Buying health insurance is about to become even less affordable for millions of Americans, if Congress doesnt act before the end of the year.
A set of more generous subsidies put in place as a pandemic relief measure is on track to expire at the end of 2025. If allowed to lapse, premiums will soar for many people who rely on health insurance purchased through marketplace plans under the Affordable Care Act. The looming health insurance premium price hike is known as the subsidy cliff.
Millions of Americans who arent offered insurance through work rely on the insurance marketplace and its subsidies for coverage. That includes self-employed, contract and part-time workers, many students and young retirees not yet eligible for coverage under Medicare. If the extended subsidies expire, people with marketplace coverage will see a 75% increase on average for their monthly insurance premium.
A helpful calculator from the health policy group the Kaiser Family Foundation demonstrates how dramatic that change might be for American families. In one example, a family of four in West Virginia making $125,000 could go from paying $885 to $2,918 each month an increase that could easily put insurance out of financial reach. Because states have their own rules, income limits and subsidies on top of the federal framework, any pain from newly unaffordable premiums will be felt unevenly around the country.
The higher costs could drive an estimated four million people away from the marketplace, sending the number of uninsured Americans up for the first time in years. Marketplace enrollment opens at the beginning of November, so Congress and the Trump administration are on deadline if they want to keep plans cheaper leading into next years midterm elections.
Why did marketplace plans get cheaper?
Insurance plans under the ACA have always offered subsidies, known as premium tax credits, that make them more affordable for people in lower income households. What is set to expire at the years end is the enhanced set of subsidies put in place as a pandemic relief measure during the early Biden administration. Those subsidies meant that many more households could qualify for help paying their insurance premiums.
The expanded premium tax credits both boosted the portion of the premium covered by the government for many Americans and extended eligibility for the credit to households with an income above 400% of the federal poverty guideline, capping premium payments at 8.5% of income. In 2025, a two-person family with a household income of $84,600 or a four-person family making $128,600 could still be eligible for subsidized insurance premiums under the expansion.
If the enhanced tax credits lapse, eligibility for the subsidies will revert to their pre-pandemic limits. Households that make between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty guidelines can still qualify, but families with an income exceeding those guidelines would again be on the hook for paying the full monthly premium. Millions of families that signed up with marketplace plans after 2021 may experience sticker shock, having never shouldered the full cost of their monthly insurance premiums. According to KFF data, marketplace enrollees in West Virginia, Wyoming and Vermont are poised for the worst premium price hikes.
The two-year phase of enhanced subsidies was signed into law under the American Rescue Plan Act in early 2021 by former President Biden. The discounts were designed to be temporary, making health insurance more accessible during a difficult time for many Americans, but Biden later extended them for an additional three years through 2022s Inflation Reduction Act, his signature legislative package focused on the climate crisis. With the extension, the enhanced subsidies are set to expire before 2026 insurance plans kick in unless Congress and the White House intervene.
The number of insured Americans is way up
Insurance plans offered through the ACA, also known as Obamacare, have ameliorated the number of uninsured Americans over the last decade. The number of people without health insurance in the U.S. has fallen by 20 million since 2013, the year before the first marketplace plans went into effect.
More Americans are signing up for marketplace insurance plans every year, a phenomenon at least partially driven by enhanced subsidies that make the plans more affordable. As of early 2025, 24.2 million people almost 7% of the U.S. population opted for health coverage through marketplace plans for the calendar year.
The number of insured people in the U.S. is at historic highs, but that doesnt mean health insurance is cheap. Even with Medicaid and marketplace subsidies, more than 1.6 million low-income Americans still slip into a gap between eligibility for Medicaid coverage and marketplace subsidies.
Almost two-thirds of uninsured adults surveyed by the KFF in 2023 said that they dont have insurance because they couldnt afford the cost of coverage. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 4.2 million more people will be uninsured in 2034 if the enhanced tax credits are allowed to lapse rather than made permanent. The CBO estimates that making the expanded tax credits permanent would increase the national budget deficit by $335 billion from 2025 to 2034.
