Last week, Fast Company reported that regional banking giant TD Bank is planning to close more than 50 U.S. locations by the end of January.
But TD Bank isnt the only regional bank closing branches. In October, Citizens Bank disclosed that at least 14 branches throughout the United States will shutter, according to public filings. Heres what to know and where they are located.
Why is Citizens Bank closing branches?
Reached for comment by Fast Company, a Citizens Bank spokesperson said that its retail footprint is constantly changing along with people’s banking habits.
“We regularly review customer banking patterns and make thoughtful adjustments, opening new locations, modernizing existing branches, and consolidating where usage has shifted, to meet customers needs in the most effective way,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “As part of this ongoing process, we will be closing select locations in early 2026.”
The bank says customers in each of the affected markets will continue to have additional choices, such as “nearby branches, as well as our robust online mobile banking platforms.” It further said that its retail operations have grown 14% since 2020.
For several years now, national and regional banking chains have been reevaluating, and in many cases scaling back, their physical footprints for multiple reasons.
These reasons include falling foot traffic to branch locations as customers increasingly shift to online banking and mobile apps. As foot traffic falls, those branches tend to generate fewer new customers, so banks stand to make a lower return on the investment in running those physical locations.
According to Citizens Banks website, the bank had 1,000 branches and 3,100 ATMs as of June 30 of this year. (For context, its parent company said it had “more than 1,100 locations” in an earnings report two years earlier.)
In July, Citizens Bank announced a slew of new features to bolster its mobile offerings, including a refreshed direct deposit experience and the ability to update payment methods for online retailers and subscriptions.
The company also maintains a dedicated web page titled Citizens Bank Branch Closures, which appears designed to give customers information on digital methods they can use if their local branch has closed. However, the page does not yet list the closures planned for 2026.
How many locations are closing?
Citizens Bank operates branches in 14 states and the District of Columbia. The 14 closures disclosed in two recent filings will impact branches in half of those states:
Ohio (5 closures)
Massachusetts (2 closures)
New Hampshire (2 closures)
New York (2 closures)
Michigan (1 closure)
Pennsylvania (1 closure)
Vermont (1 closure)
The company did not say if additional closures are forthcoming.
Which Citizens Bank branches are closing?
According to data published in two different tranches by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), Citizens Bank in October disclosed that it will shutter at least 14 locations. The bank told Fast Company that the closures are expected early next year. They include:
Ohio
9231 Chillicothe Road, Kirtland, OH
8806 Ohio River Road, Wheelersburg, OH
3528 Tuscarawas St. W., Canton, OH
1460 S. Byrne Road, Toledo, OH
1165 E. Waterloo Road, Akron, OH
Massachusetts
225 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA
673 VFW Parkway, West Roxbury, MA
Michigan
100 W. Broad St., Chesaning, MI
New Hampshire
581 Franklin Pierce Highway, Barrington, NH
One Constitutional Way, Somersworth, NH
New York
131 East 57th St., New York City, NY
6708 Route 9, Rhinebeck, NY
Pennsylvania
101 Commonwealth Drive, Warrendale, PA
Vermont
1108 Vt Rt. 149, West Pawlet, VT
How is Citizens Financial Groups stock doing?
Citizens Bank is owned by Citizens Financial Group (NYSE: CFG), which is headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, and was founded nearly 200 years ago.
In its most recent financial report, for Q3 2025, the company reported a net income of $494 million and an earnings per share (EPS) of $1.05.
As of yesterdays market close, CFG shares were trading at $52.24. That represents a nearly 20% increase since the year began. Over the past 12 months, CFG shares have risen more than 12%.
Citizens Bank says it currently has total assets of nearly $220 billion and total deposits of around $175 billion.
Asked what viewers should expect when television’s MSNBC makes its corporate divorce from NBC News final this weekend, network president Rebecca Kutler points to a poster on the wall of a conference room at its new offices off Times Square.
