I once hired an executivewell call her Alicewho elevated our company overnight. She helped shape our strategy, built a great team, and brought instant credibility to our brand. Our growth accelerated. The board respected her. The team loved her. I felt lucky to have her.
But five years later, things had changed. Alice looked exhausted. She was short-tempered in meetings. One of her best people left. The teams performance stalled. She wasnt making obvious mistakes, but she was slowing the business down. Looking back, the signs were there, but I looked past themlike many CEOs do. When an executive has been a major contributor to success, its easy to let loyalty, optimism, or past achievements cloud your judgment.
When I finally sat down with Alice and told her I thought it was time for a change, she seemed hurtbut also relieved. She knew it, too. The conversation was difficult but necessary.
If youre a CEO, this moment will come for you, too. Changing executives isnt about whether someone is capable or not. More often, its about whether the executive who was right for yesterday is still right for tomorrow. The hardest part isnt making the call when the numbers are bad, the team is frustrated, or the board is raising concerns. By then, the answer is obvious but the damageto both the business and the individualhas already been done. The real challenge is recognizing the early warning signs before failure happens.
Here are five signals to watch for:
1. They Hire for Yesterday, Not Tomorrow
Great executives hire people who push them, challenge them, and bring new capabilities into the organization. But when an executive stops scaling, their hiring reflects it. Instead of bringing in talent that stretches the companys future potential, they hire for what they already knowpeople with skill sets that made sense in the last stage of growth, not the next one.
Even worse, they may avoid hiring people who are more experienced than they are, fearing theyll be outshined. This is one of the subtlest but most telling signs that an executive isnt evolving with the business. Strong leaders arent threatened by A-players; they seek them out.
2. Theyre Getting Caught Flat-Footed
Early in a companys growth, a strong executive is ahead of the curve. They anticipate problems before they arise and see opportunities before the competition does. But as the company scales, things get more complexmarket dynamics shift, operations grow more intricate, and leadership requires a different level of execution.
An executive who once led with foresight can suddenly find themselves constantly reacting, caught off guard in ways they never were before. Often, its not that theyve lost their strategic instinctsits that the business has entered a stage theyve never navigated before, and their previous playbook no longer applies.
3. Their Team Doesnt Know Where Theyre Going
A key role of any executive is ensuring their team understands the companys strategy and how it translates into their function. In a small company, this is relatively straightforwardthe strategy is narrow, and the CEO is often close to employees, reinforcing the vision directly.
But as the company grows, that changes. The strategy becomes more complex, and executivesnot the CEObecome responsible for making sure their teams understand how their work connects to the bigger picture. If employees seem unclear on the companys direction or their role in it, its a sign that their leader isnt effectively setting strategic clarity. And its not just about communication; its about an executives ability to process complexity, distill it into actionable priorities, and inspire alignment.
4. They Struggle to Translate Strategy into Execution
Similarly, in a companys early stages, translating strategy into action is relatively simple: The organization is smaller and the steps to execution are clear. But as the company grows, the gap between strategy and execution widens. Success requires more than just understanding company goals; it requires breaking them down into operational plans with clear milestones, defined ownership, and built-in accountability.
An executive who once thrived in a lean, fast-moving environment may start to struggle as the organization becomes more complex. If they can no longer connect long-term strategy to day-to-day execution, teams lose focus, decisions get delayed, and momentum fades.
5. Theyre in Nonstop Operational Meetings
Great executives elevate themselves over time. They move from being operators to being leaderssetting direction, aligning the team, empowering their managers, and ensuring execution through others.
But when an executive cant scale, they get pulled deeper into the weeds. Instead of creating an environment where the strategy, expectations, and processes are in place for the team to operate, theyre stuck firefighting. If theyre constantly in meetings troubleshooting operational issues, solving tactical problems, or micromanaging details, its a sign that the business is running themnot the other way around.
What Do You Do When You See These Signs?
These are the warning signs Ive learned to watch for, but spotting them doesnt always mean an executive needs to go. If an executive is struggling to translate company strategy for their team, for example, it could be a sign that the strategy itself isnt well-defined. And if theyre micromanaging, it may be a reflection of the expectations, culture, or tone set by the CEO. Thats why the first step should always be feedback and coaching.
