President Donald Trump’s initial policy proposals raised concern at the Federal Reserve about higher inflation, with firms telling the U.S. central bank they generally expected to raise prices to pass through the cost of import tariffs, policymakers said at a meeting held about a week after Trump’s January 20 inauguration.
Participants at the U.S. central bank’s January 28-29 meeting “generally pointed to the upside risks to the inflation outlook,” rather than risks to job market, according to the minutes from the meeting, which were released on Wednesday. “In particular, participants cited the possible effects of potential changes in trade and immigration policy, the potential for geopolitical developments to disrupt supply chains, or stronger-than-expected household spending.”
While still having faith that price pressures will continue to ease, “other factors were cited as having the potential to hinder the disinflation process,” the minutes said, including the fact that “business contacts in a number of (Fed) districts had indicated that firms would attempt to pass on to consumers higher input costs arising from potential tariffs.”
Participants also noted that some measures of inflation expectations, a key concern for the Fed, “had increased recently.”
Financial markets were little changed after the release of the minutes, with interest rate futures indicating the Fed’s likely first, and perhaps only, rate cut of 2025 would occur in July.
Policymakers at last month’s meeting agreed they should hold interest rates steady until it was clear that inflation, largely stalled since the middle of 2024, would dependably fall to the central bank’s 2% target.
Fed staff had already changed their outlook at the December 17-18 meeting to show expected slower growth and higher inflation based on “placeholder assumptions” about Trump’s likely actions when he began his second term in the White House. The president started providing details in his first days in office, including proposed 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, and a lockdown of the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Fed kept its benchmark interest rate in the current 4.25%-4.50% range at its meeting last month, and officials since then have said they are in no rush to cut rates again until they are more certain inflation will decline to the 2% target from current levels around half a percentage point above that level.
Understanding the impact of Trump’s policies has become a central part of that debate.
Debt ceiling, framework
In another sign of how fiscal policy may impact central bank decision-making, the minutes said “various” policymakers noted it may be appropriate to consider slowing or pausing the Fed’s ongoing shrinking of its balance sheet in light of federal “debt ceiling dynamics.”
Current federal funding runs out after March 14, and lawmakers will need to act by the summer to raise their self-imposed debt ceiling or risk a default.
Fed officials used the January meeting to kick off what’s expected to be a months-long review of the central bank’s policy framework, including potential revisions to the statement’s focus on the risks to the economy when the benchmark interest rate is near the zero level.
They also made it clear they would not change their commitment to a 2% inflation goal, or to achieving maximum employment.
The review is expected to wrap up by late summer, the minutes said.
Howard Schneider and Ann Saphir, Reuters
When he was a teenager, Collin McKenna’s interest in changing the food system led him to move from Colorado to Hawaii for high school. It was on that school’s regenerative farm that the now 30-year-old has entrepreneur discovered meadthe sweet, fermented honey beverage often referred to as “honey wine.” His first taste of alcohol was mead made by Hawaiian locals.
With his 10-month-old brand LIXIRa sparkling ready-to-drink mead brand hes billing as hard honeyMcKenna wants to make the ancient beverage accessible while turning LIXIR into just the second Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) alcoholic beverage brand. So many different cultures made different variations of it. But we wanted to reimagine mead for a modern consumer, McKenna says.
Making Mead Accessible
One of McKennas first moves when starting Lixir was trademarking the term hard honey, papering over the knowledge gap around meadone of the worlds oldest alcoholic beverages, but whose popularity fell as beer and wine became easier to produce on industrial scale. But mead has been having a resurgence. Fortune Business Insights data reveals that the mead market was about $533.3 million in 2023, and is projected to nearly triple by 2032.
There’s a lot of education behind trying to explain mead and where it comes from, McKenna says. As soon as we came up with the idea of hard honey, people were like, I get it.
With a concept in mind, in 2021, McKenna approached Frank Golbeck, founder of Oceanside, Californias Golden Coast Mead, to begin developing the formula for his hard honey. Since 2010, Golbeck has been focused on modern mead with a regenerative approach. He saw McKennas ethos and vision, and although his small factory had limited space, was willing to begin a partnership.
Golbeck says mead represents “the synthesis of ecology, creativity and history coming together. Honey is this expensive product that is hard to make. Then to turn it into an alcohol that is similarly hard to makeand to do it well, consistentlyhas escaped people for generations.”