Its message reads: Same Mission. New Name.
To me, that encapsulates exactly what we need to be saying, Kutler said. Our job in the next few weeks is to flood the zone … and make sure they know the thing that they love will be the exact same thing on Nov. 15.
Saturday is when MSNBC officially becomes MS NOW, standing for My Source for News, Opinion and the World. That’s the most visible manifestation of parent company Comcast’s decision to spin off most of its cable networks into a new company known as Versant.
It’s tough enough when one partner tells another that they’re leaving for someone new. In this case, they’re just leaving the partner behind; a cable television network is considered such a diminishing asset in today’s media world that giant companies would rather be free of them.
A lot of us really didn’t know what it meant, said prime-time host Jen Psaki, and it didn’t feel great initially.
Embracing the ethos of a startup
Left on its own, MS NOW is embracing the ethos of a startup, suggesting it will be better positioned to experiment without ties to the more corporate NBC News. Morning Joe is starting its own newsletter. Podcast ideas are encouraged. The network is expanding live events, letting its television stars interact with the audience; Rachel Maddow has one in Chicago later this month.
I didnt see this as a divorce, said nighttime host Michael Steele. I see this as the kid growing up and leaving home. We all know what thats like.
As Kutler says, the network’s focus on news and commentary with a liberal perspective remains intact. So does its lineup of stars Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, Ari Melber and the like. MS NOW has built its own reporting and support staff, and is moving into a new headquarters west of Broadway in Manhattan that is, not incidentally, the former longtime headquarters of The New York Times.
The new office, tricked out with the latest electronics, ends one geographical oddity: No longer are the political polar opposites MSNBC and Fox News Channel located across Sixth Avenue from one another.
The MS NOW news staff has about three dozen reporters, among them Washington Post alums Jackie Alemany and Carol Leonnig. It has signed partnerships with Sky News for international reporting and AccuWeather for forecasting.
Being divorced from NBC News gives it the opportunity to make deals on its own to supplement its cable existence, said longtime broadcast and cable news executive Kate O’Brian, who spent several years at ABC. They have a strong identity and a built-in audience of people who oppose President Donald Trump, she said.
They’re lean, nimble and niche, putting them in a better position to adapt to any emergent platforms, O’Brian said.
MS NOW is leaner in audience than MSNBC was a year ago. The network’s prime-time weekday average of 1.17 million viewers this year is down 29% from 2024 a number linked in large part to its viewers’ disappointment at the presidential election results. Fox News Channel, popular with Trump supporters, is up 14% to 3.11 million viewers.
Yet MSNBC has roughly twice the audience of CNN, which saw an identical 29% decrease in viewers over the first nine months of 2025. MSNBC was also buoyed by a strong election night performance where it ran neck-and-neck with Fox, even while missing the khaki-clad numbers nerd, Steve Kornacki, who chose to remain with NBC News.
MS NOW’s freedom appealed to reporters Jacob Soboroff, who chose it over NBC News, and Rosa Flores, who said she is joining the newly-named network from CNN primarily because she sees the opportunity to do a greater variety of things beyond the immigration beat she’d been covering.
All the legacy news organizations are trying to make their way, Flores said. I felt like being part of a news organization that was building solutions from the ground up was so unique that I wanted to be a part of it.
Being part of a news operation with a clear political identity was not a barrier for Soboroff. It’s about the people for me, always, it’s not about the politics, he said. I feel like I do what I’ve always done, which is report the facts on the ground, turn them around to our audience and let the audience make up their own minds about what they think.
Cleaning out the office at Rockefeller Center
The company is spending a reported $20 million on a marketing campaign designed to publicize the changeover, which will include billboards in Times Square, the Grove in Los Angeles and the South Capitol Digital Experience Wall in Washington, D.C.
Far cheaper is the mug with MSNBC crossed out and replaced by MS NOW on the set of Morning Joe. Co-host Mika Brzezinski recently cleared out her Rockefeller Center office and reminisced about times that NBC’s Richard Engel and Keir Simmons appeared on their show. We’re going to miss some reporters, she said, and they’re going to miss us.
