The Oscars are less than a month away, but before Hollywoods biggest night, the folks across the pond have their turn to celebrate.
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards (BAFTAs) will take place on Sunday, February 16, at Londons Royal Festival Hall. Historically viewed as a strong predictor of the Oscars, the BAFTAs just might offer a sneak peak of whats to comeespecially in this unconventional year full of controversies, disasters, and shifting front-runners. Heres everything you should know and how to tune in.
What does Prince William have to do with it?
As part of his royal duties, the prince of Wales is the president of BAFTA. He and his wife, Kate Middleton, often attend the big event looking quite stunning.
It was announced on Tuesday that neither will attend this year. Instead, William prerecorded a special video message. Last year, he attended solo because of Kates cancer treatments. She is back to public-facing royal duties but still has a reduced schedule.
Who is hosting the 2025 BAFTA awards?
Just because the Windsors will not be present, that doesnt mean other celebrities wont abound.
David Tennant will host for the second year in a row. The boy band Take That will perform their hit song Greatest Day, which was used in the opening scene of best film contender Anora. Jeff Goldblum, who played the Wizard of Oz in Wicked, will tickle the ivories during the always-moving In Memoriam segment.
Who are some of the standout nominees?
Lets not forget the nominees, although not all will attend.
After offensive tweets were brought to light, Emilia Pérez actress Karla Sofía Gascón is not expected to be present. She is the first openly transgender actress to be nominated for a BAFTA. Last week she issued a statement saying that she hopes her work can speak for itself.
My silence will allow the film to be appreciated for what it is, concluding: I sincerely apologize to everyone who has been hurt along the way.
Despite the controversy, the show must go on and there is plenty of spotlight for the year’s biggest contenders.
Edward Bergers Vatican thriller Conclave reigns supreme here with 12 nominations. Jacques Audiards musical offering Emilia Pérez is a close second with 11, while Brady Corbets immigrant story The Brutalist, with nine nominations, is nothing to scoff at.
Timothée Chalamet will be doing double duty, representing both Dune: Part Two and the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown.
Check out the full list of nominees on the BAFTA website.
Beyond the competitive categories, Warwick Davis will be honored with the BAFTA fellowship. This lifetime achievement award celebrates his impressive body of work in films such as Star Wars, Willow, and Harry Potter.
How can I watch or stream the 2025 BAFTA awards?
If you live in the UK, tune into BBC One or stream it on iPlayer at 7 p.m. local time.
For those of us in the United States, BritBox has the exclusive streaming rights and the ceremony begins at 2 p.m. ET.
You can sign up directly with the streaming service and even take advantage of a seven-day free trial. If you have an Amazon Prime account, you can also catch the action by adding BritBox to your subscription. There’s a free trial option here as well.
Whatever way you decide to watch, a pot of tea and some biscuits would be excellent refreshment choicesor a gin and tonic depending on your mood.
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U.S. single-family home prices, as measured by the Freddie Mac House Price Index (which uses the repeat-sales methodology), rose 3.9% in the calendar year 2024. During that same timeframe, overall U.S. consumer prices rose 2.9%.
Among the 384 metro-area housing markets that the Freddie Mac House Price Index tracks dating back to 1975, these are the 10 metros that saw the biggest year-over-year home price increase in 2024:
Kingston, New York: +13.5%
Springfield, Ohio: +11.8%
Glens Falls, New York: +11.7%
Binghamton, New York: +11.5%
Cumberland, Marylandd-West Virginia: +11.4%
Syracuse, New York: +10.9%
Utica-Rome, New York: +10.5%
Atlantic City-Hammonton, New Jersey: +10.5%
Jacksonville, North Carolina: +10.3%
Vineland-Bridgeton, New Jersey: +10.3%
Among those same 384 metro-area housing markets, these 10 metros saw the biggest year-over-year home price decline in 2024:
Punta Gorda, Florida: -8.6%
Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida: -7.6%
North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Florida: -4.7%
Homosassa Springs, Florida: -3.3%
Sebastian-Vero Beach, Florida: -3.2%
Lakeland-Winter Haven, Florida: -2.7%
Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, Texas: -2.5%
San Antonio-New Braunfels, Texas: -2.3%
Ocala, Florida: -1.9%
Crestview-Fort Walton Beach-Destin, Florida: -1.8%
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When he first gathered his newly assembled team to write the 1975 premiere episode of Saturday Night Live (then called, NBC’s Saturday Night), creator Lorne Michaels started with a simple credo: Lets make each other laugh, and if we do, well put it on television and maybe other people will find it funny.
So many other people ended up finding it funny that SNL grew into a singular cultural phenomenonone that remains on the air, and relevant, 50 years later. Over the course of making high-wire-act TV each week for a half-century, however, Michaels’s ideas about how to wrangle talent gradually evolved far beyond that initial make-each-other-laugh principle.
He has such a unique and honed management philosophy, says Susan Morrison, author of the forthcoming biography, Lorne: The Man Who Invented Saturday Night Live. As I was writing it, some days Id feel like, Wow, this could be published by the Harvard Business School.
Susan Morrison (right) [Images: courtesy Random House]
Morrisons book, out in stores February 18, paints the richest portrait to date of how Michaels created SNL, how SNL created a mythology around Michaels, and how much of that is accurate. It also takes readers deep inside the trenches of a typical week at SNL, stemming from the authors time embedded with the show in 2018, her many conversations with generations of superstar writers and performers molded by it, and in excess of 50 interviews with Michaels himself.
What emerges is an ultimately flattering, though non-hagiographic depiction of a leader who inspires a reverence among his acolytes that can border on pathological. (As the book recounts, former cast member Andy Samberg and former writer John Mulaney both separately tried to find out what kind of deodorant Michaels uses so they could use it too.) Though a lot of what makes Lorne Michaels himself is specific to the niche field of televised live-sketch comedy, some of his tactics for managing creative people have much broader applicability.
Mix peanut butter and chocolate
The sprawling list of all-time comedy legends that Michaels plucked from obscurity and cast on SNL includes Eddie Murphy, Tina Fey, Will Ferrell, Kristen Wiig, Adam Sandler, and Chris Rock. Beyond his keen eye for talent, though, Michaels also has a nuanced sense for talent-configurations.
The book describes how the creator put Harvard Lampoon writer Jim Downey in a shared office with Second City improv maestro Bill Murray in 1977an intentional collision of high-brow and blue collar. The two writers brought contrasting ingredients to the table, like peanut butter and chocolate, and Michaels recognized the potency of blending them together. Its something he still does when bringing in new blood each year, even if he no longer assigns office mates.
