March might be over but the madness continues into April. The NCAAs 68 Division I men’s college basketball teams have battled it out on the courts in single-elimination play, leaving four teams standing. This year the Final Four have something in common: They all were granted No. 1 seeds on Selection Sunday. Duke, Florida, Auburn, and Houston were all safe bets when filling out a bracket, and they delivered on that promise. Heres what you need to know heading into the remaining competition, and how to tune in.
Do the No. 1 seed teams always make it to the end?
The short answer is no. This is only the second time in history this has happened. The last time was 2008. Oftentimes there are surprise victories in the tournament or an underdog who comes from behind. That was not the case this year.
When and where is the Final Four?
Saturday, April 5, is the big day. First Auburn will face Florida at 6:09 p.m. ET at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. Then Duke and Houston will battle it out at 8:49 p.m ET in the same location. This is the first time a Texas team has made the Final Four when the games were being hosted in the Lone Star State. One can speculate that the hometown crowd will be cheering extra hard for the University of Houston.
Players to watch
The Auburn Tigers are counting on forward Johni Broome to help them win their first NCAA men’s basketball title. The forward scared fans after exiting the qualifying game versus Michigan State with an arm injury. He returned to appreciative applause from the crowd and paid them back by making an impressive 3-pointer.Floridas Walter Clayton Jr. also knows a thing or two about 3-pointers. He made two of them to secure the Gators victory over Texas Tech. His team has not seen a Final Four in 11 years, so they have something to prove.In contrast, 2025 will mark Dukes 18th appearance in Final Four play. Freshman Cooper Flagg wants to continue the Blue Devils legacy before potentially heading to the NBA. Houston forward Joseph Tugler knows the best offense is a good defense. He may average just 5.5 points a game but thats because he is too busy making sure the other team doesnt score.
How to tune in
CBS is broadcasting the Final Four. The network did so from 1982 to 2015. Beginning in 2016, it shared the responsibility with TBS, switching off every other year. 2025 belongs to CBS.This means traditional cable subscribers and those with an over-the-air antenna are covered. Those who cut the cord can look to live TV subscriptions such as Hulu + Live TV, YouTube TV, DirecTV Stream, and Fubo. Additionally, Paramount+ subscribers with the Showtime add-on can livestream the local CBS station.
When Trump unveiled his sweeping tariffs last week, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut made the case that they werent about economic policy. Instead, he says, theyre a tool to force businesses (and countries) to pledge loyalty to Trump. We talked to Murphy about Trumps motivations, what Congress should be doing in this moment, and how citizens can make sense of the chaos and make their voices heard. (This interview has been edited for length and clarity.)
Can you briefly explain what you think is the real motivation behind the tariffs?
I think there are a lot of signs that point to this as political, not economic policy. First, it makes no sense as economic policy. Economists cannot understand the formula. They can’t understand the strategy. It applies to countries with trade deficits and with trade surpluses. It applies to our friends and our enemies. It doesn’t make sense if you’re trying to read it as economic policy.
Second, Trump has been pretty consistent in using whatever power he has through taxation or spending in order to compel loyalty from institutions that matter to democracies. He’s threatened to cut off funding for higher education and law firms unless they cut deals with him. He’s trying to destroy journalists by denying them access to government buildings unless they use the words that he picks.
And so, it would make sense in that context that he is just using a different tooltariffsto force industries and companies to come bend the knee to him and cut deals with him that benefit him politically. So at some point, I think you have to sort of understand what the central story is. And the central story is not improving people’s lives, it’s not helping the economy, it’s converting our democracy to autocracy.
Do you think it’s possible that he somehow does actually believe that the tariffs are good economic policy, and the fact that he can use them as a tool to pressure businesses and others is a side benefit?
I don’t think he has ever done a hot second of economic analysis on anything. I think everything to him is either a chance at good political messaging or a chance to wield more power. He does not care about good policy. He cares about a good message and power.
So, for a while, the tariffs were a way to message how much he hated China. He was able to outflank Democrats in 2016 (and to a lesser extent in 2020) on the issue of fighting outsourcing. And the tariffs were the way that he communicated his commitment to fighting the Chinese economically. But he never spent any time trying to understand how to implement tariffs or how tariffs work and don’t work. It was all a message, and now it’s also a political tool.
Even before the tariffs, companies have been hesitant to criticize him, though some were more outspoken in the first Trump administration. What is the role that you think companies should be playing right now?
I don’t think that industry is as essential to democracy as journalists, lawyers, or universities. History is replete with moments where industry pretty quickly cowed to emerging autocrats. But there are always heroes in private industry. There are always companies that view economic freedom that comes with democracy as essential to their well-being. So there’s always an opportunity for industry to stand up and play a role when we’re sliding away from democratic norms. That’s less likely if they are all forced to show up at the White House and cut some form of loyalty deal in order to get tariff relief.
Obviously, there’s a lot more going on now than just tariffs. How can Americansnot just businessesgenerally deal with the barrage of attacks on the environment, health agencies, education, and everything else, when so much is happening simultaneously?
I think it’s important to understand that it’s not 10 different narratives. It’s one narrative. It can be hard to understand how everything is connected when the daily blizzard feels overwhelming. But the story is consistent. Trump is trying to create a kleptocratic oligarchy where the very-rich few use government to steal from us. And he’s trying to destroy our democracy because he can’t get away with that thievery if there’s an accountability structure in place. So that’s why I really believe that the tariffs are not about economics but about politics. Because I don’t think Donald Trump wakes up every day thinking about how to make the economy work better for anybody other than his Mar-a-Lago friends. To me, everything that he is proposing is part of that central storyline.
