Until recently, when you looked at a house for sale on Zillow, you could see property-specific scores for the risk of flooding, wildfires, wind from storms and hurricanes, extreme heat, and air quality. The numbers came from First Street, a nonprofit that uses peer-reviewed methodologies to calculate “climate risk.” But Zillow recently removed those scores after pressure from CRMLS, one of the large real-estate listing services that supplies its data.
The reality is these models have been around for over five years, says Matthew Eby, CEO of First Street, which also provides its data to sites like Realtor.com and Redfin. (Zillow started displaying the information in 2024, but Realtor.com incorporated First Street’s “Flood Scores” in 2020.) And what’s happened is the markets gotten very tight. And now they’re looking for ways to try and make it easier to sell homes at the expense of homebuyers.
The California Regional MLS, like others across the country, controls the database that feeds real estate listings to sites like Zillow. The organization said in a statement to the New York Times that it was suspicious after seeing predictions of high flood risk in areas that hadnt flooded in the past. When Fast Company asked for an example of a location, they pointed to a neighborhood in Huntington Beachbut that area actually just flooded last week.
In a statement, First Street said that it stands behind the accuracy of its scores. “Our models are built on transparent, peer-reviewed science and are continuously validated against real-world outcomes. In the CRMLS coverage area, during the Los Angeles wildfires, our maps identified over 90% of the homes that ultimately burned as being at severe or extreme riskour highest risk ratingand 100% as having some level of risk, significantly outperforming CalFire’s official state hazard maps. So when claims are made that our models are inaccurate, we ask for evidence. To date, all the empirical validation shows our science is working as designed and providing better risk insight than the tools the industry has relied on historically.”
Zillow’s trust in the data has not changed, and that data is important to consumers: In one survey, it saw that more than 80% of buyers considered the data when shopping for a house. But the company said in a statement that it updated its climate risk product experience to adhere to varying MLS requirements.
Its not clear exactly what happened: In response to questions for this story, CRMLS now says it only asked Zillow to remove “predictive numbers” and flood map layers on listings, while Zillow says the MLS board voted to demand they block all of the data. Its also not clear what would have happened if Zillow hadnt made any changes, though in theory, the MLS could have stopped giving the site access to its listings.
Images of Zillows climate risk tools from a 2024 press release [Image: Zillow]
Zillow still links to First Street’s website in each listing, so homebuyers can access the information, but it’s less easy to find. The site also still includes a map that consumers can use to view overall neighborhood risk, if they take the extra step to click on checkboxes for flooding, fire, or other hazards. But the main scores are gone.
Obviously, seeing that a particular house has a high flood risk or fire risk can hurt sales. Nevertheless, after First Street first launched, the National Association of Realtors put out guidance saying that the information was usefuland that since realtors aren’t experts in things like flood risk, they shouldn’t try to tell buyers themselves that a particular house is safe, even if it hasn’t flooded in the past.
First Street’s flood data goes further than that of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which uses outdated flood maps. It also incorporates more climate predictions, along with the risk of flooding from heavy rainfall and surface runoff, not just flooding from rivers or the coast. And it includes predictions of small amounts of flooding (for example, whether an inch of water is likely to reach the property). Buyers can dig deeper to figure out how much that amount of flooding might affect a particular house.
It’s not surprising that some high risk scores have upset home sellers who haven’t experienced flooding or other problems in the past. But as the climate changes, past experiences don’t guarantee what a property will be like for the next 30 years. Take the example of North Carolina, where some residents hadn’t ever experienced flooding until Hurricane Helene dumped unprecedented rainfall on their neighborhoods.
Redfin, another site that uses the data, plans to continue providing it, though sellers have the option to ask for it to be removed from a particular home if they believe it’s inaccurate. (First Street also allows homeowners to ask for their data to be revised if there’s a problem, and then reviews the accuracy.)
“Redfin will continue to provide the best-possible estimates of the risks of fires, floods, and storms,” Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather said in a statement. “Homebuyers want to know, because losing a home in a catastrophe is heartbreaking, and insuring against these risks is getting more and more expensive.”