Although Michaels has been accused over the years of not diversifying the staff enoughcast members Kenan Thompson and Jay Pharoah publicly refused to play any more Black women back in 2013, when SNL hadnt had a Black female in the cast for six yearsthe show these days more closely resembles the diverse makeup of its audience.
He’s always thinking about creating a really varied writing staff, Morrison says. Hes definitely on guard against the show being too coastal. He loves it when someone’s from Nebraska or Cincinnati or New Mexico.
Give people ownership of their work
One of the reasons so many of the shows writers such as Fey and the team of Chris Kelly and Sarah Schneider go on to become showrunners after SNL, according to Morrison, is because of the free rein Michaels gives them. Writers dont just conceive and pen sketchesthey also produce and direct them, getting a huge say in everything from set decoration to costumes. All this leeway comes from Michaels’s own experience as a comedy writer on sketch series, such as The Beautiful Phyllis Diller Show, in 1968, when he wished he’d had more freedom.
Even when Michaels does weigh in on decisions throughout the development of a sketch, as the book describes, he often does so in a way that still keeps the writer in the drivers seat.
Being in the room during all those meetings, you could see there’s some jujitsu going on, Morrison says. Hell rarely give a hard note, like, You have to change the ending. Hell just maybe give enough clues so that a writer will make a change but will feel ownership of it.
Figure out what people need and be that for them
A lot of big personalities and even bigger egos have been part of the SNL team over the years, and theres no one-size-fits-all management strategy Michaels could deploy with them all. Instead, as the book details, Michaels became a student of how creative people respond to various approaches. By supervising hundreds of the kinds of people over the years that former cast member Mark McKinney refers to as broken comedy toys, Michaels learned to act as father figure, CEO, and all points in betweendepending on the person.
He manages them sometimes one-on-one, and sort of gives people what he thinks they need, Morrison says. “[Bill] Hader would describe when he came back to host, feeling kind of rigid with anxiety, and Lorne coming in and just barking at him, like, Shut the fuck up, get out there and do it. You know what you’re doing. But then Molly Shannon talked about a completely different approach from Lorne, where hes just kind of warmly reassuring her with his eyes.
Its no wonder every year on Fathers Day, Michaels reportedly receives messages from dozens of surrogate sons, including Pete Davidson.
The power of “rolling decisions”
Any sketch that makes it to air on SNL has survived a comedy gauntlet that claimed countless other victims. The sketch has to get through the initial pitch meeting on Monday; the all-night writing session on Tuesday; the development process Wednesday through Friday, during which many more sketches are fleshed out than could possibly fit into one 60- to 70-minute episode; and finally, it has to make it past dress rehearsal on Saturday night, a few hours before airtime. Lorne (the book) reveals, in exacting depth, just how many decisions are involved within each sketch, beyond the more macro-level decisions of which skeches will actually make it to air and in which order. Michaels keeps every possibility on the bubble for as long as possible, a habit he describes as making rolling decisionsthe opposite of snap decisions.
He just likes to keep all his options open, Morrison says. He’s not good at making decisions until he has to, but also I think he feels its really great creative ferment. The competition up to the last minute probably keeps everybody going. I mean, the emotional and creative vibe in that building between Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, it’s like the Hunger Games.
Creating a culture of resiliency
A good compromise, as the saying goes, is when both sides are unhappy. At SNL, however, just about every writer and cast member is a little unhappy each week. Its something Michaels learned, according to the book, after the very first episode in 1975. Writer Michael ODonoghue was upset that one of his sketches got cut, filmmaker Albert Brooks was annoyed that Michaels chose a different short film of his rather than the one Brooks had intended for the premiere, and future senator Al Franken was disappointed in the corny tone of another sketch.
That first episodes equal-opportunity unhappiness set the standard for the decades that followed. But it probably takes a bit of the sting out of each persons disappointment to know that everyone else is also disappointed to some degree. It might also serve as motivation to make next weeks victories outweigh the defeats. And Michaels takes care to celebrate the major victories with his team, so they can be confident that theyre appreciated.
I remember Hader telling me that the night he debuted [much-celebrated character] Stefon, one of Lorne’s assistants summoned him over to come and sit next to Lorne at the party after the show, Morrison says. So, you’re in when that happens.
The creators status as a legendary gift giver probably also helps demonstrate that appreciation.
Working for Lorne Michaels, as described in Morrisons book, seems nearly as agonizing as it does rewarding. If it were easier, though, there would probably be more sketch comedy shows that endure for half a century. Instead, theres only one. Isnt that special?
Years ago, I asked my born-organized sister how she managed to keep her place looking so nice all the time. She gave me an odd look and replied, I put things away when Im done with them. Im reminded of this infuriating conversation whenever I read most introductory budgeting advice.
Money experts will assure their audience that creating a successful budget is simple. Just track your income and spending and make sure the second number is lower than the first, they say, often with a tone that makes it sound like theyre worried about your ability to tie your own shoes.
But most people need to know how to do these supposedly simple things. And just as my sister couldnt imagine why put things away was impossible-to-follow advice for me, financial experts dont necessarily recognize that the simple process of budgeting is not easy for everyone.
If money management is not second nature to you, here are some tips to help you create and maintain a budget that fits your life.
Treat budgeting like laundry
About once a year or so, Ill find myself elbow deep in unfolded clothes, wondering aloud if Im nearly finished doing the laundry. After 30 plus years, I must be near the end of the laundry by now! Ill lament to my family.
My frustration stems from the fact that washing the clothes is a never-ending task. I can never be done with the laundry. I can only choose from one of four options for dealing with the laundry cycle: do it myself, pay someone else to do it, wear dirty clothes, or go naked.
Money management is also a never-ending task. In fact, budgeting often fails because the budgeter doesn’t get past the initial check-in with their money. We want budgeting to be a once-and-done kind of chore and forget that it needs to be done over and over again.
If you havent embraced the ongoing nature of budgeting, you probably only budget sporadically. This might involve sitting down with your banking app to check on your spending and may even include a plan for how much you intend to spend in the future. And then the budget is often forgotten about until the next time you’re scrambling to pay your bills.
The problem with treating budgeting like a singular event is that youre doing the financial equivalent of washing your skivvies only once a year. Youre going to run out of money/clean undies eventuallyand no one likes their options when that happens.
Its far better to go into budgeting with the assumption that youll need to spend a little time on it weekly, just as its better to tackle the laundry regularly instead of only summiting Mount St. Washy when youve had to go commando several days in a row.
