Amazon is betting big on movie theaterseven if it isnt counting on mega profits.
The Silicon Valley giant told The New York Times last week that it is planning to release about 14 movies annually in theaters across the United States, an untraditional move for a company that has for years focused on streaming. Instead of simply dropping films directly onto Prime Video, its streaming service, Amazon wants audiences to see its movies on the big screen firsttypically for 45 daysbefore theyre available for streaming.
Three years after Amazon bought MGM for $8.5 billion, the tech giant is signaling that it is ready to compete more directly with Hollywoods biggest studios.
According to eMarketer analyst Jeremy Goldman, the theatrical push has more to do with earning customer loyalty than it does raking in game-changing revenues. By investing in wide releases with A-list talent and 45-day exclusive theatrical windows, Amazon is signaling that it wants its films to matternot just be content that quietly drops on a Thursday night, Goldman says.
In the past 10 years, Amazon has acted as distributor for a number of critically acclaimed films, including Nickel Boys, American Fiction, Sound of Metal, and Manchester by the Sea, all of which were nominated for Best Picture Oscars and received at least limited theatrical releases.
In recent years, Amazon has released five to eight films in theaters annually, often with varying time frames before they became available on Prime Video. The newly announced 14-film, 45-day-window strategy is in league with what the five major studiosUniversal, Paramount, Warner Bros., Walt Disney, and Sonydo each year.
The shift could be a boon for the movie theater business, which has struggled to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. Box office receipts are down 20% to 25% from pre-pandemic levels in 2019, according to a research note Bloomberg Intelligence shared with Fast Company. Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Geetha Ranganathan and Kevin Near noted that this investment could fill a competition gap left when Disney bought 21st Century Fox in 2019.
In addition to award-winning releases, Amazon has blockbuster films at the ready. The company reportedly paid an additional $1 billion earlier this year to take full control of the James Bond franchise, and is expected to name a new Bond to replace Daniel Craig soon.
Amazon is honing its theatrical strategy as other streaming giants continue to tinker with theirs in an effort to fuel both streaming user and theatergoer demands.
Apple and Netflix have limited theatrical releases, while Disney is stuck between fueling its Disney+ streaming services and giving moviegoing audiences the theater experience they crave for blockbusters. Mike Proulx, vice president and research director at Forrester, sees a parallel to Amazons model in Disney: The company’s theatrical release strategy is akin to what Disney has been doing for years with Disney+ as the eventual beneficiary of the content.
Proulx adds that while Amazon is trying to find the right balance between its streaming and theater strategies, an uptick in quality films is ultimately a net positive for the company. Better content makes Prime Video more valuable, he says, even if some people opt to wait for it to end up there.
Meta is bringing its Teen Accounts, which have stricter parental controls, to its Facebook and Messenger platforms on Tuesday, expanding its teen service from just Instagram.
The social media giant rolled out Teen Accounts last year on Instagram that have built-in restrictions on who can contact teens, the content they see, and limits on their time on Instagram.
[Photo: Meta]
Tuesday’s announcement also includes updates to Instagram’s teen service that will roll out in the next couple of months. Instagram said that teens under 16 will be prohibited from going Live unless their parents give them permission to do so. Teens under that age also will be required to have parental permission to turn off a feature that automatically blurs imaged containing suspected nudity in DMs.
[Photo: Meta]
Meta has come under fire from parents and lawmakers for its platforms’ impacts on young users. Forty-one states and D.C. filed lawsuits against Meta in 2023, alleging that the company intentionally designed some features on Facebook and Instagram that they knew could harm teens and other young users.
Tuesday’s announcement is part of a broader push by the social media giant to beef up parental controls to drum up support.
[Photo: Meta]
Instagram said it moved 54 million teens into Teen Accounts. It added that 97% of teens aged 13 to 15 years old keep those built-in protections on.
During the last Trump presidency, Barbie was firmly at the center of progressive causes.
Back in 2017, the BarbieStyle Instagram feed featured dolls wearing Love Wins T-shirts to show their support of marriage equality; some posts even subtly suggested that Barbie was in a same-sex relationship with a brunette called Aimee. Another post featured Barbie wearing a People Are People T-shirt designed by Christian Siriano to protest Trump’s immigration ban. That same year, Mattel rolled out Barbie dolls with more diverse body types, along with Muslim dolls that wore hijabs.
With President Donald Trump back in the White House, it’s unclear whether the Barbie brand will remain a progressive icon. MattelBarbie’s parent companyhas dropped language surrounding DEI in a proxy statement to investors ahead of its annual shareholder meeting, a fact first reported in Bloomberg Law. Last year’s statement included language that said Mattel would create positive impact through purposeful play and by supporting diverse, equitable, and inclusive communities. This year, that language has vanished. Mattel also removed a table reflecting the gender and racial breakdown of its board members.
Mattel’s public facing corporate website has also scrubbed references to DEI. In April 2024, the Citizenship section of this website said, Our aim is to contribute to a more diverse, equitable, inclusive, and sustainable future. As of the publication of this story, that line has now been deleted.
A spokesperson from Mattel said the change in language was just a reporting change and would not change its approach nor its product commitments. She also pointed that the company publishes its Inclusion Guiding Principles on its corporate website, which mentions promoting equality. Inclusion is part of our DNA at Mattel, the spokesperson told Fast Company. We foster an environment that attracts incredibly talented people and a culture of respect and belonging that we’re very proud of. As it relates to our products and experiences, play is our language, and we speak to our consumers authentically by representing the world as they see and imagine it.
