There’s never a dull day in the world of weight-loss medication. This week brought new restrictions on compounded GLP-1 medication, the cheaper, copycat versions of brand-name drugs that telehealth companies like Hims & Hers and Noom had been offering. Other developments include news that GLP-1 pills are on the way, and that a bankruptcy filing by weight-loss giant WeightWatchers is imminent. Lets dive in.
The end of copycat weight-loss drugs
When the Food and Drug Administration declared that GLP-1 drugs were in short supply in 2022, it opened the door for compounding pharmacies to legally fill the gap and make copies of brand-name medications by altering some ingredients. Generic versions of Ozempic, Wegovy, and Mounjaro flooded into the market via med spas and online pharmacies. In February of this year, the FDA announced that the shortage had been resolvedand gave a deadline of April 22 for companies to stop selling copycat drugs. Many of these compounded medications were sold at a lower cost through telehealth companies like Hims & Hers, Noom, and WeightWatchers.
Putting a nail in the coffin, on Thursday a federal judge sided with the FDA in a lawsuit filed by a compounding industry group protesting the agencys ruling that the shortage is over.
Sales of Mounjaro, Eli Lillys best-selling medication labeled to treat diabetes but also used for weight loss, jumped 60% to $3.53 billion in the fourth quarter of 2024; the company’s weight-loss drug Zepbound brought in $1.9 billion for that quarter. Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk, one of Europes most valuable companies, saw its revenue jump 25% last year to $40.6 billion, primarily from sales of its blockbuster diabetes and weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy.
There are still ways that companies can get around the compounding regulations and keep selling copycat versions of the drugs. Doctors or companies could ask compounding pharmacies to make the medication in different doses than what is offered for the brand-name versions. They could also ask for extra ingredients, like vitamins, to be added into the compound. Ultimately, it depends on how much the FDA enforces its regulation.
In February, Hims & Hers made the case for the personalization of weight-loss drugs via novel dosing and ingredients in an article on its website, which suggests that the company is exploring work-arounds to the compounding regulations. (Hims & Hers did not respond to Fast Companys request for comment.)
I’m not sure the FDA will tolerate these work-arounds,” says Dr. Angela Fitch, cofounder and chief medical officer of Knownwell, a weight-loss telemedicine company. She adds that some telemedicine services may reach deals with Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to provide brand-name drugs at a more accessible price, but the profits they made from manufacturing compounded medication and marking it up will be gone.
A weight-loss pill is on the way
GLP-1 medication currently comes in the form of a weekly injection, but this week Ozempic maker Novo Nordisk disclosed that earlier this year it had submitted a daily pill version of its weight-loss drug to the FDA for approval. Meanwhile, a new pill from Mounjaro maker Eli Lilly has shown promising results in treating both obesity and diabetes. Eli Lilly has said that the FDA is likely to approve the drug next year and that it is easier to manufacture than the injection and may also be cheaper.
WeightWatchers is filing for bankruptcy
Weight-loss company WeightWatchers, which started offering telemedicine consultations for members to access GLP-1 drugs alongside its famous points system, is preparing to file for bankruptcy within weeks, according to Bloomberg. The company has more than $1.4 billion in bonds and loans that will come due in 2028 and 2029. A bankruptcy filing would let it restructure its balance sheet.
The company has struggled in the era of GLP-1s. In October, to compete with the likes of Hims & Hers, Ro, and Noom, the company started offering affordable compounded GLP-1s through WeightWatchers Clinic. As rules tighten around manufacturing compounded medication, the company will be in a tough position.
At its peak in 2018, WeightWatchers was trading at $100 a share. On April 25, WW International stock price hovered around 15 cents.
Tesla released its quarterly earnings report on Tuesday, its first since the companys chief executive, Elon Musk, took up residence in the Trump White House and immediately began trying to fire federal workers, gut regulators, and illegally withhold funding from recipients who are entitled to it. The numbers are, to use a technical term, grim: Teslas net income for the first three months of the year was $409 million, down precipitously from $1.4 billion over the same period in 2024. According to The New York Times, things could have been much worse: Had Tesla not been able to supplement its sales by earning $400 million in interest and close to $600 million selling emissions credits, it would have been hundreds of millions of dollars in the red.
Hours later, Musk tried to reassure investors by revealing that he planned to dedicate “significantly” less time to his work at the Department of Government Efficiency starting next month, but would still spend a day or two per week on the project. This is roughly analogous to announcing that, on account of your house being on fire, you intend to scale back the volume of gasoline you have been pouring the flames at some point in the weeks ahead.
Valiantly trying to spin a 71% drop in profits is presumably not the future Musk envisioned when he endorsed Trumps candidacy, or spent more than quarter-billion dollars on his campaign, or started appearing as an honored guest at rallies, bouncing around the stage like a child allowed to eat one too many Cadbury eggs on Easter. The second Trump administration was supposed to be a presidency run by billionaires for the benefit of billionaires hoping to climb a few spots in the Forbes rankings. But like many of the CEOs who lined up behind Trump this time around, Musk is learning the hard way that voluntarily associating oneself with an aspiring autocrat who keeps flirting with causing a generational recession can be very bad for business.
Tuesdays news is only the latest bit of evidence that Musks decision to lumber into right-wing politics has had real consequences for some of the companies he runs. Teslas stock price is down from an all-time high of $480 per share in December to around $280 as of this writing, and earlier this month, the company announced that its first-quarter deliveries were down 13%. Musk recently sold X to his artificial intelligence company, xAI, at a $33 billion valuation, which for those doing math at home is $11 billion less than he paid for the platform formerly known as Twitter in 2022. In an increasingly competitive electric vehicles market, the stigma associated with buyingor even owninga Tesla has put the company in a precarious position. In March, Musk and Trump grew desperate enough to stage a live Tesla infomercial at the White House, a stunt that I doubt made people already turned off by his brand any likelier to buy a car from him.
Teslas reputational nosedive has been particularly disastrous for Musk, whose estimated net worth has plummeted from close to $500 billion in December to around $300 billion today. Although he remains the worlds wealthiest person by a considerable margin, this is an astonishing amount to lose in such a short period, especially given that its been driven in significant part by his terminal inability to stop posting. To give you a sense of scale, the reduction in Musks net worth over the past four months is roughly equal to Mark Zuckerbergs total net worth as you read this sentence.