How to do this
Accepting that budgeting is a regular chore is almost half the battle, but that doesnt make it any easier to carve out time for a new weekly task.
This is why newbie budgeters may want to literally pair laundry with money management. The time your unmentionables spend spinning in the washer and dryer is down time on laundry day, which could be an excellent time to work on managing your money. This will help you build the habit and connect the importance of budgeting with that of laundry.
Avoid judging yourself
Once you have embraced the repetitive nature of money management, the next major obstacle is self-judgment.
There are a couple of forms this kind of judgment could take. Some budgeters beat themselves up for past financial choices theyre still paying for, concluding that they will never be good with money. Others compare their income or lifestyle to someone else who seems to be doing better. And many budgeters set themselves up to fail by deciding that their future selves are perfectly capable of quitting expensive habits cold turkey.
Each of these kinds of self-judgments can derail a budget. When you judge yourself and your finances in any of these ways, youre measuring reality against what should be true. Unfortunately, reality wins every time, and shoulding on yourself just makes you feel bad.
This is why budgeting needs to be done in a place free of judgment. Your money situation is neither good nor bad; neither moral nor immoral. It just is, and accepting that allows you to make the most beneficial decisions for your goals.
How to do this
Telling you not to judge yourself is a bit like my sisters advice to put my stuff awayvery easy to say and much harder to do.
Thats why new budgeters should spend their first few budgeting sessions simply gathering information about their money. You dont need to make any decisions about any of the numbers you uncover. Think of yourself like an accounting version of Indiana Jones, excavating the historical record without judgment.
This specifically means using your first few weeks of budgeting on uncovering the answers to the following questions:
How much income can I expect each month?
What are my monthly fixed expenses? These might include:
Rent/Mortgage
Utilities, including mobile phone and data/Wi-Fi access (if these fluctuate, calculate the monthly average over the last 12 months)
Car payment
Auto insurance
Student loan payment
Alimony or child support
Day care expenses
Monthly memberships (such as gym membership)
What is the monthly average cost of my variable expenses? Use at least three months worth of numbers for the following expenses to calculate your average monthly cost:
Groceries
Medications
Medical appointments
Renters insurance/Homeowners insurance
Car maintenance and repair
Home maintenance and repair
Credit card payments
What is the monthly average cost of my discretionary expenses? These might include:
Entertainment
Dining out
Personal care (haircuts, etc)
Clothing
Hobbies
Gifts
The numbers you calculate from this exercise are just information. Gathering this data without making judgments or decisions will allow you to get comfortable with the idea of removing your ego from the process of budgeting.
Aim for small wins
Back when I asked my sister about her organizational skills, I was thinking about the pile of papers on my kitchen table, the clothing chair in my bedroom, the dishes that had taken up permanent residence on my coffee table, and unfinished projects on multiple flat surfaces in my house.
In othe words, I was thinking globally about my untidiness. Her advice assumed that I had a place to put everything away and that it was something I could do quickly. Neither of those things were true.
It wasnt until I decided to make my bed every day that I started to move the disorganization needle. It did nothing for the piled papers, clothes, dishes, and unfinished projects elsewhere in the house, but having a neatly made bed was a small, easy thing I could do that helped make my space seem neater. Once that was a habit, it was easier to put things away in my bedroom.
New budgeters should aim for similar small wins with money management, since it is much easier to build a habit from small routines than try to become a money maven overnight.
How to do this
There are a number of small financial wins that can help you build the budgeting habit. Some early skills to focus on might include:
Paying all your bills on time
Transferring a small amount to an emergency fund with every paycheck
Paying more than the minimum amount on credit cards or other debt
Taking lunch to work one day a week
Picking one of these skills and repeating it until it has become a habit will help you create a foundation for your budgeting practice. Even though these are small actions, repetition and habit will allow them to improve your finances and give you successes to build on.
The perfectly imperfect budget
Just as my house will never look like something out of a magazine (or even like my sisters house), your budget will never have the picture-perfect symmetry described by money experts. But your budget doesnt need to be pretty or perfectit just needs to make your financial life easier to manage.
To create your own successful budget, start by treating money management more like your laundry. Its something you have to do regularly or else it will back up on you. When you get started on a new budgeting habit, commit to simply gathering information without judgment. Youll make better decisions if you remove your judgmental reaction from the numbers you uncover. Finally, aim for small financial wins, rather than trying to completely remake your finances all at once. Letting go of the idea of perfection will help you learn to love your budget, warts and al
Getting a preschool-age child, let alone dozens of them, to wash their hands can be an exhausting chore. At Family Connections preschool in the Portola neighborhood of San Francisco, that used to be a constant challenge and frustration for educators. Without an outdoor sink, students outdoor activities were interrupted anytime a hand got dirty, as the whole group had to take a trip back inside, says executive director Yensing Sihapanya, noting how that would eat up precious minutes that could have been spent playing and learning.But in 2021, the Low Income Investment Fund (LIIF), a community development financial institution (CDFI), poured grant money into San Francisco early learning centers to make needed repairs and upgrades. At Family Connections, which received $183,000 total, that meant swapping out old Ikea cabinets for better wood furniture, knocking a hole in the wall for more outdoor access, spending $17,000 for indoor lights that didnt flicker and interrupt circle time, and $23,000 for the outdoor sink, which was finally installed this past January.
These may not seem like significant additions, but for a childcare industry starving for funds to improve physical spaces and design, they are a godsend.
Any tuition or any government fees that we’re getting for childcare pays for teachers, supplies, and snacks, says Sihapanya, whose school focuses on providing access to low-income students. We dont budget for repairs in our funding sources and tuition.
Childcare challenges
The American childcare industry faces numerous hurdles, including labor shortages, insufficient public funding, strict regulations, and challenging economics. There are a handful of states, like Michigan, instituting new support programs and subsidies to help providers. But overall, U.S. childcare remains exceptionally unaffordable, according to Elliot Haspel, a senior fellow at Capita, a family policy think tank. Costs have risen beyond the consumer price index, and daycares face a high degree of staff turnover owing to low resources and poor pay.
Adding to those headwinds, the industry struggles to fund better design and physical spaces. Estimates suggest the shortfall in infrastructure for early childhood education runs into the billions of dollars, but no true national figure exists. The National Children’s Facilities Network has called for a nationwide assessment to determine the extent of the shortfall.