Realtor.com is working with CRMLS and data providers to look into the issues raised by the MLS over the scores. “We aim to balance transparency about the evolving environmental risks to what is often a familys biggest investment, with an understanding that the available data can sometimes be limited,” the company said in a statement. “For this reason we always encourage consumers to consult a local real estate professional for guidance or to learn more. When issues are raised, we work with our data partners to review them and make updates when appropriate.”
If more real estate sites take down the scores, it’s likely that some buyers won’t see the information at all. First Street says that while it’s good that Zillow still includes a link to its site, the mpact is real. “Whenever you add friction into something, it just is used less,” Eby says. “And so not having that information at the tip of your fingers is definitely going to have an impact on the millions of people that go to Zillow every day to see it.”
The Trump administration says it may withhold Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits from recipients in 22 states and Washington, D.C starting as early as next week, unless the states in question provide information on those receiving the assistance to the federal government. The states have argued that the information being requested is private, and that handing it over would be a violation of privacy laws.On Tuesday, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins addressed the issue at a Cabinet meeting. Rollins said that cooperation from all 50 states is necessary in order to root out this fraud and to protect the American taxpayer,” doubling down on previous statements alleging that SNAP benefits are going to people who should not be receiving them, or the deceased. “We’ve arrested more than 120 people with SNAP fraud,” Rollins said in a recent News Nation interview.
A USDA spokesperson said, per Newsweek, “USDA established a SNAP integrity team to analyze not only data provided by states, but to scrub all available information to end indiscriminate welfare fraud. 28 States and Guam joined us in this fight; but states like California, New York, and Minnesota, among 19 other blue States, keep fighting us.”
While fraud in the program has been a frequent talking point from the USDA, there isn’t a lot of research to back the claim that SNAP fraud is widespread. According to a U.S. Congressional Research Service report from April 2025, “SNAP fraud is rare, according to available data and reports, but there is no single data point that reflects all the forms of fraud in SNAP.”
Last week, officials in the 22 states that are pushing back over the issue, and Washington, D.C., sued the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The suit alleges that the USDA is arbitrarily excluding many lawful permanent residents from receiving SNAP benefits by misinterpreting new eligibility provisions set forth by the Trump administration’s “Big, Beautiful Bill”. The legislation expanded work requirements to include those ages 55 to 64, homeless people, and more. According to the suit, the legislation is being used to prevent individuals who once held the status of refugees, individuals granted asylum, or parolees from gaining eligibility for SNAP once they become citizens.
Prior to Rollins’ latest statement, SNAP has already been under siege in recent months with the government shutdown quickly impacting the program. On Nov. 3, the Trump administration said that it would pay just 50% of recipients normal SNAP allotments for the month, leaving millions of Americans wondering how they would make ends meet.
Rollins also recently stated that all 42 million SNAP recipients would have to reapply in order to maintain their benefits, in an assertion that some leaders have pushed back on. Last month, Senators Amy Klobuchar and Ben Ray Luján addressed Rollins and the USDA in a letter advocating against the organizations efforts to force SNAP recipients to reapply for assistance, calling it “more red tape” that will limit families’ ability to receive aid. “This reapplication requirement comes after repeated efforts to deny Americans in need of essential nutrition assistance, the Senators wrote in the letter.It continued, In addition to unprecedented cuts to SNAP enacted earlier this summer, decisions to disrupt food assistance during the shutdown have created additional uncertainty. We are therefore troubled that the Administration could choose, at this moment, to add additional red tape that creates duplicative and unnecessary barriers to accessing nutrition assistance for families.
As the holidays approach, and I walk through our historic mill in Faribault, Minnesota, Im reminded of how much work mattersnot just for what it produces, but for what it represents. At Faribault Mill, we make artisanal wool and cotton blankets the old-fashioned way: spinning, weaving, and finishing under one roof, much as we have since the companys founding in 1865. We also design, market, sell, and ship those same products directly to consumers across the country. In a world where most companies outsource one step or another, we do it all.