But if the same patterns persist despite candid conversations and support, waiting longer wont fix the problem. It will just delay the inevitable. Companies dont move backward.
Some leaders recognize these gaps and rise to the challenge. Others dont. And when they dont, its not a failureits simply that their strengths align with an earlier stage of the companys journey, not where its headed next.
Making an executive change is disruptive. Its expensive. It can be risky. But failing to make a change is often exponentially more so. The CEOs who scale companies successfully are the ones who make these calls earlybefore the business, the team, or the results force their hand.
When it comes to evolving the executive team, like many other areas of leadership, knowing what to do is rarely the hardest part. Knowing when to act is.
The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
Los Angeles is our home and living laboratory. For four decades at RIOS, we’ve pioneered design that confronts complexity, believing that every urban challenge carries profound opportunities for transformation. The recent catastrophic fires aren’t just a crisis, but a critical inflection point for reimagining resilience.
Our landscape practice, led by Katherine Harvey, has always understood that urban design is an act of collective imagination. This moment demands we move beyond survival to radical reinventiona challenge that resonates deeply with our founding ethos of designing for dynamic, adaptive futures.
Katherine’s background in landscape architecture, academic research, and residency in downtown Los Angeles provide her with valuable insights into the citys future. She offers thoughtful perspectives during this moment of sorrow and hope for the city we cherish.
The following reflection from Katherine emerges from our commitment to Los Angeles, a city we’ve helped shape and continue to believe in, evenand especiallyin its most vulnerable moments.
Los Angeles 2025
This year arrived with unimaginable devastation for the Los Angeles region. The catastrophic fires present a test for how we will address our citys future and the generational challenges and opportunities we have before us. As we move from shock to recovery, the debates have already begun on how, what, and where we rebuild. Immediate momentum addresses the human impacts, which will continue to unfold in the coming months. How we sustain that momentum and act deliberately toward our future is more uncertain. This recovery will be a massive work of city remaking and reenvisioning. This unanticipated moment grants us a window to address Los Angeless past and present challenges as we confront our global climate reality.
Territory, governance, and collective recovery
Most major acts of city-making have denied the complexity of existing communities, history, or environment in the service of narrow motivations and achievements. Los Angeles, on the other hand, has historically been plagued by the incremental and individual motivations of capital, resulting in a dispersed and decentralized city. Can we learn from these historic dichotomies of singular grand plans versus incremental individualism and define a collective recovery urbanism? One where we build back a city that reduces further harm to our residents and environment. One where we do not accept the inevitable results of extreme weather ending in disaster, but instead lay out ambitious plans for adaptation to build back more brilliantly.
Many have speculated that our distributed jurisdictions and centers of power have held us back from a collective vision for the basin. Even the citys Mayor Bass has acknowledged our lack of comprehensive planning and fragmented governance as recently as October, when tackling street improvement initiatives.
Could this event induce enhanced cooperation between disparate places: Altadena and Pacific Palisades, county and city, mayor and supervisor? With the appointment of a chief recovery officer for the city, Steve Soboroff, we now wait to hear if the county and city will find a method for shared cooperation. What may be needed is an agency that collates across these governances to address the kindred struggles and the unique geographies. Despite our snarled infrastructure, our LA Metro public transit system has been a remarkable model for what is possible when we remove the friction of inter-urban territories and support cross-agency planning.
Design a collective vision
There are many who will continue to say these events were inevitable, in the face of a warming climate. Yet we have a chance to change the next inevitability. As a landscape architect and creative director at a global design collective I am part of a design community where envisioning the future is integral to our daily work.
This event has opened questions for us that would have gone unasked without this disaster. Can we rebuild our neighborhoods as places that will evolve from serving our immediate resheltering needs to more robust buildings? Can these new buildings be fire-hardened and passively coexist with the environment? Can we address equity and ongoing displacement more aggressively, in what will no doubt be an aggravated housing and affordability crisis? Can we amplify and restore the wildland urban interface and bring back our former basin ecologies, grasslands, and coastal sage scrub, as ecological buffers from intense weather?
A wealth of ideas, research, and plans have been brought together under the Governors Wildfire and Forest Resilience Task Force. Yet this work needs to become actionable and translated to our region and the urban context of these fires. For the design community, the translation of this expertise to scalable solutions for communities, neighborhoods, and buildings will be essential next steps.
