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The Easter holiday is celebrated by billions of Christians around the world. But even if you are not partaking in the festivities, store closures or reduced store hours might impact you. Heres what to expect on Easter Sunday. Grocery store closures Whether you need to stock up on eggs and chocolate bunnies at the last minute or simply run out of milk, be aware that many supermarkets are closed for Easter Sunday, including Aldi, Costco, H-E-B, and Sam’s Club. For last-minute purchases, try a Trader Joe’sunless you live in Portland, Maine, where the local stores will be closed. Albertsons, Safeway, Jewel-Osco, Acme, Vons, and Tom Thumb will all be open. Clothing store closures Plan to shop ahead for your Easter outfit, as retailers JCPenney, Macys, Marshalls, Target, Kohls, and TJ Maxx will close their doors Sunday, as will HomeGoods, Sierra, and Homesense locations. Walmart will remain open for business. For the status of other major retailers today, you can find a nice roundup from USA Today. Home improvement and crafting store closures Some hobbies might have to wait as well. If Lowes is your home improvement store of choice, know that it will be closed on Easter. Home Depot is a good alternative. In a similar vein, if Michaels or Hobby Lobby are your craft supply spots, stock up ahead of the holiday, as neither will be staffed for your creative pursuits. Pharmacy closures Major pharmacy chains such as Walgreens and CVS will be open for Easter but may have reduced hours, so check ahead if you need medication. A brief look at religious affiliation in America The U.S. remains a predominantly Christian nation. A 2023 Gallup Poll found 68% of the country considered themselves Christian. There is diversity of denomination in that figure. Breaking it down further, 33% identify as Protestant, 22% are Catholic, and 13% are considered other or just prefer the Christian label.
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Around the U.S., about 90,000 tons of nuclear waste is stored at more than 100 sites in 39 states, in a range of different structures and containers. For decades, the nation has been trying to send it all to one secure location. A 1987 federal law named Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, as a permanent disposal site for nuclear wastebut political and legal challenges led to construction delays. Work on the site had barely started before Congress ended the projects funding altogether in 2011. The 94 nuclear reactors currently operating at 54 power plants continue to generate more radioactive waste. Public and commercial interest in nuclear power is rising because of concerns regarding emissions from fossil fuel power plants and the possibility of new applications for smaller-scale nuclear plants to power data centers and manufacturing. This renewed interest gives new urgency to the effort to find a place to put the waste. In March 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments related to the effort to find a temporary storage location for the nations nuclear waste; a ruling is expected by late June. No matter the outcome, the decades-long struggle to find a permanent place to dispose of nuclear waste will probably continue for many years to come. I am a scholar who specializes in corrosion; one focus of my work has been containing nuclear waste during temporary storage and permanent disposal. There are generally two forms of significantly radioactive waste in the U.S.: waste from making nuclear weapons during the Cold War, and waste from generating electricity at nuclear power plants. There are also small amounts of other radioactive waste, such as that associated with medical treatments. Waste from weapons manufacturing Remnants of the chemical processing of radioactive material needed to manufacture nuclear weapons, often called defense waste, will eventually be melted along with glass, with the resulting material poured into stainless steel containers. These canisters are 10 feet tall and 2 feet in diameter, weighing approximately 5,000 pounds when filled. For now, though, most of it is stored in underground steel tanks, primarily at Hanford, Washington, and Savannah River, South Carolina, key sites in U.S. nuclear weapons development. At Savannah River, some of the waste has already been processed with glass, but much of it remains untreated. At both of those locations, some of the radioactive waste has already leaked into the soil beneath the tanks, though officials have said there is no danger to human health. Most of the current efforts to contain the waste focus on protecting the tanks from corrosion and cracking to prevent further leakage. Waste from electricity generation The vast majority of nuclear waste in the U.S. is spent nuclear fuel from commercial nuclear power plants. Before it is used, nuclear fuel exists as uranium oxide pellets that are sealed within zirconium tubes, which are themselves bundled together. These bundles of fuel rods are about 12 to 16 feet long and about 5 to 8 inches in diameter. In a nuclear reactor, the fission reactions fueled by the uranium in those rods emit heat that is used to create hot water or steam to drive turbines and generate electricity. After about three to five years, the fission reactions in a given bundle of fuel slow down significantly, even though the material remains highly radioactive. The spent fuel bundles are removed from the reactor and moved elsewhere