With a rapidly evolving media landscape, success or failure will ultimately be decided by who has the content people most want to see, said her co-host and husband, Joe Scarborough.
If this were five years ago, I would have been, Oh, my God, how are we going to do this? he said. Everything is so fluid now.
David Bauder, AP media writer
Artificial intelligence company Anthropic announced a $50 billion investment in computing infrastructure on Wednesday that will include new data centers in Texas and New York.
Microsoft also on Wednesday announced a new data center under construction in Atlanta, Georgia, describing it as connected to another in Wisconsin to form a massive supercomputer running on hundreds of thousands of Nvidia chips to power AI technology.
The latest deals show that the tech industry is moving forward on huge spending to build energy-hungry AI infrastructure, despite lingering financial concerns about a bubble, environmental considerations, and the political effects of fast-rising electricity bills in the communities where they’re constructed.
Anthropic, maker of the chatbot Claude, said it is working with London-based Fluidstack to build the new computing facilities to power its AI systems. It didn’t disclose their exact locations or what source of electricity they will need.
Another company, cryptocurrency mining data center developer TeraWulf, has previously revealed it was working with Fluidstack on Google-backed data center projects in Texas and New York, on the shore of Lake Ontario. TeraWulf declined comment Wednesday.
A report last month from TD Cowen said that the leading cloud computing providers leased a staggering amount of U.S. data center capacity in the third fiscal quarter of this year, amounting to more than 7.4 gigawatts of energy, more than all of last year combined.
Oracle was securing the most capacity during that time, much of it supporting AI workloads for Anthropic’s chief rival OpenAI, maker of ChatGPT. Google was second and Fluidstack came in third, ahead of Meta, Amazon, CoreWeave, and Microsoft.
Anthropic said its projects will create about 800 permanent jobs and 2,400 construction jobs. It said in a statement that the scale of this investment is necessary to meet the growing demand for Claude from hundreds of thousands of businesses while keeping our research at the frontier.
Microsoft has branded its Atlanta data center as Fairwater 2, after the original Fairwater complex being built near Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The company said it will help power its own technology, along with OpenAI’s and other AI developers. Microsoft was, until earlier this year, OpenAI’s exclusive cloud computing provider before the two companies amended their partnership. OpenAI has since announced more than $1 trillion in infrastructure obligations, much of it tied to its Stargate project with partners Oracle and SoftBank.
The tech industry’s huge amount of spending on computing infrastructure for AI startups that aren’t yet profitable has fueled concerns about an AI investment bubble.
Investors have closely watched a series of intertwined deals over recent months between top AI developers such as OpenAI and Anthropic and the companies building the costly computer chips and data centers needed to power their AI products. Anthropic said it will continue to prioritize cost-effective, capital-efficient approaches to scaling up its business.
Matt O’Brien, AP technology writer
Oscar-winning actors Michael Caine and Matthew McConaughey have made deals with voice-cloning company ElevenLabs that will allow its artificial intelligence technology to replicate their voices.
Caine said in a statement that ElevenLabs is using innovation not to replace humanity, but to celebrate it.
Its not about replacing voices; its about amplifying them, opening doors for new storytellers everywhere, said the 92-year-old British actor in a written statement.
McConaughey also said he is investing in the New York-based startup and has had a relationship with it for several years. Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed. McConaughey said the deal will enable him to voice his newsletter in Spanish.
Founded in 2022 and based in New York, ElevenLabs initially developed its technology to dub audio in different languages for movies, audiobooks, and video games to preserve the speakers voice and emotions.
But shortly after its public release, ElevenLabs said in January 2023 it was seeing an increasing number of voice cloning misuse cases and promised new safeguards to tamp down on abuse, including limiting features to paid users. A year later, however, a digital consultant was able to use ElevenLabs software to mimic then-President Joe Biden’s voice in a robocall message sent to thousands of New Hampshire voters. The company now says it has additional measures to block the cloning of celebrity and other high-profile voices without their consent.