The sectors funding dilemma often gets presented as a zero-sum choice between increased access, in the form of more facilities and cheaper tuition, or physical investment, Haspel says. When the nation lacks affordable access, better design and more capital spending for existing locations can be framed as luxuries. One of the main federal methods of childcare funding, a Child Care Development Block Grant, can be applied only to minor repairs and renovations.
But childcare advocates, operators, and designers say beautiful facilities can go a long way toward enriching early childhood education. Good, functional design directly impacts and improves play, learning, and the health of participants. Childcare facilities, where children can spend a majority of their waking hours, can function as the third teacher.
[Photo: KinderCare]
Small elements and design choiceswindows set at childrens height, improved outdoor access, shared kitchen facilities that make childcare rooms more efficient, changing tables with stairs that help caregivers save themselves the stress of lifting older childrencan make big differences in operations and learning.
The space that kids learn in is so important and they’re so rough, because they should be able to play in the space, says Sihapanya. But the model of childcare funding we have just doesnt consider repairs or renovations.
Thats why LIIF focuses so much on infrastructure and design investments, says Angie Garling, one of the community development financial institutions senior vice presidents. After investing nearly $500 million over the past 25 years in early childhood education, impacting more than 400,000 kids at 6,000-plus facilities, LIIF firmly believes these spaces, where so much crucial brain development takes place, need to be healthy, climate resilient, engaging, and enriching.
[Photo: KinderCare]
The constraints of building for children
Childcare facilities are naturally costly to establish and operate, with strict codes around safety, such as how cribs are placed and how much outdoor space is required per child. Outfitting new buildings, or converted homes, for children necessitates substantial capital investment, says Susan Gilmore, founder, president, and CEO of the nonprofit North Bay Childrens Center. Budgets and margins are thin in this sector, and the ability to take on construction debt remains very challenging, especially with many limits on how federal and state dollars can be spent.
Just look to the plumbing in these facilities. Theres a surprising amount of complexity in the plumbing design, including the need to install sufficient numbers of small sinks and toilets. If you think about designing a high school, the rooms that often cost the most are the ones that need more plumbing, like a chemistry lab, Garling says. magine every single one of these rooms is a chemistry lab.
Crme de la Crme School [Photo: KinderCare]
Even the big, private childcare companies need to reckon with these challenges. KinderCare recently opened a new version of its upscale Crme de la Crme School in the I’On neighborhood of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, which features a central park atrium space and themed play spaces, including a solar system room. Architect Kathleen Justice, who designed the new facility and is working on several others, said the challenge often remains more about budget and space constraints than regulation; how much can be spent to build a space thats not wholly utilitarian?
Crme de la Crme School [Photo: KinderCare]
Unlike elementary education, where theres a national consensus around the imperative to invest, early childcare funding tends to be disparate and fractured, says Kirby Burkholder, president of IFF, another CDFI that works in the childcare space. Its a representation of our nations fractured views around personal responsibility for early childhood care.
That insecurity and underfunding means significant capital debt and deferred maintenance issues across the industry. Licensing and evaluation of these facilities can be episodic, says Burkholder, so patchwork fixesin the worst cases, painting over mold, placing a rug over asbestos tileget grandfathered in and accepted.
While K-12 schools have been the focus of extensive investment in air filters and better facilities via pandemic-era funding efforts such as the American Rescue Plan Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, the same federal support hasnt trickled down to early childhood education. Thats despite the fact that childcare and daycare have similar maintenance backlogs as well as changing best practices.
New facilities tend to favor more nature-based materials and outdoor play spaces, expensive investments for aging buildings. LIIF grant requests often focus on everyday items: repairing fences for the playground, adding outdoor shade structures, upgrading HVAC systems, or repairing or swapping out old sinks, toilets, and stoves.
[Photo: Family Connections]
Early education also faces new infrastructure challenges from climate change. Outdoor play spaces, in some cases just a playground and blacktop, need to become resilient, with additional shade structures and water stations. Garling says shes continually advocating for early education to get included in these larger climate-focused investments, since its often left out, and no existing dedicated funding stream exists.
Even small accidents can lead to big financial strain on providers; a broken window can cost $10,000 to repair, says Sihapanya, depleting capital reserves or becoming the domino that pushes deferred maintenance back years.
Investing in facilities ripples out in other ways, she says. Staff, who can benefit from more outdoor time or even an improved teachers lounge, are happier at work, making the upgrade a potent retention and recruitment tool.
Chantilly, Virginia [Rendering: Local Studio]
The way forward
Directing more funds to fix our literally broken childcare spaces remains difficult, but advocates see some ways to tweak existing programs. Burkholder says that IFFs funding of the $59 million Caring for MI Future: Facilities Improvement Fund grants has helped 1,100 programs and shown the insatiable demand for long-term facilities planning.
Gilmore believes that on a policy level the nation needs more infrastructure investments and should give childcare operators the ability to use contract and operational dollars for debt retirement to make these facilities come to fruition. Others have tried utilizing empty elementary classrooms to operate preschool programs. Piggybacking on an existing schools maintenance budget and creating so-called microsites can save costs, perhaps freeing up money that can go toward creating the kinds of spaces our kids deserve.
We love our teachers so much, and we love books, and we love all those things, Sihapanya says. But the space that the kids are in every day is as impactful as the books and the teachers.
A few years ago, I chronicled the journey I went on to manually merge two Apple ID accounts into one.
I was attempting to rectify a problem that I and many other long-time Apple users had been stuck with: Our dataemails, contacts, movie and app purchases, photos, logins, and morewas spread across two different Apple accounts. This segregation made accessing this data on our various devices a chore. Imagine opening your closet to look for a specific shirt, only to realize its hanging instead in the closet at your old house across town.
The process took me days. At the time, Apple provided no automated way for users to merge two Apple IDs. Yet, this week that finally changedwell, kinda. Apple has now developed an official way for users to automatically migrate some Apple account data from one account to another. Heres what you need to know about the new process.
The two Apple ID problem
If youve only ever had one Apple ID, the login you use for all your Apple servicesiCloud, App Store purchases, music streaming, Apple Pay, Apple Card, or anything else that falls under Apples ecosystemyoure probably a bit confused as to why someone would have this data spread across two different accounts.
The explanation, in my case, goes back 20 or so years. Before iCloud was introduced, in 2011, Apple offered various other email accounts, including dotMac and MobileMe, the former of which had served as my Apple IDthe login associated with my iTunes music store account, where I bought songs and digital movies. But then, in 2011, like many others, I signed up for a new iCloud account, mainly so I could get a different email address (one I liked better).
