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While homebuyers and home sellers still see headlines about the housing market being a sellers market and national home prices reaching all-time highs, a deeper look reveals that several regional housing markets have shifted, giving homebuyers some power.
During the pandemic housing boom, from summer 2020 to spring 2022, the number of active homes for sale in most housing markets plummeted as homebuyer demand quickly absorbed almost everything that came up for sale. Fast-forward to the current housing market, and the places where active inventory has rebounded to 2019 levels (due to strained affordability suppressing buyer demand) are now the very places where homebuyers hold the most power.
At the end of January 2025, national active inventory for sale was still 25% below January 2019 levels. However, more and more regional markets are surpassing that threshold.
Among the nations 200 largest metro area housing markets, 41 markets ended January 2025 with more active homes for sale than they had in pre-pandemic January 2019. These are the places where homebuyers will be able to find the most leverage or market balance in 2025.
Many of the softest housing markets, where homebuyers have gained leverage, are located in Gulf Coast and Mountain West regions. These areas were home to many of the nations top pandemic boomtowns, which experienced significant home price growth during the pandemic housing boom, which stretched housing fundamentals far beyond local income levels.
When pandemic-fueled migration slowed and mortgage rates spiked, markets like Punta Gorda, Florida, and Austin, Texas, faced challenges as they had to rely on local incomes to sustain frothy home prices. The housing market softening in these areas was further accelerated by the abundance of new home supply in the pipeline across the Sun Belt. Builders in these regions are often willing to reduce prices or make affordability adjustments to maintain sales. These adjustments in the new construction market also create a cooling effect on the resale market, as some buyers who might have opted for an existing home shift their focus to new homes where deals are still available.
In contrast, many Northeast and Midwest markets were less reliant on pandemic migration and have less new home construction in progress. With lower exposure to that demand shock, active inventory in these Midwest and Northeast regions has remained relatively tight, keeping the advantage in the hands of home sellers.
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Picture this: Youre driving on a crowded highway, preparing to change lanes and pass a tractor-trailer. As you check your mirrors, a loud chime on your cars infotainment screen rings out.
Its Google Maps, asking whether a stalled car is still on the shoulder, as other drivers have reported. A prompt appearsYes or Norequiring a response within seconds. Your already taxed brain now has another decision to process, all while youre moving at 60 miles per hour.
Scenarios like this became possible last summer, when Google overhauled its popular navigation app. Since then, drivers using Google Maps frequently receive prompts to confirm an incident, such as a police vehicle or stalled car, that other users have flagged. These prompts are announced with a chime as well as text and a timer that consume the bottom chunk of the app display. If there is a way to turn off this incident verification feature, I havent found it. (A Google spokesperson did not respond when I asked.)
These prompts can be annoying to drivers who find them intrusive. More troublingly, experts in UX and human factors worry that they will cause distraction that leads to crashes.
If the request happens on a stretch of road where there isn’t that much one going around you, its probably not a problem, said Birsen Donmez, a professor of industrial engineering at the University of Toronto who researches distracted driving. But if it pops up when you know your turn is coming up and you really need to focus, it could confuse you and divert your attention.
Thats an unsettling problem for the hundreds of millions of people who use Google Maps, as well as for everyone who shares the road with them.
‘This is an irrelevant piece of information’
Google has dominated navigation since launching Maps in February 2005. Though competitors have appearedApple, MapQuest, and TomTom GO among themnone has come close to matching Googles user base. In 2013, Google solidified its lead by acquiring the Israeli startup Waze, whose crowdsourced traffic and incident reporting technology later shaped key features of Maps even though it remained a separate app.
Today, Google Maps guides far more journeys than other wayfinding tools. According to a 2024 MarketWatch analysis, 70% of U.S. drivers used Google Maps, compared to just 25% for both Waze and Apple Maps. MapQuest, once ubiquitous, is no longer a market leader but still had 17 million regular users as of 2022.
But for the first time in years, Google Maps now faces a credible threat. Fully recovered from an inauspicious 2012 launch, Apple Maps is now a vastly improved service that has garnered praise for design elements like object-based instructions (Turn left after the next traffic light) that can seem more intuitive than Google Maps directions (In 500 feet, turn left). Meanwhile, the iPhonewhich features Apple Maps as its defaulthas been grabbing market share from Android.
With competition with Apple Maps intensifying, Google unveiled major revisions to its mapping tool last summer. Google Maps had already invited users to submit information about observed traffic incidents, which the company would then share with other drivers. Now, with its new update, the company announced, other drivers can confirm the incident with just a tap.
What that means in practice is that drivers frequently hear a chime as a question appears on their infotainment screen, such as Stalled vehicle reported 51 minutes ago from Google Maps drivers. Is this still there? A countdown progress bar pushes drivers to quickly tap a Yes or No button. It makes you feel like you have to respond or get it off of your screen, said Kate Moran, vice president for research and content at Nielsen Norman Group, a UX advisory practice.
After a few seconds the prompt disappears, either because the driver answered the question or because the timer hit zero.
Innocuous though it may seem, demanding just a tap can be dangerously distracting, University of Torontos Donmez said, because infotainment touchscreens inevitably require users to look away from the roadway ahead. She added that inexperienced or elderly drivers are more likely to struggle to suppress irrelevant stimulus.
Donmez is particularly concerned by the urgency of Google Maps requests for confirmation. Drivers typically modulate their distraction engagement based on whats coming up on the road, and thats why crashes dont happen, she said. For instance, many drivers instinctively wait until after completing a lane change before they select a new podcast or adjust the air conditioning. But Google Mapss chime and countdown progress bar are designed to demand immediate attention, regardless of road conditions.
Defenders of Google Mapss new UX might note that Waze, the other navigation app owned by Alphabet, has long asked users to confirm past reports of traffic incidents. But that doesnt mean Wazes design is safe. In a 2019 paper, a team of Carnegie Mellon researchers noted that Waze is dangerous to not only the driver but also to nearby drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists.