For many Americans, 2025 has been tough economically. Tariffs have raised the price of goods (from coffee to clothing), inflation is still rising, and more than 1 million jobs have been cut since January.
Then came the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, which furloughed some 670,000 federal workers. Another roughly 730,000 had to keep working, but without pay, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. And amid that came a pause in SNAP benefits, which left 42 million Americans without the food stamps that help them afford groceries.
SoLo Funds, a community finance platform, has seen the impact of these events firsthand. Requests for loans on the SoLo platform relating to the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have increased by 32% since October 1, compared with the year prior.
Loan requests relating to the government shutdown or furloughslike users saying they missed their paycheck because of the shutdown or that they were waiting on furloughed paysurged 775% as of October 1, compared with the average weekly volume of requests in the months prior.
While there wasn’t a government shutdown before October, SoLo says it did see references to those terms earlier in the year that were linked to delayed paychecks, budget freezes, or agency funding pauses.
The 775% spike represents an increase from thousands of dollars in loan requests to hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the company.
And throughout 2025, SoLo funds says it’s continued to see spikes in loan requests for basic necessities such as groceries, rent, and utilities.
[Screenshots: SoLo Funds]
How SoLo Loans work
SoLo is a financial service, but it doesnt operate like a typical bank. Members can get a checking account and a debit card, plus access to the loan marketplace.
There, they can make loan requests, citing a reason that they need the money. Other members can then scroll through the marketplace of loans and choose to fund someones loan directly.
Instead of a hefty interest ratelike those that come with “buy now, pay later” (BNPL) or payday loansloans through SoLo come with a flat fee; interest doesnt compound or accrue over time, and theres no penalty for late payments.
And yet SoLo says its repayment rate is above 94%. Borrowers can also leave a tip for lenders.
SoLo founders Travis Holoway and Rodney Williams [Photo: courtesy SoLo Funds]
What we have been able to quantify is that working-class Americans, the heart and soul of our country, even in times of low or inconsistent income, they tend to figure it out, says SoLo president and cofounder Rodney Williams. With standard loan products, you cant get a loan if youre figuring it out. You cant get a loan in between jobs.
SoLo does not require proof of income for its loans, but instead requires a snapshot of cash flow; its AI underwriting process then provides a score to the user. The company first launched in 2018 and has raised $15.5 million in funding to date.
That isnt exactly significant capital compared with the top fintech companies. Stripe, Chime, and SoFi, for example, have all raised billions of dollars (and the latter two are now publicly traded). But Williams says SoLo sees 20% growth every quarter. The people have decided they need this, he adds.
Community finance in action
Overall, the top five reasons people request SoLo loans are for utilities, rent, medical bills, pet bills, and car repair. Requests for groceries have spiked recently, too.
These are measures of consumer confidence and sentiment, Williams says. SoLo has grown to more than 2 million users who are actively on the platform to make ends meet, he adds.
Since its launch, users have provided $700 million in loans to other individuals.
The average SoLo Funds loan request is around $250. Members can borrow up to $625, but first-time borrowers start at $100 and earn the ability to request higher amounts as they repay on time.
That loan requests for furloughed workers, the government shutdown, EBT, and SNAP have increased since October highlights how Americans continue to face financial struggles, as well as how community support has emerged as a stopgap.
[Those Americans] came to community finance . . . and asked for people to help. And guess what? They got funded, because people can see this person is just in between situations because of the government, Williams says. Like, this is a good person, and Im going to bet on that person.
Community support has surged as people have felt abandoned by their government. Across the country, individuals have shared resources for federal workers and donated food to those in need.