Allowing ourselves to dream in this moment of collective pain and trauma is imagining ourselves in a place beyond catastrophe. If we can do that, we can sort out the steps to get there. It will require invention and retooling, no different than what has already been initiated in hundreds of Californias climate initiatives to mitigate our projected climate future. It is the work our generation needs to do anyway. This is our moment to decide whether we will play a major role in defining that trajectory towards reduced vulnerability and increased resilience for future extreme weather as a city and region.
Pacing ourselves
It will not be an easy time to choose a collective vision over the instrumentality of executive orders or the facility of individual decisions. As of writing this on January 28 it is clear there will be a larger resistance to such a path from both a dismissive federal perspective and those that see the climate crisis as a fate we cannot change. Yet there are many more voices, from community members to experts, that will contribute to these questions and optimism about our future if we commit to this generational shift in city-making.
Institutions, universities, community members, and storytellers will need to be engaged and empowered to move us imaginatively toward our future. Ultimately, a collective vision will need an engaged citizenry to imagine a different future that is invested in enhancing our regions livability and vitality. In this process we will revive the waning histories of these places, in combination with the nascent futures that were just beginning and are now emerging after this event. If we choose this as a generation, then the process we design will be as vital as the outcome.
Jessamyn Davis is co-CEO and Katherine Harvey is creative director and landscap architect at RIOS.
The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
Well, this year was a wild ride. As we turn the page to 2025, its time to set intentions and make our own agency New Years resolutions. If your company is anything like ours, youve already met with your internal teams to determine what steps you will take to level up this year. This isnt one-size-fits-all. Your approach may look entirely different, depending on your:
Niche and target market
Unique goals
Resources
Team structure
This new year is all about progress, and were ready to raise the bar. Here are five ways were leveling up our game in the new year.
1. EMPOWER OUR TEAMS WITH AI TRAINING
If you havent already implemented AI training, youre missing out on a major opportunity to amplify. For us, 2025 is all about ensuring every team member knows how to leverage AI tools effectively and responsibly. We are prioritizing hands-on training programs, including our Thursd-AI workshops.
Adopting AI isnt just about saving time; its about giving our teams the tools to push boundaries and feel empowered in their work. The teams that are curious and exploring AI are the ones leading change, and were making sure were right there at the forefront.
2. STRENGTHEN OUR COLLABORATION AND FLEXIBILITY
Weve always been a remote agency that values collaboration and flexibility. Flexibility is the future of work, and were leaning into that by enhancing how our team collaboratesno matter where theyre working from. Were creating new ways for our remote team to connect, whether planning event space layouts in the Meta Wooorld app or playing a round of mini golf in apps like Walkabout.
3. REFRESH OUR MARKETING AND SALES MATERIALS
Its been a busy year. Like most agencies, our internal marketing projects often take a backseat to client projects and tight deadlines. But were changing that in 2025. Were refreshing everything, from our capabilities deck, to our one-pager, and everything in between. Our team is continuously evolving, and our materials need to keep up.
Whats more, our marketing should reflect the same creativity, innovation, and strategic thinking that we deliver each day for our clients. By getting this task off the back burner, well have stronger tools to win over new clients and showcase our value.
4. DOUBLE DOWN ON EMERGING PLATFORMS AND TRENDS
This past year, we experimented A LOT with immersive virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR) environments. We dont take this lightly. The digital marketing world is expanding beyond traditional platforms, and if youre not actively trying to get ahead, youre falling behind.
At the start of 2024, we gifted all of our employees a VR headset to experiment with. As we look back at the year, weve managed to incorporate VR into our creative workflows in such incredible ways! This past month, one designer even created an immersive experience to excite team members about our upcoming 2025 company retreat. This mindset and hands-on approach opened up new opportunities and allows us to now build similar campaigns for our clients.
5. MAINTAIN A CULTURE OF CONTINUOUS INNOVATION
Innovation isnt just a buzzword at Quantiousits the foundation of our company and culture. In 2025, were continuing to foster this through regular team workshops, think tanks, and collaborations with other creatives. This culture extends to how we approach client work, surpassing limits and introducing innovative strategies in our campaigns. This focus is what will keep our workand our clientson the cutting edge of whats possible.