When I asked how Google Maps evaluated the safety of its UX update before rolling it out, a corporate spokesperson replied in an email, We take safety very seriously and regularly test our features for driver distraction.
According to a corporate blog post, Google Mapss new UX has been distributed globally. The company does not appear to have offered users an option to turn off the verification prompts or limit them to specific types of incidents. One user asked on the Google Maps Community forum how to disable the still there? questions while driving, but that query went unanswered.
Notably, many of the incidents flagged by Google Maps are unrelated to traffic safety, such as vehicles on the shoulder that passingdrivers often encounter without second thought. Most of the time this is an irrelevant piece of information for safety, Donmez said.
Given their potential for annoyance as well as distraction, these prompts shouldnt be inescapable, she said. Some drivers may find the feature useful, she said, but they should have the ability to easily override it.
Moran agreed. Its not that the intention behind the feature is bad, but the way it’s been implemented is the problem, she told me. A good experience would be allowing people to say, Dont prompt me with these dialogues anymore. But even better would be to require people to opt in. Instead of turning it on by default, allow people who might be more excited about being in the Google community to say yes, Ill answer these questions and proactively provide data.
Instead, all Google Maps users are now being peppered with verification requests, whether they like it or not.
‘It could just be a lack of foresight’
As to why Google Maps changed its UX to request user confirmations, Moran suggests the company probably wants to build a more current dataset of road conditions. If you really want to know if something is still on the road, the fastest way to get that information is to ask the person driving by, she said.
But there is another possibility: The prompts unavoidable and aggressive design may be the brainchild of project managers instructed to increase user engagement by any means necessary.
People who make UX product decisions are often under lots of pressure to achieve short-sighted, short-term metrics, Moran said. It could just be a lack of foresight that this was going to be distracting or annoying. (Google Maps did not respond to questions about its reasons for demanding that all users confirm road conditions).
For now, at least, Google Maps users are stuck with its new UX. It is too soon to know whether the design will increase crashes, but the threat is real, particularly given the apps huge user base. Road safety advocates have already expressed concern about distraction due to increasingly complex infotainment systems, as automakers strive to offer the flashiest designs (even though many car owners find touchscreens woefully inferior to the knobs and dials they replaced). In a 2022 study, researchers at Drexel University concluded that the comparatively simple infotainment systems of the early 2010s were already a statistically significant risk factor for crashes.
Yet, infotainment systems remain unregulated in the U.S. In 2012, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration issued voluntary guidance proposing maximum thresholds for the time drivers must look away from the road to accomplish an infotainment task, but within a few years automakers were routinely violating it. They have paid no penalty for doing so.
With the Trump administration reflexively hostile to regulations, new federal safeguards pertaining to navigation tools or infotainment systems are unlikely. Still, Moran thinks that lawsuits involving crashes caused by distracted driving might force Google Maps to change course. The first time I noticed this new feature, I thought Wow, Im surprised their legal team is okay with this, she said.
Alternatively, the markets invisible hand might render its own verdict about Googles UX design: Its users can always switch to Apple.
In a 2014 commencement address at her alma mater Dartmouth College, TV writer and producer Shonda Rhimes told students, Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means I am failing in another area of my life. If I am killing it on a Scandal script for work, I am probably missing bath- and storytime at home.
Her comments are true reflections of what work-life balance is, says Janna Koretz, clinical psychologist and founder of Azimuth, a Boston-based provider of therapy services.
When people think about balance, they think about it feeling good and being the right amount of everything, she says. I thinkespecially moment to momentthat doesn’t exist. Instead, we should be thinking about how to successfully integrate [the] two things so that most of the time they’re possible.
To find the right blend, you need to examine your work life and determine where its negatively impacting your personal life. Koretz shares four common signs:
Your identity is too tied to work
To know if your work is infringing on your personal life, consider how you would respond if someone asked, Tell me about yourself?
Can you say things that arent about work? asks Koretz. A lot of times, [people] can’t come up with anything. They feel, I don’t know who I am, especially if theyve lost their job, and don’t have anything else.
If your job becomes your sole identity, its likely crowded out or replaced important things in your personal life.
You feel guilty about other commitments
Feeling guilty that you’re not doing enough in other realms is another sign that work is creeping into your personal life. For example, you may feel guilty that you have to pick up your kids because you have a lot of work waiting for you back at the office, says Koretz.
Its not feeling guilty all the time, but guilty about the choices you’re making, whether they be personal or professional, she says.
You’re avoiding small tasks
When people think about burnout, they usually think about being exhausted. While Koretz says thats a big part of it, another aspect is avoidance. Avoidance and irritability go hand in hand during burnout, says Koretz. If you are avoiding small tasks at home, such as walking the dog, or at work, such as responding to emails, it could indicate that you dont have enough emotional energy.
If there’s too much of this in your life, it’s getting in the way, says Koretz. Life becomes all about little irritants. They grate on you and become a chip on your shoulder.
You feel disconnected
In addition to avoiding small tasks, you may start disconnecting from activities and interests you normally enjoy, which could be another sign that your emotional energy is drained. You may also feel emotionally disconnected from the people in your life.
A lot of people talk about living in a ‘roommate stage’ with their significant other, says Koretz. While people can go through ebbs and flows, its about not knowing what’s going on with your friends, not feeling like you have friends, or not feeling like you can call them with your worries because you haven’t spent a lot of time with them lately.
Spending time with friends and hobbies is about finding joy and having more baskets for your eggs, explains Koretz. We are very tribal, social beings; its biological, she says. A World Health Organization study on older adults found that loneliness contributed significantly to cognitive decline and depression and death.
How to correct the problem
If you recognize yourself, Koretz suggests asking yourself, Why am I unhappy? Go beyond the general reasons, such as feeling like you have too much work to do and dig a little further. Identify your core beliefs and values to make sure your job is still aligned with them. While your work doesnt have to be meaningful 100% of the time, you shouldnt feel like a cog in the wheel all the time, either.
A lot of people are doing work that isn’t meaningful to them and that contributes to overwhelm, says Koretz. What motivates people, what brings them joy, is finding meaning.
