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The director of the nation’s top public health agency has been fired after less than one month in the job, and several top agency leaders have resigned.Susan Monarez isn’t “aligned with” President Donald Trump’s agenda and refused to resign, so the White House terminated her, spokesman Kush Desai said Wednesday night.Her lawyers said she was targeted for standing up for science.The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services had announced her departure in a brief social media post late Wednesday afternoon. Her lawyers responded with a statement saying Monarez had neither resigned nor been told she was fired.“When CDC Director Susan Monarez refused to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted,” attorneys Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell wrote in a statement.“This is not about one official. It is about the systematic dismantling of public health institutions, the silencing of experts, and the dangerous politicization of science. The attack on Dr. Monarez is a warning to every American: our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within,” they said.Her departure coincided with the resignations this week of at least four top CDC officials. The list includes Dr. Debra Houry, the agency’s deputy director; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, head of the agency’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, head of its National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; and Dr. Jennifer Layden, director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology.In an email seen by the Associated Press, Houry lamented the crippling effects on the agency from planned budget cuts, reorganization, and firings.“I am committed to protecting the public’s health, but the ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency,” she wrote.She also noted the rise of misinformation about vaccines during the current Trump administration, and alluded to new limits on CDC communications.“For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political pauses or interpretations,” she wrote.Daskalakis worked closely with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. remade the committee by firing everyone and replacing them with a group that included several vaccine skepticsone of whom was put in charge of a COVID-19 vaccines workgroup.In his resignation letter, Daskalakis lamented that the changes put “people of dubious intent and more dubious scientific rigor in charge of recommending vaccine policy.” He described Monarez as “hamstrung and sidelined by an authoritarian leader.” He added: “Their desire to please a political base will result in death and disability of vulnerable children and adults.”He also wrote: “I am unable to serve in an environment that treats CDC as a tool to generate policies and materials that do not reflect scientific reality.”HHS officials did not immediately respond to questions about the resignations.Some public health experts decried the loss of so many of CDC’s scientific leaders.“The CDC is being decapitated. This is an absolute disaster for public health,” said Public Citizen’s Dr. Robert Steinbrook.Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota infectious disease researcher, said the departures were “a serious loss for America.”“The loss of experienced, world-class infectious disease experts at CDC is directly related to the failed leadership of extremists currently in charge of the Department of Health and Human Services,” he said. “They make our country less safe and less prepared for public health emergencies.”Monarez, 50, was the agency’s 21st director and the first to pass through Senate confirmation following a 2023 law. She was named acting director in January and then tapped as the nominee in March after Trump abruptly withdrew his first choice, David Weldon.She was sworn in on July 31less than a month ago, making her the shortest-serving CDC director in the history of the 79-year-old agency.Her short time at CDC was tumultuous. On August 8, at the end of her first full week on the job, a Georgia man opened fire from a spot at a pharmacy across the street from CDC’s main entrance. The 30-year-old man blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for making him depressed and suicidal. He killed a police officer and fired more than 180 shots into CDC buildings before killing himself.No one at CDC was injured, but it shell-shocked a staff that already had low morale from other recent changes.Monarez had scheduled an “all hands meeting” meeting for the CDC staffseen as an important step in addressing concerns among staff since the shootingfor Monday this week. But HHS officials meddled with that, too, canceling it and calling Monarez to Washington, D.C., said a CDC official who was not authorized to talk about it and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.The Atlanta-based federal agency was initially founded to prevent the spread of malaria in the U.S. Its mission was later expanded, and it gradually became a global leader on infectious and chronic diseases and a go-to source of health information.This year it’s been hit by widespread staff cuts, resignations of key officials, and heated controversy over long-standing CDC vaccine policies upended by KennedyDuring her Senate confirmation process, Monarez told senators that she values vaccines, public health interventions, and rigorous scientific evidence. But she largely dodged questions about whether those positions put her at odds with Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic who has criticized and sought to dismantle some of the agency’s previous protocols and decisions.Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, praised Monarez for standing up to Kennedy and called for him to be fired.“We cannot let RFK Jr. burn what’s left of the CDC and our other critical health agencies to the ground,” she said in a statement Wednesday night.The Washington Post first reported Monarez was ousted. AP reporter Amanda Seitz in Washington contributed to this report. 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. Mike Stobbe, AP Medical Writer
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E-Commerce
For nearly two years, George Arison, the CEO of LGBTQ+ dating app Grindr, has been promising to bring an “AI Wingman” to the social networks 14.9 million monthly users. The full wingman experience has thus far proven elusive, but alongside the company’s earnings in early August, Arison announced a plan to overhaul the company’s approach and become an AI-native company. What, exactly, does it mean for Grindr to be AI-native? In a slide deck that accompanied Grindr’s Q2 2025 results, the company declared, To us, AI-native means rebuilding product, architecture, and operations with intelligence embedded at every layernot bolted on as a feature.” When I ask Arison myself, he explains that it’s an opportunity to roll out custom-built tools for Grindr users, especially when off-the-shelf models lack specific knowledge of the LGBTQ+ community. “There is a huge opportunity to fill that gap and give Grindr a significant long-term competitive advantage, he says. The companys plan for its gAI (pronounced Gay I) is about as close to rebirth as a 16-year-old app can getif it can pull it off. In speaking with Arison, analysts, and Grindr users, I learned that strong AI features are built from the ground up, need to actually make the app function better, and that Arison’s approach might just be ambitious enough to work. As he notes, Grindr’s been an innovator before. Could it really be the first company to make the first AI move on corporate America? Starting on solid footing Grindr has made good on its financial outlook for the year, reporting net income of $17 million for the second quarter of 2025, a strong improvement over the companys $22 million net loss in the same period last year. Total revenue for the quarter was $104 million, up 27% year-over-year. Arison sees these results as a strong launchpad to Grindr becoming an AI innovator. As laid out in its latest shareholder letter, Grindr intends to become AI-native by designing an entirely new suite of in-house AI technologies and AI-powered features, some built from scratch, some powered by third-party providers. Theyll use Grindrs data to cater specifically to the apps primarily gay and bisexual male audiencethough whether that audience will embrace an AI overhaul remains to be seen. Grindrs plan also means building AI into the companys operational side, making the tech integral to its day-to-day operations. From Arisons perspective, embracing AI is keeping with Grindrs legacy as a first-mover in techits location based grid of nearby users was truly novel when it launched. [Grindr] was the first geolocation-based product of this kindnot just for the gay world, but for any worldwhen it launched, but it doesn’t really get credit for being this massive technology innovator, he says. I don’t want that to happen on the AI side. From AI to A-list So far, Grindrs AI-first approach hasnt yielded much in terms of actual features. Besides the only AI-powered tool for users to roll out before the AI-native pivot announcement is called A-List. Built using Amazon Web Services, Anthropic’s Claude Sonnet, and Metas Llama 3 models, A-List is designed to help users jump back into prior conversations through tailored summaries. It might remind you whos only interested in hooking up, who could make for a great long-term partner, or who youve already said youre planning to meet up with. So many conversations get lost in your inbox historically, Arison says of the inspiration for A-List. We’re not just summarizing a conversation, but actually trying to take the content from that conversation and what we know about you, and put people into different buckets of how to explore them. Its the first step, he says, toward being able to ask the app to recommend similar profiles, or in other words, toward gAI serving as the digital wingman of his dreams. But currently, A-List is only available to a select group of Grindr usersactually, a select group of a select group. The feature is only live for 25% of users on Grindrs top-tier Unlimited plan, which costs $40 a month (some 1.2 million users paid for Grindr in Q2, but the company