The pair ultimately created a proprietary process for formulating a 5% ABV modern mead thats less sweet and, unlike the traditional drink, slightly carbonated. LIXIR comes in three varieties: Pear Lime, Cherry Grapefruit, and Mango Orange. There are so many different honey optionsflowers and places where they forageand they can make such different mead,” McKenna says. “We went through countless renditions of just trying to make the base. It was at least a yearlong process.
Since April, Lixir has debuted at Total Wine & More in its SoCal region as well as Jimbos natural grocery stores in San Diego, among several other small retailers and upscale restaurants and hotels. This Spring, it will also begin rolling out in Mothers Market stores in Southern California regions. McKenna has raised more than $650,000 in funding, about half of its current goal amid a crowdfunding round. Jack Sinclair, CEO of Sprouts Farmers Market, is an advisor and investor in Lixir.
[Photo: Courtesy of Lixir]
Lixir’s regenerative approach
Lixir’s branding helps make mead something a casual shopper might buy, but McKenna still has to solve for how to explain to buyers that their purchase is funding responsible farming. A survey out of Purdue Universitys Department of Agriculture found that more than 70% of U.S. consumers are slightly or not at all familiar with the term regenerative agriculture.
McKenna and Golbeck knew that their regenerative goals would rely on sourcing, so they decided to make Lixir with honey sourced from a Brazilian farm in the Atlantic Rainforest that pulls double duty as a nature and bee preserve. McKenna says Lixir is already a regenerative organic product, but has yet to receive certification from the Regenerative Organic Alliancesomething no bee farm or honey brand has managed to achieve.
McKenna and Golbeck say thats because the ROA requires a three-mile forage radius to certify farms, something the founders view as impractical because bees fly far and wide. They have been working with groups like the Regenerative Apiculture Working Group, which focuses on promoting a regenerative honey ecosystem, to make changes to the requirements. It’s so complicated, McKenna says adds. We’ve been chipping away for 10 years.
Though the ROA has certified a handful of beverage brandsamong them Harmless Harvest coconut water and Guayaki yerba mateLIXIR would become just the second alcoholic beverage brand with ROC status (outdoor lifestyle brand Patagonias beer and wine operation has received the certification). McKenna is hopeful ROC status could come within the next five years. We want to educate people in the best way possible by creating a product that everybody can enjoy and have fun with, McKenna says. We want to be the brand behind the movement.”
The John F. Kennedy (JFK) Presidential Library and Museum reopened Wednesday, with free admission, a day after the historic Boston institution was abruptly shut down after multiple employees were suddenly fired in the latest wave of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts to come to federal employees.
Director Alan Price said admission to the museum will remain free in the coming days as senior employees fill in at the front desk and take over ticketing, although those employees still need to be cross-trained, reported the Boston Globe.
“As the Foundation that supports the JFK Library, we [were] devastated by this news and will continue to support our colleagues and the Library,” the nonprofit John F. Kennedy (JFK) Library Foundation told Fast Company in a statement.
In an effort to slash the size of the federal government, the Trump administration and DOGE have advised agencies to dismiss most of the 200,000 workers still in their probationary periods, working less than two years at their job.
The National Archives and Records Administration, which manages many of the the nations presidential libraries, told Fast Company that “the Archives staff looks forward to welcoming guests, visitors, and researchers,” but had no further comment.
Jack Schlossberg, JFK’s only grandson, who has been a vocal critic of the Trump administration, posted on Instagram that “DOGE and The White House” were behind the shutdown.
Our country is under attack from our own government. They are using propaganda to steal the past away from the American people, wrote Schlossberg, whose mother, Caroline Kennedy, is honorary president of the Library Foundation. “In my opinion, it has nothing to do with government efficiency, the workers who were fired today actually bring in revenue for the government, it’s really about stealing the past . . . so that people don’t know what’s really happening.” (Schlossberg’s post had 67,366 likes at the time of this writing.)
Elsewhere on social media, one Bluesky user posted, “Closing down museums and national parks isnt ‘weeding out corruption.’ But it is a sign of authoritarian rule.”
Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren also took to Bluesky to say: “Trumps shutdown of the JFK Library wont lower egg prices or make housing more affordable, but its part of a retribution tour designed to distract from his agenda to enrich the wealthy and well-connected at the expense of everyone else.”