Musks influence is waning, too, both inside and outside the government. His preferred candidates blowout loss in Wisconsins high-stakes state supreme court election raises uncomfortable questions about his staying power within the Republican Party establishment. DOGE-led efforts to hollow out agencies like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission are getting tied up in court, and even if the Trump administration ultimately prevails, it will be years before the resulting dearth of regulatory oversight makes up for a 12-figure reduction in Musks net worth. The infamous five things emails that Musk purported to require of all federal workers have apparently fallen by the wayside already; one employee told The Washington Post that they use an AI chatbot to fire off a word salad response each week, which is inspiring to me in the same way that Black Lives Matter protesters using leaf blowers to blow tear gas at the cops who fired it was inspiring to me.
Meanwhile, when Musk ventures into spaces that are not populated by crypto scammers, Trump acolytes, or some combination thereof, normal people relish the opportunity to share how they feel about him. Earlier this month, for instance, when Musk livestreamed himself playing video games to demonstrate the capabilities of Starlinks in-fight WiFi service, users took to the comments to say things like YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS AND YOU WILL DIE ALONE, and YOU WILL ALWAYS FEEL INSECURE AND IT WILL NEVER GO AWAY.
Mark Zuckerberg, another Big Tech luminary who tried to ingratiate himself to Trump, has to be second-guessing himself, too. During the transition, the Meta CEO paid multiple visits to Mar-a-Lago and quickly rebranded as the sort of manosphere enthusiast who decries the scourges of fact-checking and government censorship of social media platforms. Perhaps thats why, when Zuckerberg called the FTC in March to try and settle a blockbuster case challenging Facebooks acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, he reportedly seemed confident that Trump would back him up. The FTCs Trump-appointed chair rejected his offer, though, and the support Zuckerberg expected never materialized. As it turns out, the price of getting the president to make a gigantic antitrut lawsuit go away is greater than fawning over his agenda in the occasional podcast interview.
Many of this countrys largest corporations followed Silicon Valleys lead after the election, throwing tens of millions of dollars at Trumps inauguration committee and engaging in a spirited competition to see who could most vociferously disavow their diversity, equity, and inclusion policies in public. (Some inauguration donors, including Target, McDonalds, and Delta, opened their wallets after not doing so for more than a decade, per CNBC.) Even as Trump runs roughshod over both civil liberties and the global economy, few have changed course, holding out hope for the long-promised capitalist utopia of a lighter regulatory burden and a number-go-up stock market. In reality, their share prices are down, their investors are getting restless, and the government is no more sympathetic to their plight than it was three months ago. Thanks to the uncertainty generated by Trumps on-again, off-again interest in waging harebrained trade wars, a big bounceback does not seem likely anytime soon.
This is not to suggest that the administrations anti-worker, anti-consumer, anti-regulatory agenda will never redound to these companies benefit. But the basic bet that so many boardroom types made by trying to curry favor with Trump was that electing a Business President would make their businesses money, too. Instead, the most consistent beneficiary of Donald Trumps second term has been Donald Trump, who is having the time of his life hawking an eponymous memecoin and TRUMP 2028 hats. Everyone else is stuck fighting for scraps.
Every now and then, you run into a tool that truly wows you.
Its rareespecially nowadays, when everyone and their cousin is coming out with overhyped AI-centric codswallop thats almost always more impressive on paper than in practice.
And that, if you ask me, makes it all the more satisfying when you track down a tool that really, truly impresses.
My friend, today is one of those days. Prepare to have your mind blown.
Be the first to find all sorts of little-known tech treasures with my free Cool Tools newsletter from The Intelligence. One useful new discovery in your inbox every Wednesday!
Your instant audio enhancer
Our tool for today comes from a company youve almost certainly heard of. But Id be willing to wager you didnt know it offered this off-the-beaten-path treasure.
The gem of which we speak is a simple little web app called, fittingly, Enhance Speechby Adobe.
Enhance Speech lets you upload any audio recording of someone speaking.
Its technically designed for podcasters, but it could be useful for practically anythinga spoken memo, a recorded conversation, even a recorded phone call.
The site takes any recording you feed it and instantly improves its audio qualityremoving background noise and enhancing the sound of the speaking so its crisp, clear, and easy as can be to hear, no matter how sloppily or in what kind of environment it was recorded.
Adobes Enhance Speech site couldnt be much simpler or easier to use.
Itll take you about two minutes to perform an enhancement.
And you dont need to create an account or anything:
Just open up the Adobe Enhance Speech site in any browser, on any device in front of you.
Click or tap the Choose Files buttonor drag and drop an audio file directly from your device onto the page, if youre using a computer.
Enhance Speech works with most common audio file formats, including WAV, MP3, AAC, FLAC, and M4A.
In a matter of moments, the site will serve up an enhanced version of your recording that you can either play on the page or download.
You can play your enhanced audio right on the site or download it with one quick click.
You can also just check out the built-in sample on the sites main page to see how impressive of a difference its enhancements make. It really is something.
Enhance Speech is entirely web-basedno downloads or installations required.
Its free to use with recordings up to 30 minutes in length and 500MB in size, with a one-hour-per-day upload limit. You can lift those limits and unlock a variety of advanced features with a premium plan, but that absolutely isnt necessary for the services core featuresand the limits are plenty generous for most casual use.
Enhance Speech follows Adobes standard privacy policy, which ensures no personal data is ever shared or used in any eyebrow-raising way.
Ready for more productivity-boosting goodness? Check out my free Cool Tools newsletter for an instant introduction to an audio app thatll tune up your days in delightful waysand a new off-the-beaten-path gem in your inbox every Wednesday!
Getting your tax refund is the only fun part of filing your taxes every yearwhich can make it especially galling when Uncle Sam takes his sweet time sending your money. Waiting for a refund in 2025 has some added stress, considering the recent IRS layoffs, the departments plans for a 25% reduction in force, and the heartburn-inducing game of acting director musical chairs that played out during this years tax season.
With all of that turmoil in the IRS, any taxpayer still waiting on a refund may worry their tax return got lost in the shuffle.