Republicans once battled to repeal the ACA, but those efforts were famously doomed by a dramatic thumbs down from the late Senator John McCain. Uptake of marketplace plans has soared since the programs early days, a phenomenon that runs in parallel with the rise of the gig economy, for better or worse.
While the Trump administration hasnt been shy about gutting insurance coverage for low income Americans to pay for tax cuts, Republicans are wary about how the subsidy cliff might impact theirodds in the 2026 midterms. The Trump administration did just announce expanded access to low premium, high deductible catastrophic plans for people who dont qualify for marketplace subsidies starting next year, so right now it looks like the cheaper premiums that help millions of Americans afford insurance may not be long for this world.
Soon you may be able to book an Uber ride in the skies. On Wednesday, the San Francisco-based ride-sharing service announced it is partnering with Joby Aviation, a company developing electric air taxis, to bring Blades helicopter service to the Uber app as soon as next year.
Last month Joby acquired Blade Air Mobility, which flies passengers by seaplanes,` in a $125 million deal, providing Joby with an established network of terminals.
The partnership lays the foundation for Joby’s introduction into key urban markets, and for a faster entry into commercial service once its all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircrafts are certified.
Last year, Blade flew more than 50,000 passengers in the New York metro area, including to and from Newark Liberty International Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport, Manhattan, and the Hamptonsas well as in Southern Europe.
As Fast Company previously reported, Jobys all-electric fleet is designed to travel up to 200 miles per hour, with minimal noise and zero operating emissions, with four passengers. The company aims to revolutionize urban travel with faster, quieter commutes and less traffic congestion.
Were excited to introduce Uber customers to the magic of seamless urban air travel, Joby CEO JoeBen Bevirt said in a statement. Integrating Blade into the Uber app is the natural next step in our global partnership with Uber and will lay the foundation for the introduction of our quiet, zero-emissions aircraft in the years ahead. Together with Ubers global platform and Blades proven network, were setting the stage for a new era of air travel worldwide.
Joby successfully completed a series of piloted flights in Dubai back in June, a first for the regions eVTOL aircraft sector. The company plans to launch there in 2026.
Uber has been working with Joby to deliver urban air mobility since 2019.
Joby and Uber financials
Shares in Joby Aviation, Inc. (NYSE: JOBY) stock soared in pre-and early trading on Wednesday, only to lose much of the early gains. The stock was trading up about 1% by midday. Uber Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: UBER) was down over 1%.
In its Q2 2025 earnings, for the quarter ending on June 30, Joby Aviation reported EPS (earnings per share) of –$0.24, which missed estimates of -$0.18. Revenue was down 94.6% year-over-year to $0.02 million, coming in below analyst estimates of $0.05 million.
Meanwhile, Uber’s Q2 2025 earnings beat expectations, with revenue coming in at $12.65 billion, marking a growth of 18% year-over-year, beating estimates of $12.46 billion. Earnings per share came in at $0.63.
Sandwich maker Potbelly is being acquired by the gas station and convenience store chain RaceTrac for $566 million.
Potbelly, which was founded in Chicago in 1977, has 445 restaurants across the U.S. The company said the deal with RaceTrac will help it reach its goal of quadrupling in size to 2,000 locations. Potbelly stores are both company- and franchise-owned.
With RaceTracs resources, we will unlock new opportunities for this incredible brand while staying true to the neighborhood sandwich shop experience that makes Potbelly special, Potbelly CEO Bob Wright said in a statement Wednesday.
Potbelly shares jumped more than 31%, to $17.
Sandwich chains and restaurants have struggled in recent years, starting with the pandemic that had millions eating at home when they would usually have dined out.
Yet Potbelly’s profits have been rising, and growth in its franchised businesses has been strong.
Now it is inflation that is hitting restaurants hard as they pay more for ingredients and customers tighten their belts. At the same time, national chains are being pressured to lower prices, with lower-income customers pulling back on spending and sticking to essentials.