Once you understand what is meaningful to you, make a plan to design your life around it. Koretz says it doesn’t have to be executed right away, nor do you have to make giant strides. Identify small steps you can take and create a career map, figuring out whats possible and when it makes sense. For example, you may decide to keep your high paying job until you pay off your student loans in five years.
Knowing something isnt forever can make it easier to bear, which Koretz likens to how doctors get through the burdensome schedule of the residency or fellowship stage.
Burnout can be due to feeling stuck, says Koretz. When you realize you can get out and you have tangible steps, you can become excited about where youre heading, and that changes the dynamic so you can be better at integrating your personal and work life.
The 2017 fire that burned down much of Enchanted Hills Camp in Napa, California had a silver lining. The camp was originally designed in the early 1900s for people with sight, but it has become a beloved retreat for the blind and visually-impaired for the last 75 years. When more than a dozen of its buildings were destroyed in the fire, the chance arose to rebuild the camp for the unique needs of the people who have been using it for decades.
This really was never designed with the thought of access in mind, says Helen Schneider, associate principal and project manager at Perkins & Will, the architecture firm that redesigned the camp. Working closely with the camp’s owner, the nonprofit Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the architects made accessibility a guiding principle in its design, from the process to the final product.
[Photo: Emily Hagopian/courtesy Perkins & Will]
The result is a modern wilderness retreat that integrates tactile and auditory clues throughout its site and buildings, making the camp experience more approachable for people with low- or no vision. The camp has been comprehensively reconsidered to accommodate its visually impaired visitors and staff, many of whom were consulted during the design process. The new design includes a camp-wide system of cane-detectable paths, hiking trails, and rooms designed to modulate background noises, and subtle details in interior furnishings.
This is an experience and a property that reflects that it was created by and for blind people. You can’t find that anywhere, says Summer Dittmer, executive director of Lighthouse.
The camp’s design was co-developed by Perkins & Will and an advisory board from Lighthouse, with blind and visually-impaired stakeholders offering feedback on early design proposals and insight into how the spaces in the camp would be used. During the early design stages, Perkins & Will created a large tabletop 3D model of the camp’s 311-acre site and 50-plus buildings and cabins. The model distinguished existing and proposed buildings by covering the new builds in rough sandpaper. Electrical tape and cords were used to mark the paths that weave up and down the camp’s 900 feet of elevation change. People who have been coming to camp for 30, 40 years, this was the first time they really got to experience a true-to-scale map that described the topography and the relationships of the buildings, the topography, the streams, the lake, says Schneider.
[Photo: Emily Hagopian/courtesy Perkins & Will]
Pathways were an important part of the overall planning of the project, according to Schneider. The architects integrated a system of pathways throughout the camp that have notable differences of materials at their edges, making them easier for individuals using canes to detect their edges.
[Photo: Emily Hagopian/courtesy Perkins & Will]
Perkins & Will also made special building plan drawings with raised ink to provide a tactical sense for the individual rooms and buildings they were proposing. This allowed visually-impaired stakeholders to offer pointed feedback on spatial layouts and the common challenges they face in conventional buildings, including disorienting furnishings, glaring light, and overwhelming acoustics.
[Photo: Emily Hagopian/courtesy Perkins & Will]
Schneider says that feedback was especially informative in the camp’s main cafeteria and gathering space. The architects lowered the height of the ceiling in the part of the room where people collect food or bring back empty plates, making it easier to hear others and avoid collisions compared to the louder seating area nearby. The sound quality of being in the interstitial space of the building is a very different acoustic experience than being out in the open dining area, Schneider says. Dome-shaped infrared heaters also double as diffused light sources there, providing light without the bothersome glare of direct light.
Blind and visually-impaired camp users also informd some of the smaller details in the project, like the notches cut into the front reception desk, where people can prop up a cane, or the subtly recessed vertical stile in a bank of cubby holes that serves as a tactical wayfinding tool. The places where the project shines are really in these moments where our stakeholders weighed in and said, you know, this is sometimes a pain point for me, Schneider says.
[Photo: Emily Hagopian/courtesy Perkins & Will]
Given the site’s history of fire damage, fire resilience was another main focus of the design. Many of the camp’s new buildings feature fire-resistant exteriors of corrugated steel; others are clad in wood that’s an inch thicker than the code requires, adding additional fire resistance. A nearly 500,000-gallon water tank was built on site to store spring water in the summer, both for drinking and for emergency fire protection. Where possible, fire-prone building features like roof gutters, were removed completely.
In one case, the design’s fire resilience and accessibility overlap. Perkins & Will designed a new dual-winged bathhouse for a swimming pool, and decided against using rain gutters that could be a trap for burning embers in the event of a fire. Instead, a gutter runs along the ground at the dripline of the roof to catch rainwater, and its metal grating serves as a cane-detectable surface and auditory clue.
[Photo: Emily Hagopian/courtesy Perkins & Will]
A breezeway between the two wings of the bathhouse becomes another form of wayfinding, with a louder environment than the areas along the edges and beneath the overhangs of each wing. So there’s an audible cue for people who are entering the pool area, Schneider says. You know where you’re headed, both because you have this edge of the building to shoreline against with your cane, but you also have the audible cue that’s created spatially by the overhang.
[Photo: Emily Hagopian/courtesy Perkins & Will]
Having this navigability built into the site and buildings of the camp opens new doors for the organization’s mission of promoting equity and opportunity for blind and visually impaired people. It’s a place for learning, Dittmer says. This is where many of them get their first taste of independence, as campers.
The camp also operates year-round as a retreat, hosting corporate events and weddings. Many staff on site, from the head chef to the janitorial staff to the counselors, are blind or visually impaired, making the camp a kind of job training center and real-world case study of the role visually impaired people can play in society. Dittmer says hosting corporate events at the camp is becoming another way to advance the mission. It’s not just that they’re exposed to a camp that is for blind kids in the summer, she says. Seeing people who are blind and low vision working jobs and doing them well only encourages these big companies to open their minds and hire blind and low vision people.