SoLo considers itself another form of community support; its loans can be used for anything, in any situationunlike “buy now, pay later,” which requires the merchant to offer that option (someone likely cant use BNPL to fix their flat tire, Williams notes) or even earned wage access, which requires someone to have a paycheck coming from which they can draw funds early. That option isnt available to furloughed or laid-off workers.
Strangers helping strangers
The government shutdown is now near a possible end, but many Americans may still need financial help, especially since healthcare premiums are set to increase substantially as a result of the Senate’s failure to extend the Affordable Care Act subsidies.
Americans were struggling before the shutdown, and theyre going to be struggling after, Williams says.
Though the stock market is strong, he notes, many Americans are underemployed, and fears of AI taking over jobs may keep those Americans from being employed at the level they should be, he adds.
Plus, nearly 40% of Americans dont own any stocks and so they arent seeing those gains.
Despite these challenges, Williams is buoyed by the empathy he sees on SoLos platformof individuals connecting and helping one another in times of need.
Every day, thousands of people lend to and borrow from a stranger, he says. Every day, I see little American miracles of empathy.
Americas aviation system is straining under the weight of the longest government shutdown on record: thousands of flight cancellations, long delays at major airports, and frustrated travelers nationwide.
In an unprecedented move, the Federal Aviation Administration last week ordered airlines to scale back domestic flight schedules, saying the cuts are meant to ease pressure on an overstretched system and help manage air traffic control staffing.
Unpaid for more than a month, some air traffic controllers have begun calling out of work, citing stress and the need to take on second jobsleaving more control towers and facilities short-staffed.
The numbers show the shutdown’s toll on air travel:
40
Major U.S. airports where all commercial airlines have been required to cancel flights since Nov. 7 under the FAA’s orders. The list spans more than two dozen states and includes large hubs such as New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Chicago.
12
Airports on the FAA’s list of 40 where the agency also expanded restrictions to limit business jets and many private flights.
4%
The initial reduction in flight schedules ordered by the FAA.
10%
The FAA’s ultimate flight cut target, which is expected to take effect Friday. The agency has said the restrictions will remain in place until staffing in its air traffic control facilities stabilizes and safety measurements improve, even if the shutdown ends before Friday.
1.9 million
Daily passengers who use the 40 airports where flights have been reduced, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.
5.2 million
Passengers who have been affected by staffing-related delays or cancellations since the government shutdown began on Oct. 1, according to Airlines for America. The industry trade group represents Delta Air Lines, American Airlines, United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Alaska Airlines and JetBlue.
9,500
Flights canceled between Nov. 7, the first day of the FAA-required cuts, and mid-day Wednesday, according to the flight tracking site FlightAware.
30
The average number of air traffic control facilities that had staffing issues during the six weekends since the shutdown began on Oct. 1. That is almost four times the number on weekends this year before the shutdown, according to an Associated Press analysis of operations plans sent through the Air Traffic Control System Command Center system.
$10,000
How much President Donald Trump suggested air traffic controllers should receive as a bonus if they didn’t miss any days of work during the shutdown. Trump also threatened docking pay for those who haven’t stayed on the job.
$285 million to $580 million
The daily U.S. economic impact once the FAA’s 10% cuts take effect, according to Airlines for America, which said its estimate factors in reduced visitor spending, state and local tax revenue and spending across the broader economy.
Rio Yamat, Associated Press
Associated Press journalist Christopher L. Keller contributed.
A penny for your thoughts? Well, maybe try a nickel. Though it will remain legal tender, the last-ever one-cent coin was printed Wednesdayand not without some drama.
After being in circulation for 232 years, the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia hosted a ceremonial event during which U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach struck the final circulating penny. There are an estimated 300 billion pennies currently in circulation, a number far exceeding the amount needed for commerce, the Mint said in a statement but retailers say theyve already been dealing with coin shortages and a lot of confusion about how to price goods and services.
It took about nine months for the pennys final day to arrive. In February, President Donald Trump announced that he had instructed the Mint to stop making the coin, citing the rising cost of production. Indeed, the Mint said the cost of making a penny has more-than doubled during the past decade, to 3.69 cents per penny.