McDonalds said this month that it is cutting prices on some combo meals to woo back customers whove been turned off by the rising costs of grabbing a fast-food meal.
Some chains have become takeover targets.
Daves Hot Chicken was acquired over the summer for $1 billion by a private equity firm. The same firm, Roark Capital, snapped up Subway in 2023 for nearly $10 billion.
Roark specializes in franchised businesses and backs two holding companies that own multiple restaurant chains: Inspire Brands, the parent of Arbys, Dunkin, Jimmy Johns, and Buffalo Wild Wings; and Focus Brands, which owns Auntie Annes, Carvel, Cinnabon, and Jamba.
RaceTrac was founded in 1934 and is family-owned. The Atlanta company operates more than 800 locations in 14 states. RaceTrac chairman and CEO Natalie Morhous said the company is eager to expand its stable of brands.
RaceTrac said it will acquire all of Potbellys shares for $17.12 per share in an all-cash deal.
The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter.
By Dee-Ann Durbin, AP business writer
A Senate committee on Wednesday approved the nomination of White House economic adviser Stephen Miran to the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, setting up a likely approval by the full Senate, which would make Miran the third Trump appointee to the seven-member board.
The White House has pushed for an expedited Senate approval of Miran, who was nominated by President Donald Trump to replace former Fed governor Adriana Kugler. Kugler stepped down Aug. 1. Miran would, if approved, simply finish her term, which expires in January.
Miran may be approved by the full Senate in time for the Fed’s meeting next week, when it is widely expected to reduce its key short-term interest rate. The committee voted to approve Miran on partisan lines, 13-11, with all Democrats voting against confirmation.
Miran’s nomination has raised concerns about the Fed’s independence from day-to-day politics, particularly since he said during a hearing last week that he would keep his job as head of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers while on the Fed’s board, a historically unusual arrangement. Presidents have nominated members of their staffs to the Fed’s board before, but the nominees have always given up their White House jobs.
Trump has hoped to gain a majority on the Fed’s board as part of his efforts to push the central bank to rapidly cut its key interest rate. Yet late Tuesday his goal was dealt a setback when a federal court blocked Trump’s effort to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook, who he has accused of mortgage fraud.
It is now likely that both Miran and Cook will be on the Fed’s board when it meets next week. Members of the Fed’s board of governors vote on all interest rate decisions as well as on financial regulatory policy. Trump appointed two other members of the board Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman in his first term. Waller has been mentioned as a potential replacement for Chair Jerome Powell, a frequent Trump target whose term ends next May.
Democrats on the committee criticized Miran for planning to keep his White House ties while at the Fed.
The Federal Reserve was designed to make decisions free from political interference, guided by data and the long-term stability of our economy, not the political agenda of any one president,” Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, said in a statement before the vote. Donald Trump has made clear he wants to tear down that independence, just as he has with so many of the institutions that have kept our democracy and our economy strong.
Miran said he would step down from his White House position if he is chosen for a longer term. Yet he can remain on the board after Kugler’s term ends in January, if no replacement is named. He has said in that case he would consider keeping his White House job even if he remains on the board after January, sparking fresh criticism from Democrats.
The jockeying around the Fed is occurring as the economy is entering an uncertain and difficult period. Inflation remains stubbornly above the central bank’s 2% target, though it hasn’t risen as much as many economists feared when Trump first imposed sweeping tariffs on nearly all imports. The Fed typically would raise borrowing costs, or at least keep them elevated, to combat worsening inflation.
At the same time, hiring has weakened considerably and the unemployment rate rose last month to a still-low 4.3%. The central bank often takes the opposite approach when unemployment rises and cuts rates, to spur more borrowing, spending, and growth.
Powell signaled late last month that the Fed may focus more on risks to the job market in the coming months, which makes rate cuts more likely. Wall Street investors now expect three quarter-point reductions this year, which would reduce the Fed’s short-term rate to about 3.6%, from its current level of 4.3%.
The Fed cut its key rate three times in 2024, but has kept it unchanged since then. Powell has said the central bank wanted to evaluate the impact of Trumps tariffs on the economy before making any moves.