The camp’s new design, Dittmer says, makes all these goals achievable, from giving blind kids a place for exploration to providing low vision people the tools to find successful careers. If architecture could reflect possibilities and opportunities, this does it perfectly, she says.
The top is a fine suede. The bottom is a stack of foam so tall youll instinctively pop an energy ball.
You can wear it barefoot. You could run a marathon in it.
I just . . . wish . . . it didnt look like an orthopedic pair of Vans.
This is the Ahnu Sequence 1.1. Suede, launching today for $240. While you may not have heard of Ahnu yet (the boutique brand launched quietly in 2024), you do know the company behind it. Deckers owns brands including Teva, Ugg, and Hoka, which has celebrated healthy growth across its acquired brand portfolio over the past few yearssales across Deckers were up 17% over the past year.
[Photo: Ahnu]
Unlike its sister brands, Ahnu is being homegrown at Deckers to serve as a vehicle into court shoesthink classic sneakers silhouettes like Converse All-Stars, Adidas Stan Smiths, or Nike Air Force Ones and Dunks. But instead of a vulcanized rubber or EVA midsole, Ahnu is equipped with the same high-tech foams and carbon plates found in advanced running shoes for maximized comfort.
[Photo: Ahnu]
It very much looks like a classical sneaker, like something that’s more timeless, that’s easier to wear with any kind of garment, says Jean-Luc Diard, one of the original cofounders of Hoka who leads innovation across Deckers today. It packs in all the latest technologies without pushing it smash in your face. Thats the whole idea.
Diard, a former elite skier who made his way into outdoor equipment and footwear design, was leading development at Soloman until 2007, when he got the idea for building a maximal-but-lightweight trail-running shoe, which became the Hoka One. (Outside ran a fantastic profile on Diard a few years back.)
[Photo: Ahnu]
His latest vision is to sell a court shoe thats sharp enough for a boardroom but performant enough to make a commute to work a breeze. The company has dubbed these super sneakers, and theyre designed to fill a hole in Deckers’s portfolio while establishing a new subcategory of shoe.
One thing we started to identify at the start was the fact that, as a group, we were not really involved in the sneaker business, says Diard. We had running shoes, we had casual shoes, we had sandals, but we didn’t have, lets say, a significant effort being dedicated to the [traditional] sneaker.
The original prototype Hoka. [Photo: Hoka]
The rise of the foam stack
Since Adidas launched Ultraboosts a decade ago, thick foam stacks have been a kind of arms race, growing taller and taller like the blades on a Gillette razor. The modern era of performant foamssolidified when Nike Vaporfly shoes started breaking Olympic records, circa 2020was just getting started when Deckers bought Hoka in 2012. Since then, Hoka’s rainbow-charred marshmallow midsoles have become comfort-first lifestyle shoes for many people. Their same elite technologies of advanced foams and carbon plates that lead marathoners to break records have a larger, second life for people who just want a softer day of walking for their knees.
The aesthetic of shoes is shifting as a result. Midsoles have about doubled in height over the past decade, and what once seemed absurd is feeling more normal as the entire industry races toward what Diard calls dynamic comfort. Even the Jordan brand has launched a pillowy walking shoe.
[Photo: Hoka]
There a gap in technology between running and casual shoes, he says, and consumers whove stepped into the latest running technologies dont have interest in returning. [They say,] No, that’s done now. Now, Im moving to the next generation.
Ahnu is essentially a running shoe, but its midsole foam has been tuned for a slightly lower impact of walking versus running, and its internal carbon plate is arced at a shallower angle than a racing shoe. With a rocker bottom, once you get used to your foot rolling forward with every step, I cannot deny that a pair of Ahnus become almost automatic to walk in. The grip of the TPU midsole is superb, even on wet surfaces (that brown you see on the bottom of the shoe isn’t rubber outsole, it’s just dyeallowing the entire midsole to be recycled as a single material). There are no stitches inside catching the top of your foot, either; and at just 200g apiece, they are a quarter the weight of a Converse All-Star. The shoes truly feel like a premium play on the lifestyle market.
On is more lifestyle than Hoka, and so you know, why wouldn’t that On customer possibly buy Ahnu a year from now? Diard muses.
But in my size 12, the Ahnus midsole proportions are just odd. An all-white Anhu colorway reads okay on my feet. With the suede top, I feel a bit like Im wearing Mschfs Super Baby crossed with a pair of Allbirds. Like, Im Tom Hanks in Big.
Diard takes the criticism in stride, fairly noting that, for traditionally feminine silhouettes, the taller stack reads a bit more typical. He says theyre still fine-tuning Ahnus design language before taking it to scale in what sounds like a surprisingly patient process for a brand that wont target wide release until spring 2026.
[Photo: Ahnu]
The worst mistake you can get is putting pressure too quickly, too early, and then having a product that you start to scale that is not completely right, that is not completely ready, says Diard. Sometimes, it’s just tiny things that make the difference between success and failure.
This patience is echoed by Deckers president and CEO Stefano Caroti, who sets a high bar for Ahnu, noting that the company doesnt want to sustain smaller brands like Sanuk, which it sold off last year. We want brands that can be at least half-a-billion dollars, says Caroti. Otherwise, it’s not really worth the effort, considering that we have two brands that are in excess of 2 billion with potential to be truly multibillion-dollar brands.
Building a brand from scratch is not as easy as finding something that already works, and we have been good at amplifying brands, building brands that already had a DNA, he continues. We’ll see whether we . . . have the scalability and the know-how to do it. Were fortunate to have the time.
[Photos: Ugg, Teva, Hoka]
I will admit, though, having worn Anhus for a week now, my tastes have been slowly acclimating to their proportions, and perhaps my criticism will look archaic in a few years’ time. After all, we live in the age of the big midsole. And Deckers’s entire portfolio is embracing the thicker foam stack to fuel a genre-bending approach to otherwise traditional (and even tired?) shoe categories. Across the brands in our group, you will see many, many evolutions in that direction, says Diard. From the Teva Aventrail (an off-road running sandal) to the Hoka Speed Loafer (a sporty dress shoe that sold out a trial run in minutes) to the Ugg Tasman (an all-weather take on cozy).