The coin has long been a target of lawmakers: As far back as 1989, legislation has periodically been proposed to limit or eliminate penny production. But its death knell ultimately came at the hands of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency earlier this year.
THE PRO-PENNY GROUP
Even though end days for the penny were announced in February, retailers and penny proponents are now grappling with what its elimination means.
A perhaps-surprisingly vocal group has fought for years to keep the penny in our pockets. Americans for Common Cents is a pro-penny lobbying group that has an incentive to keep the coins in circulation as it is primarily funded by Artazn, the company that provides the blanks used to make pennies.
Americans for Common Cents argued in February that the penny is not as problematic as it seems and eliminating this coin will actually increase minting costs if demand surges for nickels, which are even more expensive to mint. In response to Trumps announcement about the pennys end days, the group advocated instead for modernizing the currency system and, instead of eliminating the penny, focusing on making coin production more efficient.
Since then, phasing out the penny has been a bit chaotic partly because theres no real plan for what retailers should do, Mark Weller, executive director of Americans for Common Cents, told CNN on Wednesday. When countries like Canada, Australia and Switzerland removed low-denomination coins from circulation there was guidance for retailersand thats not been the case in the U.S., he said.
By the time we reach Christmas, the problems will be more pronounced with retailers not having pennies, Weller told CNN.
PENNY PAIN FOR RETAILERS
But a penny shortage has already arrived, affecting retailers like gas stations that handle a lot of these coins. And retail groups told Reuters last week that theyre frustrated by the lack of guidance theyve received from the Trump administration, which has forced them to round down transactions to avoid upsetting customers and violating laws in some states.
Kwik Trip, which operates about 900 convenience stores in the midwest, announced last month that all cash purchases will be rounded down to the nearest five centsand that the policy will remain in place until a permanent legislative solution is enacted.
Rounding down transactions may not seem like a big deal, but it could become a significant cost for high-volume businesses where pennies are commonplace. And to counteract the coin shortage, some stores are offering incentives to customers who pay with pennies, according to Reuters reporting.
Any merchant that accepts cash is grappling with this, Dylan Jeon, senior director of government relations with the National Retail Federation, told Reuters.
A spokesperson for the Treasury Department didnt immediately respond to a request for comment from Fast Company with any guidance for retailers.
PENNY LEGACY
The penny was first minted in 1792 and has seen many evolutions in materials over its lifetime, including during World War II when it was made from a zinc-coated steel due to a copper shortage in 1943. The image of President Abraham Lincoln first appeared on the penny in 1909 to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of his birth.
While pennies for circulation will be discontinued, the Mint will continue to produce a limited quantity of the coin for historical and collector purposes. And its mostly focused on celebrating the copper-colored coin.
While general production concludes today, the pennys legacy lives on, Kristie McNally, acting Mint director, said in a statement. As its usage in commerce continues to evolve, its significance in Americas story will endure.
Six hundred employees just packed up their desks and quit their jobs at Paramount Skydance.
The mass exodus happened after the company, formed by Skydance Medias takeover of Paramount Global, told employees that they were instating a five-day back-to-office mandate, set to begin on January 5.
The company, led by new CEO David Ellison, let staffers know that if they didn’t plan to come back to the office, they could take a buyout deal starting on September 15. However, the media giant likely didn’t expect to be handing out quite so many severance packages.
According to company disclosures filed on Monday, around 600 employees in the Los Angeles and New York offices at the vice-president level and below took the deal, which reportedly cost Paramount Skydance $185 million in “restructuring changes.”
While the company may be trimming employees, it doesnt seem to be trimming spending. The company called for incremental programming investments in 2026 in excess of $1.5 billion. Paramount said it had already trimmed about 1,000 employees earlier this year and expects to cut around 1,600 more, as the company moves to divest both Televisión Federal in Argentina and Chilevision in Chile in an attempt to ensure continued focus.