In this political climate, the company’s decision to eliminate references to DEI in its correspondence with investors and consumers is notable, suggesting that it is feeling the heat from the Trump administration’s relentless attacks on corporate DEI policies. Hours after taking office in January, Trump dismantled the federal government’s DEI agenda, and asked federal agencies to draw up lists of private companies that could be investigated for illegal DEI discrimination.
In response, dozens of companies, such as Jetblue, Meta and Walmart, have toned down their language supporting DEI or walked back their DEI commitments altogether. This, in turn, has led to a massive boycott effort from organizations like the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, the People’s Union USA, and the NAACP. But there have been some companies who have used this moment to reaffirm their commitments to DEI, including CostCo and Kendra Scott, and have been rewarded for it by consumers who are flocking to shop from them.
Progressive have often been angriest at companies they once perceived as allies. Target, for instance, took a bold stance in the midst of the Black Live Matters protests in 2020, pledging to increase its Black workforce by 20% throughout the company and bring in more Black-owned brands. But when it rolled back its DEI efforts, it became the subject of a persistent and widespread boycott, which seems to be having an impact. The retailer’s foot traffic has been in decline for eight weeks now.
For Mattel, scaling back its DEI efforts could be similarly damaging. Over the past decade, the Barbie brand went through a transformation. For years, the brand had sluggish sales, as millennial parents perceived the doll as reflecting old-fashioned values, such as being skinny, beautiful, and attractive to men. But Richard Dickson, Mattel’s CEO from 2000 to 2023, helped make Barbie more exciting and aligned with millennial culture. He oversaw the brand’s efforts to roll out a wider range of dolls, with different body types and gender expressions. And perhaps most impressively, he helped unleash the blockbuster Barbie movie which turned Barbie into a symbol of feminism and diversity. (Dickson was an executive producer on the movie; he left Mattel to become the CEO of Gap Inc. in 2023.)
Mattel’s spokesperson says that the company will not change its approach to products design or hiring. We’ll have to wait and see how the company continues to evolve in the months and years to come, but it’s clear that many consumers are paying close attention to brands that have stood for progressive values in the past and are now abandoning these ideals in the face of political pressure. If a brand like Barbie suddenly takes a turn away from inclusivity, it risks falling out of step with today’s parents and possibly even facing a Target-size backlash.
Inside a warehouse in Santa Clara, California, a company called Vintage Electric Bikes builds sleek e-bikes with retro styling, customized for each customers order.
But like other bike brands, the components it uses come from a global supply chain. The bicycle industry, theres just no f***ing way we can survive 100% [made in] America, says Eddie Johnson, sales director at the company. Its not possible.
That means that tariffs, if they stay in place, will hit the industry hard. Last year, 115 electric bike brands left the market after another round of tariffs went into effect, according to Peter Woolery, who analyzes bike industry data. (Those tariffs were put in place during the first Trump administration, but e-bikes had a temporary exemption that expired last summer and President Biden did not renew.)
View this post on Instagram A post shared by Vintage Electric Bikes (@vintageelectric)
When Vintage Electric Bikes first launched more than a decade ago, it tried to do as much as possible locally, working with local welders and machine shops to make parts like frames and handlebars. But when one key local foundry closedafter Google bought out its lease to expand he tech company’s officesVintage Electric Bikes couldnt find another local partner to replace it. It had to begin using a supplier in Taiwan, where most of the worlds high-end bikes are now made. Other parts, like e-bike batteries and motors, always came from other countries like China. “There’s no way around it,” Johnson says.
Theres an argument that more bike assembly could happen in the U.S., Johnson says. But the hundred or so parts that go into making a bikespokes, chains, wheels, tires, saddles, seat posts, bearings, etceteraare unlikely to be made here. In the short term, it isnt feasible. And if it happened over the long term, he argues that it would make products unaffordable for consumers because of higher American wages.
He makes the comparison to shoes. Do you really think American workers are going to want to build Nike shoes? No. And if they are going to make Nike shoes, you need to invest in that factory. You need to invest in the training. And then all of a sudden, your Nike shoe has all of this added cost. Do you think the American consumer is going to buy your average Nike sneaker for a few hundred dollars?
Still, there are already some efforts to bring back some parts of bike manufacturing. Bloom, a Detroit-based startup, is working with bike brands and other types of companies to connect them with American factories. A factory that used to do TV assembly, for example, is now working on bike assembly. Another factory that used to make car parts, like dashboards, is also working on e-bikes.
There are advantages to doing the work in the U.S. beyond supporting jobs, says Chris Nolte, Bloom’s cofounder. If you were to assemble that product domestically, you could really reduce your stock that you need to keep on hand by probably 70%, maybe even more, Nolte says. Theres a significant benefit there if a company doesnt have much cash available. They can still give the consumer the choices that they want, but have that flexibility. It also makes it easier to take back parts, including batteries, for recycling and reuse.
Theres a chicken-and-egg problem, says Nolte: Some companies have found that doesnt make sense to assemble in the U.S. if components arent made here, and conversely, it also doesnt make sense to make components in the U.S. if assembly is happening somewhere else. But he says some large bike brands are working on plans for American manufacturing. Factories that are shared by multiple brands might be another possibility. (More complicated solutions may also be possible, like building foreign trade zones where some foreign parts could legally be imported tariff-free if a certain percentage of the other work happens in the U.S. But this type of zone is expensive to set up.)