Christopher Rugaber, AP economics writer
Novo Nordisk, the Danish pharmaceutical giant behind the popular weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, just announced plans to cut 11% of its workforce as competitors like Eli Lilly continue to encroach on its market share.
On September 10, Novo Nordisk shared in a press release that it intends to nix 9,000 positions out of its global workforce of 78,400. The company cited a more competitive obesity market, as well as a recent slowdown in growth, as two of the main reasons driving the move to reduce organisational complexity and costs.
As the global leader in obesity and diabetes, Novo Nordisk delivers life-changing products for patients worldwide, Mike Doustdar, Novo Nordisk president and CEO, said in the release. But our markets are evolving, particularly in obesity, as it has become more competitive and consumer-driven. Our company must evolve as well.
In the wake of the announcement, Novo Nordisks share price held relatively steady. However, the company has been losing steam more broadly over the past few months: Since this time last year, its stock has declined by 58%.
Novo Nordisk is facing increased competition on several fronts, including from providers offering compounded versions of its drugs (which its actively fighting in court) and from fellow pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisks main rival and purveyor of the weight-loss medications Zepbound and Mounjaro.
Novo Nordisk faces heightened competition
For Novo Nordisks business, a top concern at the moment is the ongoing prevalence of other companies offering compoundedor non-FDA approvedversions of its brand-name drugs using the active ingredient semaglutide.
Back in 2022, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declared a shortage of GLP-1 medications including Ozempic and Wegovy, which permitted compounded versions of the medication under federal law. But after that shortage notice was officially lifted back in May, Novo Nordisk says the compounded versions of Ozempic and Wegovy are still being produced and sold.
In June, Novo Nordisk cut ties with the telehealth company Hims & Hers Health after accusing Hims of selling alleged knock-off weight-loss drugs, and the pharmaceutical company is actively in court with dozens of other U.S. companies that it claims are similarly duping its drugs. In July, Novo Nordisk also cut its full-year 2025 guidance, which it attributed in part to compounded drug sales.
For Wegovy in the US, the sales outlook reflects the persistent use of compounded GLP-1s, slower-than-expected market expansion and competition, the company said at the time. It added that, as far as Ozempic was concerned, the updated outlook is negatively impacted by competition in the U.S.
Aside from companies selling compounded drugs, Novo Nordisk is also facing increasingly tough competition from Eli Lilly and its two popular FDA-approved weight-loss drugs.
Eli Lillys second-quarter earnings report, released in early August, showed that sales of Mounjaro reached nearly $5.2 billion in revenue, up 68% from the same quarter last year, while sales of Zepbound reached $3.4 billion, up 172% year-over-year. Given these wins, Eli Lilly increased its full-year guidance. Around the same time, Novo Nordisk released a second-quarter report that reflected its lowered growth expectations.
It appears that Novo Nordisks layoffs are part of a push to meet these challenges head-on. Per the press release, the workforce cuts are expected to deliver total annualized savings of around $1.25 billion by the end of the yearsavings that will be redirected to growth opportunities in diabetes and obesity. Doustdar added that the job cuts are part of a necessary shift in the companys mindset, so we can be faster and more agile.
Always-on internet connections have become as essential as running water, heat, and power. But a massive outage affecting Africa, Asia, and the Middle East in recent days underscores the fragility of the infrastructure that keeps us online. Some 15 subsea cables run through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, and four were reportedly severed, significantly disrupting internet traffic.
Hundreds of subsea cables lie on the sea floor, carrying nearly all global internet traffic (an estimated 99%). We had cuts in the Red Sea last year, and now were in the same boat again, so to speak, says Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Kentik. When capacity is lost, providers must reroute traffic to the remaining links, creating latency and reliability issues.
The continent-affecting internet outages, which are likely to persist because of issues accessing the area affected, have led to a renewed debate about the reliability of subsea cablesand whether there are alternatives, such as satellite-based links provided by the likes of Starlink.