The restructuring comes after Ellison took charge of the company post-merger and pressed the importance of in-person work.
I believe that in-person collaboration is absolutely vital to building and strengthening our culture and driving the success of our business,” Ellison wrote in a September memo. “Our people are the key to winning, and being together helps us innovate, solve problems, share ideas, create, challenge one another, and build relationships that will make this company great.”
Still, an $185 million price tag seems a tad excessive for more collaboration. Either way, Paramount is not the only media giant to enforce a return-to-office mandate.NBCUniversal recently announced workers would have to return to the office at least four days a week, in a similar policy beginning in January. Comcast, the parent company of NBCU, previously did the same.
While employees leaving in large numbers due to such mandates seems like a major upheaval, some research says that is the point (at least in part). According to a 2024 Bamboo HR report, back-to-office mandates can help companies avoid layoffs. Per the report, nearly 2 in 5 managers, directors, and executives (37%) say their company enacted layoffs in the last year because fewer employees than they expected quit during their RTO. Likewise, 25% of VP and C-suite executives and nearly 1 in 5 HR pros (18%) say they actually hoped employees would voluntarily leave amid mandates.
Either way, back-to-office mandates are fairly unpopular, so the true cost to companies remains to be seen. However, when it comes to media giants, at least, some of the cost will trickle down to the customer. Paramount Skydance is planning to raise Paramount+ subscription prices starting January 15. Both the Essential (ad-supported) plan and Premium (ad-free) plan will go up by $1, to $8.99 and $13.99 per month, respectively.
“Our ongoing investments in Paramount+ are enhancing the value we deliver to consumers,” Ellison said. “To support this continued investment, we plan to implement price increases in the U.S. early in the first quarter of 2026.”
Just a week after self-described democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani made history as New York City’s first Muslim to be elected mayor, fellow Democrat Jack SchlossbergPresident John F. Kennedy’s (JFK’s) grandsonannounced he is also running for office in New York City, in the Empire States 12th Congressional district. If elected, he would represent New York in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Both men are among a wave of young, progressive, charismatic candidates calling for change, amid a backlash to not only Donald Trump’s second-term agenda, but also a historically unpopular Democratic Party that many feel are doing too little, too late. That list of progressives also includes Arizona representative-elect Adelita Grijalva; Robert Peters, who is running in Illinois’ 2nd district; and Graham Platner, a democrat running for senate in Maine in a bid to unseat Republican Senator Susan Collins.
But there are a number of parallels between Mamdani and Schlossberg in particular. Both are in their early 30s and grew up attending high school in New York City. They also come from political-minded families with impressive mothers. Mamdani’s mom is Indian-American activist filmmaker Mira Nair, while Schlossberg’s mom, Caroline Kennedy, is a lawyer, former U.S. Ambassador to Australia and Japan, and a civic-minded head of the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation.
At 34 years old, Mamdani will be New York City’s youngest mayor since 1892, while Schlossberg, 32, is running to replace retiring longtime Democrat Representative Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), who is 78 and has held the seat for over 30 years in the liberal district that includes the Upper West Side, Upper East Side, Midtown, and Chelsea. (That’s also where Schlossberg was born and raised, and currently lives.)
Both Mamdani and Schlossberg are also wildly popular on social media, in part for their fresh-faced looks and upbeat, pragmatic-but-populist approach to making the world (or at least New York City) a better place.
Old money, fresh face
To that end, Schlossberg’s newly minted campaign website, which bears the URL “Jackfornewyork,” introduces the candidate as a “A New Generation for New York” and features pictures of “Jack” (JFK’s nickname, and Schlossberg’s namesake) riding his bike in Manhattan with a backpack, not unlike his famous uncle, to whom he bears an uncanny resemblance. (At 6’2 and with signature Kennedy looks, Schlossberg also has a large female following on social media.)