Reshoring bike manufacturing “is going to be a pretty painful process,” says Ash Lovill, vice president of government relations at the nonprofit People for Bikes. “It just costs significantly more right now to manufacture in the U.S. All of the companies that were manufacturing in the U.S. in the ’80s and ’90s moved out; moving them back is going to be really difficult.”
To support American bike manufacturing, the government should help the industry build the infrastructure that’s necessary, she says. A bill that’s currently in Congress, the Domestic Bike Production Act, could help if it moves forward.
In the meantime, bike prices are going to jump higher. Trump’s current tariffs on Chinawhich may changeadd up to around 90% for bikes now, says Lovill. Trump also removed the “de minimis” exemption that allowed products under $800 to be imported from China without tariffs, so if companies import smaller bike parts, those will also now cost more.
Some companies still have inventory, so can wait a little longer before changing prices. (One e-bike company has been scrambling to receive a shipment that just arrived in order to avoid an unexpected $1 million tariff charge.) Others have already raised the price of their bikes. And its unclear how much consumers will be willing to pay at a time when the overall economy is so shaky.
Theres going to be a shakedown, says Johnson. I dont see how certain brands survive. Vintage Electric Bikes makes a premium product; lower-end e-bikes are more at risk. I know the margin that this industry operates on, and I know that those $1,500 bikes are already operating on a fairly thin margin. I dont understand how overnight the e-bike consumer is going to accept the fact that they need to spend $3,500 on what was a $1,500 bike, just because of these tariffs. How do these brands survive when the consumer cant afford the product anymore?
Almost seamlessly, the two sides of a scenic forest in Alberta, Canada, have been woven back together.
Located between Calgary and Banff National Park, this stretch of the Canadian Rockies is sliced in two by the Trans-Canada Highway, one of the busiest roadways in the province. That’s had deadly consequences for the area’s abundant wildlife, as well as the tens of thousands of people who drive through it every day. But now, after years of mounting wildlife-vehicle collisions, the danger to animals and humans is being addressed with a stunning new wildlife overpass.
The Bow Valley Gap wildlife overpass is a roughly 200-foot-wide cap over a four-lane highway, topped with soil and forest-like plantings that creates a bridge almost indistinguishable from the forest on either side.
[Photo: Neil Zeller/courtesy Dialog]
The design and engineering firm Dialog led the structural engineering and landscape architecture of the overpass, which was funded by Alberta’s provincial department of transportation and is now the first wildlife overpass in Canada constructed outside of a national park. It’s in an area where reported vehicle collisions with deer, elk, coyotes, and grizzly bears happen 69 times per year on average. The very rough rule of thumb is for every collision that is recorded or every carcass that is seen on the side of the road, you can usually double that number, says Dialog’s Neil Robson, the overpass project manager and lead designer.
The best way to mitigate collisions is to try to prevent them. The number one way to prevent them is actually fencing. But fencing doesn’t allow connectivity of the animal. It keeps them on both sides of the highway, Robson says. Very helpful for collisions, but not helpful for migration patterns, connectivity, the ability to get mates, genetic diversity, and that’s where the overpass comes into play.
[Photo: Neil Zeller/courtesy Dialog]
The overpass sits atop two arched tunnels that cover the two traffic lanes and shoulders on each side of the road. Seen from a driver’s perspective, the overpass has a smooth M shape, and is covered with grasses, shrubs, and trees. A tall metal fence runs along its edges, as well as on the sides of the road leading up to the overpass, running a total of more than seven miles.
Robson says the design of the overpass was heavily informed by animal migration data, with its width sized to accommodate the large species that are known to travel in this area. Wildlife biologists were involved during the initial design phases for the overpass and helped to shape its look and form. The overpass topography was influenced by the species that live in the area, and its slopes were calculated to accommodate what animalsboth predator and preyneed to see to survive in the wild.
If you’re going up a crest and or up a hill and it’s too sharp, that’s not ideal for a prey species because they don’t really have the line of sight [to avoid predators], Robson says. Flatter topography for viewpoints and not having blind corners and other types of things also factor into the design.
[Photo: Neil Zeller/courtesy Dialog]
These kinds of considerations are fairly new ones for wildlife overpasses. Dialog has some experience in this unique building typology, having designed a handful that already exist in Banff National Park. But Robson says the design process has become much more interdisciplinary in just the past few years, with designers and scientists working together. It’s not just the engineering professional inheriting the recommendations from the biologist and ecologist or reading the report and then making their own decisions. We’re going to those sites together. We’re working through the designs together, he says.
That’s even affecting how these projects are planted. For the Bow Valley Gap overpass, scientists helped determine the ideal mix of plant species that would mimic the forest surroundings but not encourage animals to linger near what is still a potential collision area.
We do want the landscape architecture on top, the grasses, the shrubs, and the trees, to be as close to the natural surroundings as possible, Robson says. But you also don’t want them to be overly edible, because if you plant them in and a herd of deer or elk start to chew on things, you’re not going to have much vegetation left.
Those plants are still maturing on the overpass, which was officially completed in December. But even as it grows in, Robson says the design process behind the overpass is informing future wildlife overpasses in Canada, including three that Dialog is currently designing. And, perhaps more importantly, it’s already bing used by the species it was designed to protect.