That makes us one of the few fully vertically integrated manufacturers left in America, and it gives us a unique perspective on the value of work, across every discipline and title.
In our company, blue collar and white collar arent separate worlds; theyre on the same team. The loom operator depends on the marketing manager. The salesperson depends on the sewers to make what we promise. And the shipping team depends on both to ensure every order arrives on time. We succeed only when every link in that chain works together.
Thats not just true in our millits true across America. Yet too often, our society talks about work in ways that divide instead of connect. We frame debates as worker versus employer, white collar versus blue, corporate versus labor, us versus them. But those are false choices. To be pro-worker you must also be pro-employer, and to be pro-business you must also be pro-employee.
THE DIGNITY OF ALL WORK
I spend a lot of time on our mill floor, and what I see there is something deeply American: people showing up, solving problems, learning trades, and taking pride in making something real.
But I also see the same pride in our officesin the designers who obsess over every product detail, the digital marketers who bring our brand to life online, and the customer service team who answers the phone when someone calls to say theyre gifting a Faribault blanket to their new grandchild.
All of it is work, all of it is valuable, and all of it deserves respect.
A FULLY INTEGRATED AMERICAN BUSINESS
At Faribault Mill, we dont just make products, we build relationships from start to finish. We source the fiber, spin it into yarn, weave it into fabric, finish it into blankets, and then sell it directly to customers in stores, online, and through retail partners. We photograph every product, write every description, and ship every order ourselvesoften from the same building where it was made.
That level of integration means everyone at our company has a stake in the outcome. The weaver on the floor sees the final product featured in our marketing mailers. The marketing team understands the work that goes into running a loom. The warehouse team sees firsthand how a surge in holiday demand affects production.
This connectedness creates a sense of shared purposethe belief that what we do matters not just to the business, but to one another. Its not always easy. There are late nights, tight deadlines, and tough decisions, but its real and its honest, and its exactly what American work should be.
THE HOLIDAYS AND THE SPIRIT OF WORK
During the holidays, our mill runs at full tilt. Orders spike, machines run longer, and the warehouse buzzes with activity. But for our team, this season isnt just about sales. Its about the satisfaction of knowing that tens of thousands of families will open a box on Christmas morning and find something made by hand, by people who care.
Thats the magic of work when its done with purpose.
Its also a reminder that behind every productwhether its a wool blanket, a meal in a restaurant, or a car rolling off the linethere are people who make it possible. Workers and managers; designers and operators; the seen and the unseen.
THE PARTNERSHIP THAT POWERS PROGRESS
Work in America has never been a solo act. The great advances in our history, from the Industrial Revolution to the digital age, have all come from teamwork and partnership. It is between inventors and operators, owners and workers, management and labor.
The most sustainable companies arent those that treat workers as costs or management as adversaries. Theyre the ones who understand shared success. At Faribault Mill, we compete every day with global brands that make things cheaper overseas. We cant win on price alone, but we can win on quality, authenticity, and the strength of our team. That requires trust between every person in the company, from the spinning floor to the boardroom.
We dont get everything right, but we try to model whats possible when a business honors both sides of the work equation.
A CALL FOR RESPECT AND RENEWAL
This holiday season, as we reflect on what unites us, I hope we can start to see work itself as sacred, not just a means to an end, but as the connective tissue of a healthy society.
That means valuing people who make things just as much as those who market them. It means celebrating both the weaver and the web developer, the craftsman and the creative, the shop-floor supervisor and the CEO.
The future of American enterprise depends on both.
Ross Widmoyer is president and CEO of Faribault Mill.
In 1933, construction workers building the Rockefeller Center in New York City put up a tree around Christmas to celebrate the season. This simple action unintentionally started a beloved holiday tradition the whole world would come to enjoy.
Fast-forward to tonight, and a much larger tree will be illuminated, signaling that the holiday season has officially begun. The 2025 Rockefeller Tree Lighting ceremony will be televised tonight at 8 p.m. ET.
