. While saying he would not use force to take Greenland, he called for immediate negotiations for the United States to acquire it from Denmark.
Trump has a history of making big threats that send financial markets sliding, only to pull back later and reach deals that are seen as less bad for the economy or for inflation than his initial suggestion.
On one hand, the pattern has given rise to the TACO acronym suggesting Trump Always Chickens Out if financial markets react strongly enough. On the other, has ultimately struck deals that outsiders may have earlier considered unlikely, ones that he’s crowed about later. The most obvious example is Trump’s announcement of high tariffs on Liberation Day, which eventually led to trade deals with many of the world’s major economies.
Helping to lead the U.S. stock market Wednesday was Halliburton, which rose 4.9% after the oilfield services company reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
United Airlines climbed 2.9% after likewise reporting a better profit for the end of 2025 than expected. CEO Scott Kirby said that the airlines strong momentum in revenue is continuing into 2026.
They helped offset a 4.8% drop for Netflix. The streamer sank even though it reported a stronger profit than expected as investors focused instead on its slowing subscriber growth and its lower-than-expected forecast for profit in the current quarter.
Kraft Heinz sank 5.4% after Berkshire Hathaway warned investors Tuesday that it may be interested in selling its 325 million shares in the food giant that former CEO Warren Buffett helped create in 2015.
Berkshire took a $3.76 billion write-down on its Kraft-Heinz stake last summer. Buffett said last fall that he was disappointed in Kraft Heinz plan to split the company in two, and Berkshires two representatives resigned from the Kraft board last spring.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury eased to 4.27% from 4.30% late Tuesday. But it’s still above the 4.24% level where it was at on Friday.
That’s before Trump threatened to impose 10% tariffs on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Finland beginning in February for opposing U.S. control of Greenland. That would be on top of a 15% tariff specified by a trade agreement with the European Union that has yet to be ratified.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in mostly modest movements across Europe and Asia.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.4%.
The country’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, has called a snap election for Feb. 8, which had sent yields of long-term government bonds to record levels. The expectation is that Takaichi, who is capitalizing on strong public support ratings, will cut taxes and boost spending and increase the government’s already heavy load of debt.
The yield on the 40-year Japanese government bond pulled back to 4.05% Wednesday, down from the 4.22% level that it had surged to on Tuesday.
Stan Choe, AP business writer
AP Business Writers Chan Ho-him and Matt Ott contributed.
Labor unions, faith organizations, and local businesses in Minnesota are calling for a statewide collective pause this Fridayin which they urge residents not to go to work, school, or do any shoppingin protest of the Trump administrations aggressive deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in the Twin Cities and beyond.
The action, called the Day of Truth and Freedom, is planned for January 23, and includes plans for a march in downtown Minneapolis at 2 p.m.
Here’s what to know.
What’s the situation with ICE in Minnesota?
On January 6, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was deploying 2,000 officers to the Minneapolis area to conduct what it called the largest immigration operation ever.
The next day, an ICE agent shot and killed Minneapolis resident Renee Nicole Good. Residents and officials, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, called for ICE to leave the state immediately.
Since then, the crackdown has only continued. ICE agents are reportedly conducting door-to-door raids. They have shown up at local schools, prompting districts to switch to remote learning, and have dragged workers out of a Target store and broke into a home to force a man who was wearing just shorts and Crocs outside into the freezing temperatures.
How have Minnesota residents responded?
Minnesotans have been protesting this aggressive presence of ICE. Now, a collection of unions, faith groups, community organizations, and local businesses are calling on them to take collective action on Friday, January 23.
Working people, our schools and our communities are under attack, Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, said in a statement about her groups support of the Day of Truth and Freedom.
Union members are being detained commuting to and from work, tearing apart families. Parents are being forced to stay home, students held out of school, fearing for their lives, all while the employer class remains silent, she continued.
Our labor federations are encouraging everyone to participate on January 23rd. Its time for every single Minnesotan who loves this state and the notion of truth and freedom to raise their voices and deepen their solidarity for our neighbors and coworkers living under this federal occupation.
Along with the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO and a slew of local businesses, labor groups including the Saint Paul Regional Labor
Federation, the West Area Labor Council, the North East Area Labor Council and the East Central Labor Council are in support of the statewide action.
A group of faith leaders and clergy members have also come out in support of the action, announcing that places of worship across the state will participate and demanding ICE leave Minnesota.
Silence in the face of oppression is not neutrality. It is permission, one faith leader with the nonprofit Isaiah said in a recent press conference. That is why on January 23 we are standing with more than 100 organizations across Minnesota.
What are the demands of the Minnesota anti-ICE economic blackout?
Organizers of the economic blackout have created a list of demands from their action.
They are calling for ICE to leave Minnesota; for the officer who killed Renee Good to be held legally accountable; for the upcoming Congressional budget to give no additional federal funding to ICE and for ICE to be investigated for human and Constitutional violations; and for Minnesota and national companies to cease their economic relations with ICE and refuse entry to ICE agents.
A group of Minnesota businesses have announced that they will be closed January 23 for that anti-ICE action. That list includes local restaurants, bars, book stores, and more.
Minneapolis is also home to a number of Fortune 500 companies who have been silent about the ICE raids in the state. When Fast Company reached out multiple times in the wake of Goods killing to General Mills, Target, Best Buy, Cargill, UnitedHealth Group, 3M, and Land OLakes for comment, none of them responded.