The extreme tariffs that President Donald Trump has applied to nations across the world have had a whipsaw effect on global trade, with markets nosediving and countries scrambling to strategize a response. Supply chains in particular have been upended: Clothes-makers fear fluctuations across the entire production system, the cost of furniture and other home goods is likely to soon spike, and companies like Apple, which manufacture much of their high-tech products in China, have been caught in a trade-war nightmare.
The same strains and stresses will impact the car industry. In addition to levies placed on foreign carmakers like BMW and Toyota, even American-made cars tend to rely on a complex web of parts and labor from both Mexico and China. Currently, about 6 out of every 10 auto replacement parts used in the U.S. are imported from Mexico, Canada, and China, according to the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA). And the sharp rise in costs wont just impact those looking to buy a new ride. Higher replacement costs mean insurers will likely foot a much bigger bill to resolve claims and fix damaged automobiles.
That means higher costs trickling down to consumers, and increases in insurance rates that may be some of the highest in recent history.
Robert Passmore, department vice president at the APCIA, estimates the industry might see anywhere between $30 and $60 billion more in personal auto insurance claim costs in 2025 alone. Individual annual car insurance costs will vary, but the average American, who pays roughly $2,000 a year, will see an increase.
Insurify, an insurance shopping marketplace, predicts insurance costs will spike 19% this year after the impacts of Trump’s “Liberation Day” cycle through supply chains. Without the tariff increase, insurance rates would have only gone up 5%. Thats a huge increase in cost due to tariffs, specifically the levies on automobiles and auto parts introduced in late March. In addition, the Canada and Mexico-specific tariffs that impact many automaker supply chains, and the steel and aluminum tariffs, also made replacing busted cars more expensive.
That adds up to about $350 extra per household per year. Insurance companies need a few months of data to get exact costs, and it takes a while for new premium costs to cycle in across the population, but by the end of the year, unless Trump backs off the tariffs, higher prices should be widespread.
Matt Brannon, a data journalist at Insurify, said hes seen reports that insurance companies are already prepping agents to explain to their customers that these are tariff-driven increases in their insurance costs.
Roughly 95% of Americans drive at least occasionally, per the AAA. Due to our car-centric transportation network, the vast majority dont have the option to get around without a car and the compulsory insurance. The cost of covering your car has whipsawed in recent years, dropping dramatically during the pandemic, due to less travel and few drives to work, and therefore fewer accidents to cover. It spiked once driversaccustomed to empty streets and faster speedsgot back on the road and accident rates increased. It jumped by 11% and 16% in 2023 and 2024, respectively, according to data from ValuePenguin, and was forecast to stabilize and slow down this year, until tariffs significantly increased the cost of anything related to a car.
Any time your insurance rates go up, it eats into your household budget, said Rob Bhatt, insurance analyst for ValuePenguin. You have to have car insurance to drive legally, and so, you know, this isn’t really discretionary spending we’re talking about. Its more bad news for consumers.
Insurance companies feel compelled to raise premiums to cover the more costly claims they need to pay; it doesnt help that, as cars have become more high-tech with bumper cameras and computer systems, theyve also become more expensive to fix.
Analysts say that the insurance industry is attempting to lobby local, state, and federal governments to pass more stringent speed limits and safety laws to help reduce accidents and their exposure, but its not making much headway. Some Americans may attempt to lower their monthly insurance burden by increasing the deductible amount on their insurance, but that risks much more financial damage in the wake of an accident.
At this point, short of Trump reversing the tariffs, the only hope for lower insurance rates seems to be if Americans miraculously and simultaneously become better drivers.
A dispute between a pair of pro athletes who both use the number 8 has been resolved, thanks to a change in font.
Former NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. said Friday his NASCAR team, JR Motorsports, had secured the rights to a stylized 8 mark through the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The announcement came after attorneys for quarterback Lamar Jackson, who wears the No. 8 jersey for the Baltimore Ravens, filed a notice of opposition with the USPTO over JR Motorsports’s trademark claim to the mark, arguing it falsely suggests a connection with Jackson.
pic.twitter.com/uZWk8kPlcW— Dale Earnhardt Jr. (@DaleJr) April 4, 2025
Earnhardt and his team have raced before as No. 8; and in 2019, when the team got the No. 8 car, he said the number was very special to me and to JR nation. Theres a lot of history with the No. 8 in my family and in NASCAR. Its time to write some new stories and continue to add to the numbers rich heritage, according to Autoweek.
But the number also means something to Jackson, who played with a No. 8 jersey at the University of Louisville, which the school retired, as well as for the Ravens since being drafted by the team in 2018.
Jackson’s attorneys went after another No. 8 athlete last year, former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman. At the time, Aikman joked in a post on X, Hey LamarLooks like a worthy conversation over a couple cold EIGHT beers! Maybe Steve Young can arbitrate?? (Aikman was referring to his beer brand Eight; and Young, a former San Francisco 49ers No. 8 player.)
Aikman’s joke showed how a single number can refer to multiple well-known athletes simultaneously, potentially watering down the case a single athlete can make to lay absolute claim to a number.