Although past cable outages have sometimes been deliberate, this one is widely believed to be accidental. The Red Sea is a kind of problematic area because you have all the maritime traffic coming through the Suez Canal, and theyre waiting their turn to get to the Suez, Madory explains. They have to drop an anchor while they’re waiting, and when you have a lot of ships dropping a lot of anchors in shallow water, its just a recipe for disaster.
Cable cuts are often repaired quickly, but this case is more complicated because of its location off the coast of Yemen, where conflict involving the Houthis slows repair efforts. With as many as 200 incidents reported annually, the frequency of disruptions is prompting renewed interest in alternatives.
One option is satellite internet, such as Starlink, which Ukraine has relied on to avoid Russian sabotage of cables. Other competitorsincluding Project Kuiper and Eutelsat OneWebare also expanding rapidly, according to a new report by equity research firm MoffettNathanson.
Starlink has already amassed more than six million subscribers across countries around the world, and in regions like sub-Saharan Africa, it has become an important backstop when terrestrial connectivity fails. The theory is that outages such as the Red Sea cuts could speed up adoption in markets where consumers and businesses are willing to pay a premium for resilience. However, the service remains expensivekits cost several hundred dollars and monthly fees run higher than many local providersputting its reach beyond mass consumer adoption in lower-income areas.
Still, satellites cant yet compete with fiber optics. Starlink, or any satellite service, is just not going to be able to re-create the capacity that you get on a fiber optic cable, Madory says. Subsea cables can carry three petabits of data per second, compared with 150 terabits via satellites. That gap may narrowplanned launches over the next three years could boost satellite capacity to 800 terabits a secondbut for now, subsea cables remain the backbone of the global internet.
Another year, another iPhone event. But the iPhone 17 lines introduction was one of the more significant in some time, with Apple making major hardware changes that look to have resulted in a competitive, highly differentiated lineup.
While the higher-end models will grab most of the headlines, some of the biggest upgrades have come to the base iPhone 17, as well as new features that apply across the entire range. I would not have considered using an iPhone 16 as my daily driver, but the 17 looks like a great buy at $799.
The upgrades
The top upgrade is ProMotion, or 120Hz variable refresh rate, which enables smooth on-screen motion thats impossible to go back from once youre used to it. Apple first introduced it on the iPad Pro before bringing it to the iPhone and MacBook Pro, but a high refresh rate has long been table stakes for Android phones that cost well below the iPhone 17, so its introduction at this level is both overdue and welcome. The feature uses LTPO screen technology, which also enables an always-on display on the 17.
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Other upgrades for the iPhone 17 include a 48-megapixel ultrawide camera, in line with the Pro models. Storage on the base model has also been doubled to 256GB without a corresponding increase in price.
The whole iPhone 17 lineup is getting new features that trickle down to the base iPhone 17. Charging speeds have been boosted, the Ceramic Shield 2 glass promises to be sturdier, and the screen has an anti-reflective finish. The addition that will get the most use is undoubtedly the new 18-megapixel Center Stage selfie camera, which uses a square sensor to intelligently switch between portrait and landscape photos without you needing to physically rotate the phone.
While the iPhone 17 might not be all that exciting, I think Id be happy enough using one as my main phone. Apple has ticked off a lot of boxes here, making the iPhone 17 much more competitive with similarly priced devices like the Google Pixel 10. The vibrant color options help, too.
The MacBook Air of phones
But the $999 iPhone Airnot the 17 Air, surprisinglyrepresents a whole new take on iPhone design. Most of the phones computing components have been crammed into the camera bar, allowing Apple to fill the rest of the ultrathin device with battery cells.
Its an inspired approach, but there are two obvious trade-offs. You only get one camera lens, much as Apple likes to pretend that its digital zoom system gives you four, and the battery capacity is still diminished compared to the other iPhone 17 models.
On the other hand, Apple is claiming 27 hours of video playback time on the Air, which is what it rated last years iPhone 16 Plus and 16 Pro at. Thats a little hard to believe, but well have to wait until the phones are in hand to see how they perform in practice. It is worth noting that Apple is selling a new $99 MagSafe battery pack that works with the Airand only the Air.