However, this now left me with two Apple IDs: one for my media purchases and the other for my email and other online Apple services. At first, this wasn’t a problem, but over time as Apples services offering grew both more robust and more integrated, having data segregated across two Apple IDs led to an increasingly poor user experience. For example, if you wanted to access your documents in iCloud on your Mac, you would need to sign into one Apple ID, but then if you wanted to access your movie purchases as well, youd need to sign into another. Soon, it wasn’t uncommon to forget which Apple ID held which data.
To say that these challenges annoyed longtime Apple users like me is an understatement. The two Apple ID problem was a rare flaw in Apples tightly-knit it just works ecosystem. But now, it’s a flaw that Apple has finally taken a step to fix.
How to migrate digital purchases from two Apple accounts into one
This week, Apple surprised everyone by posting a support document revealing that it now provided a (pretty) straightforward way to merge two Apple accountsto a degree. (Note: As of iOS 18, Apple has renamed the Apple ID to Apple Account, but the terms remain relatively interchangeable.)
However, Apples solution is not perfect. It only lets a user migrate their digital purchasesincluding apps, music, movies, TV shows, and booksfrom one Apple Account to another. You still cannot migrate other associated Apple Account data such as iCloud emails, contacts, passes, and Apple Pay cards using the tool.
Yet, by allowing the migration of digital purchases, Apple has negated one of the biggest pain points of manually merging two Apple IDs into one. Previously there was no way to move digital purchases from one Apple ID to another. That meant if you wanted to ditch one Apple Account for good, you’d also need to ditch the software and media you purchased with that account.
But no more. Apple’s new tool means you no longer have to accept this loss of your digital assets. Its method of migrating digital purchases from one Apple Account to another is also pretty easyonce you have the initial prep out of the way, such as making sure your software is up to date, you know your passwords for both accounts, and you have your payment details for both accounts.
If you want to go through the merger process, you can find Apples full instructions and requirements here. Its also a good idea to read this additional support document that dives deeper into the migration process.
Apples new account migration tool is promisingbut it needs to go further
People with hundreds or thousands of dollars invested in movies, books, apps, and other digital content they purchased from Apple across two different Apple IDs are sure to love the companys new migration offering. No doubt about itits a great first step.
However, it still doesnt address all the other problems that arise for those who are still stuck with two Apple IDs. Not only can you still not automatically merge iCloud data (your emails, documents, bookmarks, and more) between two different Apple Accounts, but you also still cannot automatically migrate other critical data, such as your Apple Pay cards, Wallet passes, Sign in with Apple logins, Hide My Email addresses, or passwords.
Hopefully, Apple will address these limitations with a future update to its new tool. Until it does, those who want to merge every aspect of two Apple IDs into one are still on their own.
Leading up to 2025, major companies like Amazon and JPMorgan did away with remote work altogether, requiring employees to return to the office five days a weeka departure from the more flexible policies that had been popularized after the pandemic. Even as they contend with a lack of workspace and complaints from workers, employers have pushed forward with the return to office.
Many employees treated it as a suggestion, Chris Moran, an employment lawyer at Troutman Pepper Locke, says of early RTO policies. That was something I dont know that employers saw comingthat a significant percentage of employees felt so strongly that they preferred to work remotely and were willing to sort of ignore [mandates].
Some employers seemingly responded by upping the ante, making office attendance a factor in performance reviews or tying it to eligibility for promotions. Others have moved ahead with more stringent policies, eliminating their hybrid work policy altogether and forcing employees to return to the office five days a week.
As Trumps administration imposes strict RTO mandates for the federal workforce, however, its possible the private sector will feel even more emboldened to embrace punitive measures to ensure employees comply with their in-office requirements. Now, with whats going on in the federal government, theres perhaps a little more cover for an employer to take the approach that they really mean it this time, Moran says.
At the same time, however, enforcing RTO mandates can present a minefield for employersand not just when it comes to morale or worker discontent. The shift back into the office brings with it the risk of renewed employment litigation, or at least a return to the type of legal action that might have been more common prior to the pandemic.
Workplace harassment
During the pandemic, there were many reports that workplace harassment and other misconduct had not disappeared in the era of remote work but had simply migrated online. As virtual communication became the norm, this kind of inappropriate behavior cropped up not just in video interactions or phone calls, but also via Slack and across other digital platforms.
Still, the number of harassment complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission did drop at the height of the pandemic, in both 2020 and 2021 (though those figures dont account for state-level complaints). As employees return to the office in full force, however, it could open the door for more incidents of traditional harassment and sex discrimination, according to Lisa Koblin, an employment lawyer at Saul Ewing. The more people are interacting togetherespecially if there is work-related travel or work-related functions that are offsite or involve alcoholthe more likely we are to see those claims pop up, she says.
Employers should, of course, already have clear policies in place around workplace harassment and misconduct, especially given many of them have been back in the office in some capacity for years at this point. But Koblin says its important for companies to revise their policies and training sessions year after year, even if it might seem basic.
Disability accommodations
Since companies started calling employees back to the office, experts have noted that the RTO push could disproportionately hurt workers who benefited most from remote work, particularly those who are disabled or neurodiverse. While employers will likely continue to provide accommodations to workers with disabilities, the bar might be higher in workplaces that are requiring all employees to return to the office.
In fact, disabled workers at Amazon have said their exemptions to work from home were denied, and according to a Bloomberg report, the company has implemented a more stringent process for approving disability accommodations. (In a statement to Bloomberg, Amazon said the changes were part of its “broader return-to-office philosophy.” A spokesperson for the company added, “When in-person accommodations are needed, well provide them, and in some cases, offer an exception to working from the office.) Vincent White, an employment lawyer who represents plaintiffs in discrimination and harassment cases, says his firm is currently working on about 50 different cases that are related to accommodations that have been dialed back amid the return to office.
Moran believes its likely that private sector employers will continue to see a spike in disability discrimination claimssomething he observed when academic institutions started asking teachers to return to the classroom in the aftermath of the pandemic. There was a spike in the number of people who said, I have a disability, and a reasonable accommodation is working from home, and good luck proving that it’s not a reasonable accommodation because we just did it for two years, he says. I would expect that will happen again in other private settings, as well.
Other employment discrimination
But its not just disability-based employment claims that might be on the rise. What we’re hearing a lot of right now is: We want everybody back, Moran says. That has the ease of saying, well, unless you have a disability, we don’t have to deal with making exceptions, one way or the other. The reality, however, is that there are always exceptions to these policiesas was the case prior to the pandemic, when certain workers were allowed to work from home occasionally or even secured permanent remote arrangements.