We know that the future of marketing will be as exciting as it is challenging. Thats why our goal is to not just adapt to change, but to drive change! The year ahead is full of opportunities for agenciesand companies of all typesto push limits, surprise clients/customers, and show whats possible in marketing. For your New Years resolution, vow to level up and deliver your best work yet.
Lisa Larson-Kelley is founder and CEO of Quantious.
The Golden State Warriors are known for their electrifying plays and superstar Stephen Curry, but now the team is pioneering a fresh gameplan: blending sports and entertainment in a way no NBA franchise has before.
As the first and only NBA team with its own record label, Golden State Entertainment, the Warriors are expanding their reach with For the Soil, a new album released this week. The projectfeaturing more than a dozen Bay Area music artists, including E-40, Too $hort, Saweetie, G-Eazy, Goapele, LaRussell, and Larry Junearrives just in time for the league’s All-Star Game weekend in San Francisco.
A basketball team with a record label is unheard of until now, which is a testament to the Warriors and the Bay, said P-Lo, a Filipino American rapper who produced For the Soil, a collaborative release between Golden State Entertainment and Empire, a distribution and publishing company. He will perform live during an NBA All-Star tipoff party on Thursday at Thrive City, a 11-acre community gathering space surrounding the Chase Center.
This is about innovation, bringing a new idea to the table, said P-Lo, a lifelong Warriors fan who has worked with artists such as Yo Gotti, Saweetie and Kehlani. He’s no stranger to the franchise, riding his convertible car as part of the Warriors championship parade, celebrating the team’s title in 2022.
We’re here to break barriers while I’m trying to process it all,” he added. “I’m grateful for this opportunity.
Warriors guard Gary Payton II said he plans on listening to the album.
For me, to be the first team to have a music company, or production company, its kinda cool, Payton said. P-Lo is running it, and getting it done. I know theres a lot of talented Bay Area artists behind it, so its something to look forward to and be excited about.
P-Lo played a key role in bringing together the Bay Areas top artists, contributing to all nine tracks on the album. He began the process late last summer, collaborating with local talent to craft a well-rounded project.
P-Lo can produce, rap and bring all these artists who are like family to him, said David Kelly, an executive with the Warriors. He spearheaded the launch of Golden State Entertainment in 2022 before the team won the championship that year.
Several NBA teams have partnered with artists over the years: Drake as the global ambassador for the Raptors, Jay-Z as a former minority owner of the Brooklyn Nets, and the Miami Heat collaborating with DJ Khaled, who performed at games. The Atlanta Hawks have also embraced their citys rap scene, working with T.I., 2 Chainz, and Quavo.
But an NBA team with its own record label and entertainment division? Thats where Kelly saw an opportunity for the Warriors to break new ground. He said creating a label, intersecting hip-hop and basketball made sense.
Its just kind of authentic and natural to the culture, said Kelly, who joined the organization in 2011 and currently is the chief business officer of Golden State Entertainment. It seems like a lot of times people try to force them apart or mesh them together that dont make sense. But if you grew up a part of both, they naturally intertwine.
Kelly first pitched the idea of the Warriors having a record label to then-president Rick Welts before bringing it to the teams owner, Joe Lacob, and co-executive chairman Peter Guber. He said the Warriors’ leadership embraced his vision, and he hopes more pro teams will follow suit.
Its seeing the culture being presented in a way thats true and reflective on a grand international scale, said Kelly, a former Chicago-based rapper, whose stage name was Capital D. Hopefully this is the first of many for Golden State and the culture.
By Jonathan Landrum Jr., AP entertainment writer
AP Sports Writer Schuyler Dixon contributed to this report in Dallas.
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem.
Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Eggs Up Grill has 90 restaurants in nine southern states, up from 26 in 2018. Florida-based Another Broken Egg Café celebrated its 100th restaurant last year.
Fast-food chains are also adding more breakfast items. Starbucks, which launched egg bites in 2017, now has a breakfast menu with 12 separate items containing eggs. Wendys reintroduced breakfast in 2020 and offers 10 items with eggs.