Like Mamdani’s campaign, Schlossberg’s website emphasizes his practical-but-populist approach to leadership. “Jack wants to take his fight to Congress to make sure New Yorkers have a voice that represents their values and amplifies their fight,” it reads. “Hes focused on rooting out corruption, defending civil rights and personal freedoms, making housing affordable, protecting public health, and rebuilding trust in government.” (Sounds a lot like Mamdani, no?)
Where “Jack” might get into trouble, however, is his political inexperience. While he is a Kennedy, and has been in the family business for a whilewhich includes various duties, including presenting the Profile in Courage Award at the JFK Library in Bostonthis is his first run for office. Mamdani also was criticized for lacking experience, but he at least ran for mayor after he was first elected to the New York State Assembly.
What Schlossberg does have going for him: He enters the race with the political clout of the Kennedy name and a large, established social media following across platforms, including Instagram, where he goes by “jackuno” and has 739,000 followers. Online, he is part influencer, part instigator, often challenging political opponents whether his own uncle, Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr.; Trump; or Vice President Vance, who he has trolled incessantly, making what some have criticized as inappropriate jokes about his wife, Usha (including jokes about having a child with her).
In that sense, Schlossberg’s informal approach, his tell-it-like-it-is political commentary, and his sense of humor could be what New Yorkers want in a candidate to help turn the city aroundor it could be the very thing that undoes him in his race for Congress in 2026. Only time will tell.
If youve ever been hit with a sketchy text warning you of an overdue toll road payment or mysterious U.S. Postal Service fees, youve likely been targeted by one of the largest cyber scams sweeping the globe.
Now, Google is suing an international cybercrime group it believes is responsible for the ubiquitous text-based phishing scheme, which may have raked in as much as $1 billion over the last three years. In the lawsuit filed Wednesday, Google alleges that 25 people are part of a sprawling scam operation known as Lighthouse that was designed to swipe the logins and passwords of victims caught in its web.
The Lighthouse scam hinges on tricking people with bogus texts, prompting them to click a link and share their credentials on fake websites. The sites display legitimate-looking logos of brands such as Google, Gmail, and YouTube in hopes of convincing potential victims that their fake web pages are real, hence the companys involvement. Google says that it found 107 website templates misusing Google branding on their sign-in screens in order to fool people into thinking those sites are safe and actually connected to Googles products.
According to the lawsuit, almost 200 fake web templates connected to the Lighthouse network imitate U.S. websites like those belonging to the New York City government and USPS. Beyond Googles own logos, the fake sites display official-looking logos of payment companies and social media platforms. Google and other security researchers believe that the text-phishing scam network is based in China, well beyond the reach of U.S. law enforcement.
Bad actors built Lighthouse as a phishing-as-a-service kit to generate and deploy massive smishing (SMS phishing) attacks, Google general counsel Halimah DeLaine Prado wrote on the companys blog. These attacks exploit established brands like E-ZPass to steal peoples financial information.
Google notes that this family of cybercrime is causing immense financial harm around the globe, and that the company intends to disrupt the schemes core infrastructure with the lawsuit. In it, Google alleges that the unnamed individuals connected to the Lighthouse scam have run afoul of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act; the Lanham Act, which protects trademarks; and the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
Because the operation is seemingly based in China, Googles suit likely wont be dragging anyone to court overnight, but the suit could still disrupt the groups web hosting and other aspects of its infrastructure. Because Google doesnt know the names of the 25 individuals connected to the scam, the suit includes their Telegram handles when they are known.
To fight cyber scams on U.S. soil, Google also announced Wednesday that it will back a handful of bipartisan bills designed to disrupt fraud, counter scams, and block robocalls that originate overseas.
Legal action can address a single operation; robust public policy can address the broader threat of scams, DeLaine Prado said. We encourage Congress to enact these crucial bills and help bring a decisive end to the financial harm and damage wrought by foreign cybercriminals.