The good news is that the IRS is still processing tax returns and refunds at a steady clip, even with a reduced workforce. Additionally, this department offers taxpayers a number of resources to soothe your worries about the status of your refund.
Heres what you need to know about receiving your tax refund this year if it still hasnt hit your bank account.
Believe it or not, tax refunds are on track
If youve waited more than the 21 calendar days the IRS claims it takes to process your refund, you can be excused for assuming the DOGE cuts are responsible for the delay. But the IRS filing season statistics tell a different story.
Despite the reduced workforce, the IRS is processing returns and refunds at a similar rate to last year. As of April 11, 2025, the IRS has processed 74,858,000 refunds for the 2025 tax seasona 0.2% increase compared to the 74,685,000 refunds processed as of the same time frame in 2024.
Its also instructive to look at last years statistics from later in the tax season. The 2024 refunds processed by mid-April last year represented 71.2% of all refunds for the calendar year. That means its not unusual for more than a quarter of taxpayers to still be refund-less at this point in the tax season.
Additionally, by May 10, 2024, nearly 90% of refunds had been processed for the yearwhich correlates pretty well to the nearly 92% of taxpayers who file on time. The remaining refunds paid out after mid-May 2024 were generally owed to late filers who got an extension.
If you filed your taxes as of the April 15 deadline, youll probably receive your owed refund by mid-May at the latest.
So is there a tax refund delay?
While the beleaguered IRS is working full steam ahead under difficult circumstances, there are several global and individual reasons why you may not have received your refund:
Filing volume: The volume of tax returns received by the IRS goes up steeply the closer it gets to April 15. The increased filing volume creates a bottleneck for IRS workers, which can delay your refund.
Paper filing: Uncle Sam prefers e-filing, and taxpayers who file a paper return may have to wait four or more weeks to receive their refunds.
Refund via check: If you requested a paper check instead of ACH deposit, that can also delay your refund.
Tax credits: If you claimed the Earned Income Tax Credit or the Child Tax Credit, that can delay your refund.
Errors: An error on your return can delay your refund.
Amended return: Filing an amended return can also cause your refund to take longer to process.
Wheres my refund?
One of the best updates to modern taxation is the IRS Wheres My Refund? tool, which allows you to check the status of your refund. Typically, you can use this tool within 24 hours of e-filing your current-year tax return.
To check your refund status, you will need your Social Security number (or individual taxpayer ID number, or ITIN), your filing status, and the exact amount of your refund.
There are three potential refund statuses:
Return Received: This status indicates the IRS has received your tax return and is currently processing it.
Refund Approved: This status shows that your refund has been approved and will be submitted as of the date listed.
Refund Sent: This status indicates that the IRS has sent the refund either via ACH or paper check through the mail. ACH could take up to five days to appear in your bank account, and a paper check could take several weeks to show up in your mailbox.
When to pick up the phone
Calling the IRS for help is about as appealing as a colonoscopy, especially if you expect the wait time for reaching a real live human being to rival the run time for Wickedthe directors cut.
However, you may need to reach out to the IRS by phone if there is no change to the refund status listed on the Wheres My Refund? tool after 21 calendar days or if the tool asks you to contact the IRS. Just remember that the IRS cant answer questions about your delayed refund until youve hit the 21-day mark.
If youre ready to call the Taxpayer Assistance hotline, you can reach it at 800-829-1040 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. local time.
The IRS is still working as designedfor now
The 2025 tax season may seem more fraught than usual, but the IRS is still processing about the same number of returns and refunds as it has in past years. The delay on your refund may be related to when or how you filed your taxes, whether you took any tax credits, or if there is an error on your return.
You can check the status of your refund using the online Wheres My Refund? tool, and give the IRS a ring if the status hasnt changed after 21 days.
Just remember that if you do need to call, the IRS worker who answers the phone is almost definitely having a worse tax season than you are.
When artist Adam Pendleton was growing up in Richmond, Virginia, he started his own newspaper that he delivered to the residents at a nursing home in his town. I wanted to be a creative person functioning in the world, he says. I wanted to be an artist. Over the years, that inclination took various forms: a t-shirt business (which he now laughs that, as a teen, he saw as a fashion line), script-writing, musical theater, original poetry.
I realize now it was very much about having an idea and manifesting itthat is creativity, says Pendleton, whose growing body of work has continuously redefined contemporary American painting. In that way, youre a perpetual problem solver. Now, years later, the sorts of problems Pendleton finds himself wrestling with are far more esoteric, and rooted to big questions around the human experience in a distracted and noisy world.
These themes are mirrored in his paintings which are layered with paint, spray paint, ink and watercolor. They include stenciled fragments of text and geometric shapes, and are then photographed and screenprinted. This blend of disciplines, materials and forms, Pendleton has said, is a representation of the cacophony of contemporary experience. His new solo show, Adam Pendleton: Love, Queen, opened April 4 at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. and runs until January 3, 2027. The show includes Black Dada, Days, WE ARE NOT, as well as new composition and movement paintings.
[Photo: Jason Schmidt]
I read all of the books my mom had in the house. I was reading Sylvia Plath, and I think The Bell Jar was the first time I got more invested in, What is the life of an artist like? The Jackson Pollock biopic came out and I remember being like, Wow! I had very little interest in the typical adolescent activities: I didnt want to go to parties; I didnt want a drivers license. I realize now, I was trying to eliminate things that could be a distraction from what I had identified as my purpose in life.
I went to a private prep school in Virginia where my mom taught. I made a change and went to this outdoor school in North Carolina called The Outdoor Academy. I wanted to do something different. That decision absolutely changed my life. I dont know where I would be without that kind of swervethat serendipitous encounter with this place. It taught me there are alternative ways of being and thinking and seeing the world, particularly in regards to education. Youd be in math class, and then youd go rock climbing or white water canoeing. We were living in the world. We were using our bodies. We were really living. I graduated high school two years early, and when I was 16, I went to Italy to continue my art education. From that age on, I have lived.