Heres everything you need to know about the jolly event, including how to tune in.
The 411 about this years Rockefeller Christmas tree
Every year, head gardener Erik Pauze tirelessly searches for the perfect tree. This years specimen is a Norway spruce donated by the Russ family of East Greenbush, New York.
The 75-foot wonder traveled 130 miles to spread holiday cheer, and is believed to be 75 years old.
After its illumination duties end in mid-January, the lumber of the tree will be donated to Habitat for Humanity to build homes for those in need.
How is the Rockefeller Christmas tree decorated?
A whopping 50,000 LED lights will make the tree shine brightly for all to enjoy.
On top will sit an equally impressive Swarovski star. This dazzling tree-topper weighs in at 900 pounds and is nine feet in diameter. It is made up of 70 spikes and more than three million crystals.
Whos hosting the 2025 Rockefeller Tree Lighting?
Country music star Reba McEntire is serving as master of ceremonies for the first time ever. She told People this will be the first time she has visited New York City in December.
She even has a plan to keep warm. “I’m going to triple, quadruple layer,” she explained to the magazine. “I’ll probably have my heated vest on, and all the clothes I can, insulated underwear.”
Whos performing at the 2025 Rockefeller Tree Lighting?
McEntire will also lend her vocal talents to the event, and shes not the only performer slated. She will be joined by Marc Anthony, Halle Bailey, Michael Bublé, Kristin Chenoweth, Laufey, New Edition, Brad Paisley, Carly Pearce, and Gwen Stefani.Additionally, the kicks will be high when the Radio City Rockettes take the stage.
Today anchors Savannah Guthrie, Craig Melvin, and Al Roker will also make an appearance.
How to tune in
The merriment begins at 8 p.m. ET on NBC. This means those with traditional cable subscriptions and over-the-air antennas with reception are covered. Cord-cutters can turn to Peacock.If Peacock is not in your streaming arsenal, other live TV streaming services, such as DirecTV, Hulu + Live TV, and Fubo, all carry NBC in most regions. They also offer free trials of varying lengths.
Before committing to a new streaming service, be sure to double check that it carries NBC in your region, as availability varies by location.
Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter.
Among the nations 100 largest metro area housing markets, no major market saw greater home price appreciation during the Pandemic Housing Boom than Austin, TXwhere home prices surged a staggering 72.5% between March 2020 and June 2022. Since the boom fizzled out three years ago, Austin has also experienced the largest home price correction (-26.0%) among those same 100 major markets.
Austin being among the hardest-hit markets isnt surprising.
Back in May 2022, I wrote an article for Fortune outlining Austins heightened downside risk this cycle, driven in part by the fact that the market had significantly overheated and become markedly overvalued relative to underlying fundamentals, including local incomes.
Put simply: The bigger the local boom, the greater the potential for a local bust. Three years on, that rule of thumb has proven to be a useful guide for the post-Pandemic Housing Boom period.
For todays article, ResiClub analyzed how much home prices rose during the Pandemic Housing Boom between March 2020 and June 2022 and examined how they correlate with the shift in home prices since the 2022 peak. We looked at just the nations 100 largest metro areas by population.
The finding?
Theres a moderate statistical correlation (R = 0.37) between home price shift between March 2020 and June 2022 and the change in home prices from their 2022 peak through the end of October 2025. If the New Orleans metrothe largest outlieris excluded, that correlation strengthens slightly (R = 0.44).
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Our statistical analysis suggests that the U.S. housing market, to a degree, is experiencing a classic partial mean-reversion cycle. The markets that overshot the fundamentals the most during the 20202022 frenzy generally gave back more ground afterward.
It makes sense: Housing markets where prices rose too high too fastand became increasingly detached from local incomes and income growthwere more likely to experience a sharper demand shock once the boom ended. That was especially true in markets where the run-up had been fueled by an influx of higher-income out-of-state buyers during the Pandemic Housing Boom, a source of demand that could also roll over.