Earnhardt didn’t say much about how the dispute was resolved except that his JR Motorsports team would no longer use the forward-leaning 8 mark that they’ve used since 2019 and instead use a backward-leaning mark that resembles the No. 8 car Earnhardt raced with in the 2000s for Dale Earnhardt Inc., the team founded by his father. The resolution seems to suggest that the styling of a number plays a role in how the public perceives it in connection to specific athletes.
Jackson has proven litigious over the number, but he said in 2021 that he’d change from No. 8 to No. 1 if he ever won a Super Bowl. So if you see Earnhardt, Aikman, Young, and other No. 8 athletes cheering for the Ravens, you might figure out why.
I’m a writer, not a programmer, so until recently a lot of the hype around ChatGPT’s abitilies as a coding tool went over my head.
But then I realized generative AI’s programming powers can be helpful for more than just coders. It can also help anyone else dabble in code to get things done.
In my case, that means creating new browser bookmarklets. These are special kinds of bookmarks that use JavaScript to modify or act on web content, and they’ve always been an underrated web browsing superpower. For years, I’ve used bookmarklets to speed up web videos, remove page clutter, and quickly search my favorite sites, but I’ve always been limited to whatever example code I can find online.
With AI tools like ChatGPT, I can finally make new bookmarklets myself, and the only limit is what I can think to do with them.
ChatGPT’s bookmarklet breakdown
Ironically, my aha moment with AI-generated bookmarklets arose while getting frustrated with another AI tool, Amazon’s Rufus shopping assistant. Last year, Amazon removed a feature that let you search through customer reviews and Q&As directly from its product pages, replacing it with the much slower Rufus chatbot.
That got me thinking about a faster way to search Amazon reviews directly. After noticing that Amazon has separate pages for products and customer reviews, each with the same product code in the address, I realized that a bookmarklet cloud allow for faster searching.
Here’s how I asked ChatGPT to make a bookmarklet that searches the customer reviews from an Amazon product page:
Here is a link to an Amazon product page, where the ASIN is B0DHV7LR12: https://www.amazon.com/Baseus-Charging-Certified-Magnetic-Retractable/dp/B0DHV7LR12
Here is a link to a page that searches through customer reviews for that product, where B0DHV7LR12 is still the ASIN, and “test” is the search term: https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B0DHV7LR12/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewopt_kywd?pageNumber=1&filterByKeyword=test
I want you to make a bookmarklet that, when clicked on an Amazon product page, opens a “Search Amazon reviews:” dialog box. The bookmarklet will then open the corresponding review page with the search term entered in the dialog box. If the bookmarklet is clicked outside of an Amazon product page, display an error message that says “You must be on an Amazon product page to use this bookmarklet.”
This link to my ChatGPT conversation includes both the bookmarklet in question and instructions for installing it. By adding it to your browser’s bookmarks bar, you can click a button from any Amazon page to quickly search its corresponding reviews.
More AI-generated bookmarklets
Feeling satisfied with my Amazon review search bookmarket, I decided to try making some others.
If you want to use any of these yourself, click on the links to each ChatGPT conversation, copy the JavaScript at the bottom of the chat, then create a new bookmark in your browser and paste the JavaScript into the address field:
Video Speed: YouTube’s speed controls take too many clicks to access, and I don’t like the default speed increments. I had ChatGPT make a speed-control bookmarklet to my exact specifications, and it works on pretty much any video site, not just YouTube.
Hide Stickies: Removes annoying web page elements that follow you around when you scroll, such as menu bars and floating video players.
Link Card: I use Obsidian for notetaking, and this bookmarklet converts web links into neatly formatted cards that I can paste into my notes.
Link and Excerpt: This helps speed up link sharing on social media. If text is highlighted on a page, clicking the bookmarklet wraps the text in quotes and copies it to the clipboard with the URL underneath. If no text is selected, it just copies the address instead.
More Links: Sends the current page to Perplexity with a request for more links to stories that cover the same topic.
Clean Link: Copies a link to the current address without common tracking parameters and other junk.
Google Maps Search: When clicked, this asks for your destination and starting address, then looks up directions. If you leave the starting address field blank, it just looks up the location instead.
Archive Link: Loads an archived snapshot of the current page, as hosted at Archive.Today.
I don’t expect you to use all of these yourself, but hopefully they’ll get you thinking about the kinds of things bookmarklets can accomplish, and how you might use AI to build your own.
One important note: ChatGPT sometimes inserts comment lines (denoted with a // double slash) to explain, but these can prevent the bookmarklets from working properly. Either remove them yourself or instruct the model not to include them.
Why this works
Generative AI is handy for making bookmarklets for a few reasons:
The stakes are low: While AI-generated code is causing all sorts of problems for businesses, here you’re just generating JavaScript to automate and improve your own web browsing. You’re not at risk of breaking anything critical.
The results are immediate: No extensive testing is necessary to see how your AI-generated bookmarklets perform. Either they work or they don’t.
They’re easy to modify: If you want to change some element of your newly created bookmarklets, you can just ask using natural language.
You might learn something: If you aspire to learn a little JavaScript yourself, bookmarklets are a simple application with immediate practical benefits. You can look at the code that comes out, compare it with other examples, and ask questions to understand how things work.
In general, bookmarklets work well whenever you want to perform an action on the current URL, modify web page content, or open a specific site’s search page with keywords pre-applied. If you’re not sure where to start, you can always ask your AI chatbot for ideas.