on the power plants property, where they are placed into a massive pool of water to cool them down. After about five years, the fuel bundles are removed, dried, and sealed in welded stainless steel canisters. These canisters are still radioactive and thermally hot, so they are stored outdoors in concrete vaults that sit on concrete pads, also on the power plants property. These vaults have vents to ensure air flows past the canisters to continue cooling them. As of December 2024, there were more than 315,000 bundles of spent nuclear fuel rods in the U.S., and 3,800-plus dry storage casks in concrete vaults above ground, located at current and former power plants across the country. Even reactors that have been decommissioned and demolished still have concrete vaults storing radioactive waste, which must be secured and maintained by the power company that owned the nuclear plant. The threat of water One threat to these storage methods is corrosion. Because they need water to both transfer nuclear energy into electricity and to cool the reactor, nuclear power plants are always located alongside soures of water. In the U.S., nine are within 2 miles of the ocean, which poses a particular threat to the waste containers. As waves break on the coastline, saltwater is sprayed into the air as particles. When those salt and water particles settle on metal surfaces, they can cause corrosion, which is why its common to see heavily corroded structures near the ocean. At nuclear waste storage locations near the ocean, that salt spray can settle on the steel canisters. Generally, stainless steel is resistant to corrosion, which you can see in the shiny pots and pans in many Americans kitchens. But in certain circumstances, localized pits and cracks can form on stainless steel surfaces. In recent years, the U.S. Department of Energy has funded research, including my own, into the potential dangers of this type of corrosion. The general findings are that stainless steel canisters could pit or crack when stored near a seashore. But a radioactive leak would require not only corrosion of the container but also of the zirconium rods and of the fuel inside them. So it is unlikely that this type of corrosion would result in the release of radioactivity. A long way off A more permanent solution is likely years, or decades, away. Not only must a long-term site be geologically suitable to store nuclear waste for thousands of years, but it must also be politically palatable to the American people. In addition, there will be many challenges associated with transporting the waste, in its containers, by road or rail, from reactors across the country to wherever that permanent site ultimately is. Perhaps there will be a temporary site whose location passes muster with the Supreme Court. But in the meantime, the waste will stay where it is. Gerald Frankel is a distinguished professor of materials science and engineering at the Ohio State University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Patricia Grabarek and Katina Sawyer are cofounders of Workr Beeing, where they help clients create thriving workplace environments. They are both industrial/organizational psychologists. Patricia has a background in consulting and internal roles, having led people analytics and talent management initiatives for more than 60 companies. Katina is also an associate professor of management and organizations at the University of Arizona, where she focuses her research on workplace wellbeing. Whats the big idea? Achieving a culture of wellness at work goes way beyond a steps challenge or mindfulness program. Leaders need to demonstrate vulnerability about their own struggles to build bonds of trust and openness with their employees. They also need to spread gratitude and positivity. Once these pillars of a so-called Generator leader are put into action, then employees will be more willing to step up, engage, and invest their best effort for their team and company. Below, coauthors Grabarek and Sawyer share five key insights from their new book, Leading for Wellness: How to Create a Team Culture Where Everyone Thrives. Listen to the audio versionread by both authorsin the Next Big Idea app. 1. Workplace wellness matters. When leaders support employee wellness, employees are healthier, perform better, achieve their goals, and are more committed to their work. In addition, when employees feel better, they are more committed to the leaders and team members helping them feel that way. In turn, they help leaders achieve their goals, band together with others to tackle challenges, and ultimately create more innovative and productive workplaces. Yet, organizations struggle to support employee well-being. A recent Gallup poll found that employee engagement has sunken to an all-time low, with only 31% of employees reporting that they are engaged at work. Whats worse, not engaged or actively disengaged employees account for approximately $1.9 trillion in lost productivity nationally. Caring for employees well-being and improving the bottom line are aligned goals. Companies that dedicate time and money to employees health and wellness do better. Its as simple as that. Even better, improving employee wellness can also improve society. Happy, healthy employees bring positivity to their communities, making the world a better place. Our research repeatedly concluded that leaders are the key to driving employee well-being. While most organizations invest wellness dollars in step challenges, mindfulness programs, or team-building events, we find that the quality of day-to-day experiences with leaders is what really matters. We refer to leaders who promote healthy and supportive workplaces (while also driving results) as Generators. We term leaders who do the opposite Extinguishers, as they deplete workplaces of energy by undermining their teams well-being. The aim is to become a Generator: the type of leader that employees aspire to work for and whom they can be proud to represent. 