I think these hybrids are going to create [new] segments for our business, says Caroti. What is important is that you stay true to your roots and stay true to the DNA of the brand. The minute you try to be somebody you’re not, something you’re not, the consumer smells it immediately.
As President Donald Trump’s administration takes a sledgehammer to government agencies, Senate Democrats are opening their inboxes to whistleblowers.
On Monday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York announced a portal for people to send in their complaints. The cleanly designed website shows just a few boxes to enter details including name, organization, and contact information; there’s a submit button at the bottom of the page, and a short description at the top: Whistleblowers are a vital part of Congressional oversight to hold the administration accountable. If you would like to submit a whistleblower complaint, you can submit it here. It’s frictionless design applied to government oversight.
The portal lets users lodge complaints about issues including retaliation, wasteful spending, fraud, and criminal activity, and Schumer said those who submit complaints will receive the legal protections afforded to whistleblowers. According to the Department of Justice, it is unlawful for any personnel action to be taken against you because of your whistleblowing, and other federal agencies have similar language about whistleblower protections.
[Screenshot: Senate Democrats]
Senate Democrats have a responsibility to fight back on behalf of American families as Republicans look the other way in obedience to Donald Trump, Schumer said in a letter Monday to his Senate colleagues. We are committed to working with these brave whistleblowers across America to fight back against the Trump administrations cruel and illegal actions.
The website is a first step by the party out of power seeking to exercise oversight, and an alternate route for whistleblowers to air their complaints as Trump nominees take over federal agencies.
Since Trump’s taken office and tapped Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, to lead a rebranded government agency to cut government spending without transparency, Democrats have criticized these efforts as overreach.
I think this is the most serious constitutional crisis the country has faced, certainly since Watergate, Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told ABC News’s This Week on Sunday. The president is attempting to seize control of power, and for corrupt purposes. The president wants to be able decide how and where money is spent so that he can reward his political friends. He can punish his political enemies. That is the evisceration of democracy.
The judicial branch has exercised its checks and balances over the executive branch, with judges blocking Musk’s team from accessing Treasury Department records, staying a deferred resignation offer to federal workers, and ordering an unfreezing of federal spending, among other rulings. In the minority in both chambers of Congress, though, there are limits to how Democrats can now respond.
A viral moment in which Rep. Maxwell Frost, a Florida Democrat, asked fellow lawmakers what do we need? only to be met with a jumble of indecipherable answers seemed to sum up the opposition party’s flat-footed response. With their new whistleblowers site, though, Senate Democrats have landed on something coherent. What do we need? Your information about corruption, abuses of power, and threats to public safety. When do we need it? Now.
Youve signed up to attend a conference or industry event, and when the day finally arrives, you probably experience some regret. Thoughts run through your head, such as Why do I have to go? I have too much work to do. I wont know anyone. I can make connections online.
Sound familiar? Entering a room full of strangers or, worse yet, people in your field that you admire can make you feel like youre a kid again, walking into your first day of kindergarten. Its intimidating, but worth it because nothing replaces live connections, says Rebecca Grinnals, cofounder of the luxury wedding and event business conference Engage! Summits.
You can’t put a price on the value of connecting with people meaningfully in personwe certainly saw that over the last five years, she says. Its a cliché, but your net worth is your network. In-person networking is more vital than it’s ever been in this age of AI and social media.
While online connections are important and a good first step, theyre also limiting, says Kathryn Arce, Engage! Summits cofounder. You can miss out on the benefit of being connected to people, finding your group, and being inspired, she says. Everyone needs to be a part of something a little bit bigger. In-person events get you away from your office and computer. Theyre like fresh air for your soul.
Your success will depend on attitude and planning. Here are five networking tips that will help put your nerves aside and open the door for meaningful connections with others:
1. Set An Intention
Before the day arrives, decide what you want to get out of the event. In other words, dont come without a plan, says Grinnals.
Some conferences will provide you with a list of attendees. Other times, there will be a Facebook page set up for the conference and you may be able to see the names of people in the group. If the event hasnt provided access to attendees, you can still review the speakers, workshop facilitators, and organizers. Then, identify three to five people you would like to meet and have a good conversation with over the course of the event.
2. Find a Warm Connection
Once you have a list of people you hope to meet, research them on LinkedIn, social media, and news sites to see if you have anything in common that could serve as a way to connect. Maybe you both attended the same school. Or perhaps you share a friend or colleague.
If you dont find a commonality, you can still use what you learn as a conversation starter. For example, if theyre from Philadelphia, you can ask how they felt about the Super Bowl. It helps to be more personal and genuine before you go into any type of business conversation, says Arce.
3. Be Genuine
Theres a fine line between introducing yourself and promoting yourself and leading with an elevator pitch can be off-putting, says Grinnals.
People often go to networking events with their chest puffed out, like a peacock, she says. They want to tell everybody, I’m a big deal in my market, or You should know me. That’s the wrong way to go about it. Nobody wants to feel sold to.
Instead, be authentic and vulnerable. It’s better to come in and say, How’s business been? I’ve had a couple of challenges this year and don’t know if you’ve experienced it as well, says Grinnals. That immediately takes people a little off their guard and allows for a much more meaningful conversation and connection.
You can also ask for advice. Instead of being another person trying to pitch their business, its refreshing and unexpected when someone says, I’m a big fan of your work. This is something I’m struggling with and wondered if you’ve got any advice? adds Grinnals. Everyone loves to be asked for advice. They don’t love to be asked for their business right off the bat.
Offering help can also be a powerful way to connect. Sometimes people feel like, I’ve made an investment, and so I am just here to receive, says Grinnals. An easy icebreaker is, Is there anything I can help you with? Is there anybody I could introduce you to? The more you help other people achieve their goals, the more you’re going to feel good and have your goals achieved as well.