Changing jobs is typically the shortest path to a higher salary, but for the first time in almost 15 years staying put is paying better than moving on.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlantas Wage Growth Tracker job stayers are enjoying greater salary growth than job switchers for the first time since 2010during the aftermath of the global financial crisisand only the third time since the data set began in 1998.
In fact, just two years ago, at the height of the Great Resignation, workers were enjoying the highest premium for changing jobs in at least a generation.
The returns on job switching have gone down, and I don’t know whether that’s driven by employees or employers, says Melinda Pitts, research director of the Atlanta Feds Center for Human Capital Studies.
The last time job stayers outearned job seekers the causes were straightforward, but Pitts says this time around things arent as clear. The unemployment rate is still really low. Its still a pretty tight labor market, and that was not the case coming out of the Great Recession, she says. It appears that there’s something different this time, but I do not know for certain [what].
Pitts explains that in the aftermath of the Great Resignation, a historically tight talent market inspired employers to offer more generous salaries to new hires, but as those costs ballooned, many invested more in retaining their existing workforce.
At the same time, those historically high wage premiums for job switchers in 2022 were in part driven by a broader workforce transition, wherein low-wage workers left hard-hit sectors like hospitality during the pandemic and reentered the workforce in higher-paying roles.
There’s a possibility that the people who are switching [now] are different, or it could be that employers, even though the unemployment rate is still relatively low, their demand for workers is not as such that they need to offer higher wages, she says. We don’t know if it’s because the composition of workers who switch jobs has changed, or that employers are offering wages [to new hires] similar to their retention wages.
Workers Feel StuckFor Good Reason
Regardless of the cause, the reversal of that wage growth trend has many Americans feeling stuck in their current roles, and rightfully so.
According to a recent survey conducted by Resume Now, two-thirds believe they would be happier in a different job, and 60% have remained in their role longer than they wanted.
There are quite a few different barriers to career changing, and some of them might just be imagined, but perception is reality, says Resume Now career expert Keith Spencer. People are worried about the potential for financial instability, particularly right now, so if I were thinking about switching jobs, but I was in a secure job, I might think its not a good time to leave.
According to the survey, 35% of respondents fear changing jobs would result in a pay cut, and 34% worry about broader financial instability.
In fact, as 2024 came to a close, nearly two-thirds of professionals were concerned about career stagnation, including 73% of tech workers, and many said they intended to change jobs in the new year.
We saw a lot of layoffs making big headlines throughout 2024, and that was starting to slow down as the year ended. Interest rates were starting to come down and inflation was starting to ease, Spencer says, adding that the economy hasnt played out the way many had hoped so far in 2025.
Layoffs have far outpaced projections in the beginning of this year. So we saw those concerning trends starting to slow down, and then all of a sudden they picked back up, he says. With the current market instability driven by President Donald Trumps sweeping tariffs against global trade partners, Spencer fears more workers are going to feel stuck in economic limbo for longer.
Why things will likely get worse before they get better
Those new economic challenges cannot be understated and could soon lead to even fewer options for workers in the job market, says Solange Charas, a Columbia University professor and the founder-CEO of HR consulting firm HCMoneyball. I don’t think people appreciate how impactful these tariffs are going to befor the whole economy, obviouslybut for individuals themselves, specifically, she says.
Charas explains that the stock markets reaction to Trumps Liberation Day tariff announcement last week is eating away at retirement savings. That could force boomers to remain in the workforce longer, increasing labor supply. At the same time, companies are likely to reevaluate their budgets for this year and make significant cuts, which will likely eat away at demand.
The new tariffs are going to reshape the workforce strategy because they create a higher level of expense, and what’s the easiest thing to cut from your P and L? People, she says. People are not going to change jobs voluntarily, because of this tariff situation, and the stock market is reflecting that.
While workers typically see wage growth for changing jobs, and job stayers were more recently enjoying a premium from retention-conscious employers, Charas fears neither is likely to see wage growth of any kind in the coming months.
People are thinking about staying put, even if they feel like they’re stuck, because being able to put food on the table is going to take a higher priority than self-actualization, she says. People are not going to be job seekers right now, and I don’t know if that’s going to be for the next month, or the next four months, the next six months, or the next year. That is going to depend on how the economy reacts to these tariffs.
Jon Dales love affair with birds began when he was about 10 and traded his BB gun for a pair of binoculars. Within a year, hed counted 150 species flitting through the trees that circled his familys home in Harlingen, Texas. The town sits in the Rio Grande Valley, at the convergence of the Central and Mississippi flyways, and also hosts many native fliers, making it a birders paradise. Dale delighted in spotting green jays, merlins, and altamira orioles. But as he grew older and learned more about the regions biodiversity, he knew he should be seeing so many more species.
Treks to Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, which spans 2,088 acres near the border with Mexico, revealed an understory alive with even more birdsong, from the wo-woo-ooo of white-tipped doves to the CHA-CHA-LAC-A that gives that tropical chicken its common name. The preserve is one of the last remnants of the Tamaulipan thorn forest, a dense mosaic of at least 1,200 plants, from poky shrubs to trees like mesquite, acacia, hackberry, ebony, and brasil. They once covered more than 1 million acres on both sides of the Rio Grande, where ocelots, jaguars, and jaguarundis prowled amid 519 known varieties of birds and 316 kinds of butterflies.