Even as companies lean into RTO, it is becoming clear that the strictest of policies can be sidestepped by top performers and star employees who have more leverage to negotiate. Depending on how companies enforce these mandates, granting exemptions to certain workers and not others could invite more legal claims from employees whose requests are denied, a group that could include caregivers who are seeking flexibility to manage elder care or young children.
Koblin has said that in her experience, employers tend to allow these arrangements for certain types of workers. I find that most of the time when there is a shift to return to work but there’s exceptions for some remote work, it’s usuallytied to a disability-related accommodation, she says. Or there are certain cases where someone has moved across the country, and their position is so critical that they’re willing to make an exception for that person.
Still, employers who base performance reviews or promotions on office attendance can run the risk of punishing disabled workers or others who have successfully secured exemptions. The implication of not carefully evaluating that type of policy would be that you could inadvertently discriminate against certain people who are not physically able to come to the office, or who need to stay home to take care of a sick family member, or something of that nature, Koblin says.
Some employers seem to have opted for a blanket policy that leaves little room for flexibility or exemptionsperhaps in part to steer clear of the legal issues that might arise over inconsistent enforcement. But Koblin argues that its in many employers best interest to offer some flexibility. I think the key is clarity and consistency in terms of: What is your culture, and what are you really expecting from your employees? she says. Everybody has something going on, in some way, shape, or form, and people are going to talk and understand how their coworkers are being treated and what exceptions have been made for them. Generally, unless policies are being abused, I counsel clients to think about how they can strike that balance between appropriate flexibility while ensuring that work gets done.
Rebecca Yarross romantasy novel Onyx Storm stormed the book charts in January, becoming the fastest-selling adult novel in 20 years. Indeed, demand for romance contentin books, on screens, and on TikTokhas grown exponentially in recent years. Enter audio erotica company Quinn. Founded by 27-year-old Caroline Spiegel, the 6-year-old platform publishes dozens of creator-driven, female-centric erotic audio stories each week.
Creators, who write and perform the audio, receive a portion of the apps subscription fees ($4.99 per month or $47.99 per year) based on user engagement. To date, Spiegel has raised $10 million from venture capital firms and investors such as Entourage star Adrian Grenier. The company is generating more than $12 million in annual recurring revenue. According to Spiegel (who is the sister of Snapchat cofounder and CEO Evan Spiegel), the app has hundreds of thousands of subscribers, more than three-quarters of whom are women.
For the past couple of years, the app has also been growing its roster of Quinn Originals: stories produced in-house and voiced by famous actors, including Andrew Scott (aka the hot priest from Fleabag) and Kate Moennig of The L Word. (This expansion landed Quinn on Fast Companys Brands That Matter list in 2024.) Spiegel came on the Most Innovative Companies podcast to talk about creating female-centric content, going viral on TikTok, and attracting dream Quinn Originals performers.
Romance as a category both in audio and in book sales has grown a lot over the past few years. What factors do you think contributed to that?
For one, the pandemic. A lot of people cite it as being something that really helped the romance industry because people were not having as much physical connection and physical intimacy as they did before the pandemic. I also think the rise of self-publishing on Amazon [helped]. That has fueled this boom of amazing new writersparticularly female writers. Then I think generally women have more economic power and purchasing power. We don’t have to have erotic content for women until we actually have liberated, empowered women who make their own money.
How did you discover erotica as a category?
On Reddit and Tumblr. It’s been a really big thing since the early 2000s. There are these massive user-generated communities and thousands of Tumblr blogs dedicated to erotic audio. There’s also this old kind of web 1.0 site called Literotica. Wattpad is also big. I was a consumer, not a creator. I was struck by how immersive it was. Listening to it feels like youre having an intimate moment with someone, whereas I think traditional visual content can feel voyeuristic, forced, or overly graphic.
How did you convince investors to make a bet on Quinn?
To be honest, I didn’t really. We got turned away so many times. I probably pitched 40 or 50 investors trying to raise our first pre-seed roundmost said no. We ended up raising it from some angels, and then we used that to get a little bit of traction. Once you have some traction, you have a little bit more to hang your hat on, and I think investors found it more compelling.Quinns contentboth the scripts and the recordingis user-generated. How do you vet and attract the right content creators?
In the earliest iteration of Quinn, the content was all actually Quinn produced and Quinn curated. There was no such thing as the Quinn creator. Eventually we started to realize that listeners actually really care about the voice actors and the personalities making this content. They have these fandoms around their favorite creators. That led to our approach now, which is more of a Spotify-type situation where you can kind of follow your favorite creators. Our quality-assurance process and creator vetting is pretty thorough. We do background checks, we make sure people have the best equipment, and we do technical audits of creators. We connect them to scriptwriters.
You have also released Quinn Originals. One, called The Queens Guard, is read by actor Andrew Scott, famous for playing the priest on Fleabags second season. How do you balance these splashy releases with your creator strategy?
The idea is that celebrity-driven content brings people onto Quinn, then they find our other creator-driven content. Originals are less than 1% of our content, but they’re a great way to introduce the genre to people who haven’t experienced it before.
How do these creators get compensated?
It’s based on the frequency of uploads and the performance of their content on Quinn. They’re incentivized to share their content with their followers and bring their followers and fans onto Quinn.
You were talking earlier about creating erotic content for empowered women. How do you approach that?
Generally, visual erotic content has not been made from a female perspective. A lot of our audios follow different patterns. Sex on Quinn is a little more intuitive, experimental, playful. We also have extremely clear tagging and go to great lengths to make sure our tagging is thorough and gives the listener a good idea of what they’re getting into, so they’re not surprised by anything potentially triggering or off-putting. A lot of audios feature condoms or conversations or safe words or just check-ins, and you might think, Is that going to make it clinical and not hot? It’s actually the exact opposite. People find those kinds of moments of intimacy and vulnerability extremely erotic.
There are a couple of other audio erotica platforms, including Bloom, that are using generative AI to create content. Is there a role for AI at Quinn?
Because the content on Quinn is so intimate and vulnerable and uniquely human, it’s tricky. While I see how AI is creeping into every part of our lives, our approach to AI, if any, will be creator-driven. Creators are the backbone of our platform, and all of their fans really like them, so we take our cues from them. I’ve seen some of the technology out of Eleven Labs, and seen Character.AIit’s really interesting. But really our priority is creators and their fans.
Quinn is talked about a lot on social media. What are some of the trends youre seeing?