As the New York Times pointed out, the JFK Library Foundation has previously honored Trump critics including Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney. Romney, a Republican former Utah senator and presidential nominee, was the only Republican to vote to convict Trump in his first impeachment trial, while Cheney spoke out against the January 6 attack on the Capitol, making her a target of Trump’s wrath and costing her Wyoming seat in the House of Representatives.
This week, the startup Humanewhich raised $240 million to build an iPhone-killing Ai Pinannounced its sale to HP for $116 million. While far short of the companys original $1 billion asking price, its astonishing that the brand scrapped for anything at all. A product that had promised to change the world instead became a worldwide laughingstock, indicative of the worst tendencies of Silicon Valley-founder hubris. Universally panned, Humane sold fewer than 10,000 units. Sometimes, its returns outpaced its sales. Units could catch fire.
Humane cofounders Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno thanked their few loyal customers by announcing their Pins would no longer work in 10 days. Well, for anything but checking the battery level.
“This investment will rapidly accelerate our ability to develop a new generation of devices that seamlessly orchestrate AI requests both locally and in the cloud,” said Tuan Tran, president of technology and innovation at HP, in a press statement. “Humanes AI platform Cosmos, backed by an incredible group of engineers, will help us create an intelligent ecosystem across all HP devices from AI PCs to smart printers and connected conference rooms. This will unlock new levels of functionality for our customers and deliver on the promises of AI.”
Heh. I can understand why the world was fooled by the Ai Pin when it launched in 2024. I have a little less sympathy now for HP execs, who have just completed one of the most tone-deaf acquisitions in corporate history.
The Ai Pin was flawed from the beginning
Mystique around Humane had been swirling for years by the time Chaudhri took the stage at TED in May 2023 to present the idea of the disappearing computer. After spending his career at Apple working on some of its most important launches such as the iPhone, he pitched a screenless AI interface that allows us to get back to what really matters: a new ability to be present. By simply asking his computer to “catch me up,” it was able to cut through endless notifications to tell him what was important. By Chaudhri holding up a candy bar, his computer could tell him if it jibed with his lactose intolerance condition. And when his wife (and company cofounder) called, well, her name “magically” appeared right on his hand.
Little did the audience realize: The computer had merely disappeared into Chaudhris jacket with a needle and thread.
Even a bad magic trick can fool people who want to be fooled. And Humanes vision struck a chord with a society that felt guilty for using its phones all the time. Freeing our eyes and hands sounded like liberation, and the promise that an AI could do everything from translate languages in real time to examining the foods youd eaten that the day to determine if youre aligned with your diet seemed like the sort of just-out-of-reach magic that could finally be real. And, wait, was that a LASER BEAM THAT JUST SHOT ONTO HIS HAND?
[Image: Humane/TED]
The next time the Ai Pin arrived on stage, it (well, a prototype of it) would be worn on the lapel of Naomi Campbelltrue supermodel royaltyat Paris Fashion week. The closest parallel I could remember was Beyoncé donning an Apple Watch around its announcement. The product was starting to feel too big to fail. Its investorsincluding Tiger Global Management, Microsoft, Qualcomm Ventures, and Softbank, alongside individuals including Salesforce’s Marc Benioff and OpenAI’s Sam Altmanfed an $840 million valuation. It felt like something that deserved to be taken seriously.
Naomi Campbell wore a prototype of Humane’s Ai Pin at the Coperni spring/summer 2024 show during Paris Fashion Week. [Photo: Francois Durand/Getty Images]
Still, the TED Talk had struck me as funny for reasons I couldnt articulate. Later, Chaudhri canceled an on-stage interview with me where hed promised to speak about the product for the first time. He also declined an interview after my in-person demo (Ive experienced a hundred or more product walkthroughs in my career, and Ive never been unable to ask a question of the company after any of them, except for Humane). What I generously interpreted as shynessChaudhris soft-spoken magnetism cannot be deniedincreasingly seemed to be protecting a thin veneer.
Five months before Marques Brownlee nuked the AI Pin into oblivion by calling it the worst product hed ever reviewed, Id been saying the same to friends in the industry who eagerly asked about my experience with the device. It was difficult to explain to people that this wasnt hyperbole, that when I arrived in San Francisco in November 2023, the demo was really that bad. That every query took painfully long even inside a perfectly closed environment. That all the magical dietary food stuff didnt seem to work at all. That I was expected to ooh and ahh when the Pin told me the weather. That I wasnt even allowed to use the device myself.