But the rich, alluvial soil that allowed such wonders to thrive drew developers, who arrived with the completion of a railroad in 1904. Before long, they began clearing land, building canals, and selling plots in the Magic Valley to farmers, including Dales great-great grandfather. His own father drove one of the bulldozers that cleared some of the last coastal tracts in the 1950s.
Today, less than 10% of the forest that once blanketed the region still stands. Learning what had been lost inspired Dale to try bringing some of it back. He was just 15 when, in a bid to attract more avians, he began planting several hundred native seedlings beside his house to create a 2-acre thorn foresta term he prefers over the more common thornscrub, which sounds to him like something to get rid of. He collected seeds from around the neighborhood and sought advice from the state wildlife agency, which began replanting thorn forest tracts in the 1950s to create habitat for game birds, as well as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which joined the cause after it listed ocelots as endangered in 1982. (The agency has since restored 16,000 acres.) The project kept dirt under his nails for the better part of a decade. Id go out and turn the lights on and do it in the middle of the night, he said. When Im into something, thats pretty much it.
Two decades later, hes still into it. He is a director at American Forests, which has toiled for 150 years to restore ecosystems nationwide. The nonprofit started working in the Rio Grande Valley in 1997 and took over the federal restoration effort last year. It also leads the Thornforest Conservation Partnership, a coalition of agencies and organizations hoping to restore at least 81,444 acres, the amount needed for the ocelot population to rebound. Although conservation remains the core mission, everyone involved understands, and promotes, the thorn forests ability to boost community resilience to the ravages of a warming world.
Climate change will only bring more bouts of extreme weather to Texas, and the Valleyone of the states poorest regions, but quickly urbanizingis ill-equipped to deal with it. Dale, now 45, believes urban thorn forests, which can mature in just 10 years, provide climate benefits that will blossom for decades: providing shade, preserving water, reducing erosion, and soaking up stormwater. To prove it, American Forests is launching its first community forest in the flood-prone neighborhood of San Carlos, an effort it hopes to soon replicate across the Valley.
People need more tools in the tool kit to actually mitigate climate change impact, Dale said. Its us saying, This is going to be a tool. Its been in front of us this whole time.
Despite its name, the Rio Grande Valley is a 43,000-square-mile delta that stretches across four counties in southernmost Texas, and it already grapples with climatic challenges. Each summer brings a growing number of triple-digit days. Sea level rise and beach erosion claim a bit more coastline every year. Chronic drought slowly depletes the river, an essential source of irrigation and drinking water for nearly 1.4 million people. Flooding, long a problem, worsens as stormwater infrastructure lags behind frenzied development. Three bouts of catastrophic rain between 2018 and 2020 caused more than $1.3 billion in damage, with one storm dumping 15 inches in six hours and destroying some 1,200 homes. Floods pose a particular threat to low-income communities, called colonias, that dot unincorporated areas and lack adequate drainage and sewage systems.
San Carlos, in northern Hidalgo County, is home to 3,000 residents, 21% of whom live in poverty. Eight years ago, a community center and park opened, providing a much-needed gathering place for locals. While driving by the facility, which sits in front of a drainage basin, Dale had a thought: Why not also plant a small thorn foresta shady place that would provide respite from the sun and promote environmental literacy while managing storm runoff?
Although the community lies beyond the acreage American Forests has eyed for restoration, Dale mentioned the idea to Ellie Torres, a county commissioner who represents the area. She deemed it a no-brainer. Since her election in 2018, Torres has worked to expand stormwater infrastructure. We have to look for other creative ways [to address flooding] besides digging trenches and extending drainage systems, she said.
A thorn forests flood-fighting power lies in its roots, which loosen the soil so it acts more like a sponge, said Bradley Christoffersen, an ecologist at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Urban trees can reduce runoff by as much as 26% because their canopies intercept rainfall and their roots help absorb it, saving cities millions annually in stormwater mitigation and environmental impact costs. This effect varies from place to place, so American Forests hopes to enlist researchers to study the community forests impact in San Carlos, where Torres joined more than 100 volunteers on a sunny morning in December 2022. By afternoon, theyd nestled 800 ebony, crucillo, and other seedlings into tilled earth. We need that vegetation, she said.
That sentiment has grown as cities across the Valley embrace green infrastructure. Although many swales and basins remain verdant with Bermuda grass, which is easier to maintain, teres a growing push to use native vegetation for runoff control. Brownsville, the regions largest city, is planting a pocket prairie of thorn forest species like brasil, colima, and Tamaulipan fiddlewood inside one drainage area. McAllen, about an hour to the west, has enlisted the help of a local thorn forest refuge to add six miniature woodlands to school playgrounds, libraries, and other urban locations. The biggest challenge to greater adoption of this approach is a lack of plant distributors that carry the really cool native thornscrub species, said Hunter Lohse, Brownsville City forester. Were trying to get plant suppliers to move away from the high-maintenance tropical plants theyve been selling for 50 years.
American Forests doesnt have that problem. Two dedicated employees roam public lands hauling buckets, stepladders, and telescopic tree pruners to collect seeds, some of which weigh less than a small feather. They typically gather more than 100 pounds of them each year, and stash them in refrigerators or freezers at Marinoff Nursery, a government-owned, 15,000-square-foot facility in Alamo that the nonprofit runs.