The SIM card slot is another casualty of the Airs constrained dimensions. Apple has already been omitting the physical slot from iPhones in the U.S. for a while, but this is the first time its doing so on any model across the worldwhich is particularly notable in China, where only a single carrier, third-placed China Unicom, even offers eSIM support.
The Air might be cooked in China, then, but itll be fascinating to see how it performs elsewhere. Earlier this year I speculated that the goal should be to create something like the MacBook Air of phones: impressive design with unspectacular specs that are good enough for most use cases and I think Apple might just have pulled that off.
Adventurous colors
The iPhone 17 Pro, meanwhile, has gone in completely the opposite direction. Its muscular redesign adds a little more thickness, a little more weight, and a chunky new camera bump that runs the full width of the phone.
Apple has returned to aluminum on its Pro phones, this time in a unibody build with a glass cutout to enable wireless charging. Thats a notable backtrack after the company made a big deal out of shifting to titanium two years ago, a move widely blamed for the iPhone 15 and 16 Pros poor thermal performance. Apple is also using a new vapor chamber cooling system on the 17 Pro, which should further alleviate that issue.
One way to express confidence in your industrial design is to release it in bright orange, and thats what Apples done this year. Equally as out of character is the decision to eschew a black model; the only other two iPhone 17 Pro colorways are white and dark blue. If that boosts the sales numbers of the orange version and promotes more adventurous colors in the future, Im all for it.
The 17 Pro comes with a significantly upgraded telephoto camera setup. The focal length is now 4x the main camera, down from 5x in the 16 Pro, but the 1/2 sensor is much larger than before and Id expect it to perform better at 5x and beyond. While this still doesnt quite compete with the best from Chinese companies like Xiaomi and Oppo, it should be comfortably the best smartphone zoom camera available in the U.S.
Finally, the RAM has been boosted by 50% to 12GB. Apple Intelligence did not exactly set the world on fire, but if its going to be the impetus for Apple to stop shipping miserly amounts of memory on its highest end phones, Ill take it.
This is looking like a really strong iPhone lineup. Each model has its clear strengths and I honestly think Id be happy to use any of them. This is going to be the first time in a long while that a lot of upgraders will have to think hard about which one to go for.
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The signature of an American president is one of the planet’s most powerful symbols. It can set your tax bill, your immigration status and who does or does not get aid from the world’s largest economy.
Now, though, Donald Trumps distinctive signature is being scrutinized for a decidedly unpresidential reason.
Two documents in Jeffrey Epstein ‘s 50th-birthday album purportedly include Trump’s signature one on a risque line drawing of a female body and one on a picture of Epstein holding up a novelty check bearing Trumps name. A House committee released the 2003 book on Monday, with some members insisting the multi-peaked black signatures are authentically Trump’s, one of the best-known autographs in the world. The White House says the president did not sign the letter or the check to Epstein, who was later exposed as a sex offender and died by suicide in prison in 2019.
Its not my signature, Trump told reporters outside a restaurant in Washington on Tuesday night. And its not the way I speak. Also Tuesday, the president declared the Epstein matter a dead issue in a phone call with NBC News.
The birthday book signatures matter in part because they are perceived as a measure of how close Trump was to Epstein before the president says he ended the friendship two decades ago.
And they are part of a bipartisan push in Congress for the release of the so-called Epstein files after years of speculation and conspiracy theories stoked by Trump and many of his allies. The Justice Department in August began turning over records from the Epstein sex trafficking investigation to the House Oversight Committee.
Signatures have a history of conferring authority. But now?
By the standards of handwriting scholars, determining whether its truly Trump’s signature is difficult. By the standards of the U.S. political system, its impossible. Despite the obvious resemblance to Trumps other signatures, partisan loyalty is driving opinion.