Still, Chaudhri and Bongiorno (who, note, always wore the Pin on a thick jacket to support its weight), had already planned for countless special edition releases, with the Pin in all sorts of limited edition candy colors. It didnt work, mind you. The AI Pin was nothing more than a smartphone without a screen, stuck to your chest. Its limited capabilities somehow put technology more in the way. But the entire brand and packaging promised to usher us into a new era of computing, because Humane was focused more on optics than function.
The project didnt seem salvageable, but I was actually surprised when the world of tech reviewers mirrored my initial take. These are people who review Android phones for a living! And they hated the thing.
Where this leaves HP
Humane was always going to sell as scrap to something or someone. There was just too much invested into the company for there to be nothing to show. Its carefully engineered chipset (the AI Pin used little off-the-shelf hardware) is unlikely to be worth much of anything outside the device itself, but perhaps HP has a purpose. Its 300 patents around various AI/UX interactions likely have an appeal to any tech company, if only because AI isnt going anywhere. And the purchase price isn’t beyond what companies will spend to acquihire tough-to-recruit technologists.
Im more surprised that HP has made such a public bet on the ashes of Humane, which has been immortalized in memes as a pile of bogusness. If this was some attempt at capturing whatever lingering spirit was left in the Humane brand, the two companies snuffed it out when bricking their devices.
HP says that Humane will form HP IQ, HPs new AI innovation lab focused on building an intelligent ecosystem across HPs products and services for the future of work. For a company thats still making billions in profits annually from predatory printer ink subscriptions, perhaps its a fitting end. The worst AI company of the last decade will linger as some sort of smart notification that your magenta is low.
We will make mistakes, said Elon Musk during an Oval Office press conference last week, a toddler son slung on his shoulders like a shield. But we’ll act quickly to correct any mistakes.”
His remarks came in response to a reporter whod noted Musks previous incorrect claim that the U.S. had spent $50 million on condoms for Gazans. (On X, Musk even suggested this money had actually ended up with Hamas.) Since then, his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has made severe mistakes, some of which are reportedly still being corrected as of this writing.
Slipups are, of course, expected in the heady early days of a startup, and perhaps even in a new administration. But the mistakes Musks DOGE are making are the kind that have catastrophic consequences hanging in the balance, seemingly without any corresponding appreciation of their magnitude.
What happens when his team makes one that cant quickly be corrected?
As if we never said goodbye
Just days after Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins acknowledged that Musks DOGE team had been working with the department for weeks, the USDA announced on Tuesday that it had mistakenly fired “several” agency employees over the weekend.
Those employees had been working on the government’s response to the current, increasingly worrisome bird flu outbreak. The agency has since realized its error, and is now in the process of reversing those firings.
Still, it seems like an extraordinary lapse in judgment to fire such essential workers in the first placeand evidence of profoundly misguided and underinformed cost-cutting efforts.
It was not an outlier, however. The USDA firings marked the second announced instance of DOGE mistakenly cutting essential personnel just since last weeks press conference.
On Friday, the Trump administration scrambled to reinstate a group of nuclear safety employees it had let go the day before, halting the firings of 350 federal employees (or those whose correct contact information it could find, anyway). Although DOGE has been cleaning house throughout the government since Trumps January 20 inauguration, last week was a particularly busy one, as DOGE executed mass firings across multiple federal government agencies.
But only after workers with sensitive jobs involving, say, the U.S. nuclear arsenal were let go did anyone at DOGE seem to understand that those roles might be important.
As the Associated Press reports, National Nuclear Security Administration deputy division director Rob Plonski described the firings on LinkedIn as undermining the very systems that secure our nations future. Plonski also added: Cutting the federal workforce responsible for these functions may be seen as reckless at best and adversarily opportunistic at worst.
“”The previous week, a few hundred employees at the Small Business Association (SBA) were also “accidentally” fired . . . three days before they were then officially fired.
Why this sounds so familiar
All of these mistakes echo what happened at Twitter after Musk took over in 2022, when it turned out that some of the people he mass-fired were actually keeping Twitter functional, and he had to hire some of them back. (Babies got thrown out with the bathwater is how he later described those indiscriminate firings.)
Musks recent mistakes, though, arent just limited to firings. A 25-year-old DOGE staffer named Marko Elez was mistakenly given “read/write” access to part of the payments system for the U.S. Treasurya system that disburses trillions of dollars every year.