4. Be Open
Its common to go into a conference focusing on what your return on investment needs to be, but this opens the door to leaving disappointed. Have a plan and a target list of connections but stay open to the organic meetings that can happen, too.
People too often focus on the power players or the movers and shakers in an industry, hoping they will crack open a new opportunity or change you and your business forever, but thats not always true, says Grinnals. More often than not, it is the people that you least expect that you may be sitting next to on a shuttle ride or being seated next to in a session that actually turn out to be the most valuable people.
Strike up conversations without expectation of what anyone can do for you, says Arce. There needs to be a nice balance of being open and letting things happen in the moment, she says.
5. Follow Up
Its easy to leave a conference and move on with your life. However, intentional and thoughtful follow-up is the key to building your network. After the event, carve out time to reach out to interesting connections but be mindful of not spamming people.
Take careful notes each day about who you met, says Grinnals. If you want to connect with the speaker, for example, you could send a follow up email specifically calling out something they said that was meaningful to you. If its someone you spoke with, recall a part of the conversation you remembered. Be specific, personal, and thoughtful, as opposed to just saying, It was great meeting you.
Dont expect to go to one event and walk away with a lot of connections, answers, or business. Thats not the purpose, says Grinnals. The purpose is to start conversations with people and make initial connections, she says. Like anything in life, consistency is key. Plant the seeds and water them. Networking is a long game.
There are certain social media rules we can all agree on: Ghosting a conversation is impolite, and replying k to a text is the equivalent of a backhand slap (violent, wrong, and rude). But what about the rest of the rules? When can we really remind someone of our old Venmo request? What happens when someone tries to flirt with you on LinkedIn?
Fortunately, terminally online writers Delia Cai and Steffi Cao are here to answer all your digital quandaries, big or small. For Fast Companys final installment of our advice column, Posting Playbook, Steffi Cao and Delia Cai tackle your biggest questions about online careerism and Venmo etiquette.
I feel like I should be posting more on social media to further my career as an artist. Am I going to fall behind if I don’t?
Steffi: I see it as a kind of add-on situation: Posting on social media can be a great tool to promote your work and get different eyeballs on your art, but its not crucial to your development as an artist. What matters the most is honing your skill and actually making stuff, after allonce you start caring more about your Instagram posts than your product, then its time to sit back and reevaluate your life.
But its silly to say that you can totally eschew social media to further any public-facing career now. Everyone, regardless of their industry, has some kind of pressure to advertise their lives, and romanticize their high-powered careers through the bells and whistles of mirror selfies, party photos, a medley of vague, brooding slice-of-life shots featuring glasses of white wine and overlays of books. But you cant believe everything you see on social media. Thats always the rule. This includes the smoke-and-mirrors of glamorous industry parties where everyone seems to be dressed well and rubbing shoulders with the right circles of people, who seem to be getting further in their artistic endeavors because theyre drinking champagne with the right people. Connections are deeply important to any creative industry, this is always true, but its not worth it to stress about if youre falling behind because you saw someone post their Getty Images from last nights downtown indie soiree. That way lies madness. I say, put aside time to post on the platform that feels least annoying to you, then youre free to ignore it for the rest of the week. Nothing about it should be super high-investment, since this is free content, but just throw a bone out there to say, who want me? Then you can spend the rest of your precious time actually making something that feels good to you. This shouldnt be your number-one priority anyway, and it really shouldnt take up the most valuable real estate in your brain.
Delia: Not necessarily. Social media is certainly useful both as a de facto business card and a method of updating people about your work. But the real secret to using it to advance ones career, I think, is that it humanizes you to prospective clients, collaborators, etc. and essentially helps people feel like they already know you. And of course, everyone prefers working with people they know. Thats a bit of a cynical read on the state of parasocialism, but perhaps it might be helpful for you to consider the strategy of your posting in that way, outside of simply having to post more.
Still, if the idea of tending to your social media as an artist just totally deadens your heart, theres no rule that says you post, or be left behind. I do think that if you choose to opt out of posting, I would still take the time to set up your page with a few highlights and basic info (like how to get in touch or where to see your work), and then you can leave it be. Otherwise, youre likely will miss out on opportunities any time someone decides to look you up on social media first. If youre worried about falling behindor at least, being less top-of-mind than your more post-happy peersyou may have to commit a little more energy into IRL networking and promoting your work. Whether its giving yourself a goal of going on a couple of coffee meetings per month or looking into other forms of online self-promotion (newsletters, a traditional website), go with the method that feels most in alignment with you.
What’s the correct Venmo request/reminder/payment etiquette?
Delia: As a personal rule, I try to never put the lender (the person who is owed the money on Venmo) in a position where they have to raise the topic with me first. If a friend offers to cover drinks at the bar, Ill make a point of asking them to Venmo request me, though I think its classier to simply take a look at the bill at the end of the night and proactively send the money through immediately. On the other end, of course, its trickier. I tend to always use emojis in the description of a Venmo request to soften the feeling of like, itemizing my relationships, and I will never use the actual Venmo remind button, because that seems passive-aggressive.
If more than a week goes by and the request hasnt been paid, Ill shoot a text to that person and feign a bit of relatable urgency: Hi! So sorry, but do you mind Venmoing me for last weeks movie? Have to pay my landlord today! That subtly shifts the issue to be a matter of payment timing, and not my (real) annoyance about not getting paid back. If that text gets ignored (or lost in the shuffle), I might bring it up with this person the next time I see them in person, but otherwise, I might cut my losses and begin reevaluating the friendship itself. Because then its just rude!
Steffi: For everyones peace of mind, its incredibly important to have a common understanding with your loved ones about how you prefer to Venmo each other. A lack of communication around money has been the impetus for many ends of friendships, relationships, marriages and moreso when youre out with your friends, its always important to ask if youd prefer to split the bill evenly or put it on one card and Venmo request. Also, like Delia said, be proactive about paying people back when they cover for you.