You’ve said that the moment we’re in requires us to break norms and take risks. What more do you think Congress should be doing right now to take back power from Trump?
Historically, when elected leaders try to destroy democracy and become permanent rulers, it’s mass mobilization and courts that stand in their way. I’m not a judge, I don’t command an army. So I’ve got to understand the role that I play. The role that I play is to try to stop as much bad legislation as I can, but also to act in a way that inspires people outside of the building to stand up in a substantive way.
So that’s why I’ve committed to traveling the country and trying to help mobilize people. That’s why I think, internally, we need to take tactical risks on a regular basis, like Cory Booker did the other night with his [record-breaking speech], because that kind of bravery does translate to the public and causes a lot of people to engage in individual acts of political bravery. I argue that we need to be taking exceptional risks and engaging in exceptional tactics inside the building because that translates the kind of urgency to the American public that’s necessary at this moment.
There are a lot of protests happening this weekend. Do you think there’s more that citizens can be doing than going out in the streets?
I think right now our job is to show that those of us who oppose the billionaire takeover and oppose the destruction of our democracy are a majoritarian movement. And once it becomes clear that there is true popular opposition to what’s happening, the space gets more and more limited for Trump to operate in. The Supreme Court, whether we like it or not, is a political body. And Roberts and Kavanaugh and Barrett do look to the public to see if their rulings are going to be in step or far out of step with where the public is.
If we ultimately need to engage in much more serious public action, like civil disobedience, in the case that Trump prompts a five-alarm constitutional crisis, that kind of more risky, specific behavior is easier if everybody knows that they are part of a movement that commands a big majority. I think right now, it’s traditional forms of protest and political action that matter most. It may be that later on down the line, we have to engage in different kinds of action. But the first project is to show that the people are on our side, not on Trmp’s side.
Keeping our inboxes organized often feels like an overwhelming task.
If youre fortunate, yours contains only messages from people you wish to communicate with. Realistically, though, most are cluttered with newsletters, receipts, social media digests, and more. These emails arent necessarily spam, but they complicate the process of quickly sifting through to find the messages we want to see.
This week, Apple introduced a feature to the Mac that aims to help cut through inbox clutter by automatically organizing messages into smart categories. The feature is new in the Mail app in macOS 15.4 and comes several months after Apple debuted the feature on the iPhone in iOS 18.2. Heres how to use it.
As of this week, the new Mail categories features are available on all Macs, iPhones, and iPads that are capable of running the latest operating systems. Thats macOS 15.4, iOS 18.2, and iPadOS 18.2 and later.
The central concept behind Mail categories is that it uses on-device processingmeaning Apple is not reading anythingto sort your emails into five categories:
Primary: Signified by a blue banner, this category displays personal messages to you as well as any messages with time-sensitive information (like a flight change notice).
Transactions: Signified by a green banner, this category displays emails that contain receipts, such as from Amazon, shipping notices, and confirmations.
Updates: Signified by a purple banner, this category contains all your newsletters, social media roundup digests, and more.
Promotions: Signified by a pink banner, this category contains emails that relate to advertisements, such as an email from Target drawing your attention to its upcoming sale.
All Mail: Signified by a black banner, this category shows you every email in your inbox in chronological order, including those from the categories above.
By clicking or tapping on any of the category banners, you will quickly see all the emails that fit into that category displayed in your inbox. This can help decrease the time it takes you to find the email youre looking for and eliminate the need to sort your emails yourself.
As excited as many people are about Apple’s new Mail categories feature, it’s worth noting that Apple isn’t exactly innovating here. Google’s Gmail has offered automatic email categorization for years.
How to use Apples new Mail category feature
The best thing about Apples new Mail category feature on Mac, iPhone, and iPad is that its pretty much automatic. Once you have the email app set up to display categories, Apples email client will do everything.
The new categories feature is part of the Mac’s built-in email client, Mail.
To make sure your Mail app is set up to display categories, do the following:
On your Mac, iPhone, or iPad, select the inbox you want to display categories for.
Now select the three-dots button ().
On Mac, tap Show Mail Categories; and on iPhone and/or iPad, tap Categories.
You will now see a new button bar above your inbox with five buttons, each featuring a unique icon: a person (Primary), a shopping cart (Transactions), a word balloon (Updates), a megaphone (Promotions), and a drawer (All Mail).
Select any of the buttons to quickly see the emails that are sorted into the respective categories.
Easily reassign emails into other categories
Apple also knows that some people may prefer to have emails from certain senders appear in a category other than the one Mail has assigned. Thats why the company also allows users to manually change the category designation for emails from the same sender.
The feature is also available on the iPhone and iPad.
For example, if you would prefer that the emails you receive from your local movie theater be sorted into the Promotions category instead of the Updates category, you can automatically reassign it. Heres how:
On Mac, right-click on the email, select Categorize Sender, and then select the category you desire.
On iPhone and iPad, tap on the email and then tap the three dots () at the top of the email. Select Categorize Sender from the dropdown menu, and then select the category you desire.
One nice thing about the new Mail category feature is that it is not part of Apple Intelligence, which means it is not limited to Macs, iPhones, and iPads that can run Apple Intelligence.