That may sound like a lot of seed, but its only sufficient to raise about 150,000 seedlings. Another 50,000 plants provided by contract growers allow them to reforest some 200 acres. At that rate, without additional funding and an expansion of its operations, it could take four centuries to achieve its goal of restoring nearly 82,000 acres throughout the Rio Grande Valley. These fields are probably one generation, maximum, from turning into housing, Dale said.
Funding is a serious challenge, though. In 2024, American Forests began a $10 million contract with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reforest 800 acres (including 200 the agencys job solicitation noted was lost to the construction of a section of border wall). That comes to $12,500 an acre, suggesting it could take more than $1 billion to restore just what the ocelots need.
Despite this, Dale says any restoration, no matter how small, is worth the investment. The nursery is currently growing 4,000 seedlings for four more community plots, each an acre or two in size. Small, yes, but they could mark the start of something much larger. We have a vision to expand these efforts in the future, Torres said.
For now, nursery workers just have to keep the plants alive. During a visit on a sunny afternoon in February, 130,000 seedlings, representing 37 species, peeked out from black milk crates, ready for transplant. All of them are naturally drought-resistant and raised with an eye toward the lives theyll lead. We dont baby them or coddle them, senior reforestation manager Murisol Kuri said. We want to make sure they are acclimated enough so when we plant they can withstand the heat and lack of water.
Despite this, on average, 20% of plants die, partly due to drought. It underscores the complexity of American Forests undertaking: While thorn forest restoration can help mitigate climate change, it only works if the plants can stand up to the weather. The organization expects that in the future, species that require at least 20 inches of annual rainfall could perish (some, like the Montezuma cypress and cedar elm, are already dying). That doesnt necessarily doom an ecosystem, but it does create opportunities for guinea grass and other nonnative fauna to push out endemic plants. Removing them is a hassle, so it is best to avoid letting them take root. If you dont do this right, it can blow up in your face, Dale said.
Hoping to evade this fate with its restored thorn forests, American Forests has created a playbook of climate-informed planting. The six tips include shielding seedlings inside polycarbonate tubes, which ward against strong winds and hungry critters while mimicking the cooler conditions beneath tree canopies. They look a bit weirda recent project at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge features about 20,000 white cylinders lined up like tombstonesbut seedling survival rates shot up as much as 90% once American Forests adopted the technique a decade ago.
Another strategy seems abundantly obvious: Select species that can endure future droughts. If were not [doing that], were kind of shooting ourselves in the foot, Dale said. Christoffersen, the University of Texas ecologist, and his students have surveyed restoration sites dating to the 1980s to see which plants thrived. The winners? Trees like Texas ebony and mesquite that have thorns to protect them from munching animals and long roots to tap moisture deep within the earth. Guayacan and snake eye, two species abundant in surviving patches of the original Tamaulipan thorn forest, didnt fare nearly as well when planted on degraded agricultural lands and would require careful management, as would wild lime and saffron plum.
Altering the thorn forests composition by picking and choosing the heartiest plants would decrease overall diversity, but increase the odds of it reaching maturity and bringing its conservation and climate benefits to the region. A 40-acre planting at Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf Coast reveals how quickly this can happen. Five years ago, a tractor wove through the site cultivating sorghum, which gave way to 40,000 seedlings. Today, the biggest trees stand 10 feet tall, with thorns high enough to snag clothing.
Dale named some of the 40 or so species now thriving in the south Texas sun: eupatorium, yucca, purple sage, colima, vaseys adelia, load bush, catclaw acacias. The plants feed and shelter a staggering array of orioles, green jays, and other birds, whose whistles, caws, and tweets filled the air. Ive already heard 15 species since we walked in, Dale said. He puckered his lips and, with the expertise born of a life spent birding, made a distinctive pish sound to draw them out. The brush was too thick to see them stir, but Dale seemed pleased as he surveyed it. Its gone from being this very homogenous use of land . . . to life again.
An hour to the west, visitors to San Carloss community forest might struggle to imagine that transformation. The ebony, crucillo, and other species planted two and a half years ago still look scrappy, and a seesaw pattern of droughts and winter freezes helped claim more than 40% of the seedlings. Still, the humble thorn forest has garnered a lot of interest from young visitors. Ive been in the [community center] working with children and they ask, What is that over there? said Mylen Arias, the director of community resilience at American Forests.
This little patch of the past does more than preserve the regions biological history or defend it from a warming world. Its an attempt to reverse what naturalist Robert Pyle calls an extinction of experience. Most people have never even heard of a thorn forest, let alone witnessed its wild beauty at Santa Ana. Dale and those working alongside him to revive whats been lost want others to know the value this ecosystem holds beyond saving ocelots or mitigating climate change. His grandfather was a preacher, and that influence is evident as he speaks of the almost transcendental feeling he gets simply being in nature. Ive talked to people, and its like, Do you know how this is going to enrich your life?
He often shows people photos of the backyard thorn forest he started 30 years ago, hoping to convey whats possible with just a bit of effort. Days after planting the first Turks cap and scarlet sage, hummingbirds fluttered in to sip their nectar. Within a few years, the canopies of Texas ebony and mesquite trees unfurled, providing shade and nesting locations for birds, including the white-tipped doves and chachalaca hed hoped to see. It wasnt easy to let go of it when his mother sold the house last year. But you created it all, she told Dale. Mom, he said, I can do this somewhere else. Thats the point.
By Laura Mallonee, Grist
This article originally appeared in Grist, a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Sign up for its newsletter here.