2. No one wants a superhero. Employees dont want superheroes for leaders. Employees want authenticity from their leaders. They are looking for leaders who show their true selves at work. They do not trust inauthentic leaders who seem to put on a facade. Employees trust authentic leaders because they believe they are more willing to be transparent and honest. Employees can then better predict how their leader will behave. This predictability makes employees more likely to take risks by sharing their own truth and raising important issues that good leaders would want on their radar. As a result, employees with authentic leaders perform better, are more productive, more engaged, and have better well-being. Lets talk about a leader named Melanie, who is a senior executive at a telecommunications company. When interviewing her for our research, she described herself as having been a leader who always had her game face on. She admitted that she started her leadership journey as a no-nonsense leader. She believed her team would find comfort in her tough exterior when things became stressful or hard. That she could be a rock they would depend on. Instead, she learned that if her team members were struggling, they avoided bringing things up to her. Her perfect exterior made her unapproachable. She told us everything changed for her after enduring an unimaginable tragedy in her family. Her youngest sibling was murdered in a horrific random act of violence. This obviously impacted her greatly, but she continued to show up at work while hiding her true self and emotional state. Even though she did her best to hide her experience and feelings, her team could tell something was off. She was falling apart, and others could sense the shift. Then, one day, a campaign started around the company to support mental health. Other leaders started sharing their struggles, being vulnerable with the whole organization. She appreciated that their openness allowed her to know them as whole, complex people. Melanie began to wonder if her team would appreciate her more if she did the same. In her next team meeting, an employee shared that they were dealing with a challenge that could derail a project. At that moment, Melanie felt overwhelmed with the information and decided to take a pause. She told the team she appreciated all their hard work and was having a reaction to this new information because of the struggles shes been hiding in her personal life. She then proceeded to tell the team what she had been going through and how it had been impacting her and her work. To Melanies pleasant surprise, the team quickly rallied around her with empathy and compassion. They stepped up and wanted to help her as she navigated her loss. The team was more than willing to accept her as an imperfect leader. The team culture shifted that day. Other people began opening up, and they would flag challenges and issues as they happened. They were more willing to ask for help and give support to other team members as authenticity and vulnerability became the norm. One practice we teach leaders is to write struggle statements. Struggle statements help you communicate a set of challenges or difficulties you face at work, both past and present. When you are open about your struggles, employees can build their trust in you, and your openness helps them open up to you. This situation is great for employees and leaders because teams that can be open about their struggles usually do so because they are in a safe and supportive environment, making them more productive and higher-performing. 3. Its the tone, not the time. Being a role model for balancing work and life and showing positivity and gratitude toward team members can inspire employees to follow your example. Positivity and gratitude are contagious. When leaders share these sentiments with employees, those employees spread them to others. One of our favorite examples involves a leader who made it a point to spread positivity and gratitude to his team. To make sure he remembered to show gratitude to his team, he would put three coins in his left pocket at the start of each day. Each time he told someone on his team they were valued or thanked them for their efforts, he moved a coin to the other pocket. The physical reminder to show gratitude kept him on track and ensured he lived out his intentions. After a while, though, he didnt need the coins. His gratitude practice had become a habit. Even better, he noticed that his employees were paying i forward to one another. With a small shift in his behavior, he had created lasting change in his team culture. Employees are motivated to help each other if they see you and other team members doing the same thing. Generators create cultures of work-life balance, positivity, gratitude, and support. As team members begin practicing good behaviors, leaders dont have to be the sole architects or reinforcers of the culture. Employees become cultural caretakers so that leaders have their time freed up to focus on other things. Generators also understand how to become confidants to their employees quickly and meaningfully. To do so, they leverage what we coined as the SWIFT Process: Setting aside time for relationship-building sprints. Welcoming others warmly. Intentionally inquiring about employees lives. Following up with appropriate questions to dig deeper. Taking time to reflect on how to improve relationships with employees. By creating a positive team environment and building strong relationships with employees, Generators set the right tone for their teams: they focus on the quality of the work experience rather than narrowly focusing on how many hours are worked as a measure of success or productivity. 