doesnt break down subscribers by tier). Its rollout, along with other planned gAI features, has been slow-going, due in part to the constraints of existing open-source models. Specifically, Arison says theyre unequipped to handle the gay-specific slang and terminology that Grindr users speak with, not to mention the often sexual nature of conversations in the app. Thus, Grindrs ground-up approach: a new AI model tailor-made for the gays, X-rated exchanges included. If we can retrain models that are open-source today more appropriately towards our audience, using the data that we use and possess, that’s a unique advantage that is going to be hard for anybody else to replicate,” Arison says. Yi Zhou, the author of AI Native Enterprise: The Leader’s Guide to AI-Powered Business Transformation and the founder and chief AI officer at consulting firm ArgoLong, says that Grindr’s announcement marks a pivotal moment, not just for the company, but for how digital platforms serving niche, highly engaged communities can be reimagined through AI. He adds, What stands out is their commitment to build an AI platform from the ground up, rather than laying AI onto existing infrastructure. That distinction matters, because true AI-native enterprises don’t just automate the process. They restructure how value is created, personalized, and delivered in motion. Going global with gAI Grindrs planned gAI features also include Discover, which was already briefly live for some users before being pulled to make improvements. Though Grindr is best known for its proximity-based grid of potential connections, Discover embraces the opposite, showing users recommendations from around the world. Arison is particularly excited about a third gAI feature called Insights, which will offer added details about profiles that users havent listed themselves, such as the demographics theyre most likely to respond to. I think users will find that really, really helpful, especially when so many of Grindrs profilesfor any number of reasons, including mutual privacy or concerns around people’s safetyhave very limited information about them. (He stresses that these features will require users consent, both to see Insights about other users and let other users see Insights about them.) [Image: Grindr] Will users embrace AI in the app? Grindrs planned gAI features are novel. Theyre innovative. They present an entirely new potential for the future of dating apps and social networks at large. And thats all well and good, but it doesnt answer perhaps the biggest question raised by Grindrs announcement: Did anyone actually ask for this? The short answer is nonot in AI-specific terms, at any rate. Duncan Roberts, an associate director of research at professional services company Cognizant, regularly conducts studies on what being AI-native means for both consumers and companies. His teams 2025 report New Minds, New Markets, shows that consumers generally dont value AI in itself, but in the ways it can improve on convenience and efficiency. People don’t want to have AI thrust down their throats all the timethey just want their stuff to work, Roberts says. I think if a company like Grindr can embed it as such into their product with it almost being invisible, but make their product better and serve their customers better, then it will help them out. Arison, for his part, has no doubt that if Grindr creates quality AI features, consumer demandand, ideally, more subscribers paying for these toolswill follow. Q2s million-plus paid users for Grindrs Xtra and Unlimited tiers ($19.99 and $39.99 a month, respectively) represented 16% year-over-year growth. Most of the time, users don’t know what they want when there’s a technology shift, he says. And the reason they don’t know is because they don’t know what the technology is capable of. Arisons outlook is rosy, but Zhou and Roberts agree that a major transformation like the one planned for Grindr doesnt come without its fair share of potential downsides. Grindrs opportunity lies in doing what most companies have not: treat AI not as an add-on, but as the operating system of the enterprise, Zhou says. Every company has a big vision, but if you want to win the game, you have to execute it extremely well. I hope that Grindr could set a precedent [for] how a social platform evolves into a trusted, AI-driven community ecosystem. Roberts, meanwhile, points out that a drastic shift to new tech can alienate not only employees, who can be resistant to changes in company culture and workflow, but also consumers if handled incorrectly. If you start pushing AI [features] out to them that’s not thought out, that’s generic, or it doesn’t work, suddenly they see a degradation of performance in the app since the cutoverthey’ll just leave, he says. They’ll go somewhere else. Arison knows those risks exist. They simply dont concern him. Whats more concerning, he says, is the thought of being left behind as other companies embrace AI and surge ahead. If we don’t do this, there’s a massive risk. If we do it, then I don’t see a risk. I think that’s the way technology companies need to evolve, Arison says. I just see it as a huge opportunity.