Reviews website Yelp said 6,421 breakfast and brunch businesses opened in the United States last year, 23% more than in 2019.
In normal times, producers could meet the demand for all those eggs. But an ongoing bird flu outbreak, which so far has forced farms to slaughter nearly 159 million chickens, turkeys and other birds including nearly 47 million since the start of December is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. In January, the average price of eggs in the U.S. hit a record $4.95 per dozen.
The percentage of eggs that go to U.S. restaurants versus other places, like grocery stores or food manufacturers, is not publicly available. U.S. Foods, a restaurant supplier, and Cal-Maine Foods, the largest U.S. producer of shell eggs, did not respond to The Associated Press’ requests for comment.
But demand from restaurants is almost certainly growing. Foot traffic at U.S. restaurants has grown the most since 2019 for morning meals, 2019, according to market research firm Circana. Pre-lunchtime hours accounted for 21% of total restaurant visits in 2024.
Breakfast sandwiches are the most popular order during morning visits, Circana said, and 70% of the breakfast sandwiches on U.S. menus include eggs.
Eggs Up Grill CEO Ricky Richardson said breakfast restaurants took off after the COVID pandemic because people longed for comfort and connection. As inflation made food more expensive, customers saw breakfast and lunch as more affordable options for eating out, he said.
The growth in restaurant demand reverses a pattern that emerged during the pandemic, when consumers tried to stock up on eggs for home use but restaurants needed fewer of them because many of them had to close for a time, according to Brian Earnest, a lead economist for animal proteins at CoBank.
Changing preferences since then have caused further market strain. Americans are increasingly looking for protein with few added ingredients, and eggs fit that bill.
Consumers think eggs are really fresh, so if youre making something with eggs, you know its fresh, Earnest said.
To address animal rights concerns, McDonalds and some other companies have switched to 100% cage-free eggs, which limits the sources they will buy from. Ten states, including California and Colorado, have passed laws restricting egg sales to products from cage-free environments.
It makes the market much more complicated than it was 20 years ago, Earnest said.
The higher prices are hitting restaurants hard. Wholesale egg prices hit a national average of $7.34 per dozen last week, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That was 51% higher than at the beginning of the year. Wholesale costs may be higher than retail prices since grocers use eggs as a loss leader to get customers in the door.
Some chains, like Waffle House, have added a surcharge to help offset the cost of eggs. Others may turn to egg substitutes like tapioca starch for some recipes or cut egg dishes from the menu, said Phil Kafarakis, the president and CEO of the International Foodservice Manufacturers Association.
First Watch President and CEO Chris Tomasso said eggs are critical for the chain’s brand and are found in the majority of its offerings, whether at the center of the plate or as an ingredient in batters. So far, he said, the company has been able to obtain the eggs it needs and isn’t charging extra for them.
First Watch is also increasing portion sizes for non-egg items like meat and potatoes, Tomasso said.
Richardson, of Eggs Up Grill, said he recently met with franchisees to discuss adding a surcharge but they decided against it.
Eggs have always been and will continue to be an important part of American diets, Richardson said.
Dee-Ann Durbin, AP business writer
Road congestion is a persistent thorn in the side of our car-centric society. Its loud, stressful, dangerous, and worsens air quality. Its been linked to all kinds of adverse health effects, including lower birth weights, memory and attention problems in school kids, higher mortality in elderly adults, and even crime. But traffic might also affect our eating habitsand not in a good way.
A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, published in the Journal of Urban Economics, examined weekday traffic data from Los Angeles County highways between 2017 and 2019 and compared it with cellphone GPS data tracking customer visits to fast food restaurants in the same county during the same years. They found that when traffic was worse due to unexpected slowdowns, visits to fast food restaurants went up. This effect was especially strong if the traffic delays occurred around evening mealtimes, when drivers were leaving work and probably starting to feel some predinner hunger pangs.
The results showed that for every 30-second increase in traffic delay per mile traveled, there was a 1% increase in visits to fast food restaurants. While that may not seem like a lot, the researchers estimate that over a year, it amounts to about 1.2 million more fast food meals in Los Angeles. Weve been saying that our results are modest but meaningful, says Becca Taylor, assistant professor in the universitys Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics, and coauthor on the study.