Our top categories always have been male dominance and boyfriend, [the latter of] which are our most sweet, loving kind of relationship-style audios. This year, professor also is one of our top categories.
Viral TikToks have helped fuel Quinns 440% year-over-year revenue growth. The pink earphones you give some influencers have become synonymous with your brand. How did you come up with that idea?
On TikTok, we were so jealous of brands that could do taste tests of their product or show their product in unboxing videos. But our product is an appso we wanted to make some sot of physical representation of it. Headphones were obviously kind of a natural extension of that. So our pink headphones have become a really nice thing to send to influencers so they can have a natural way to bring up Quinn and it’s not just this kind of awkward ad read.
What is the future of the business? Where do you want to take it next?
We’re going to increase our output of Quinn Originals to six this upcoming year. We’ve more than doubled our budget, and we have some really exciting stories in the pipeline.
Would you turn a Quinn Original into a movie or TV show?
We have talked to some people who are interested in turning Quinn Originals into TV shows and movies, but it’s not really our primary focus at the moment. I think if the right thing lined up, it would be amazing to do that. But it’s also like when you first read Harry Potter and you have this whole image of what it’s like in your mind, and then you see the movie and it’s like . . . that’s not what Diane Alley looks like!
Who is on your wish list to record a Quinn original?
Oscar Isaac, Pedro Pascal, and Aaron Pierre (hes Mufasa in The Lion King).
Can you give us some Quinn recommendations?
Theres a great creator named Naudio. Id recommend his audios. His most popular is called Getting Even. It’s about a couple. The female partner has been sending her boyfriend pictures and teasing him all day. He finally gets back home from work after being teased all day via text with her, and he wants to . . . get even.
Then theres Sarah Gibson, who is a great female creator. She has a great roommate’s series called Prying Eyes, about two female roommates where one thing leads to another.
Last Monday, inspired by reading about a small protest of Elon Musk and DOGE that happened at a Tesla charging station in Maine, Joan Donovan decided to make a digital flyer inviting people to join her at a protest this weekend at a Tesla showroom in Boston. Days later, the idea has grown organically into more than three dozen protests at Tesla showrooms across the country.
It struck me that there are Tesla dealerships and charging stations across the nation, and this is a point of leverage that many people can access, rather than having to go to your state capital, says Donovan, a professor at Boston University who says she is acting in her capacity as a citizen. This is a place in which we can make a difference.
Through DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiencywhich is not an official government agencyMusk gave his team access to private taxpayer data and classified information. Hes forced the virtual shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development, freezing lifesaving programs that were delivering HIV drugs, oxygen, and other medical aid to various communities around the world. He’s actively dismantling the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency that would have regulated his plans to set up a new payment service at X. He’s pushed federal workers out of their jobs. Much or all of the work is likely illegal, and multiple court cases are underway.
A website, TeslaTakedown, lets anyone set up a local DOGE protest, many of which will happen on February 15. (It also calls for anyone who owns Tesla stock or cars to sell.)
Often, with these types of initiatives, it takes weeks to plan, says Alex Winter, a documentarian known for making The Panama Papers and other films, who happened to know Donovan and helped amplify the idea. In this case, we did it in a week. At the end of the day, the central organizer on this is the publicwere giving them a place to organize. These are individuals across the country who are protesting en masse at these showrooms. When we spoke on Friday afternoon, 39 events were planned, and the number was growing.
A handful of other protests have already happened at Tesla locations, from Manhattan to Seattle. The efforts might seem, at first, to be small. But in theory, the pressure on Tesla could succeed. It is possible to get results this way, says Edward Niedermeyer, author of Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors. Theres a path to putting a considerable amount of pressure on Musk, personally.
Tesla car sales are already struggling. In 2024, Tesla sales were essentially flat, dropping 1.1% from the year before after years of growth, despite the fact that the company slashed prices. In China, with a vast array of newer, arguably more innovative options for electric vehicles, fewer consumers are buying Teslas. Sales have also fallen in Europe, driven in part by Musk’s unpopularity.
In the U.K., where Musk has argued that the prime minister should be jailed and America should “liberate” the British people from their “tyrannical” government, one survey found that 60% of likely EV buyers no longer want a Tesla because of Musk’s politics. In Germany, Musks support for the far-right Alternative for Germany party, and the fact that he appeared to use a Nazi salute during Trumps inauguration, presumably contributed to a 59% drop in year-over-year sales in January. Tesla sales also fell in France, Sweden, and Norway last month. Some Tesla owners, both in Europe and the U.S., are either selling their cars or adding apology bumper stickers.
Musk, and Tesla investors, say that the real value of the company is in its future promise of full self-driving tech. But Musk has been teasing its imminent release for years. The only real business that Tesla has now is its EV business, and with more competitors in the space, its not doing well. The Cybertruck, Teslas first all-new vehicle since 2017, is the biggest flop in the auto industry, Niedermeyer says.
That creates an opening for a Tesla boycott in the U.S. The unique opportunity that American consumers have is if we can collectively affect a dramatic reduction in sales here, that pushes volume down, that pushes margin down, Niedermeyer says. At this tipping point, the core business that generates 90% of revenue could turn into a negative-margin business, which means that no matter how many sales they do, they lose money on every car.
Eventually, its possible that the psychology around the companys arguably overinflated stock price could shift. With a bubble stock, as long as people prop it up, its great, he says. The problem is once the psychology shifts from greed to fear and people start selling. Musks cash loans are secured by Tesla stock, so at some point, hell have to sell stock to cover margin callswhich is likely to convince many more people to sell and create a downward spiral, Niedermeyer says.
Theres no evidence yet that Musk is worried about whats happening at Tesla. But employees and many investors are concerned, according to a Washington Post story. Musk has inflicted a massive amount of damage on the perception of that company, Nell Minow, vice chair of ValueEdge Advisors, told the Post, saying that she donated most of her Tesla stock to charity in 2024. (Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
It’s not clear how quickly pressure against Tesla could make a differenceor exactly how much harm Musk can inflict on the government while lawsuits make their way through the courts. But in addition to impacts on Tesla, the protests can help raise awareness of whats happening now in D.C.
DOGE has done so much damage already to government agencies, particularly ones that were investigating Musk’s companies for wrongdoing, says Donovan, the university professor organizing a Tesla protest in Boston. And so if the government’s not going to call attention to these conflicts of interest, then hopefully the people will. She says the protests are also a way to show support for federal workers who are being pushed to leave their jobs.