As long as your Mac can run macOS Sequoia and your iPhone and iPad can run iOS 18 and iPadOS 18, respectively, you can take advantage of the new Mail categorization features right now.
Of course, it’s worth noting that not everyone may like the new Mail categorization feature. And if you’re one of them, there’s an easy way to turn it off. Simply go to your inbox and select the three dots button (…). On Mac, click “Show Mail Categories” so the checkmark next to it disappears. On iPhone and iPad, tap “List View” and the Categories feature will be hidden.
A notice to customers dazzled by the low-priced products on Chinese shopping apps: The days of getting trendy clothing, tools, and gag gifts that cost less than lunch delivered to your door in 10 days are probably numbered.
President Donald Trump is ending a little-known but widely used exemption that has allowed as many as 4 million low-value parcelsmost of them originating in Chinato arrive in the U.S. every day tax-free.
An executive order the president signed Wednesday will eliminate the de minimis provision for goods from China and Hong Kong on May 2. The tax exemption, which applies to packages valued at $800 or less, has helped China-founded e-commerce companies like Shein and Temu thrive while cutting into the U.S. retail market.
Shoppers had a full array of product and options of timing, Marshal Cohen, chief retail adviser at market research firm Circana, said. Now theyre going to have a limited array of options and timing: So you can still buy this product, but you may have to wait three or four weeks.
U.S. politicians, law enforcement agencies, and business groups have described the long-standing policy as a trade loophole that gave inexpensive Chinese goods an advantage and served as a portal for illicit drugs and counterfeits to enter the country.
The sweeping tariffs Trump announced on Wednesday also aim to end the duty-free exception for all imported goods worth less than $800, but only when the U.S. government has the personnel in place to process parcels from every country.
What will be the effect on prices and shipping times?
A White House fact sheet said small packages of Chinese products sent through the international postal network will be subject to a duty rate of either 30% of their value or $25 per item, an amount that will increase to $50 per item after June 1.
Commercial carriers such as FedEx and UPS will be required to report shipment details and remit the appropriate duties to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, according to the White House. After Trump’s latest round of tariffs, the tariff rate for Chinese products will be at least 54%.
Supporters of the de minimis exception have argued that its elimination would drive up costs and hurt low-income consumers and small businesses.
The tariff costs threaten to deal a blow to the U.S. operations of companies like Shein and Temu, which rapidly expanded in the U.S. using the de minimis provision to deliver ultra-cheap fast-fashion items from China.
However, it’s unclear what impact the loss of the tax exemption will have on the two online retailers, as well as on American companies like Amazon and Walmart, whose platforms include virtual marketplaces where international sellers offer products.
Shein and Temu already have been building warehouses in the U.S. so they could get orders to U.S. shoppers more quickly. Shein recently opened a fulfillment and logistics hub in the Seattle area. Neither company could be reached for comment Thursday.
Ram Ben Tzion, chief executive officer of the digital vetting platform Publican, said he expected the companies to be forced to rethink their business strategy and possibly explore opting out of the U.S. market.
In an emailed statement to AP, FedEx said it would support its customers to adapt to the new regulatory requirements and said it would be important for shippers to have paperwork completed correctly ahead of pick-up for shipments to move smoothly.
Hilton Beckham, an assistant commissioner of the U.S. CBP, said the federal agency was ready to implement the latest tariffs.
Our automated systems are fully updated to capture, assess, and administer all new duties, and clear guidance will be provided to support uniform enforcement across the nation, Beckham said.
Ben Tzion, of Publican, said he would highly doubt the U.S. government was ready to process the huge number of low-value shipments to be taxed starting next month.
The Hong Kong government said the Hongkong Post would temporarily maintain postal services to the U.S through May 2 but will not collect any so-called tariffs on behalf of the U.S. authorities.
What is the de minimis provision?
Introduced in 1938, the de minimis exception was intended to facilitate the flow of small packages valued at no more than $5, the equivalent of about $109 today. The threshold increased to $200 in 1994 and $800 in 2016. But the rapid rise of cross-border e-commerce, driven by China, has challenged the intent of the decades-old customs exception rule.
Chinese exports of low-value packages soared to $66 billion in 2023, up from $5.3 billion in 2018, according to a February report by the Congressional Research Service. And the U.S. market has been a major destination.
The Chinese government, which sees cross-border e-commerce as a critical part of its foreign trade, has introduced favorable policies, including financial support and infrastructure building, to foster its growth.
Former President Joe Biden proposed a rule last year that said foreign companies cant avoid tariffs simply by shipping goods that they claim to be worth $800 or less. Trump tried in February to end the exception but his initial order was called off within days when it appeared the U.S. was not prepared to process and collect tariffs on the millions of parcels.
U.S. Representative Rosa L. DeLauro, a Democrat from Connecticut, said she was pleased Trump acted a second time to eliminate the rule.
For too long, this customs loophole has let foreign exporters flood our market with cheap goods and helped drug traffickers move fentanyl past our bordersresulting in factory closures, job losses, and deaths, DeLauro said.
An explosion of cheap goods
In 2023, for the first time, more than 1 billion such packages came through U.S. customs, up from 134 million in 2015. By the end of last year, CBP said it was processing about 4 million small shipments a day.
The cheap prices and increasing popularity of Shein and Temu squeezed fast-fashion retailers like Forever 21 and H&M. Forever 21 blamed the tax exemption in part for its decision to file for bankruptcy last month and close its U.S. stores.