[Photo: Peio Erroteta]
I organize myself around what I call ‘moments of consequence.’ Im looking at the arch of time over a specific periodsix months or 12 months, maybe a little longer. I look at the most important things that will happen during that period and I make sure that at any given moment during the day from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed Im giving some sort of energetic or physical or intellectual commitment or dedicated time to said moment of consequence. That is a way of moving through the world, but also being anchored at any given moment to this concrete sense of what you need to be focused on.
[Photo: Andy Romer]
Im a big believer that you can organize your mind. Part of organizing your mind is using your full mental capacity or bandwidth. For example, even while Im talking to you, I can still be thinking about the painting I want to make, or the drawings I want to work on, or the text I need to edit. Its the internal initiative I need to nurture. For me, its like visual mapping. There is noise around visual mapping: language, ideas, desires or urges. You have to organize them and attach those impulses to the correct spaces in your mind.
I accept moments. If Im getting ready for a big exhibition, I say to myself, Im not going to paint for the next seven days. Its just not going to happen. Its better to be realistic about it than to fight it and be frustrated. Its an energetic drain.
[Photo: Peio Erroteta]
I like the flow of constant work. I always say dont take a vacation. I personally think its better to be in the flow and not fight it. To say, Im going to step otside of it and go sit on a beach with a romance novel for three days. I have never had that compulsion. My compulsion is for projects and ideas and tackling them, figuring it out, getting it done. I get anxious when people say, Just relax and dont do anything. I dont find that relaxing. Rest is important, but the kind of rest I’m talking about is sleep.
I think the worst habit people have these days is sleeping with their phones next to their heads. A very good ritual I have that makes a huge difference: When I go to sleep, I leave my phone downstairs. It makes a huge difference, and it allows you to be very present in that period of going to sleep.
[Photo: Andy Romer]
I am very much about space and what you do in those spaces. There are certain things I would do at home that Id never do in the office. I wont have phone conversations in my painting studio. Its just not the space for that. I organize my tasks or responsibilitiesin the same way I talk about a mental map, I have a very physical map. Its about organizing yourself in a way that encourages good habits.
Im very bad under pressure. Im not the kind of person that can study for a test the night before. I have to have a lot of prep and strategy. I nurture ideas for a very long time before I execute. Sometimes when you need to pivot and change something, it can take months or years to position yourself to be ready or able to tackle it.
There are some things that I am just not that curious about. But, I think its important to be curious about as much as you possibly can be. If I see a line outside the door Im not going to stand in the line, but I will take a picture of the place and want to learn about it. I saw an Irish Soda Bread shop when I was on East 7th Street. Why is there a line here? I take a picture of menus of restaurants I will probably never go into. I walk around my neighborhood to see whats busy at different times. I relate that curiosity back to my work. Its why I paint and what I do. Its not formulaic in any way. My work is about deep visual curiosity that extends to the world around me in every way.
[Photo: Peio Erroteta]
I like absorbing things and making sense of things. I like processing. I need a way to move through the world that is poetic, soulful, and intentional. That nurtures my interior life and its potential in the ways it manifests itself in the world. Painting is that. It’s a mechanism, a mode, a tool. Its the poetics of being and moving through and understanding and reflecting on the world. Its my greatest gift. It is the most articulate and inarticulate act or function that I engage in.
When people think about mentors, they try to think about one or two people. Thats really counter-productive. Its better to have a well of inspiration, rather than one single heroic figure. I have so many, some that are alive and some who are dead. Some who I will never know. Jason Moran. Joan Jonas. Adrian Piper. Ishmael Houston-Jones. Ruby Nell Sales. John Coltrane. Ella Fitzgerald. June Jordan. David Chipperfield. Hiroshi Sugimoto. I could keep listing names. I want to be inspired by the world around me. I want a big capacious, generous, and generative community around me and also in my head.
In December 2023, I wrote an article exploring Apple CEO Tim Cooks most likely successors, because there will come a day when he steps aside as chief executive at the iPhone maker. I wrote the piece in response to rare comments Cook had madeto Dua Lipa, no lessrevealing that Apple has very detailed succession plans in preparation for his departure.
Cook tried to alleviate investor fears of a near-term departure by saying that he still planned to be at Apple for a while. But as I noted at the time, thats a subjective phraseand one Cook used nearly 18 months ago now. A lot has changed since then. Hell, a lot has changed in the tech world over the past three weeks alone, ever since Trump unleashed his disastrous Liberation Day tariffs, sending tech supply chainsand tech stock pricesinto chaos.
Those tariffs have gotten me thinking a lot again about Cook, and those succession plans he announced a year and a half before President Trump lobbed an economic grenade at the world. All this has got me believing that Cook should pause any retirement plans hes had in the works and stay on as Apples CEO until at least the end of Trumps second term, in January 2029. Because the way things are going with the Trump-induced economic turmoil, Apple is going to need Cook more than ever these next four years. And Cook is uniquely suited for the challenge in two key ways.
The ops guy cometh
When historic tariffs require a company to completely rethink its supply chain, you want an operations guy in charge, someone deeply familiar with the companys logistics and supply chain. Thats precisely what Cook is, and his operations mastery is one of the main reasons Apple made it through its previous most economically challenging timethe late 1990s.
While Steve Jobs gets all the credit for Apples late-’90s rebirth, the fact is that Jobs probably wouldn’t have been able to save the company without Cooks help. Jobs had come back to Apple in 1997 and quickly reimagined its product lineup, but that much-needed creativity injection wasnt going to fix Apples other major problem at the time: its cumbersome supply chain, which had put massive financial and logistical challenges on Apple for years.
In 1998, Jobs hired Cook as Apples senior vice president for worldwide operations, and Cook immediately went to work overhauling Apples operationsfrom manufacturing to shipping to asset allocation. This clean sweep of Apples operations that Cook led enabled the company to ramp up and distribute the product innovations en masse that Jobs would soon start pumping out, including the iMac, the iPod, and the iPhone.
Cooks ruthless optimization of Apples supply chain, ironically, was often used against him by those unhappy with Apples announcement in 2011 that he would succeed Jobs as CEO. Cook was an ops guy, his detractors argued, when Apple needed another product visionary like Jobs.