Elezs access was quickly rescinded, but its unclear whether his receiving it actually was a mistake, or if DOGE simply got caught. (Apparently, keeping on a worker who trumpeted his flagrant racism online is not considered a mistake by Musk. When Elez resigned after the Wall Street Journal exposed his racist tweets, Musk made a public display of hiring him back.)
And what are all these mistakes even in service of? When will the supposed spoils from the great austerity push make a demonstrable difference?
Musk claims DOGE has already uncovered tremendous fraud, but the proof does not support those claims. Most recently, on Sunday, he declared, This might be the biggest fraud in history, when tweeting about a perceived discrepancy in Social Security records. His claim proved easily debunkable.
Musk and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt mainly seem to apply the fraud label to anything they find merely disagreeable, like $57,000 worth of spending relating to climate change in Sri Lanka. And some of DOGEs line-item savings announcements are riddled with mistakeslike an $8 billion contract for the Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agency that turned out to be $8 million.
It should be no surprise that Musk has already walked back his earlier vow that DOGE would cut about $2 trillion from the federal budgetor that these cuts may not be as beneficial as advertised. Musk has a long track record in the tec world of overpromising and under-delivering. In 2019, for instance, he confidently predicted Tesla would produce a million autonomous Robotaxis by the end of 2020. He reiterated that done-by-next-year promise in an earnings call last year, when he promised that Robotaxis would be coming in 2025.
Even accounting for pandemic-related delays, and assuming his latest promise even holds up later this year, Musks original pledge is still off the mark by miles.
For now, its mainly just Democratic politicians, critical press outlets, and massive public demonstrations sounding alarm bells over Musk and DOGEs recklessness. No elected Republican officials who might hold any sway seem to be pushing back. (At least not officially; reports describe Republican lawmakers privately warning Trump officials about reckless DOGE cuts.) The question now is whether it will take a true catastrophe for top lawmakers to realize it was a mistake to ever toss Musk the keys to the U.S. governmentand whether well even be able to afford it if that does come to pass.
Amid a month of skyrocketing stock prices and unprecedented social media buzz, Hims & Hers is expanding its territory into at-home blood testing and diagnostics.
Hims has acquired at-home lab testing facility Trybe Labs, the telehealth company said Wednesday. Using at-home blood draws, Hims will now offer over 70 at-home diagnostics tests, ranging from heart health to certain cancer detection tests.
All these can be arranged through the app, without a doctors visit.
At-home lab testing is one more exciting step towards elevating the personal, comprehensive care customers in this country should expect, Dr. Patrick Carroll, Hims & Hers chief medical officer, told CNBC.
Trybe Labs is based in New Jersey, and Hims & Hers will use these labs to process blood tests at low-cost for Hims & Hers members, using state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment, according to its webpage.
Pricing information for these tests will come out within the next year, according to the company.
Hims & Hers stock was up 23% during midday trading on Wednesday, following the news of the acquisition.
By offering at-home testing, Hims & Hers now puts itself in competition with industry juggernauts like Labcorp and Quest Diagnostics. Shares of Hims have jumped 230% in the last three months, while Labcorps and Quests have grown only by 4 and 6%, respectively.
The move comes during what has seemed like a month of Hims & Hers domination. The telehealth company, which vows to let its members skip the awkward doctors visits, recently entered the public consciousness with a viral and controversial Super Bowl ad.
The ad criticized the pharmaceutical industry while promoting itself as a cheaper alternative. Within the ad, a spokeswoman says: There are medicines that work, but theyre priced for profits, not patients.
After the ad aired, Hims & Hers saw a 650% increase in website traffic and an 11% increase in stock price.
President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday ordered a halt to New York Citys congestion pricing system, which thins traffic and funds mass transit by imposing high tolls on drivers entering some parts of Manhattan.
Launched on January 5, the citys system uses license plate readers to impose a $9 toll on most passenger cars entering Manhattan neighborhoods south of Central Park. In its early days, transit officials say the toll has brought modest but measurable traffic reductions.
That charge comes on top of what drivers already pay to use bridges and tunnels to get onto the island. Drivers who take a tunnel in from New Jersey during peak commuting hours now pay $31.81, or a discounted rate of $22.06 if they are enrolled in the E-ZPass toll collection program.