We have been unable to find a sustainable path forward, given competition from foreign fast-fashion companies, which have been able to take advantage of the de minimis exemption to undercut our brand on pricing and margin, CFO Brad Sell said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Amazon launched late last year a low-cost online storefront featuring electronics, apparel, and other products priced under $20, in an apparent effort to compete with Temu and Shein. Amazon shipped the products to U.S. customers from a warehouse it operates in China, according to documentation the company provided to sellers.
By Anne D’Innocenzio and Didi Tang
Ever since the United States governments unfulfilled promise of giving every newly freed Black American 40 acres and a mule after the Civil War, descendants of the enslaved have repeatedly proposed the idea of redistributing land to redress the nations legacies of slavery.
Land-based reparations are also a form of redress for the territorial theft of colonialism.
Around the world, politicians tend to dismiss calls for such initiatives as wishful thinking at best and discrimination at worst. Or else, they are swatted away as too complex to implement, legally and practically.
Yet our research shows a growing number of municipalities and communities across the U.S. are quietly taking up the charge.
We are geographers who since 2021 have been documenting and analyzing more than 225 examples of reparative programs underway in U.S. cities, states, and regions. Notably, over half of them center land return.
These efforts show how working locally to grapple with the complexity of land-based reparations is a necessary and feasible part of the nations healing process.
The Evanston effect
Evanston, Illinois, launched the countrys first publicly funded housing reparations program in 2019.
In its current form, Evanstons Restorative Housing Program has provided disbursements to more than 200 recipients. All are Black residents of Evanston or direct descendants of residents who experienced housing discrimination between 1919 and 1969. Benefits include down payment assistance and mortgage assistance as well as funds to make home repairs and improvements.
The goal is to redress the harm Evanston caused during these 50-plus years of racial discrimination in public schools, hospitals, buses, and segregated residential zoning. During that same period, banks in Evanston, as in other U.S. cities, also refused to give Black residents mortgages, credit, or insurance for homes in white neighborhoods.
I always said you can keep the mule, program beneficiary Ron Butler told NBC News in 2024. Give me the 40 acres in Evanston.
Reparations that focus on land, housing, and property are about more than making amends for centuries of racial discrimination. They help to restore peoples self-determination, autonomy, and freedom.
Following Evanstons lead, in 2021 a group of 11 U.S. mayors created Mayors Organized for Reparations and Equity, a coalition committed to developing pilot reparations programs. Members include Los Angeles; Austin; and Asheville, North Carolina.
The cities act as sites to generate ideas about how reparation initiatives could be scaled up nationally. Each mayor is advised by committees made up of representatives from local Black-led organizations.
Colonial reparations
In recent years the city of Eureka, in Northern California, has been returning some territory to its Native inhabitants.
Indigenous people often call this process rematriation; its part of a broader effort to restore sovereignty and sacred relationships to their ancestral lands.
In 2019, after years of petitioning by members of the Wiyot people, the Eureka City Council returned 200 acres of Tuluwat Island, a 280-acre island in Humboldt Bay where European settlers in 1860 massacred about 200 Wiyot women and children.
Its a sovereignty issue, a self-governance issue, said Wiyot tribal administrator Michelle Vassel in a November 2023 radio interview.
Minneapoliss sale of city lots to the Red Lake Nation for $1 in 2023 is another example of how city governments can make amends for past Indigenous displacement and removal. Plans to develop the low-cost lots include a cultural center for Red Lake people, an opioid treatment center, and potentially housing.
The Red Lake Reservation once included 3.3 million acres. The 1889 Dawes Act forced the Red Lake Band to cede all but 300,000 acres. The federal government later returned some land, but today the reservation is still only a quarter of its original size.
Reparations are critical to racial equity
These initiatives may sound like a drop in the bucket considering the vast harms committed over centuries of slavery and colonization. Yet they prove that governments can craft targeted, achievable, and meaningful policies to address colonialism and enslavement.
They also tackle a frequent critique of reparations, which is that slavery and colonialism happened centuries ago. Yet their effects continue to harm Black and Native communities generations later. Today, white households in the U.S. have roughly nine times the wealth of typical Black households.
One explanation for this racial disparity is that Black households earn 20% less than their white counterparts. But a more meaningful driver is what scholars call the intergenerational transmission chainthat is, the role that gifts and inheritance play in wealth generation.
Thats why reparations, with both land and money, are so critical to creating racial equity.
Still, reparations programs do raise a host of complex, practical questions. Which kinds of historic racial injustice take priority, and what form should repair take? Who qualifies for the benefits?
The state of Minnesota transferred Upper Sioux Agency State Park back to the Dakota people in 2023 in an effort to make amends for a war and historic slaughter there. [Photo: Tony Webster/Flickr]
Community-based land reparations
Reparations dont have to come from the government.
In recent years, more than a hundred community-based organizations across the U.S. have introduced their own initiatives to redistribute land and wealth to make amends for past injustices.
Makoce Ikikcupi, in the Minnesota River Valley, is a community reparations program led by Dakota peoples. Since 2009, the group has been collecting funds to buy back portions of the Dakota homeland. One revenue source is voluntary contributions from descendants of Europeans who colonized that land. This fundraising strategy is sometimes called real rent or back rent.
The group purchased its first 21-acre parcel of land in 2019, where it is building traditional earth lodges, with plans for several self-sustaining Dakota villages.