I wont rehash much of what Ive already argued before, but while Steve Jobs was a creative genius and beloved tech leader, the simple fact is that the ops guy has grown Apple into a larger technology juggernaut, by orders of magnitude, than Jobs ever could have. When Jobs passed away in October 2011, Apples market cap was just north of $300 billion. Last year, after just over 13 years of Cooks leadership, Apples market cap reached more than $3.7 trillion.
Now, of course, Apple has lost nearly a fifth of that value since, largely thanks to Trumps chaotic tariff war decimating tech stocks. But thats exactly one of the reasons Apple needs Cook more than ever. Tariff barriersespecially of this historic scaleoften require a reorganization of global supply chains. Who better to be at the helm of one of the company’s most affected by those barriers than a CEO who is arguably one of the best ops guys in business history?
But its not just Cooks deep understanding of global operations that is the reason Apple needs him. Its also because Cook has shown time and again that he is one of the most skilled business leaders when it comes to engaging with President Trump.
In the arena with Donald Trump
In late 2024, Tim Cook received a lot of criticism from the left for being one of the many tech CEOs to meet with then-President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Cook received even more criticism in January when he personally donated $1 million to Trumps inaugural committee. Many progressives saw these actions as hypocritical, especially coming from the CEO of what has been historically considered a very liberal-leaning company.
Yet these actions make more sense when you look at comments Cook made about his willingness to work with governments of all stripes shortly after President Trumps first election victory in 2016.
As reported by TechCrunch in December 2016, Cook was asked by an Apple employee on an internal company message board about how important he believed it was that Apple engage with governments. The question came a week after Cook and other tech leaders met with the then-first-time president-elect. Cook answered that it was very important, noting, Governments can affect our ability to do what we do. They can affect it in positive ways and they can affect in not so positive ways.”
He went on: Personally, Ive never found being on the sideline a successful place to be. The way that you influence these issues is to be in the arena. So whether its in this country, or the European Union, or in China or South America, we engage. And we engage when we agree and we engage when we disagree. I think its very important to do that because you dont change things by just yelling. You change things by showing everyone why your way is the best.”
In the years since making these comments, Cook has proven this answer wasnt just lip service. Throughout Trumps first term, Cook frequently engaged with the presidentand because of it, he got Trump to exempt Chinese-sourced components critical to Apples products from the tariffs Trump raised against Chinese imports in 2019. This potentially saved Apple billionsand probably saved Americans from paying more for iPhones.
Further proof that Cook has learned how to deal with Trump successfully comes from Trump himself. As CNN reported in November 2019, Trump had been asked earlier in the year why he seemed to have such a special relationship with Cook.
Oh, I have it with everybody, but hes the one that calls me, Trump answered. You know why? Thats why hes a great executive because he calls me, and others dont. Others go out and hire very expensive consultants, and Tim Cook calls Donald Trump directly. Pretty good. And I would take their call, too, but the only one that calls me is Tim Cook.
“I helped Tim Cook recently”
This close attention that Cook pays to Trump is likely one of the reasons why Trump took a call from Cook in October 2024. Cook was reaching out to express his concerns about recent financial penalties the EU levied against Apple, to the tune of around $14 billion. The BBC reported that Trump told Cook that he would not let the European Union “take advantage of our companies (but noted that in order to make good on that Apple-friendly promise, he first needed to get elected again).
And just last week, there was more evidenceagain directly from Trumpthat Cook has successfully used his relationship with the president to achieve other favorable outcomes for Apple. On April 11, the Trump administration announced tariff exemptions for certain electronic goods imported from China, including Apples iPhones and computers, thus sparing the Cupertino company from a tariff bill of up to 145% for each item imported. A few days later, as noted by 9to5Mac, when Trump talked about his flexibility concerning the tariffs he has imposed, he seemed to allude to the recent exemptions being done, at least in part, to help Cook.
Look, Im a very flexible person. I dont change my mind, but Im flexible, Trump said. And you have to be. You just cant have a wall, and youll only gono, sometimes you have to go around it, under it, or above it. Therell be maybe things coming up. I speak to Tim Cook. I helped Tim Cook recently.
Trump didnt explicitly say how he helped Cook, but The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Cook was heavily involved in getting Apple, and others in the U.S. tech industry, an exemption from Trump’s most recent tariffs. The White House denied that Trump did any specific favors for Cook. Still, Trumps comments again show that he, the most powerful person in the world, seems proud of being able to help Cook out. That likely wouldnt be the case if Apples CEO hadn’t so skillfully managed his relationship with Trump over the years.
“Tim has a very good relationship with the president, and rightly so . . .,” Wilbur Ross, Trump’s commerce secretary during his first term, told the Post. “In general, he has a lot of respect because hes not a public whiner, hes not a crybaby, but comes with the real voice of reality. Its no surprise to me that his suggestions are being well received.”
The president whisperer
All of this shows that Tim Cook has a better relationship with the president than most other tech CEOs who are not involved politically with his administration.
That is an extremely powerful advantage for Apple during an era becoming defined by the worst economic uncertainty America has seen since the pandemic. Trump is unpredictable, and unpredictability is very bad for companies. However, Cooks relationship with the president seems to go a long way in helping Apple mitigate the risks associated with that unpredictability.
Thats something Apple cant afford to lose right now.
It is highly unlikely that a new CEOeven one from Apples excellent executive teamwould be able to re-create the relationship Cook has deftly cultivated with Trump for almost a decade now. During that period, Cook has gone from just being the ops guy CEO to being as much of a presidential whisperer as one can beperhaps the most valuable skill any American businessperson can have today.
For Apple’s sake, Tim Cook would do well to stay put, at least for the next four years.
Americans worried about their countrys sky-high rate of crash deaths havent had much to cheer lately. Although pedestrian fatalities remain near an all-time record, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wants to stop funding active transportation projects such as sidewalks. A prominent webpage encouraging safe street designs has disappeared, and layoffs have rocked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the federal agency responsible for minimizing crashes.
But at the state level, an encouraging trend is emerging. From California to Maryland, state legislators are exploring the use of new technology, known as Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA), that can prevent the most reckless drivers from blasting past the speed limit. Even at a time of entrenched political polarization, ISA has garnered bipartisan support.
Its really growing much more rapidly than we anticipated, says Amy Cohen, the head of Families for Safe Streets, a national advocacy group backing the various ISA bills. She and her allies hope to sidestep the Trump administration entirely, relying instead on states to promote the adoption of lifesaving car technology.