As for those bigger days out where multiple cards are getting put down on the table (long nights out, weeklong trips, bachelorette parties), I think its very important to set an expectation with people before the bill gets paid about how these Venmo requests are about to work. It doesnt need to be a long conversation, but its important to get on the same page about it. Whether its one card operating as a tab that charges everyone back or splitting evenly each time, as long as youre all comfortable with it ahead of time, thats all that matters. To be honest, my best friends and I Venmo request each other line-by-line, even if weve all effectively paid the same amount, because we all do not play about our budget spreadsheets. Perhaps it might be considered overkill, but Ive never worried about covering for them as a result, because weve had a quiet agreement on how we respect each others money for a decade. Ive never used the remind button as a result.
Frankly, I think people need to be more annoyingly candid about money. Look around us! Eggs are ten dollars, tariffs are sending prices to the moon, the cost of living is outpacing income by a mile. Get real and stop putting your card down for people you dont know just because youre worried about being impolite. Venmo request everyone immediately if they havent already paid you back. It all boils down to the time-worn adagetreat people how you would want to be treated. Wouldnt that also apply to your own hard-earned money?
When he was 17 years old, Arne Hillerns moved from his small village in Northern Germany to spend a year in Wausau, Wisconsin. For a brief period of time, he felt like the foreign exchange high school student that he was: “People look at you [and think,] Who’s that kid? he recalls. Just a year prior, Hillerns had discovered skateboarding, and the skate scene in Wisconsin was buzzing. Within three days or so, he had found a community of skateboarders. Skating made me so much more open in my personality and gave me confidence, he says. It was a very easy entry to this new world for me.
Fast-forward 25 years, and Hillernss passion for skateboarding has spread across almost every continent. Hillerns is now the founder of an NGO called Make Life Skate Life, which works to make skating accessible to underserved youth all over the world. Over the past decade, his team has designed and built more than a dozen skateparks in countries including Laos, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Brazil, and Morocco.
[Photo: courtesy Make Life Skate Life]
Earlier this month, they completed the first-ever skate park in Baghdad, Iraq. Five years in the makingthe longest it’s ever taken them to build oneBaghdad Skatepark features a variety of ramps and obstacles tailored to people of all skill levels. One ramp was even designed to look like a magic carpet (which locals are yet to paint) as a nod to the 2019 Disney movie, Aladdin, which is set in a city based on Baghdad. (Even Disney’s 1992 animated Aladdin was initially to take place in Baghdad, but for the First Gulf War, which broke out in 1991.)
[Photo: courtesy Make Life Skate Life]
We like to have local elements that represent the culture or the country, Hillerns tells me. In Taghazout, a coastal city in the south of Morocco, they incorporated a quintessentially Moroccan arched door. In Inukjuak, an Inuit community in Northern Quebec, they built a structure resembling an igloo.
Hillerns founded Make Life Skate Life in 2013, but the seeds for the NGO were sown a year prior. By then, Hillerns had returned to Germany, where he’d spent five years looking up how to mix concrete and ultimately transforming a post-industrial site in Hanover into what became one of Europe’s biggest DIY skateparks.
In 2012, he set off for India in an attempt to share his learningsand try to replicate the community he had built. Not everyone has the possibility of skating in front of their house, he says. For me, it comes down to having a space to skate.
Bangalore [Photo: courtesy Make Life Skate Life]
After crisscrossing the country looking for skateboarders, Hillerns and the two friends he was traveling with finally came across a group in Bangalore who had found a patch of land but didn’t know how to turn it into a skatepark. With Hillerns’s helpand funding from Levi’s SkateboardingIndias first free skatepark was born. (Due to legal issues in the residential area where it was built, the skatepark shuttered a year after it opened, but Holystoked, the local group, has since constructed more than 20 skateparks in the country.)
After that first build in Bangalore, Hillerns founded Make Life Skate Life, and projects grew organically in places like La Paz, Bolivia, where the team built the city’s first skatepark and Amman, Jordan. Hillerns says there is no set formula for the way each skatepark evolves, but the action plan is usually the same: find a skating community, find funds, find land.
[Photo: courtesy Make Life Skate Life]
An eager community is the easiest to find. (Abidjan, in Ivory Coast, for example, has a thriving skate scene and it is where Hillerns hopes to go next.) Funds often come from a combination of crowdfunding, corporate sponsorships, and help from local embassies. In the case of Baghdad, the park was financedwith the help of the German and French Embassies, as well as a local NGO that did a round of fundraising a few years ago. But the original idea for the park never materialized because they couldn’t find land. Which brings us to the land problem.
[Photo: courtesy Make Life Skate Life]
A typical skatepark is only as big as two-to-four tennis courts, but that much land isn’t always easy to find, especially in parts of the city that are easy to access. Some years ago, the team struggled to find such spot in Laos, but ended up making an arrangement with a private individual who agreed to let them build a skatepark on his own land and open it to the public. They also tried building a skatepark in Kathmandu, Nepal, but the project fell through because, again, they couldn’t find land.
In Baghdad, the team’s search could’ve been met with the same fate, but Hillerns says they refused to give up. In 2018, Make Life Skate Life built Iraq’s first skatepark in Sulaymaniyah, 165 miles north of Baghdad. Suli Skatepark was such a success that kids living in Baghdad spent six hours on a bus just to go skate there. This motivated Hillerns and the team them to keep looking.
[Photo: courtesy Make Life Skate Life]
Hillerns blames expensive land and corruption for delaying the process. Eventually, the team managed to secure a patch of land on the Ministry of Youth and Sports complex near Al-Shaab International Stadium. The city required security guards on site to ensure that nobody misinterpreted the skatepark for something else; but it is well-located, and in a city where so-called third places are virtually nonexistent. It’s a place that Iraqi kids can make their own.
Now, Baghdad’s first skatepark has made international headlines, and Hillerns is hopeful it will help change the way Baghdad is portrayed in the media. He dreams of a world where, much like foodies travel to eat, and cyclists travel to bike, skaters would travel to skate. You wouldnt think of Baghdad as a tourist destination, but it’s very easy to get into the country and its a city like every other city, he says.