We consider our donation . . . back rent, reads the testimony of one monthly contributor, Josina Manu, on the groups web page. He calls the reclamation of Dakota land a vital step towards creating a just world.
Fair compensation for eminent domain
Many communities are also working together to repair the legacies of anti-Black racism.
In the 1960s, the city of Athens, Georgia, used eminent domain to build dormitories for the University of Georgia. Paying below market value, it demolished an entire Black neighborhood called Linnentown.
In early 2021, following petitioning from former Linnentown residents whod lost their homes, the City Council unanimously passed a resolution recognizing their neighborhoods destruction as an act of institutionalized white racism and terrorism resulting in intergenerational Black poverty.
Because Georgia law prohibits government entities from making payments to individuals, a community group stepped in to organize compensation.
The result is Athens Reparations Action, a coalition of churches and community organizations. Formed in 2021, it had raised $120,000 by 2024 to distribute among the 10 families who are Linnentown survivors and descendants.
Backlash
Our research also tracks legal challenges to the reparations initiatives we are studying.
Conservative groups such as Judicial Watch have filed dozens of retaliatory lawsuits against several of them, including Evanstons Restorative Housing Program. A 2024 class action complaint alleges that the program discriminates based on race, violating the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution.
These legal challenges are part of the broader front of conservative-led assaults on voting rights, affirmative action, and critical race theory. Like reparations, all are efforts to grapple with the U.S.s historical mistreatment of Black, Indigenous, and other people of color.
Attacking those initiatives is an attempt to preserve what scholar Laura Pulido calls white innocence. We expect more of them under a second Trump term already defined by its assault on antidiscrimination policies and programs.
So far, none of President Donald Trumps decrees has targeted reparations specifically. For now, reparations are still legal and constitutionaland possible.
Sara Safransky is an associate professor at the Department of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University.
Elsa Noterman is a senior lecturer in human geography at Queen Mary University of London.
Madeleine Lewis is a doctoral student at the Department of Human and Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The breakout star of this season of The White Lotus? Aimee Lou Woodand her distinctive real-life smile. I mean, I cant believe the impact my teeth are having, the English actress told Jonathan Ross last month on Ross’s eponymous British chat show. I hope that people dont start, like, filing their teeth so they have gaps.
Too late.
Unfortunately, Wood may have unintentionally reignited a troubling DIY dentistry trend. On TikTok, users are once again taking nail files to their own teeth, with hashtags like #teethfiling and #teethfile, racking up more than 130 posts, according to Screenshot Media.
@nikkysixxbxtch Couldve ended very poorly original sound – elaina
While Woods smile may be the most recent inspiration, this isnt a new phenomenon. Teeth-filing videos have been circulating online for years. Im going to file my teeth down with a nail file because they are not perfect, one TikTok user said in a since-deleted video posted back in 2020. I have some ridges, and were ballin on a budget.
But what might seem like a quick cosmetic fix can cause lasting harm. When you file your nails, your nails grow back, but your teeth dont, Detroit-based dentist Zainab Mackie told the Washington Posts Allyson Chiu, who originally reported on the trend. That outer enamel layer doesnt grow back. ... Once its gone, thats it.
Dental professionals on TikTok have long warned users to step away from the emery boards and see a professional instead. Dont get mad at me when your teeth are more sensitive than a two-year-old crying over spilled milk, because I aint going to help you, orthodontist Benjamin Winters (aka the Bentist) said to his 5.5 million TikTok followers in a video that went viral.
@thebentist @cheneltiara why you do dis to me! PSA: I dont recommend doing this have your dentist check to make sure its safe first! #teeth #braces original sound – The Bentist / Orthodontist
Wood herself has opened up about her struggle to embrace her teeth when she was growing up. The Americans cant believe [my teeth], but theyre all being lovely, she said on the popular chat show. It feels so lovely. A real full-circle moment after being bullied for my teeth, forever.
Maybe theres a lesson in that.
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As someone deeply invested in sustainable mass transit and supply chain automation, I’m also invested in an idea that could change the world of freight transport for us all.
The global supply chain is in flux. Even before new tariffs, the nearshoring trend in North America has created an urgent demand for more innovative and efficient freight solutions.
However, despite automotive advances, transport logistics are riddled with inefficienciesbottlenecks at congested ports, trucks idling for hours at border crossings, and outdated infrastructure struggling to meet modern demands.
But what if we could change that? What if freight could move continuously, seamlessly, and autonomously away from public roads? That’s precisely the vision behind Green Corridors, an emerging technology company tackling some of the most congested trade routes in North America.
A new era for freight mobility
Led by president and CEO Mitch Carlson, Green Corridors is pioneering a transformative approach to freight logistics, combining industrial automation with intelligent infrastructure. Their pilot projects under development include a 60-mile autonomous freight corridor between the Port of Houston and an inland terminal currently in feasibility stage, and a 165-mile corridor between Laredo, Texas, and Monterrey, Mexico in predevelopment stage. These projects will redefine the way goods progress across these critical trade arteries.
The core of the new system is an elevated guideway system where autonomous freight shuttles traverse a dedicated track to transport cargo seamlessly over these highly congested routes. Beyond incremental improvements to trucking or rail, the solution is an entirely new paradigm for freight transport. The implications are massive:
Eliminate congestion: By shifting freight movement away from roadways and onto dedicated guideways running autonomous shuttles, these corridors substantially increase safety, reduce road maintenance costs, and alleviate traffic jams that cost billions of dollars in lost productivity.