Indeed, this relationship has implications for health and wellness. Fast food tends to be high in ultra-processed ingredients, saturated or trans fats, sugar, and sodium, all of which can increase ones risk of developing a number of diseases and ailments, including obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and even depression. Some researchers go so far as to say processed foods and fast foods are responsible for more premature deaths than cigarettes.
Meals prepared at home are by far the healthier option. People who eat home-cooked meals more often have a better mix of fruits and vegetables in their diets, and are exposed to fewer harmful chemicals, including so-called forever chemicals. We also are more likely to overeat at restaurants than we would at home. So its troubling that gridlock may be nudging hungry people toward McDonalds for dinner when they might have otherwise eaten a more balanced meal at home.
Los Angeles is a city infamous for its snarled highways, but the authors say these findings can be applied elsewhere. There are other cities in the U.S. that are equally congested and have these big swings in traffic congestion, Taylor says, listing off New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. She hopes the research can help make the case for prioritizing traffic solutions, like better public transportation or congestion charges, such as the one recently introduced in New York. We see this as another thing policymakers could have in their arsenal for why its important for them to spend political capital working on congestion, Taylor says.
While this study might seem on the surface to be just about traffic, look a bit deeper and youll realize its really about time, or lack of it. We have a limited number of waking hours during which we can get things done, and most of them are consumed by work. Ideally we can spend what little time we have leftover doing things we find nourishing and fulfilling like, say, sitting down for a meal with our family. But we dont have a lot of wiggle room, and any delay, including an unexpected traffic slowdown, can force us to make an unhealthy trade-off.
This is all quite troubling when you consider that the American workday is getting longer, traffic in the U.S. is getting worse, and fast food restaurants keep multiplying. Its a bad combination. While infrastructure improvements are important, maybe it would be easier to just give Americans more free time. Taylor and her colleagues say allowing people to work from home, or reducing the number of days theyre required to be in the office, might be able to help here. Time scarcity is one of the strongest correlates of fast food consumption, the authors write. Policies aimed at loosening time constraints would help battle unhealthy eating habits.
After a rough start to 2025 due to the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires, awards season in Hollywood is officially back in the swing of things. The fires, which broke out right after the Golden Globes, even caused some to question awards shows relevance in this time of crisis.
Despite several delays, however, the Critics Choice Awards was held at Barker Hangar in Santa Monica on February 7. The following day, the Producers Guild of America Awards (PGA) was held at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles and the Directors Guild of America Awards (DGA) was presented at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills.
The results from these three prestigious awards shows could give you an edge in your office Oscars bets as many of the same people involved are also voting members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Let’s recap what happened and what it could mean for the Academy Awards.
The Critics Choice Awards
The fires were acknowledged at every event. Critics Choice Awards host, comedian Chelsea Handler, opened the show by saying, Weve been through a lot lately before cracking a Justin Baldoni-Blake Lively joke to lighten the mood. It set the tone for a self-aware celebration.
Voters made up of entertainment journalists and critics spread the love among many films this year.
Conclave took home Best Acting Ensemble, which does not have an Oscars equivalent but shows support for the film in general.
Kieran Culkin was awarded Best Supporting Actor for his work in A Real Pain while Zoe Saldaa won Best Supporting Actress for her work in Emilia Pérez, making them both front-runners for an Oscar.
Riding their Golden Globe momentum, Demi Moore took home the honors for Best Actress for the horror film The Substance and Adrien Brody won Best Actor for his work in The Brutalist.
And while he might not have been nominated for an Oscar or a DGA Award, that didnt stop Jon M. Chu from winning Best Director for his work on Wicked: Part Oneor for saying in his acceptance speech, Im going to win that Oscar! before quietly acknowledging, Im not nominated.
For the first time ever, Best Picture went to a film that won no other awards: Sean Bakers Anora. It would turn out to be a big weekend for this indie film.
The DGA Awards
Judd Apatow served as host and brought the funny, but DGA president Lesli Linka Glatter opened the event by expressing gratitude to first responders and urged production companies to bring filming back to the United States so the city could continue to heal.
The Oscars link is strong, with only two films in history ever winning Best Picture without first being recognized here.