Tamara Plakins Thornton, professor emerita of history at the University at Buffalo and author of Handwriting in America: A Cultural History, said handwritten signatures have conferred authority and authenticity by consent since the printing press raised their popularity in the 19th century.
We have a fondness for signatures as marks of the unique self, Thornton said. But of course its kind of baloney if you think about it. Its been a long time since (a signature) really could give that rock-solid proof.
Authenticity is a very difficult thing to prove, said Tyler Feldman, owner of Inscriptagraphs, a memorabilia firm in Las Vegas. The multibillion-dollar memorabilia industry, he said, revolves around establishing an objects authenticity via science and analysis contracted to specialists. In the age of AI and deepfakes, there are so many fraud signatures out there, he added, whether he signed it or not, its too hard to say.
Nonetheless, signatures have great value and a long history in American folklore.
The signing pens themselves are status symbols of presidential access, shown off in lobbying and congressional offices around Washington as signs of clout. It is customary, for example, for presidents to sign legislation into law using multiple pens they then give out, often on camera, to stakeholders in turn. Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did the same when she signed articles of impeachment against Trump in 2020 in what amounted to a power flex as the leader of a separate and equal branch of government.
John Hancock, one of the nation’s founders, famously signed his name to the Declaration of Independence in a large and flamboyant style the better, legend has it, for the king of England to read without his spectacles. Now, one’s John Hancock is a nickname for one’s signature.
If not proof, signatures point to stubborn political pain for Trump
Even Trump can see from experience that he can’t just command the sizable swaths of his own base demanding a full accounting to let it go, especially after his allies stoked the call to release the Epstein files. He’s tried repeatedly to deflect attention to other matters and shame weaklings who persist in asking about Epstein. Trump has called the scandal a Democrat hoax that never ends and vowed to sue The Wall Street Journal, which first revealed the letter.
Even the hoax characterization has changed in the face of questions of logic: Who would have forged his signature in 2003 and why? On Tuesday, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt answered that it was all a Democratic and media narrative to drag on this bad story about him. She said the White House would support analyses of Trumps purported signature on the Epstein scrapbook.
Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who is leading a bipartisan push for a House vote to force the Justice Department to release its Epstein files, played down the letters relevance.
I think the documents a distraction,” Massie said. I do think that it does bear on the credibility of the people who are trying to keep these documents from being released. Its sort of indicative of the things that might come out if we were to release all of the files. In other words: embarrassing, but not indictable.
Trump understands the value of his utograph
Trump was a celebrity before he was a politician, and his signature is an extension of his brand. He has long been fond of sending notes to people, always with his thick scrawl at the bottom. In December 2015, Trump was widely photographed signing the chest of a female supporter at a rally in Manassas, Virginia, rock star-style. Smiling, she then blew him a kiss, according to photos of the exchange.
He understands the value of authenticity: As recently as June, Trump repeated his long-standing allegations that President Joe Biden’s White House relied on an autopen to sign presidential pardons, executive orders and other key documents, and said that cast doubt on their validity. Pressed by reporters, Trump acknowledged he had no such evidence, and Biden said any such suggestion was false.
As president, Trump keeps Sharpie markers handy. When he went to the U.S. Open, on Sunday, he signed hats and tossed them to supporters in the crowd.
Trump also enjoys the theatricality of signing documents, a way to demonstrate the power of the presidency. He frequently summons the press into the Oval Office while he completes executive orders. An aide lays the document on the desk in front of him, Trump scrawls his signature and then holds it up for the cameras.
Seriously, is that a good signature? he asked during one such session on Aug. 25. Who can write like that? Nobody.
Laurie Kellman, Associated Press
Associated Press writers Chris Megerian and Matt Brown contributed to this report.
Months ago, I warned about shadow AI: employees moving faster than their companies, using AI without permission or training, while managers pretended not to notice. The right response was never prohibition but education and better governance. That was only the first signal of something bigger: BYOA or BYOAI, bring your own algorithm or bring your own AI. Now the trend is visible everywhere: workers are embedding their own agents into daily workflows, while companies scramble to bolt on controls after the fact. The comparison with the old BYOD is misleadingthis is not about carrying a device, but about bringing in a cognitive layer that decides, infers, and learns alongside us. Now, recent evidence makes this gap even harder to ignore.