Strengthen national security: The system integrates directly with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, ensuring that every shipment is pre-scanned and approved before it crosses the U.S./Mexico border. Compared to today’s manual methods, in which only about 5% of cargo is fully scanned, this would mark a monumental shift in security and efficiency.
Reduce emissions: Freight shuttles vastly reduce emissions from semi-trucks. Likewise, the shuttles run at 30 mph versus 60 and run on rails versus rubber tires, using clean diesel fuel and electric propulsion. A single corridor could cut emissions by up to 75% while maintaining 24/7 operations.
Productivity: The trade routes Green Corridors are targeting are money-losing scenarios for traditional transport. In the proposed new model, truckers are more productive, have a higher quality of life, and able to make more trips per day.
Tailor-made for nearshoring
As nearshoring increases in North American markets, Mexico has overtaken China as the leading U.S. trade partner. This trend is a positive development in many respects; however, the infrastructure challenges of ground transport continue to hinder efficiency.
Laredo, the nation’s No. 1 port of entry, sees 18,500 trucks cross the border daily, often waiting up to eight hours. The high growth of this route, particularly as the U.S. moves further away from reliance on factories in Asia, has made it challenging for Laredo to meet the increasingly higher pressure to remain profitable and predictable for ground transport. Green Corridors removes these inefficiencies and sets a new standard for freight logistics in an era where predictability, security, and efficiency are paramount.
A national and global vision
While the Laredo-Monterrey and Houston projects are first in line, Green Corridors is eyeing a much larger transformation. As it scales, the company plans to target intelligent freight transportation corridors in major port cities such as Los Angeles, Seattle, and New York. Ultimately, the solution could scale to anywhere congested corridors are throttling economic productivity.
In its next phase, the company would like to play a primary role in reshaping shipping routes worldwide. For example, Mexico’s proposed Interoceanic Corridor, a 188-mile rail project meant to compete with the Panama Canal, could potentially use the Green Corridors intelligent freight transportation system to create a more efficient alternative instead. Instead of waiting weeks for ships to queue through the canal, companies could seamlessly transport freight from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico in hours.
The road ahead
Clearly infrastructure projects of this scale don’t occur overnight, but momentum is building. Green Corridors has already submitted its presidential permit application for the Laredo-Monterrey corridor. If approved, the project could be operational by 2030, according to my interview with Carlson. The company has aligned itself with leading engineering firms (including my own organization, Chang Robotics), financial institutions, and multiple government agencies to ensure a smooth execution.
This type of development is the future of freighta system that operates 24/7, doesn’t clog our highways, and enhances security, while reducing environmental impact. For businesses navigating the complexities of modern supply chains, it offers the path to a more efficient and sustainable future. In an era where logistics disruptions can mean the difference between profit and los, that future can’t come soon enough.
Matthew Chang is the founder and principal engineer of Chang Robotics.
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
For years, the real estate industry had lacked the data necessary to drive informed business decisions. Data is often fragmented, incomplete, or nonexistent, making it difficult for landlords and real estate professionals to analyze trends, forecast market shifts, and optimize their operations. Our research at RentRedi showed us that 90% of our landlords previously used pen and paper or spreadsheets to manage their rental properties before adopting our software, giving them little access to helpful data.
With the adoption of centralized platforms like ours and other real estate technologies, data collection is skyrocketing. Investors, real estate agents, and property managers are adopting technologies that streamline operations, and in the process, those platforms are generating vast amounts of data that can be used to provide deep insights into market behaviors that benefit the landlords providing it. This data revolution presents an unprecedented opportunity for real estate businesses to make smarter, data-driven decisions, reduce risk, and drive growth.
By understanding where real estate data comes from, overcoming data overload, and strategically harnessing information, real estate agents and investors can significantly improve operations and drive business growth.
How to harness data and use it to your advantage
Whether you sell, buy, or manage real estate, data plays a crucial role in providing opportunities for you to make more informed decisions. Effectively utilizing real estate data can lead to improved business operations and increased profitability.
Rental property owners, for instance, can leverage data insights to increase on-time rent collection, get better tenants, minimize evictions, reduce vacancies, and streamline property maintenance. Insights can also help establish better operating procedures, such as utilizing 5-pronged tenant screening processes (comprehensive background checks, credit reports, criminal reports, eviction reports, and income and asset verification) to identify high-risk tenants or adjusting lease terms to encourage on-time payments.
Running surveys to gather customer feedback can help owners improve understanding of renters needs and what matters most to them. Real estate agents can use the feedback to enhance their communication skills, property showing process, and negotiation strategies, leading to an upgraded overall client experience, more referrals, and repeat business. Likewise, gathering tenant feedback helps property owners understand what matters most to their customers, allowing them to enhance tenant satisfaction and retention.
Finally, using a property management system that consolidates, categorizes, and analyzes data will streamline processes, and ensure easy access to critical information, so focus can remain on the most relevant metrics and trends.
Specific applications of real estate data
Rental property investors can leverage property management software to implement innovative solutions that benefit themselves and their tenants. For example, we analyze data to identify trends, providing it back in usable formats to improve real estate businesses.
Turning data from insight into actionable guidance is key. If data reveals that renters using autopay pay rent on time 99% of the timeas opposed to an 88% on-time payment rate for those who dontyou know to offer your tenants (and advise them to set up) automatic payments to avoid missed or late payments and resulting late fees and penalties.