4. Work should support life. Work should support life instead of the other way around. As a leader, its important to be elastic by demonstrating flexibility and recognizing that your way isnt right for everyone. Its also important to protect and respect employees boundaries between work and life. Generators are boundary bouncers because they help employees set boundaries, serve to enforce those boundaries, and block employees from people or situations that violate boundaries. Boundary bouncers also protect their own boundaries by leading by example. Generators value work-life balance and recognize that employees preferences for balancing work and life may differ from their own (and other employees). For example, people differ in their preferences for integrating or segmenting work. Segmenters like to keep work and life separate. These employees like to put in their nine-to-five and then fully stop working at the end of the day. They do not like it when their personal life bleeds into their work life and vice versa. When they are working, they want to focus on work. When they are away from work, being pinged by someone from work is particularly stressful. On the other hand, some people prefer to integrate work and life. Katina and I both prefer integration. We are happy to shift between both domains throughout the day. Integrators may take a few meetings in the morning, then do a workout at lunch, followed by another meeting. After that, they might do laundry and complete a few work tasks. They may pause around 5 p.m. to spend time with family and grab dinner but then log back in for an hour at 7 p.m. to finish some tasks. They shift between work and personal life seamlessly, and it helps their productivity. Generators create work environments that better match employees unique needs and preferences in managing their work and life. When Generators earn employees trust, make them feel cared for, and act in ways that honor their preferences and needs for managing work and life, they retain their employees longer. 5. One size doesnt fit all. One size doesnt fit all when it comes to wellness. Generators recognize this and engage in what we call person-centered planning, a practice centered on the famous work of psychologist Carl Rogers, who used it in a clinical setting. Engaging in person-centered planning helps Generators find solutions that are tailored to employees real wellness needs, which can vary significantly from employee to employee. Person-centered planning is effective because it helps leaders to get to the root of the actual problems that employees are facing, so solutions can be tailored to their needs. Consider this example. An employee, Ollie, struggles with staying organized. His leader, Marta, is very skilled at organization and easily structures her workday, assignments, and deadlines. If Ollie shares with Marta that he is struggling with organization, she might assume that he just isnt putting in the effort. She might also assume that tips or strategies that help her stay organized will automatically work for Ollie. Ollies confidence might decrease as he is overlooked for opportunities, or he might take her advice and follow similar strategies that she has, but without getting results. Instead, if Marta engaged in person-centered planning, she would follow three steps: First, Marta would provoke honest and transparent responses. She would create an open and comfortable environment for Ollie to share what is getting in his way regarding his organizational skills. Second, she would suspend judgment. Even if Ollies situation doesnt resonate with her own experience, she will listen and validate his perspective, recognizing that she has likely struggled with things before that others found easy. Finally, she would show empathy by working with Ollie to devise solutions that work for him. Instead of feeling for him, she feels with him, invoking a more collaborative and unified stance toward solving the problem. This three-part process helps employees feel safe when sharing their wellness struggles, allowing leaders to respond to their challenges in ways that drive effective long-term solutions. Taking a person-centered approach also requires that leaders chip away at mental health stigma at work. Generators are vulnerable about their own mental health challenges, speak inclusively about mental health, and use experts to help their teams understand mental health more deeply. Reducing this stigma is another way that Generators learn what employees really need and allow these employees to gain true acceptance and validation from their teams. This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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