Anora continued its winning streak, taking home top honors for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a Theatrical Feature Film. It is also important to note that RaMell Ross took home the Michael Apted First Time Directorial Feature Award for his work on Nickel Boys, which is also up for a Best Picture Oscar.
The PGA Awards
According to the Hollywood Reporter, PGA presidents Stephanie Allain and Donald De Linehe started the evening by sharing that the organization started a fire fund to support those who were impacted by the disaster. It had already raised $450,000 and attendees were encouraged to keep donating throughout the evening.
Like its name suggests, the Producers Guild of America celebrates, well, producersnot individual performers or designers or specialized creators. Membership is about the same size as the Academy, and both organizations utilize a weighted preferential ballot.
The big Oscars award precursor here is the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures. The 10 nominees are almost identical to the Academys choices.
In the past 15 years, 12 Best Picture winners first took home this prize, including last years champion, Oppenheimer. Just hours after it took home the DGA honors, PGA presenter Jodie Foster announced that Anora would also be the winner here.
Where does this leave us in the Oscars race?
After this weekend, Anora is the new Best Picture front-runner.
The dramedy dethroned Emilia Pérez, which was already losing ground after several controversies, including actress Karla Sofía Gascóns offensive tweets. This musical was once on top with 13 nominations, the highest number this year.
Wicked, the other musical in the running, saw a glimmer of hope this weekend with its wins and glowing reception at the Critics Choice Awards, but it might not get Oscars glory until part 2 is released late this year.
Anora could not have peaked at a better time. Final Oscars voting begins on February 11 and goes until the 18th; so the movie, the acceptance speeches, and buzz will be top of mind for Academy members.
A possible weakness in this film’s ascent to the top is its lack of below-the-line support. Beyond producers, directors, and critics, the Academy is also made up of cinematographers, editors, and other designers who will also need to champion the project, and its lack of nominations in those categories could be telling.
Other precursor awards to keep an eye on are the BAFTA Awards, essentially the British Oscars, and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Awards. The BAFTAs take place on February 16 in London, and the SAG Awards are set for February 23 in L.A. If Anora takes home the top prize in either of those ceremonies, it will almost certainly cement its future Oscars win.
A new study shows that bird flu has silently spread from animals to some veterinarians.
The study published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention echoes two smaller ones that detected evidence of infection in previously undiagnosed farmworkers. In those studies, several of the infected workers remembered having symptoms of H5N1 bird flu, while none of the veterinarians in the new paper recalled any such symptoms.
The new study is more evidence that the official U.S. tally of confirmed human bird flu infections 68 in the last year is likely a significant undercount, said Dr. Gregory Gray, an infectious disease researcher at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
This means that people are being infected, likely due to their occupational exposures, and not developing signs of illness and therefore not seeking medical care, Gray said. He said it shows that officials cannot fully understand bird flu transmission by only tracking people who go to medical clinics with symptoms.
Study suggests bird flu cases are undercounted
CDC researchers went to an American Association of Bovine Practitioners veterinary conference in September 2024 in Columbus, Ohio. They recruited 150 vets from 46 states to fill out a questionnaire and agree to have their blood drawn. None said they had suffered red eyes or other symptoms associated with bird flu.
Testing found three of the vets, or 2%, had evidence of antibodies to H5N1 infection. All three worked with dairy cattle, as well as other animals. None said theyd worked with a herd that was known to be infected, although one had worked with a flock of infected poultry.
Gray and some colleagues did a study last year of 14 dairy farmworkers and found two, or 14%, had evidence of past infections. Both had experienced symptoms but were never diagnosed.
Another study published last year by the CDC checked 115 dairy workers. The researchers found that eight of them, or 7%, had evidence in their blood of recent infection. Half recalled feeling ill.
The studies were far too small to use as a basis to provide a solid estimate of how many undiagnosed human infections are out there, Gray said. But even just a very small percentage could translate to hundreds or thousands of Americans who were infected while working with animals, he noted.
That’s not necessarily a reason to be alarmed, said Jacqueline Nolting, an Ohio State University researcher who helped CDC with the latest study.
Available studies suggest people who are infected mount antibody responses and may develop natural immunity, which is good news, she said.
However, if the virus changes or mutates to start making people very sick, or to start spreading easily from person to person, that would be a completely different story, Nolting said.