Likewise, data may show that landlords are likely to see a 13% jump in on-time rent payments when using a credit boost feature to report on-time payments to credit bureaus, which also helps renters establish credit and raise their existing credit scores. With this information, landlords can consider offering that service to tenants. These actionable insights strengthen the landlord-tenant relationship.
Where to find data sources
To leverage data to improve your real estate business, you need to know where to find it. Real estate data comes from a wide variety of sources: from public records and market reports to proprietary databases and tenant interactions.
To effectively mine real estate data, professionals should start by identifying key data sources relevant to their operations. For example, public records, MLS listings, and property tax assessments provide valuable market insights, while customer surveys and online reviews reveal tenant and investor sentiment.
Property listings and market transactions provide data on property sales prices, listing durations, vacancy rates, and location-based demand, as well as demographic data such as neighborhood trends, population growth, and urban development. This type of data provides valuable insights into property valuation and investment opportunities.
In the rental industry, tenant applications and tenant screening provide data on income, employment history, credit scores, and rental behavior, which aids in risk assessment. Meanwhile, tracking rent payments reveals payment patterns that help landlords and property managers optimize rent collection strategies.
Building performance and maintenance logs also provide helpful data, especially IoT sensors and smart building technologies that track energy usage, maintenance needs, and occupancy trends, allowing for sustainability and cost reduction planning.
The challenges of too much data
Simply having access to this data isnt enoughits crucial to know how to extract meaningful insights from it. Data can be a powerful tool, but the sheer volume of information available can be overwhelming, particularly while simultaneously managing properties and/or growing your portfolios.
Too much data can slow decision making. Organizing, interpreting, and applying the data in beneficial ways for your businesses takes time, is difficult, and can lead to analysis paralysis if done manually. Besides, raw data is not always actionable. Thats why its important to utilize analytical tools and dashboards to translate complex datasets into visual reports that make patterns and trends easily digestible and understandable.
Final words
The growing availability of real estate data presents both challenges and opportunities. Collecting and analyzing data from diverse sources provides professionals across the real estate industryfrom landlords to large-scale developerswith the ability to make better decisions regarding investment, property improvements, and customer satisfaction.
Adopting data-driven solutions can lead to greater efficiency, improved business relationships, and increased profitability. By centralizing information, leveraging analytics, and implementing smart policies, real estate investors can harness the power of data to transform their businesses in an increasingly digital world.
Ryan Barone is cofounder and CEO of RentRedi.
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
The famous computer scientist Bill Joy once said, No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else. If you want to build something on the bleeding edge, you must have an open ecosystem that can pull in as many ideas as possible, skills and talents that exist beyond the four walls of your office building. This is the ethos of open source, the idea that the world is open for collaboration and that diverse people working together can create something beyond themselves.
Sadly, weve lost much of this ethos over the past 30 to 40 years. Even though the digital world is built upon open source, almost none of it is open for collaboration today.
Recently, open-source providers have come under fire for charging for certain open-source features. Accusations have ranged from spoiling the spirit of open source to offering loss leaders (free solutions that lock customers into APIs or networking effects that are essentially bait for higher-cost features).
To explain why this is false, I must explain how weve strayed from the original open-source ethos and why charging large enterprises for certain features is imperative to creating a sustainable path forward.
How we lost the open-source ethos
Before open source, the term free software was used. It had a sort of anti-capitalist, anti-economic bent. In the 90s, a contingent of people came in and rebranded that as open source, forming an institute called the Open Source Initiative, opening the doors to the masses.
When the internet began connecting people of all stripes and backgrounds, the open-source movement exploded. The fundamentals were simple: Anyone, anywhere could take source code, tweak it, and contribute back to the community.
Today, the notion that the computational infrastructure for the world should be open for collaborative remixing and the idea that people, whether they’re startup founders or garage coders looking to tinker and customize, can work together has been largely lost.
To prove it, simply try customizing your email or web browser. Even though these solutions are largely built using open-source code and operating systems, the second you make any change, all the DRM encryption protocols break down, rendering you unable to listen to music on Spotify or watch videos on YouTube.
The spirit of collaboration is gone
How did we lose this spirit of collaboration? Part of this shift is simply the evolving nature of software. It used to be you either uploaded or downloaded a program to your computer, and you could inspect the source code. Now, software is hosted and rendered via web browsers and user interfaces, meaning major cloud service providers can use all kinds of open-source code, but they never have to reveal it or share it with the community if they dont want to.
This isnt to finger wag. Many cloud providers contribute amazing things to the open-source community. Indeed, their solutions are open in the sense that theyre free to the public. Theyre not open in that they dont accept community contributions, and they certainly wouldnt tolerate someone taking their source code and remixing it, aka forking.
Finally, theres an existential clash between enterprises and maintainers, the volunteers responsible for overseeing open-source projects. When enterprise IT departments need something fixed, they call their vendor and work through the kinks.
You cant do that with an open-source community. Demanding work from volunteers doesnt go over well. And besides, community maintainers dont understand enterprise needsnot in the intimate way businesses need. Thats because the open-source community wasnt born in a corporate office. It was a grassroots movement of coders wanting to create powerful, novel things.
Maintaining the open-source movement requires understanding the needs of this community and the enterprises that now rely on these solutions. The solution providers that can understand both sides and thread the needle between their different needs and motivations will be the foundations of a sustainable path forward.