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In statistical terms, an R of 0.37 means that about 37% of the variation in how local home prices have performed since 2022 can be explained by how hot they ran during the pandemic frenzy. (When we ran a similar analysis in August using Q2 2022 overvaluation scores, we arrived at a similar result: R = 0.27.)
Of course, other factors are at play. This coming weekend, ResiClub PRO members will receive a more in-depth research article exploring the other variables driving todays regional home price variation across the country.
In the race to deploy large language models and generative AI across global markets, many companies assume that English model translate it is sufficient. But if youre an American executive preparing for expansion into Asia, Europe, the Middle East, or Africa, that assumption could be your biggest blind spot. In those regions, language isnt just a packaging detail: its culture, norms, values, and business logic all wrapped into one. If your AI doesnt code-switch, it wont just underperform; it may misinterpret, misalign, or mis-serve your new market.
The multilingual and cultural gap in LLMs
Most of the major models are still trained predominantly on English-language corpora, and that creates a double disadvantage when deployed in other languages. For example, a study found that non-English and morphologically complex languages often incur 35X more tokens (and hence cost and compute) per unit of text compared to English.
Another research paper places around 1.5 billion people speaking low-resource languages at higher cost and worse performance when using mainstream English-centric models.
The result: a model that works well for American users may stumble in India, the Gulf, or Southeast Asia, not because the business problem is harder, but because the system lacks the cultural-linguistic infrastructure to handle it.
A regional example worth noting
Take Mistral Saba, launched by French company Mistral AI as a 24B-parameter model tailored for Arabic and South Asian languages (Tamil, Malayalam, etc.) Mistral touts that Saba provides more accurate and relevant responses than models five times its size when used in those regions. But it also underperforms in English benchmarks. Thats the point: context matters more than volume. A model may be smaller but far smarter for its locale.
For a U.S. company entering the MENA region (Middle East & North Africa) or the South-Asia market, that means your global AI strategy isnt global unless it respects local languages, idioms, regulation, and context.
Token costs, language bias, and global ROI
From a business perspective, the technical detail of tokenization matters. A recent article points out that inference costs for Chinese may be 2X English, while for languages like Shan or Burmese, token inflation can be 15X.
That means if your model uses English-based encoding and you deploy in non-English markets, your usage cost skyrockets, or your quality drops because you cut back tokens. And because your training corpus was heavily English-centric, your underlying model may lack semantic depth in other languages.
Add culture and normative differences into the mix: tone, references, business practices, cultural assumptions, etc., and you arrive at a very different competitive set: not were we accurate but were we relevant.
Why it matters for executives expanding abroad
If youre leading a U.S. corporation or scaling startup into international markets, here are three implications:
Model selection isnt one-size-fits-all: you may need a regional model or a specialized fine-tuning layer, not just the largest English model you can license.
Cost structure will vary by language and region: token inflation and encoding inefficiencies mean your unit cost in non-English markets will likely be higher, unless you plan for it.
Brand risk and user experience are cultural: A chatbot that misunderstands basic local context (e.g., religious calendar, locale idioms, regulatory norms) will erode trust faster than a slower response.
How to build a culturally aware multilingual AI strategy
For executives ready to sell, serve, and operate in global markets, here are practical steps:
Map languages and markets as first-class features. Before you pick your largest model, list your markets, languages, local norms, and business priorities. If Arabic, Hindi, Malay, or Thai matter, treat them not as translations but as first-class us-cases.
Consider regional models or joint-deployment. A model like Mistral Saba may handle Arabic content more cheaply, more accurately, and more natively than a generic English model fine-tuned.
Plan for token-cost inflation. Use pricing comparison tools. A model may have a U.S. cost of $X per 1 M tokens, but if your deployment is Turkish or Thai, the effective cost may be 2X or more.
Fine-tune not just for language, but for culture and business logic. Local datasets shouldnt just include language, they should capture regional context: regulations, business customs, idioms, risk frameworks.