In a statement, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced the federal government has rescinded its approval of the program, calling it slap in the face to working class Americans and small business owners. Duffy said his agency will work with the state on an orderly termination of the tolls.
Similar tolling programs intended to force people onto public public transit by making driving cost-prohibitive have long existed in other global cities, including London, Stockholm, Milan, and Singapore, but the system had never before been tried in the U.S.
Trump, whose namesake Trump Tower penthouse and other properties are within the congestion zone, had vowed to kill the plan as soon as he took office. He previously characterized it as a massive, regressive tax.
It will be virtually impossible for New York City to come back as long as the congestion tax is in effect, Trump said in November as New York prepared to implement the plan before he took office.
Revenue from the tolls is intended to raise billions of dollars in revenue for the citys creaky and cash-strapped transit system, which carries some four million riders daily.
The tolling system has been divisive. Transit advocates and environmentalists have heralded it as an innovative step to reduce air pollution from vehicle exhaust, make streets safer for pedestrians and bikers, while speeding up traffic for vehicles that truly need to be on the road, like delivery trucks and police cars.
But the high tolls are hated by many New Yorkers who own cars, particularly those that live in the suburbs or parts of the city not well-served by the subway system.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, had fought the tolls and court and wrote a letter Trump on Inauguration Day imploring him to kill the program.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul also had misgivings. Last June, she abruptly halted the tolling systems planned launch, citing concerns about its impact on the local economy. The Democrat then revived the toll in November following Trumps election, but reduced the toll for passenger vehicles from $15 to $9. Since then, she has lauded it as a win for the city and has discussed the issue multiple times with the president.
The tolling plan was approved by New York lawmakers in 2019, but stalled for years awaiting a required federal environmental review during Trumps first term before being approved by the administration of President Joe Biden.
As in other cities, the New York congestion fee varies depending on the time and the size of the vehicle. Trucks and other large automobiles pay a higher rate, and the fee goes drops to $2.25 for most cars during the quieter overnight hours.
The toll survived several lawsuits trying to halt it before its launch, including from the state of New Jersey, unionized teachers in New York City, a trucking industry group and local elected leaders in the Hudson River Valley, Long Island, and northern New Jersey.
Philip Marcelo, Associated Press
Starbucks is shaking things up with a new approach to its cold drink cups. Instead of the usual clear plastic, many locations are now serving iced drinks in cold compostable cupsa big step toward cutting down on plastic waste.
The switch officially rolled out on February 11 across 14 states, according to Fox Business. A Starbucks spokesperson confirmed that the company “switched to commercially compostable cups and lids as part of our efforts to reduce waste and meet local market requirements.”
Right now, about 580 stores have made the change, which is just a small fraction of Starbucks 17,000+ locations in the U.S. But if you’re grabbing an iced coffee in California, Washington, Hawaii, Minnesota, Arizona, New Mexico, Massachusetts, Michigan, Maryland, Connecticut, Virginia, South Carolina, Colorado, or Georgia, you might notice the new cups in action.
Starbucks explained the purpose of the new cups, which were redesigned with a strawless lid, in a note on its website called “A Better Cup for All.”
“Weve set an ambitious goal for our cups to be 100% compostable, recyclable, or reusable; sourced from 50% recycled materials; and made using 50% less virgin fossil fuel derived sources by 2030. In the U.S. and Canada, were rolling out a more sustainable and accessible cold cup made with 10-20% less plastic just one way were driving single-use packaging innovation.”The chain also mentioned other ways it’s working towards sustainability, such as the use of “for here” cups, which are coffee mugs and glasses that can be used for orders being consumed in the store and personal cups. The brand also explained that it’s testing reusable cups in more than 30 markets. “For instance, in Petaluma, California, we piloted a program that makes reusables the default option for to-go drinks across an entire city,” it said.According to a December 2024 CBS News report, about six million cold Starbucks drinks are sold each day, adding up to about 2.2 billion plastic cups a year. In April, Starbucks announced the invention of the new cold cups, and explained they could eliminate 13 million pounds of plastic wastemost of which ends up in landfills.