Experts urge caution around animals
The H5N1 bird flu has been spreading widely among wild birds, poultry, cows and other animals. Its escalating presence in the environment increases the chances people will be exposed, and potentially catch it, officials have said.
Right now the risk to the general public is low, the CDC says. But officials continue to urge people who have contact with sick or dead birds to take precautions, including wearing respiratory and eye protection and gloves when handling poultry.
No ones really questioning that the virus has been moving around the country more than has been reported, said Keith Poulsen, director of the Wisconsin Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory.
He said he expected to see stepped-up information reminding veterinarians across the country to protect themselves with gloves, masks and other equipment to halt infection.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institutes Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
Mike Stobbe, Associated Press
Associated Press writer JoNel Aleccia contributed to this report.
Igloo is recalling more than 1 million of its coolers sold across the U.S., Mexico and Canada due to a handle hazard that has resulted in a handful of fingertip injuries, including some amputations.
The now-recalled Igloo 90 Qt. Flip & Tow Rolling Coolers have a tow handle can pinch users’ fingertips against the product posing potential amputation and other crushing risks, according to a Thursday recall notice from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Igloo has received 12 injury reports in the U.S., the CPSC notes, which include fingertip amputations, bone fractures, and lacerations. There are no known injuries in Canada or Mexico.
Consumers in possession of the coolers are urged to stop using them immediately and contact Igloo for a free replacement handle.
The now-recalled coolers were sold at major retailers like Costco, Target, Dicks and Amazon between 2019 and January 2025 for between $80 and $140. About 1.06 million were purchased in the U.S., in addition to 47,000 in Canada and another 23,000 in Mexico.
The affected products can be identified by model number and description. They were sold in multiple colors with the word IGLOO printed on the side and manufactured in the U.S. prior to January 2024.
Consumers can register for the recall online or contact Katy, Texas-based Igloo at 888-943-5182 or igloo90qt@sedgwick.com to request a handle replacement.
In a statement, Igloo said that it was recalling these rolling coolers and providing free replacement handles with consumer safety as our top priority. The company added that, “through rigorous testing and proactive steps, we are constantly improving our products to meet the highest safety standards.”
Additional information can be found on the websites for the CPSC, Health Canada and the OECD’s global recall portal.
If you follow any Gen Zers on social media, you may know they seem to abide by one piece of sage wisdom: Go big or go home. That much is certainly true when it comes to their wild prom-posals and sometimes scary-extravagant gender-reveal parties. And apparently, it also holds true for their Valentine’s Day celebrations.
According to a new survey from CouponFollow, on average, Americans in relationships plan to spend around $155 on the day of love this year. But Gen Z? Gen Z wouldn’t be satisfied unless they were going above and beyond. The generation that seems to enjoy flashy celebrations will spend far more on cards, chocolates, and stuffed animals, budgeting $235 to make their special someone feel even more special. (We’re gonna go out on a limb here and guess that some of their epic Valentine’s Day antics will probably make it to TikTok, too.)
When it comes to the older generations, they’re seriously skimping on love’s biggest day, at least comparatively speaking. Millennials will shell out a solid $176, and Gen Xers will spend a respectable $95. But baby boomers? They’ll only cough up about $53 for L-O-V-E love.
There’s not just a generational gap when it comes to Valentine’s Day spending, but also a gender gap. According to the report, men are about twice as likely as women to feel financial pressure around the holiday. And that adds up, considering women expect their partners to spend 25% more on them.
Still, it’s not all about big spending. Sentimentality always goes a long way. The survey revealed that most people (38%) want a gift that speaks to their heart, such as something handmade or personal. That’s good news, because one budget-friendly trend is taking off this year on TikTok: User Fabiola Reyes demonstrated how she made an adorable gift basket for under $20 in a post that has 5.8 million views at present, and dozens of others have posted similar how-to’s since then.
Clearly, gifts that come from the heart matter the most on Valentine’s Day. But still, if you want to avoid a spat, you’d better not show up on February 14 empty-handed: The biggest red flags on the holiday, according to the survey, were giving your partner a re-gifted present or nothing at all. So, while you don’t have to go all in (like Gen Z), if you don’t want to be single by February 15, maybe don’t forget to throw a few dollars at romance!