A skating pilgrimage to Baghdad would’ve been unthinkable even a month ago. Now, it’s a distinct possibility.
A recent report by the Government Accountability office found that 3.8 million college students23% of the total student populationexperienced food insecurity, forcing them to skip meals because they couldnt afford to eat. While past administrations have made strides in addressing student hunger, the current political landscape presents new challenges that demand urgent action at the institutional and state levels.
I know this firsthand. When I started college, I quickly realized that tuition was just one part of the financial burden. I worked multiple jobssometimes 30+ hours a weekwhile juggling classes and struggling to afford food. I often skipped meals or relied on cheap, unhealthy options just to get by. I met countless other students in the same situation, many unaware that food assistance programs existed or unsure how to apply. Through my research job studying food insecurity, I saw how colleges and financial aid offices were failing to connect students to the support they needed. That experience drove me to co-found the Student Basic Needs Coalition (SBNC) in 2019; the student-led movement focuses on ensuring all students have the support they need to stay in school.
The urgency of this issue has only grown with reports that the Trump administration is drafting an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education and weaken provisions for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) under the 2025 Farm Bill. These proposed changes threaten the progress made in recent years and could exacerbate existing disparities. Now, more than ever, we must strengthen social support mechanisms and ensure that colleges and states take proactive steps to protect students from food insecurity.
A Critical Moment for Student Food Assistance
The threat to SNAP and student benefits is not hypothetical; it’s already unfolding. The House Ways and Means Committee has proposed harmful policies that would restrict access to food assistance, including limiting broad-based categorical eligibility, expanding work requirements, and capping SNAP benefits based on household size. These reflect changes that Trumps administration supported during his first term. While the federal government has authority over the SNAP eligibility requirements in general, the rules currently provide several flexibilities that states can leverage to allow more people to qualify. These measures would disproportionately harm students, many of whom already face significant barriers to accessing SNAP due to complex eligibility rules and inconsistent state policies.
One of the most alarming changes for students is the threat to Broad-Based Categorical Eligibility. BBCE allows states to expand SNAP eligibility up to 200% of the federal poverty guidelines, preventing abrupt loss of benefits due to small income increases. Currently, 19 states have leveraged this full flexibility, while nine states have increased the income limit to 130% of federal poverty. Without BBCE, students and low-income families face a hunger cliff, where exceeding 130% of the federal poverty leveljust $25,820 annually for a family of three in 2024would immediately disqualify them from food assistance.
BBCE also allows states to remove SNAP asset limits, enabling families to build savings and cover unexpected expenses without jeopardizing their benefits. Currently, 36 states use this flexibility. This is especially important for students, who often face financial instability due to irregular income, limited access to emergency funds, and unexpected costs like medical bills or car repairs. Without BBCE, students who save money for tuition or emergencies could risk losing their SNAP eligibility, making it harder for them to stay enrolled and succeed in college. Rolling back BBCE, as mentioned in the Ways and Means Committee proposal, would push more students into food insecurity, undermining college retention and completion rates.
Scaling Solutions That Work
Despite federal uncertainty, there are clear steps that colleges and state governments can take to ensure students have access to food assistance. One of the most effective strategies is improving outreach and application assistance. Many students who qualify for SNAP never apply because they don’t know they’re eligible or struggle with the cumbersome application process. Recent guidance from the Department of Education clarified that institutions can notify students of their potential eligibility without violating FERPA regulations, yet many colleges remain hesitant to act.
Institutions must take advantage of this guidance and implement proactive outreach strategies, similar to the CalFresh Outreach Project. Through the Foundation for California Community Colleges, this project has helped more than 5,500 students apply for food assistance. These efforts can serve as a model for other states looking to reduce administrative burdens and ensure students receive the support they need to stay in school.
While institutional and state-level interventions are crucial, student-led initiatives have also proven to be highly effective in addressing food insecurity. At the Student Basic Needs Coalition, we run a peer navigator program that empowers students to support their peers in accessing SNAP and other essential resources, which has unlocked $1.6 million in food assistance across 9 active partner institutions. Peer navigatorsstudents who have experienced food insecurity themselveshelp their classmates navigate complex applications, understand eligibility requirements, and connect with campus and community resources. While the training takes place virtually, these students partner with their campus food pantries to provide in-person outreach and application assistance to their peers.
Research shows that students are more likely to seek assistance when information comes from their peers rather than administrators, making this model particularly effective. Investing in student leadership not only helps connect more students to benefits but also builds long-term capacity for advocacy and policy change.
Technology presents another opportunity to improve benefit access at scale. AI-driven tools are being developed to proactively identify eligible students and simplify the application prcess, reducing the administrative burdens that often deter students from applying. Complete College America has launched an AI Council that brings together higher education leaders and technology experts to explore ways AI can enhance student success, including basic needs support.
Additionally, SBNC is developing an AI-driven tool with support from the GitLab Foundation to streamline SNAP enrollment, ensuring that students are connected to benefits before they reach a financial crisis. Still, these moves are largely happening at the grassroots level. Policymakers and university leaders must embrace these innovations to create a more efficient and equitable support system for students.
Moving Forward in the Face of Uncertainty
With potential cuts to SNAP and the Department of Education looming, colleges and states cannot afford to wait for federal solutions. The reality is that the current financial aid and social support systems were never designed with low-income students in mind. To create an equitable higher education system, we must acknowledge that tuition is only part of the financial burden students face. Ensuring that every student has access to food is not just about alleviating hunger; it is about enabling students to stay in school, complete their degrees, and break cycles of poverty.
Institutions must take action by expanding SNAP outreach, establishing peer support programs, and leveraging technology to connect students with critical resources. States should invest in data-sharing agreements and policy changes that simplify SNAP access for students, ensuring that eligibility pathways are clear and accessible regardless of shifting federal priorities. These efforts are essential to making sure students do not have to choose between staying in school and putting food on the table. Now is the time to act. Colleges and policymakers must prioritize solutions that help students access the nutrition they need to succeed.