Protect the innovation commons
The term commons originates from economicsa kind of open resource thats shared and managed by the community. You can think of it as an Alpine pasture or a vibrant lake sustaining a village. Its precious but vulnerable.
The innovation commons is the open-source community. If someone overfishes, overgrazes, or pollutes the commons, it harms everyone else. So, its in everyones interest to protect the commons.
Open source has become increasingly expensive to sustain. For any provider, the path of least resistance is to close down the commons and sell anything valuable as a proprietary artifact. But its much more abundant to keep the commons open to as many people as possible, allowing them to benefit and contribute.
As stewards of the innovation commons, rather than trying to sell every single tree, its much better if we pick some fruit and bring it to a storefronta stand at the side of the community garden. If enterprises roll up with two-ton trucks and want to take their fill of fruit and vegetables, we can absolutely give it to them and charge money to invest back into the commons to nurse a sick tree or restore fallow ground.
From the outside, charging enterprises for certain open-source features may look like the same thing as selling loss leaders. However, there are a million unsexy but fundamental things required to maintain an open-source ecosystem. Bridging the gap between what the volunteer community can provide and what enterprises desperately need fuels these essential components of future innovations.
Asking enterprises to pay for much-needed benefits like security, optimization, and real-time notifications is not equivalent to selling them open-source solutions with bells and whistles. Its a mutually beneficial relationship that grows the innovation commons while providing targeted solutions to companies core needs.
For example, many enterprises work with older versions of Python. Tech enablers can use our expertise to apply bug fixes and security patches to these older versions, capabilities that wouldnt be possible otherwise. In turn, using those enterprise resources, we can continue shipping thousands of pieces of open source to people for free, maintaining the original spirit of open source and protecting the innovation commons.
Today, less than 1% of the world’s population can write any kind of code, but AI will bring the rest of the world along. Can you imagine the potential when the other 99% can collaborate in an open envirnment by simply using natural language or modular tools? I can. And, Im infinitely excited for what the future holds.
Peter Wang is the chief AI and innovation officer and cofounder of Anaconda.
The Fast Company Impact Council is an invitation-only membership community of leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual dues for access to peer learning, thought leadership opportunities, events and more.
The way we produce and consume food is changing. Not only is the current food system a threat to our health, its also a threat to our planet. As a food producer, the challenge is clear: How do we transition toward more nutrient-dense, environmentally responsible food choices without compromising taste or accessibility?
Modern food production has often emphasized convenience, leading to highly processed products that lack substance and sustenance. However, traditional diets, such as the Mediterranean diet, offer a time-tested solution. Rooted in whole, plant-based ingredients, these diets highlight a variety of grains, legumes, and plant-based proteins that provide essential nutrients while reducing the environmental footprint of food production. By returning to these principles, we can create a more sustainable and nutritious future.
Learn from traditional diets
For centuries, Mediterranean communities have thrived on ingredients that not only support long-term health but also align with sustainable farming practices. Unlike modern industrial agriculture, which prioritizes monoculture crops and mass production, traditional food systems accentuate biodiversity and soil regeneration.
Ancient grains like buckwheat are regaining popularity for their rich nutrient profiles and minimal environmental impact. Legumes, such as chickpeas and lentils, are packed with plant-based protein, fiber, and essential minerals while also playing a crucial role in the rise of sustainable practices in modern agriculture. We need to take inspiration from these traditional approaches and champion minimally processed ingredients for the sake of human health and ecological stability.
Interestingly, many Americans report that while traveling in Italy, they experience fewer food intolerances and improved digestiondespite indulging more during their vacations. This may be attributed to Italian cuisines deep-rooted tradition and propensity toward whole, minimally processed foods and traditional dishes made with simple, high-quality ingredients.
Innovation to address modern challenges
Traditional food systems are not the sole answer to todays complex issues of food security, climate change, and health. We must also leverage technology, research, innovation, and a little bit of creativity.
The use of spirulina is the perfect example of how innovation can build on traditional principles to create more sustainable and nutrient-dense food options. Called the food of the future by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, spirulina is a blue-green algae with superfood benefits which has been consumed for centuries, providing a rich source of protein, vitamins, and minerals. What makes it especially promising for the future of food is its minimal environmental footprintit requires very little water, land, and energy to produce. It also contributes to the reduction of greenhouse gasesproduction can be carbon neutral or even carbon negative, as the growing cells sequester CO2.
Many brands are now incorporating ingredients like spirulina into their product offerings, from snacks to beverages and even in more unexpected areas like pasta. For example, at Felicia we source Italian Apulia Kundi spirulina directly from our spirulina park at the Italian headquarters, a facility dedicated to growing these precious microalgae by using the water resulting from the pasta-making process. The water is purified and reused to make the pasta, fostering a virtuous circular economy.
This type of sustainable production is a crucial step in our shared journey toward a healthier planet and population. But for innovation like this to really make an impact, it needs to happen at every stage, from food production to product design and consumer education. Creating variety in ones diet doesnt have to be complicatedit can be as simple as incorporating diverse grains, legumes, and vegetables into daily meals and building a colorful plate to delight the senses, without compromising on taste. As brands, we hold a responsibility to our consumers to create the products that make this possible.
By embracing both traditional wisdom and modern innovation, with renewed passion, creativity and care, we can reach a thriving future.
Carlo Stocco is managing director, North America at Felicia and Andriani.