The waste-reducing moves are, of course, good for the environment. But Starbucks cups have always been a hot-button issue. Whether it’s disagreements over holiday designs, or pushback over sustainability efforts, changes rarely go unnoticed, and they haven’t this time, either. Social media users were quick to critique the new compostable design, especially the new lid. “Trying to sip cold foam through them is awful,” one Reddit user shared. “The lid has an odd taste and texture and the hole is too small.”Many customers shared the insight that they prefer to see their drink before consuming it, especially drinks with layers, or that are meant to be aesthetically pleasing. And several comments pointed to the fact that it will be tough for TikTokkers to show off their drinks in the new cups, which are not see-through. “No more Tiktok drinks. Can’t flaunt a drink if it’s hidden,” the commenter lamented.
While the change certainly will be noticeable on TikTok, as posting food and drink reviews is a wildly popular pastime, plenty of customers applauded the move. Because while the cup isn’t clear, the environmental impact sure is. “I’m all for that. I think we need more paper cups and less plastic ones,” one customer wrote. Another echoed the sentiment, writing, If it means dramatically reducing the amount of plastic cups, we should all be rejoicing.”
Nikola Corporation (Nasdaq: NKLA), a once-promising electric vehicle startup, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Wednesday after failing to secure a buyer or raise additional funds to sustain operations. The Phoenix-based company, known for its hydrogen and battery-electric trucks, announced that it will pursue a structured sale of its assets under Section 363 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
Nikola enters Chapter 11 with approximately $47 million in cash to fund ongoing activities, including the sale process and an orderly wind-down of its business. The company has filed customary “first day” motions to ensure limited operations can continue, including employee obligations and certain HYLA fueling operations through March 2025. However, the long-term future of its service network and fueling infrastructure depends on securing new partners.
Not enough
“With the dedication of our employees and support from our partners, Nikola has taken significant steps to move zero-emissions transportation forward, including bringing the first commercially available Class 8 hydrogen fuel cell electric trucks to market in North America and developing the HYLA hydrogen refueling highway,” said Nikola President and CEO Steve Girsky. “Unfortunately, our very best efforts have not been enough to overcome these significant challenges, and the Board has determined that Chapter 11 represents the best possible path forward under the circumstances for the Company and its stakeholders.”
The company’s collapse follows years of financial and legal troubles. Founder and former CEO Trevor Milton was convicted of securities and wire fraud in 2022 for misleading investors about Nikola’s technology. Production of its core productsbattery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell semi-trucksbegan in 2022, but only 600 units had been produced by late 2024. Recalls and manufacturing issues further drained its resources.
Failed Expectations
Adding to its difficulties, Nikola has faced an increasingly uncertain regulatory landscape. The suspension of the National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) programa federal initiative designed to subsidize EV charging infrastructurehas raised concerns about the long-term viability of hydrogen and battery-electric trucking. Additionally, proposed rollbacks on EV tax credits have introduced further instability, potentially dampening demand for zero-emissions commercial vehicles.
Despite months of seeking alternatives, Nikola determined that a structured sale process was the best way to maximize the value of its assets. The proposed bidding procedures, pending court approval, will allow interested partiesincluding strategic and financial buyersto submit binding offers.
Girsky had previously stated in October that Nikola was actively talking to lots of potential different partners who value what we do and value what weve built. However, despite its efforts to secure financing, the company warned investors in late 2024 that it lacked the capital to continue operations beyond early 2025.
Nikola’s stock, which once peaked at around $80 per share in 2020, is now trading for under $0.50 per share, reflecting the company’s significant financial struggles. As of February 2025, the stock price is approximately $0.46 per share. The company now joins a growing list of EV startups that failed to meet initial expectations, underscoring the sector’s financial volatility and dependence on shifting regulatory policies.
Apple has introduced its first new product of 2025: the iPhone 16E. The new iPhone replaces the iPhone SE from Apples lineupthe companys entry-level, budget iPhone. But the iPhone 16E is more than just a minor spec update to the existing third-generation iPhone SE, which debuted nearly three years ago.
As its name suggests, Apples new entry-level device has more in common with its flagship iPhone 16 series, introduced last year, than the now-discontinued iPhone SE of old. Here are five major changes Apple has made and who, exactly, the new iPhone 16E is for.
[Photo: Apple]
A new design with a 6.1-inch display
The most noticeable thing about the iPhone 16E is that in design, it more closely resembles modern-day iPhones, such as the iPhone 15 and iPhone 16, the latter from which it derives its name.
The iPhone SE that the iPhone 16E replaced retained the same design as the iPhone 8 back in 2017. That design included a thick forehead and chin squeezing the tiny, 4.7-inch display from the top and bottom. With the elimination of the top and bottom bumpers around the display, Apple has been able to grow the size of the 16E’s screen by 1.4 inches. Yet, because Apple has done this by eliminating those ugly bumpers, Apple managed to only grow the physical size of the entire device by a few millimeters on all sides.