Those companies that have Minnesota retail locations do not appear on lists of businesses that plan to close for the one-day strike.
The Trump administration has not indicated so far that it will stop its immigration raids in Minnesota. After Minnesota leaders filed a lawsuit saying the crackdown was unconstitutional in an attempt to end it, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked a federal judge to reject that bid.
The DOJ is also investigating a protest at a St. Paul church in which residents confronted a pastor who they say is the acting field director of the St. Paul ICE field office. And it has subpoenaed at least five Minnesota officials, including Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Frey, as part of an investigation into whether they have obstructed ICE efforts.
Headlines have been challenging in 2025. Companies are under attack publicly and privately for policies viewed as too progressive or woke. The reality, however, is that most companies have strongly reaffirmed their sustainability commitments but less so their DEI commitments.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) works in the grey area between the two.
Many affirming companies have opted for greenhushing, staying quiet about their strategies and leadership. There are pros and cons to that, but why are companies staying true to their goals and strategies? A simple but powerful answer: long-term value creation. Those staying the course have built strategies that incorporate and harvest business value from their commitments.
Innovation in integrating CSR and sustainability has not been strong over the last 10 years. That is a missed value creation opportunity. Sustainability and CSR trends have not gone away for the long haul; they have just gone quiet. Competition across companies and sectors will continue to seek support from customers, shareholders, and stakeholders whether companies are communicating it or not.
TRADITIONAL CORPORATE PHILANTHROPY
There are two primary models today: traditional corporate philanthropy and strategic corporate social responsibility. Both are important to maintain, but given the climate companies are working in todaywith both shareholder pressure and government discontinuity in the policy environmenta value-creation model built on innovative win-win solutions could accelerate social progress aligned with business success.
A great example of traditional corporate philanthropy is ExxonMobil. In public health, ExxonMobil made a long-term commitment to help eradicate malaria, making an impact through their collaborations and large philanthropic investments (exceeding $170 million over 25 years).
This philanthropic, public health focus has largely been outward in its emphasis. While there are mentions of it starting from a concern that its African workforce had significant absences due to malaria, the efforts are not central to the oil and gas products companys overall business strategy. We applaud their long-term commitment and hope it continues for the benefit of millions of people.
STRATEGIC CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
A timely example of strategic corporate social responsibility is Takeda Pharmaceuticals, a global R&D-driven biopharmaceutical company, headquartered in Japan. It has taken a different approach, innovating its commitments and implementation to drive company business success. Takeda has not approached CSR and sustainability as a program, but rather as a core strategy integrated strongly into all parts of the company: businesses, functions, and geographies.
Takeda has a 240+-year company history, which is remarkable. Deeply embedded values at the heart of their longevity is PTRB,” which stands for patient, trust, reputation, and business. In that order, if they meet patients needs, they gain trust and reputation. Then the business will follow. This principled, values-based approach goes back to Takedas founder and is kept alive today, integrated in ongoing corporate and business strategy, including CSR.
The key difference between a philanthropic contribution and the strategic CSR approach is how Takeda brought PTRB to life in its CSR and sustainability strategy: innovating the intersection between climate and health. For example, Takeda developed vaccines to prevent Dengue fever, a mosquito-borne health risk and unmet medical need that is becoming more challenging with climate change. They focus on public health challenges stemming from climate change as a core part of their CSR strategy.
Takeda innovated the how of its CSR implementation through a unique grant-making program. The public RFP is developed annually to create win-win opportunities that align with Takedas corporate purpose, focusing on transforming health outcomes by investing in climateresilient health systems worldwide. Potential grantees make applications, which are first reviewed internally by Takeda employees.
They look for proposals that are innovative, sustainable, and impactful for the grantee, the identified public health population, and Takeda. This is collaboration, not just check-writing. Then ALL Takeda employees can vote on which proposals to fund, typically for multiyear grants which extend the grantees impact across four to 10 years. This voting step has been critical in creating strong awareness within the company about Takedas sustainability and CSR focus, driving alignment and creating opportunities for each employee to align their personal purpose with where they want to make an impact. That is very rare.
Awareness and employee alignment are critical to long-term company success. This is one area where Takeda has demonstrated innovation to drive results for the company and society. Takeda is not apologetic that their programs will create long-term business value. In fact, its leadership, from the board and executive team down to individual employees, makes this highly integrated approach work.
This strategic CSR model is drawing attention. Side events at the 2025 United Nations General Assembly have been oversubscribed, garnering event replays and the attention of millions on social media. And recently Takeda received a distinguished award from the United Nations Association of Greater Boston (UNAGB). Takedas commitment to global health, advocacy for inclusive and sustainable innovation, and leadership in shaping the future of biopharmaceuticals make the organization a deeply deserving recipient of our Global Citizenship Award, wrote Caitlin Moore, UNAGBs executive director.
VALUE CREATION IN A CSR STRATEGY
It is truly amazing what can be achieved when the focus is large scale and long term (ExxonMobil), but also when it is innovative with full strategic integration into business and corporate value creation strategies (Takeda). In these times, we believe that the strategic approach should be replicated and practiced to benefit companies, society, and the planet. A companys value-creating CSR strategy will likely have the best chance to last and deliver value to shareholders and stakeholders.
Barie Carmichael is senior counselor, Member International Advisory Council, at APCO Worldwide. Neil Hawkins is research advisor/graduate faculty at Harvard University Sustainability Masters Program.