The safety argument against speeding is ironclad. Blazing-fast vehicles take longer to brake and exert more force in a crash, thereby endangering everyone else on the roadway. Across the U.S., around 12,000 people died in speeding-related crashes in 2022, almost a third of the national total.
Super-speeders going more than 20 mph over the limit can cause catastrophic harm. In 2022, a driver in North Las Vegas, Nevada, flew through an intersection at 103 mph, killing himself and eight other people. Despite the risks, super-speeding is disturbingly common. Last year, law enforcement in Rhode Island issued 292 tickets to drivers exceeding 100 mph, while Ohios highway patrol cited 38 people for doing so in a single day.
Since police inevitably miss many infractions, super-speeders often get away with it. Automated speed cameras provide a more reliable means of enforcement, but their deployments are often mired in controversy. (Camera-based ticketing is banned completely in many states.)
For the speeders who are caught, penalties may be limited to a fine or a drivers education class. Even a license suspension doesnt necessarily change behavior: A federally funded study found that 75% of people with suspended licenses continued to drive.
Rather than relying on dubious ex post penalties, ISA systems make extreme speeding difficult or even impossible. The technology, which can be installed while a car is manufactured or afterward, uses GPS to identify the speed limit on a road segment and then deter drivers from going more than a programmed amount beyond it. Passive ISA systems issue tactile or audible warnings that attract the drivers attention, while heavier-handed active systems block additional acceleration after the maximum threshold is reached. (ISA works through the gas pedal; it does not affect braking.)
ISA has attracted growing attention from researchers, safety advocates, and policymakers. As of last year, the European Union requires all new cars to contain passive ISA. In the U.S., the National Transportation Safety Board has called on NHTSA to impose a similar ISA mandate, but the agency has shown no signs of doing so.
Impatient with federal inaction, state leaders are taking matters into their own hands. Last year, California State Sen. Scott Wiener proposed a bill requiring ISA on all new cars sold in the Golden State. To the surprise of even many supporters (and to the consternation of the auto industry), Wieners bill passed both of Californias legislative chambers before Gov. Gavin Newsom ultimately vetoed it.
Now, a new wave of state bills is advancing a narrower and seemingly less controversial application of ISA technology. Rather than call for passive ISA on all new cars, advocates are arguing that active ISAwhich can make extreme acceleration impossibleshould be placed on vehicles owned by people with a history of reckless speeding. Last year, the District of Columbia became the first jurisdiction to pass such a law. This spring, Virginia passed its own bill, which gives judges the option of requiring ISA if a driver exceeded 100 mph. Legislatures in Arizona, California, Georgia, Maryland, and New York are now considering their own proposals. (Proposals typically include a limited override feature allowing further acceleration during an emergency.)
The bills are all a little bit different, Cohen says. But they are all taking the worst drivers and saying that this technology has to be put in their cars for the duration that a license is suspended.
Politically, a focus on reckless drivers offers crucial advantages over a blanket ISA requirement like those that the EU has adopted and California has considered. Since only a small fraction of drivers are super-speeders (Cohen estimates the share at under 2% in New York state), the bills passagewont affect most residents directly but can protect them from danger posed by others. The auto industry is also less likely to oppose such measures, since an ISA mandate for new vehicles presents a much greater threat to existing manufacturing and marketing practices.
The recent state proposals have shown bipartisan appeal: Virginias bill was signed into law by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, and bills have passed the state house and senate in GOP-dominated Georgia as well as Democrat-led Washington state. Cohen says that her basic pitch, revolving around safety and fairness, seems to resonate equally well on both sides of the aisle: Were not taking away your car; were just saying that you cant drive recklessly, she says of the current state bills. You have to get to your destination safely, and not kill anyone along the way.
If successful, the states legislation could serve as a gateway for broader ISA deployments, potentially including public fleets (as New York City has piloted). A single car with ISA can also prevent multiple drivers behind it from recklessly accelerating, so even a small number of ISA-equipped vehicles could have a dramatic impact on regional or even national road safety.
For now, Cohens primary goal is convincing more states to climb aboard the ISA bandwagon. Families for Safe Streets has helped coordinate the various campaigns by building a resource page, answering FAQs, and arranging for crash victims to give supportive testimony during hearings.
With the Trump administration showing hostility toward regulations of all kinds, a state-based approach toward traffic safety offers promise. Its inspiring to see how quickly some legislators can move, Cohen says. Were pushingand hoping that others follow suit.
Last year was a record year for disasters in the United States. A new report from the British charity International Institute for Environment and Development finds that 90 disasters were declared nationwide in 2024, from wildfires in California to Hurricane Helene in North Carolina.
The average number of annual disasters in the U.S. is about 55.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency provides funding and recovery assistance to states after disasters. President Donald Trump criticized the agency in January 2025 when he visited hurricane-stricken western North Carolina. Though 41% of Americans lived in an area affected by disaster in 2024, according to the institutes report, the Trump administration is reportedly working to abolish or dramatically diminish FEMAs operations.
FEMA has been a very big disappointment. They cost a tremendous amount of money. Its very bureaucratic, and its very slow, Trump declared, saying he thought states were better positioned to take care of problems after a disaster.
A governor can handle something very quickly, he said.
Trumps remarks have prompted a heated response, including proposals to fundamentally overhaulbut not abolishfederal disaster recovery.
But I believe the current discussion about FEMA handling U.S. disasters puts the emphasis in the wrong place.
As a scholar who researches how small and rural local governments cooperate, I believe this public debate demonstrates that many people fundamentally misunderstand how disaster recovery actually works, especially in rural areas, where locally directed efforts are particularly key to that recovery.
I know this from personal experience, too: I am a resident of Watauga County, in western North Carolina, and I evacuated during Hurricane Helene after landslides severely impaired the roads around my home.
Volunteers and Vermont Army National Guardsmen help to unload pallets of emergency drinking water at a community food and resource share at the Ludlow Community Center. The emergency drinking water was supplied by FEMA. [Photo: Vincent Alban/The Boston Globe via Getty Images]
When disaster strikes
Here, in short, is what happens after a disaster.