Winter, the documentarian, says he has multiple motivations for protesting. “There is an end-game desire to devalue the stock and end up with a vote of no confidence [on] Musk from the shareholders, which would absolutely impact him in a meaningful way,” he says. “An enormous aount of his value is tied up in his stake of Tesla.”
In addition, Winter says, “There’s an enormous need for greater literacy and understanding in the country and the world about these tech oligarchs. It’s something I’ve been working on for decades, which is to demystify this notion that they’re invulnerable and all-powerful.”
Protests “are extremely effective, and educating oneself is extremely effective,” he says. “And, I would argue, [these efforts] minimize hopelessness. Because the more specifics you understand about Musk and his wealthand the vulnerability of his wealthand the more you understand about what powers people do and don’t have, the more you realize there’s a path forward.”
Compassion comes easily to me.
As the granddaughter of immigrants from Lithuania and Poland who spoke little English, I understand what its like to be treated as a stranger in America.
As a journalist, I covered stories of war and trauma in the 1990s, including the crushing of Chinese protests in Tiananmen Square and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, followed by the Soviet Unions collapse two years later. I covered the war between Iraq and Iran. I witnessed ethnic strife in South Africa and the toll poverty takes in Mexico.
As a professor of cultural engagement and public diplomacy, I have watched and studied how compassion can help build and strengthen civil society.
And having worked in senior levels of the U.S. government for Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama on international conflict resolution, I have learned that compassion is a key ingredient of peacemaking.
Especially now, as President Donald Trump seeks to deport millions of immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization and to stop funding the U.S. Agency for International Development, which has long spent billions of dollars a year helping the worlds poorest people, compassion seems lacking among U.S. leaders.
Perhaps that all explains my curiosity about a new study on the state of compassion in Americapart of the glue that holds communities together.
Defining compassion
Sociologists define compassion as the human regard for the suffering of others, and the notion of using action to alleviate this pain.
The report that caught my eye was issued in January 2025 by the Muhammad Ali Center, which the late boxer cofounded 20 years ago in Louisville, Kentucky, to advance social justice.
As the Ali Center explains, compassion starts with the individualself-care and personal wellness. It then radiates out to the wider community in the form of action and engagement.
You can see compassion at work in the actions of a Pasadena, California, girl, who started a donation hub for teens affected by fires that ripped through the Los Angeles region in early 2025. She began collecting sports bras, hair ties, and fashionable sweaters, helping hundreds of her peers begin to recover from their losses in material and emotional ways.
Its also visible in the estimated 6.8 million people in the U.S. who donate blood each year, according to the American Red Cross.
Were grateful to blood donors across the country who generously give to help patients in need.Severe winter weather and wildfires have impacted our blood supply since the new year, and we appreciate everyone who has made, kept and rescheduled their blood donation appointments pic.twitter.com/TperMufpjq— American Red Cross (@RedCross) January 24, 2025
Resilience in America
While Ali is best known for his battles in the ring and his outspoken political views, he also helped those in need in the U.S. and other countries through large charitable donations and his participation in United Nations missions to countries like Afghanistan, where he helped deliver millions of meals to hungry people.
The researchers who worked on the Ali Center report interviewed more than 5,000 U.S. adults living in 12 cities in 2024 in order to learn more about the prevalence of compassionate behaviors such as charitable giving, volunteering and assisting others in their recovery from disasters.
They found that the desire to help others still animates many Americans despite the nations current polarization and divisive politics.
The center has created an index it calls the net compassion score. It approximates the degree to which Americans give their time and money to programs and activities that nurture and strengthen their communities.
Cities with high compassion scores have more community engagement and civic participation than those with low scores. A higher-scoring community performs better when it comes to things like public housing and mental health resources, for example. Its residents report more career opportunities, better communications between local government and citizens, more community programs, and more optimism around economic development where they live.
The report provides some clues as to what drives compassionate behavior in a city: a sense of spirituality, good education, decent healthcare, resources for activities like sports, and opportunities to engage in local politics.
All told, Americans rate their country as a 9 on a scale that runs from minus 100 to 100.
The report also identified some troubling obstacles that stand in the way of what it calls self-compassionmeaning how volunteers and donors treat their own mental and physical health. Frequent struggles with self-care can lead to rising levels of isolation and loneliness.
From left: Jeni Stepanek, chair of the Muhammad Ali Index; Lonnie Ali, cofounder and vice chair of the Muhammad Ali Center; and DeVone Holt, the centers president and CEO, at the launch of the Muhammad Ali Index on January 16, 2025 [Photo: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Muhammad Ali Center]
Doubting their own capacity
The 2025 Compassion Reports findings show that many Americans still want to live in a compassionate country but also that Americans view the country as less compassionate today than four years ago.
The report delves into gaps in compassion. About one-third of those interviewed acknowledged that there are groups toward whom they feel less compassionate toward, such as people who have been convicted of crimes, immigrants living in the U.S. without authorization, and the rich.
Only 29% said they feel compassion toward everyone.
The report also identifies gender gaps. Despite expressing greater awareness of systemic challenges, the women surveyed reported less self-compassion than men.
Its not the first compassion study ever done. But I believe that this one is unique due to its focus on specific cities, and how it assessed limits on the compassion some people feel toward certain groups.
Helping health and humanity
The Compassion Institute, another nonprofit, seeks to weave compassion training into healthcare education to create a more caring and humanitarian world. It cites the benefits of compassion for human beings, with everything from reducing stress to alleviating the effects of disease on the mind and body.
Academic institutions, including Stanford University, have conducted many studies on how teaching compassion can guide healthcare professionals to both treat patients better and achieve better outcomes.
A team of Emory University researchers examined how training people to express more compassion can reduce stress hormones levels, triggering positive brain responses that improve immune responses.
Offering an advantage
Although there are plenty of adorable videos of dogs and cats behaving kindly with each other or their human companions, historically compassion has differentiated humans from animals.
Human beings possess powers of emotional reasoning that give us an edge.
Scholars are still working to discover how much of human compassion is rooted in emotional reasoning. Another factor theyve identified is the aftermath of trauma. Studies have found evidence that it can increase empathy later on.
You might imagine that in a world of hurt, theres a deficit of compassion for others. But the Ali Centers report keeps alive the notion that Americans remain compassionate people who want to help others.
My experiences around the world and within the U.S. have taught me that human beings both have the power to be violent and destructive. But despite it all, there is, within all of us, the innate ability and desire to be compassionate. That is a net positive for our country.
Tara Sonenshine is an Edward R. Murrow professor of practice in public diplomacy at Tufts University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