Design for active switching and evaluation. Dont assume your global model will behave locally. Deploy pilot tests, evaluate on local benchmarks, test user-acceptance, and include local governance in your rollout.
The bigger ethical and strategic lens
When AI models privilege English and Anglophone norms, we risk reinforcing cultural hegemony. The technical inefficiencies (token cost, performance gap) are symptoms of a deeper bias: which voices, languages, economies are considered core versus edge.
As executives, its tempting to think well translate later. But translation alone fails to address token inflation, semantic mismatch, cultural irrelevance. The real challenge is making AI locally grounded and globally scaled.
If youre betting on generative AI to power your expansion into new markets, dont treat language as a footnote. Language is infrastructure. Cultural fluency is a competitive advantage. Token costs and performance disparities are not just technical: they are strategic.
In the AI world, English was the path of least resistance. But your next growth frontier? It might require language, culture, and cost structures that act more like differentiators than obstacles.
Choose your model, languages, rollout strategy not on the size of the parameter count, but on how well it understands your market. If you dont, you wont just fall behind in performance: youll fall behind in credibility and relevance.
The city of San Francisco filed a lawsuit against some of the nation’s top food manufacturers on Tuesday, arguing that ultraprocessed food from the likes of Coca-Cola and Nestle are responsible for a public health crisis.City Attorney David Chiu named 10 companies in the lawsuit, including the makers of such popular foods as Oreo cookies, Sour Patch Kids, Kit Kat, Cheerios and Lunchables. The lawsuit argues that ultraprocessed foods are linked to diseases such as Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease and cancer.“They took food and made it unrecognizable and harmful to the human body,” Chiu said in a news release. “These companies engineered a public health crisis, they profited handsomely, and now they need to take responsibility for the harm they have caused.”Ultraprocessed foods include candy, chips, processed meats, sodas, energy drinks, breakfast cereals and other foods that are designed to “stimulate cravings and encourage overconsumption,” Chiu’s office said in the release. Such foods are “formulations of often chemically manipulated cheap ingredients with little if any whole food added,” Chiu wrote in the lawsuit.The other companies named in the lawsuit are PepsiCo; Kraft Heinz Company; Post Holdings; Mondelez International; General Mills; Kellogg; Mars Incorporated; and ConAgra Brands.None of the companies named in the suit immediately responded to emailed requests for comment.U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been vocal about the negative impact of ultraprocessed foods and their links to chronic disease and has targeted them in his Make America Healthy Again campaign. Kennedy has pushed to ban such foods from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for low-income families.An August report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that most Americans get more than half their calories from ultraprocessed foods.In October, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a first-in-the-nation law to phase out certain ultraprocessed foods from school meals over the next decade.San Francisco’s lawsuit cites several scientific studies on the negative impact of ultraprocessed foods on human health.“Mounting research now links these products to serious diseasesincluding Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, heart disease, colorectal cancer, and even depression at younger ages,” University of California, San Francisco, professor Kim Newell-Green said in the news release.The lawsuit argues that by producing and promoting ultraprocessed foods, the companies violate California’s Unfair Competition Law and public nuisance statute. It seeks a court order preventing the companies from “deceptive marketing” and requiring them to take actions such as consumer education on the health risks of ultraprocessed foods and limiting advertising and marketing of ultraprocessed foods to children.It also asks for financial penalties to help local governments with health care costs caused by the consumption of ultraprocessed foods.
Jaimie Ding, Associated Press
Spotify Wrapped 2025 is here, and its inspired by mixtapes, DIY aesthetics, and all things pre-internet.
After plenty of anticipation, Wrapped has now debuted for the eleventh year in a row. As public interest in Wrapped has mounted exponentially each yearand other brands have flocked to dupe the formatSpotify has been compelled to continuously up the ante on its own design concept, and this year is no exception. Wrapped 2025 comes with 12 brand new features, each intended to make the experience more personalized than years past.