Federal legislation from 1988 called the Stafford Act gives governors the power to declare disasters. If the president agrees and also declares the region a disaster, that puts federal programs and activities in motion.
Yet local officials are generally involved from the very start of this process. Governors usually seek input from state and local emergency managers and other municipal officials before making a disaster declaration, and it is local officials who begin the disaster response.
Thats because small and rural local governments actually have the most local knowledge to lead recovery efforts in their area after a disaster.
Local officials determine conditions on the ground, coordinate search and rescue, and help bring utilities and other infrastructure back online. They have relationships with community members that can inform decision-making. For example, a county senior center will know which residents receive Meals on Wheels and might need a wellness check after disaster.
However, small towns cannot do all this alone. They need FEMAs money and resources, and that can present a problem. The process of applying and complying with the requirements of the grants is incredibly complex and burdensome. According to FEMAs website, there are eight phases in the disaster aid process, composed of 28 steps that range from preliminary damage assesment to recovery scoping video to compliance reviews and reconciliation. Getting through these eight phases takes years.
The FEMA Public Assistance National Delivery Model Workflow Snake [Graph: FEMA]
Larger cities and counties frequently have dedicated staff that apply for disaster aid and ensure compliance with regulations. But smaller governments can struggle to apply for and administer state or federal grants on their ownespecially after a disaster when demands are so high.
Thats where regional intergovernmental organizations come in. Every region has its own name for these entities. Theyre often called councils of government, regional planning commissions or area development districts. My colleagues and I call them RIGOs, for their initials.
What is a RIGO?
No matter the name, RIGOs are collaborative bodies that allow local governments to cooperate for services and programs they might not otherwise be able to afford. Bringing together local elected officials from usually about three to five counties, RIGOs help local officials cooperate to address the shared needs of everyone in their area. They do this in normal times; they also do this when disasters strike.
RIGOs operate throughout most of the U.S., in big cities and rural areas, in turbulent times and in calm. They serve different needs in different regions, but in all cases, RIGOs bring together local elected officials to solve common problems.
One example of this in western North Carolina is the Digital Seniors project, launched during COVID-19. Here, the local RIGO is called the Southwestern Commission. In 2021, the RIGO area agency on aging coordinated with the Fontana Regional Library to help dozens of elders who had never been connected to the internet get online during the pandemic. The Southwestern Commission used its relationships with the local senior centers to identify people who needed the service, and the library had access to hot spots and laptops through a grant from the state of North Carolina.
In rural areas, RIGOs work alongside regional business and nonprofits to allow local governments to offer regular services and programs they might not otherwise be able to afford, such as public transportation, senior citizen services or economic development.
Part of that work is helping member governments navigate the maze of federal and state funding opportunities for the projects they hope to get done, often by employing a specialized grant administrator. Each small local government may not have enough work or revenue to justify such a staff member, but many together have the workload and funding to hire someone specially trained to abide by the rules of funding from states and the federal government.
This system helps small local governments receive their fair share in federal grant money and report back on how the money was spent.
Transparency, technical compliance and action
Disasters rarely respect borders. Thats why governments generally work together to distribute grant money for rebuilding communities.
In the summer of 2022, eastern Kentucky faced deadly flooding after receiving about 15 inches of rain over four days600% above normal. The North Fork of the Kentucky River crested at approximately 21 feet, killing over two dozen people and damaging 9,000 homes and more than 100 businesses.
Laura Humphrey walks a wheelbarrow to a pile of debris while volunteering to clean up in Perry County, Kentucky. [Photo: Michael Swensen/Getty Images]
The Kentucky River Area Development District, a RIGO representing eight counties, played a key role in the areas recovery. It secured millions in FEMA aid and maintained critical services, including expanded food delivery and transportation for elderly residents.
Similarly, after disastrous flooding hit Vermont in 2023 and 2024, another RIGO, the Central Vermont Regional Planning Commission, jumped into action. It quickly provided emergency communication to the 23 small villages and towns in its region and has since supported local governments applying for grants and reimbursements.
Today, it continues to assist in Vermonts disaster planning and flood mitigation. This is also part of the recovery process.
Local control
Rebuilding after a disaster is a long, arduous process. It begins after national journalists and politicians have left the area and continues for years. That would be true no matter how Trump restructures emergency aid: The damage is massive, and so is the repair.
For example, heres how western North Carolina looks six months after Helene: Most businesses have reopened, most folks have running water again, and people can drive in and out of the area.
But many roads are still full of broken pavement. Mud from landslides presses up against the sides of the highway, and condemned housing teeters on the edge of ravaged creek beds.
It is, in other words, too soon to see the full impact of local government efforts to rebuild my region. But RIGOs across the region are hiring additional temporary staff to help local governments get federal money and comply with complex guidelines. Their support ensures that decisions affecting North Carolinians are voted on by the city and county leaders they electednot decreed by governors or handed down from Washington, D.C.
Locally led rebuilding is slow and difficult work, yes. But it is, in my opinion, the most community-responsive way to deal with disaster.
Jaylen Peacox, a graduate student in public administraion at North Carolina State University, contributed to this story.
Jay Rickabaugh is an assistant professor of public administration at North Carolina State University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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The landscape of home automation has sparked numerous discussions about security and control. According to SonicWalls comprehensive 2025 Annual Cyber Threat Report, smart home products experienced a staggering 124% increase in cyberattacks during 2024, with smart plugs emerging as particularly vulnerable targets. These vulnerabilities have ignited growing consumer concern about the safety of cloud-dependent technologies that have dominated the smart home market.
As our homes become increasingly connected, the cloud-connected home automation weve been seeing for the past decade is being critically examined. A growing segment of consumers now seeks alternatives emphasizing local control, data privacy, and system resilience. Here well examine the emerging paradigm of locally controlled smart home technologies, an approach that promises to return technological autonomy to homeowners.
The current landscape of smart home technology
The modern smart home ecosystem has evolved into an interconnected network predominantly reliant on cloud infrastructure. This cloud-centric approach requires constant internet connectivity, routing even the simplest commands through distant data centers thousands of miles away.
While promising convenience, this model introduces vulnerabilities:
A single network interruption can render home systems inoperable.