But most importantly about the iPhone 16Es new design is that Apples entry-level iPhone now more closely resembles all other modern-day, entry-level phonesincluding Android ones. Consumers are used to smartphones having near edge-to-edge displays and the fact that the iPhone SE never had this turned many off the device.
Face ID replaces Touch ID
Another big change with the iPhone 16E is that it adopts Face ID, Apples biometric authentication system. This means that with the introduction of the iPhone 16E, Apple no longer sells a phone with the companys groundbreaking Touch ID biometric authentication system it first introduced in 2013.
Not only does the elimination of Touch ID mean the iPhones once-iconic physical home button is now a thing of the past, but it also means that the iPhone 16E is more secure than the iPhone SE ever was. Thats because Face ID has a false-positive rate of one in a million, whereas Touch ID has a false-positive rate of just one in 50,000. Thats a 20x improvement in biometric security.
Bye-bye Lightning port, hello USB-C
But for many people with multiple modern devices, the most welcome change to the iPhone 16E is that Apple has finally replaced the archaic Lightning port on its entry-level iPhone. Instead of Lightning, the iPhone 16E now features a universal USB-C port, which means that you no longer need to rely on proprietary cables to charge your iPhone.
The iPhone 16E, like other modern iPhones and Android phones, can now be charged with any USB-C cable, even if that cable is the one that came with your MacBook Pro or your Samsung Galaxy device.
A18 chip and an Apple-built 5G modem
Internally, Apple has given the iPhone 16E a massive performance boost over the iPhone SE it replaces. The new iPhone 16E now features the same A18 chip that is found in the iPhone 16 (a huge improvement over the A15 in the previous iPhone SE). Additionally, the iPhone 16E has also received a RAM boost to 8GB (from the 4GB found in the SE).
Theres a reason for the generous chip and RAM upgrades, which Ill get to next. But first, it’s also worth mentioning that the iPhone 16E has a first for any iPhone: Its the first Apple device to use Apples new custom 5G modem.
Apple didnt give many details about its new custom cellular modem, dubbed the Apple C1, beyond saying that the modem is the most power-efficient modem ever on an iPhone.
[Photo: Apple]
Apple Intelligence built-in
But getting back to that A18 chips boost and doubling of the RAM to 8GB. Theres a reason Apple has done that. It allows the new iPhone 16E to run Apple Intelligence, Apples new AI platform introduced with iOS 18.1.
Apple sees Apple Intelligence as a potential major driver of iPhone sales in the short and long term. Given that Apple usually only updates its entry-level iPhone once every three or so years, the company wants to make sure that the iPhone 16E will be able to run Apple Intelligence for the foreseeable futuremaking it appealing to cost-conscious and AI-curious consumers, no matter if they buy the device this year or next.
Who is the iPhone 16E for?
Apple is positioning the iPhone 16E as the companys new low-cost iPhone. However, in some regards, the iPhone 16E is a better choice than the iPhone 15, which Apple continues to sell.
To be sure, the iPhone 15 still offers some better features, including a dual-lens rear camera setup (versus the single-lens camera found on the iPhone 16E). But the iPhone 15 lacks the necessary chipset and RA to run Apple Intelligence.
Thats why if you are looking for the lowest-cost iPhone that is built for today’s AI world, the iPhone 16E is a better choice than the iPhone 15. However, if you are looking for the lowest-cost iPhone with a more modern camera system, the iPhone 15, with its dual-lens setup, is better than the iPhone 16E.
The iPhone 15 also sports the Dynamic Island, which the iPhone 16E lacks (yes, the iPhone 16E has the notch). Another minus for the iPhone 16E is its lack of MagSafe, the iPhone feature that lets you magnetically attach devices like power banks to your iPhone to charge the device.
But while the iPhone 16E offers several benefits over the iPhone SE it replaces, there is one drawback the device has gaineda price rise. The previous iPhone SE started at just $429. The new iPhone 16E starts at $599a staggering $170 more than the SE. This high price means it’s debatable as to whether Apple actually offers a budget iPhone any longer.
Preorders for the iPhone 16E begin this Friday, February 21. The device will go on sale to the public a week later on Friday, February 28.