In the music world (and everywhere else), 2025 has been a year dominated by conversation around the explosion of AI technology. In September, Spotify itself issued new policies around AI-generated music, explaining that while it wont ban AI-generated songs or AI tools, it is focused on removing what it calls AI slop from the platform. At the time, Spotify said it had already removed 75 million spammy AI tracks from the site in just 12 months. Now, it appears Spotify is going full anti-AI in the design of Wrapped.
[Image: Spotify]
If brands are looking to the future or to AI for inspiration, we did the opposite, Payman Kassaie, Spotifys director of brand and creative, said in a press conference ahead of the launch. This year, Wrapped is rooted in the world of mixtape cultureand its a refreshing change from last years Wrapped, which was widely critiqued for embracing AI.
[Image: Spotify]
How Spotify Wrapped became a marketing hit
Since debuting in 2014, Wrapped has become a massive hit for Spotify. In 2023, the campaign drew in more than 225 million monthly active users and increased engagement by 40% year-over-year across 170 markets, according to an earnings report from the company.
And thats not even counting the free marketing that Spotify rakes in annually through the thousands of user-generated, organic posts from Spotifys user base of 700 million, who share their Wrapped results with followers across socials. To meet the hype, Spotify has slowly turned Wrapped into a design-centric extravaganza, debuting an entirely fresh look and feel for the review each year.
Spotify’s 2022 wrapped: “Listening Personality”. [Image: Spotify]
In 2021, the brand introduced Audio Aura, a color analysis of users top musical moods. In 2022, it tried out a zodiac-esque feature called Listening Personality alongside a psychedelic design. And last year, it opted for a techy, glitchy aesthetic to complement a new add-on called Music Evolution, which tracked users musical eras over the course of the year, and an AI-generated podcast feature that narrated users’ listening history (but somehow did not include top album or genre stats). While typically an easy brand win, last year’s launch was broadly panned.
[Image: Spotify]
Spotify Wrapped 2025 embraces a retro aesthetic
To appease those critiques, Spotify appears to be doing a full 180 with this years design. The techy aesthetic has been traded for a look that calls to mind an era when listening to music was a physical processfrom building a mixtape to burning your own CD or even putting together a scrapbook of your favorite artists.
[Image: Spotify]
We looked back at the way people used to share music before Wrapped existed, and that led us to rooting our visual identity this year in the world of mixtape culture, Kassaie said. I may be dating myself a bit here, but if you’ve ever burned a CD for a friend, you know that each one becomes its own little canvas for the creator. That’s kind of the feeling we wanted to captue with this year’s design.”
[Images: Spotify]
Every visual, he added, is made to feel handmade, with cutouts, images, doodles, and various textures lending the platform a DIY quality. The design is grounded in a palette of black and white, with pops of color reserved for key moments like artist images and album covers.
[Image: Spotify]
On the data side, Spotifys team went back to the drawing board to differentiate itself from competitors. This year, it will offer a top album list for the first time ever. In addition, its introducing 12 entirely new data-driven features, including Listening Age, which analyzes the five year span of music that users engaged with more than others in their age group; Wrapped Clubs, which sorts users into one of six clubs based on listening style; and Wrapped Party, which lets groups of friends compare their Wrapped data in a real-time, interactive setting.
[Image: Spotify]
Spotify hasnt entirely forgone AI in this process, either. Listening Archive is an AI-powered feature that spotlights certain days throughout the year, like a users biggest discovery day or most nostalgic day. Still, the overall vibe of Spotify Wrapped 2025 is less a celebration of AI, and more a return to the fundamentals that make sharing music fun.
[Image: Spotify]
Less than five months have passed since American Eagles controversial Sydney Sweeney campaign, which led to accusations ranging from cluelessness to Nazi propaganda.
While the mall mainstay defended the campaign and has escaped relatively unscathed, a new quarterly earnings report shows the success of its sister-brand Aerie is buoying its financial results.
On Tuesday, December 2, apparel retail company American Eagle Outfitters (AEO) shared its third-quarter earnings for fiscal 2025, including $1.36 billion in revenue.