Each connected device becomes a potential cybersecurity entry point.
Data privacy becomes increasingly compromised as more personal information is transmitted and stored remotely.
Real-world IoT and smart home security failures
The most troubling aspect of cloud-dependent smart home technology is the threat of planned obsolescence. Manufacturers can shut down cloud services that power devices consumers have already purchased, rendering functional hardware useless.
For example, in February 2024, Amazon announced that its Echo Connect landline adapter would cease functioning, giving users just three weeks’ notice. This transition forced vulnerable users to quickly adapt to new technologies or lose access to a potentially life-saving communication tool.
The Echo Connect shutdown is far from an isolated incident. In April 2022, Insteon abruptly shut down its servers without warning, rendering thousands of connected devices instantly nonfunctional.
These incidents expose a critical flaw in cloud-dependent systems: Consumers never truly own their devices. When business interests change or financial pressures mount, companies canand sometimes mustabandon their customers.
Beyond platform shutdowns, security researchers continue to uncover alarming vulnerabilities in cloud-connected devices. For example, in 2020, multiple families experienced privacy violations when their Ring security cameras were compromised, allowing strangers to speak directly to family members through the devices meant to protect them.
Corporate resistance to local control
Some manufacturers have actively blocked consumers from maintaining local control of purchased devices. In January 2024, appliance giant Haier issued legal threats against a developer who created Home Assistant integration plugins for the company’s smart appliances. These open-source tools allowed consumers to control their purchased devices without relying on Haier’s cloud infrastructure.
Despite overwhelming community support, with users creating hundreds of backup copies of the developer’s work, Haier’s aggressive stance exemplifies how manufacturers prioritize maintaining control over their ecosystems rather than respecting consumer ownership rights.
These failures underscore fundamental problems with cloud-dependent smart home technologies that consumers are increasingly recognizing:
Personal security is compromised when critical home systems depend on external servers.
Single points of failure make entire ecosystems vulnerable.
Personal data faces unnecessary exposure and transmission risks.
Manufacturers maintain excessive control over hardware consumers believe they own.
There is a growing community focused on local control, like Home Assistant, where users actively discuss strategies to maintain autonomy and minimize cloud dependency.
The local control revolution
Locally controlled smart home technology represents a paradigm shift in home automation, offering a fundamentally different approach to device management and data processing. At its core, this approach keeps all smart device functionalities within your home’s local network, providing unprecedented levels of privacy, reliability, and user control. The key principles of local control are simple.
Locally controlled smart home technology represents a paradigm shift, offering fundamentally different approaches to device management and data processing:
Local processing: Devices process information directly within the home network, delivering near-instantaneous response times
Network independence: Systems operate independently of internet connectivity
Privacy by design: Data processing remains within the home network, creating a barrier against external data collection
Platforms like Home Assistant and Hubitat have emerged as leaders in this revolution, offering robust, customizable ecosystems that prioritize user autonomy. These platforms empower tech-savvy users to build truly personalized smart home experiences that reflect their unique needs and values.
The path forward
The shift toward locally controlled smart home technology presents a significant opportunity for forward-thinking developers and manufacturers. As consumer demand for privacy, security, and true ownership grows, businesses that embrace this paradigm wll gain competitive advantage in an increasingly crowded market.
For developers and product teams, the strategy is clear: Incorporate local processing capabilities alongside cloud features, respect user autonomy through open APIs, and build trust through transparent data practices. Companies that prioritize these values aren’t just serving a nichethey’re positioning themselves at the forefront of the next evolution in smart home technology.
The most successful smart home ecosystems won’t be those that lock users into vulnerable cloud dependencies, but those that empower customers with genuine control while delivering exceptional experiences.
Svetlin Todorov is cofounder of Shelly and CEO of Shelly U.S.A.
Pope Francis’ funeral mass will be held on Saturday morning in St. Peters Square, a large plaza in front of St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.
Francis’ funeral will take place six days after he died of a stroke and heart failure at age 88. It comes after three days of public viewing at St. Peter’s Basilica, where tens of thousands of people flocked to pay their respects to the first Latin American pope.
After the mass, the pope’s coffin will be taken to Rome and entombed at St. Mary Major Basilica, near his favorite Madonna icon, making him the first pope to be buried outside of the Vatican in over a century, according to NPR. (Leo XIII was the last pope buried outside the Vatican in 1903.) Francis wrote about his plans for a pared-down burial in his autobiography, and reportedly left instructions that future popes will also have simplified burial rites.
The break with tradition is in line with “the People’s Pope’s” progressive 12-year reign as pontiff, characterized by a concern for the poor and greater inclusion in the church. Known to be humble, Francis chose to be buried in a simple wooden coffin instead of the more traditional three-nested coffins (one made of cypress, one made of lead, and one made of elm), according to CBS News.
A number of heads of state from over 100 foreign delegations are expected to attend the funeral, including U.S. president Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, U.K. prime minister Keir Starmer, and Prince William (on behalf of King Charles III), NPR reported. The Italian government expects as many as 200,000 people to attend in person.
One notable absence: Russian president Vladimir Putin, according to Russian media reports, due to his arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) in connection with alleged war crimes in Ukraine.
What time is Pope Francis’ funeral?
Saturday’s funeral mass will begin at 10 a.m. local time, which is 4 a.m. ET.
The Vatican said the mass will be presided over by the dean of the College of Cardinals, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re. The College of Cardinals will meet in a few weeks, between May 6 and May 11, to elect a new pope, as required by the rules governing the conclave.
How can I watch or stream Pope Francis’ funeral live?
All networks will be covering this historic day. Traditional cable subscribers or those with an over-the-air antenna can tune in, as well as those with certain streaming service subscriptions:
ABC: Coverage starts at 3:30 a.m. ET, including on Disney+ and Hulu
CBS: Coverage starts at 4 a.m. ET, and concludes at about 7 a.m.
NBC: Coverage is also available on Peacock+
If you cut the cord and dont have an over-the-air antenna, you can try live TV streaming services, including:
Hulu + Live TV
Fubo
Peacock+
YouTube TV
You can also livestream coverage of the funeral and procession to St. Mary Majors on the Vatican News YouTube channel. However, coverage will stop before the burial in the Basilica.