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E-Commerce
Retail store closures have been a common story in 2025. This month alone, the U.K.-based lifestyle and apparel chain FatFace announced that it would shutter its remaining stores in America. And just this week, tween accessory and apparel chain Claires listed hundreds of store closures in a revised bankruptcy filing. But at least one retailer has been bucking the trend of closures. Specialty discount chain Five Below has announced that it plans to open around 150 new stores during its fiscal year 2025. The company, which has been popular with Gen Z shoppers, appears to have an edge over some of its competitors as consumers who are worried about economic instability rein in their spending. Here are the upcoming locations, along with key details about the openings. Five Below announces 150 new stores for 2025 Yesterday, Five Below, Inc. (Nasdaq: FIVE) reported its second-quarter earnings for fiscal 2025. For the most part, the company had a good quarter. Here are the most important metrics it reported for the three-month period ending August 2: Net sales: $1.02 billion (up 23.7% from the same quarter a year earlier) Net income: $42.8 million (up from $33 million in the same quarter a year earlier) Adjusted diluted income per common share: 81 cents (versus 54 cents in the same quarter a year earlier) Announcing the results, Five Below CEO Winnie Park said they exceeded our sales and earnings expectations and demonstrated the effectiveness of our strategy and are a testament to the hard work, dedication and tight collaboration of our teams across the company, especially in an ever-changing tariff environment. In addition to the above numbers, Five Below also announced that it opened 32 net new stores during the quarter, bringing the companys total number of locations to 1,858 stores across 44 states. For the first half of its fiscal 2025, the company has now opened 87 net new stores. It also revealed that for its current third quarter, it expects to open another 50 or so net new stores. For all of fiscal 2025, it expects to open approximately 150 net new stores. With 87 of those locations already opened, that means Five Below expects to open around an additional 63 locations during the last six months of its fiscal 2025. Where are the upcoming Five Below stores? Five Below did not provide a full list of the locations for its upcoming stores. Fast Company reached out to the retailer for more details and will update this post if we hear back. However, Five Below does list some of its upcoming locations on its website. As of Thursday, those locations consisted of 23 stores across 18 states. The opening dates for these locations are August 29 or September 5, 12, 19, or 26, depending on the venue. Alabama 66 Market Terrace, Suite 600, Oneonta, AL 35121 2759 Eastern Boulevard, Montgomery, AL 36117 Arizona 7515 West Encanto Boulevard, Suite 10, Phoenix, AZ 85035 Arkansas 2203 S Promenade Blvd, Suite 20415, Rogers, AR 72758 California 3902 Missouri Flat Rd, Placerville, CA 95667 580 Francisco Blvd W, San Rafael, CA 94901 Florida 2539 Countryside Boulevard, 7A, Clearwater, FL 33761 Georgia 853 Rowland Drive, Moultrie, GA 31768 249 Robert C. Daniel Jr. Parkway, Augusta, GA 30909 1892 Mount Zion Road, Morrow, GA 30260 Illinois 5247 IL Route 251, Peru, IL 61354 450 River Oaks West, Calumet City, IL 60409 Indiana 2363 Hwy 135 NW, Suite 113, Corydon, IN 47112 Iowa 501 Bass Pro Dr, Suite 400, Altoona, IA 50009 Maryland 5600 The Alameda, Baltimore, MD 21239 Michigan 5114 28th Street SE, Suite A, Grand Rapids, MI 49512 Mississippi 194 Covenant Dr., Batesville, MS 38606 Missouri 21 Conley Road, Columbia, MO 65201 New Jersey 3131 John F. Kennedy Blvd, Suite B, Union City, NJ 07087 New York PRELIM: 2255 E Ridge Rd, Irondequoit, NY 14622 Ohio 141 Wooster Rd N, Barberton, OH 44203 Tennessee 1633 Decatur Pike, Athens, TN 37303 Wisconsin 1501 N Broadway St, Suite #5, Menomonie, WI 54751 Five Below stock price rises After Five Below announced its earnings yesterday, shares of the discount retailer are rising in premarket trading this morning, as of the time of this writing. Currently, FIVE stock is up over 4.5% to $151 a share. FIVE shares closed up 1.71% yesterday. Before todays premarket rise, FIVE shares had jumped more than 37.5% since the year began. Over the past 12 months, FIVE shares have surged 75% as of yesterdays close. Its continued opening of new stores is a sign that the companys leadership has faith in its growth trajectory, even as retailers across America are closing their doors. Earlier this year, Coresight Research forecast that approximately 15,000 retail locations across America would close i 2025, while around 5,800 would open. With Five Belows continued store expansion, it is clearly in the latter group.
Category:
E-Commerce
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