The 6% increase year-over-year (YOY) beat Wall Streets predicted $1.32 billion in revenue, according to consensus estimates cited by CNBC. The company also reported earnings per share of 53 cents, compared to 44 cents expected.
American Eagles namesake brandand home to the Sydney Sweeney has great jeans advertisementscant claim much responsibility for the jump. Its comparable sales grew by only 1% YOY, while Aeries comparable sales jumped 11% YOY.
“Resurgence in intimates”
Looking at the fiscal year to date, Aerie also reported higher revenue than last year, while the American Eagle brand lagged behind itself YOY.
In an earnings call, president and executive creative director of American Eagle and Aerie, Jennifer Foyle, pointed to a “resurgence in intimates and strength across all of the brands offerings, as key to Aeries success.
Foyle added that the brand has seen an acceleration in demand since the spring.
In October, Aerie made an anti-AI pledge, promising not to use the technology to generate bodies or people in its ads, staying 100% Aerie real.
AEO has raised its fourth-quarter guidance, with CEO Jay Schottenstein sharing that the company had a record-breaking Thanksgiving weekend led by an acceleration in demand across brands and channels and underscored by outstanding growth at Aerie and Offline.
Offline is an activewear brand opened by American Eagle in 2020.
The company now predicts $155 to $160 million in operating income for the fourth quarter, up from $125 to $130 million, and an 8% to 9% increase in comparable sales. Its operating income guidance for the fiscal year also rose, jumping from between $255 and $265 million to $303 to $308 million.
Investors responded with glee to the news. American Eagle shares (NYSE:AEO) rose more than 14% after-hours and into premarket trading on Wednesday. The stock is up more than 21% year to date.
The Trump administration is pausing all immigration applications such as requests for green cards for people from 19 countries banned from travel earlier this year, as part of sweeping immigration changes in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard troops.The changes were outlined in a policy memo posted Tuesday on the website of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency tasked with processing and approving all requests for immigration benefits.The pause puts on hold a wide range of immigration-related decisions such as green card applications or naturalizations for immigrants from those 19 countries that the Trump administration has described as high-risk. It’s up to the agency’s director, Joseph Edlow, on when to lift the pause, the memo said.The administration in June banned travel to the U.S. by citizens of 12 countries and restricted access for those from seven others, citing national security concerns.The ban applied to citizens of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen while the restricted access applied to people from Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.At the time, no action was taken against immigrants from those countries who were already in the U.S. before the travel ban went into effect.But now the news from USCIS means those people already in the U.S. regardless of when they arrived will come under extra scrutiny.The agency said it would conduct a comprehensive review of all “approved benefit requests” for immigrants who entered the country during the Biden administration.The agency cited the shooting of two National Guard troops by a suspect who is an Afghan national as a reason for the pause and heightened scrutiny for people from those countries. One National Guard soldier was killed and another wounded in the Thanksgiving week shooting near the White House.“In light of identified concerns and the threat to the American people, USCIS has determined that a comprehensive re-review, potential interview, and re-interview of all aliens from high-risk countries of concern who entered the United States on or after January 20, 2021 is necessary,” the agency said.The agency said in the Tuesday memo that within 90 days it would create a prioritized list of immigrants for review and if necessary, referral to immigration enforcement or other law enforcement agencies.Since the shooting, the administration has announced a flurry of decisions it was taking to scrutinize immigrants already in the country and those seeking to come to the U.S.Last week, the director of USCIS said in a social media post that his agency would be reexamining green card applications for people from countries “of concern.” But the policy directive Tuesday goes further and lays out in more detail the scope of who will be affected.USCIS also said last week that it was pausing all asylum decisions, and the State Department said it was halting visas for Afghans who assisted the U.S. war effort.Days before the shooting, USCIS said in a separate memo that the administration would review the cases of all refugees who entered the U.S. during the Biden administration.Critics have said that the Trump administration’s actions have amounted to collective punishment for immigrants.
Rebecca Santana, Associated Press