The data backs it up: Microsofts Work Trend Index already noted in 2024 that three out of four employees were using AI, and that 78% of them were bringing it from home, without waiting for corporate tools. This isnt marginal: its the new normal in an overworked environment where AI becomes a cognitive shortcut. The 2025 report goes further, warning that todays workload pushes the limits of the human and that the real frontier organizations will be those that adopt humanagent collaboration as their default architecture. Governance, meanwhile, is still lagging behind.Even so, the soothing corporate narrative (well provide official access and train everyone soon) ignores an uncomfortable fact: BYOAI is not a fad, its an asymmetry of power. Half of all employees admit to using unapproved tools, and they wouldnt stop even if you banned them. The incentive is obvious: less friction, higher performance, and with it, better evaluations and opportunities. This shadow AI is the natural extension of shadow IT, but this time with qualitative consequences: an external model can leak data, yes, but it can also accumulate the organizations tacit knowledgeand walk out the door with the employee the day they leave.
Sociology not technology
The real shift is not technological, its sociological. Most users, the non-experts, will simply adopt whatever OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, Perplexity, Anthropic, or others give them, using those models like cognitive appliances: plug and play, nothing more, and they will share all the data they generate with these companies, that will exploit them (a.k.a. monetize them) to oblivion.
But a different type of professional is already emerging: the truly competent, AI-savvy users who build or assemble their own agents, feed them with their data, fine-tune them, run them on their own infrastructure, and treat them as part of their personal capital. This person no longer uses software: they work with their personal AI. Without it, their productivity, their method, and even their professional identity collapse. Telling them to abandon their agent to comply with a corporate list of approved tools is like telling a professional guitar player to play on a toy guitar. The result will always be worse.
This reality forces companies to rethink incetives. If you want that caliber of talent, you cannot hope to blunt their edge with policy memos. Just as BYOD ended with corporate devices inside secure containers, BYOA will end with enclaves of trusted compute inside the corporate perimeter: spaces where a professionals personal agent can operate with model attestation, sealed weights, clearly defined data perimeters, transparent telemetry, and cryptographic limits. The goal is not to standardize agents, but to make their coexistence possiblesafe for the business, free for the professional.
The prognosis
My prognosis is clear: first of all, contracts will evolve too. Expect algorithmic clauses spelling out the use of personal agents: declaration of models and datasets, isolation requirements, audit rights over outputs that shape key decisions, and obligations of portability and deletion when employment ends. Alongside that, new perks will emerge: compute stipends, inference credits, subsidies for local hardware or edge nodes.
Second, security and compliance will shift from the fantasy of eradicating shadow AI to the reality of managing it: explicit, inventoried, and auditable. Companies that get this sooner will capture the value. Those that dont will keep bleeding talent.
Third, this will exacerbate the competition for talent, and management culture will also need to grow up. The manager who clings to tool uniformity will drive away exactly those employees who make AI a force multiplier. The metric that matters will not be obedience to corporate software lists, but performance that is verifiable and traceable. Do you have employees like this in your company? If so, protect them at all costs. If not, you should be worriedbecause the best talent doesnt even consider working with you.
Leaders will have to learn to evaluate humanmachine outcomes, to decide when to delegate to the agent and when not to, and to design processes where hybrid teams are the default. Ignoring this is not cautionits a gift to your competitors.
Denial is a waste of time
This is why BYOA is not a discipline problem. Its the recognition that knowledge work is already mediated by agents. Denying it is a waste of time. Accepting it means more than licenses and bans: it requires redrawing trust, responsibility, and intellectual property in an economy where human capital literally arrives with its own algorithm under its arm.
The organizations that understand this will stop asking whether they allow people to bring their AI, and start asking how to turn that fact into a strategic advantage. The rest will keep wondering why the best people dont want to, or simply cannot, work without theirs.
