AI is upending everything, including retirement planning.
The big picture: Our comfortable golden years have always rested on assumptions of a steady full-time career, employer-sponsored savings and a predictable job exit. Now those assumptions are fraying.
In the past year, federal, state and institutional decisions have gutted major pillars of America's civil rights protections and racial equity infrastructure, wiping away public data, slashing research funding and erasing Black history.
Why it matters: Taken together, these moves amount to an unprecedented rollback of civil rights progress, historians say — the largest since Reconstruction.
MAGA hopes the holiday season — and renewed attention on its favorite bogeymen — can produce a ceasefire in the pro-Trump movement's burgeoning civil war.
Why it matters: MAGA entered the year at the apex of its power, but has become mired in its most bitter infighting since its founding by President Trump in 2015.
Why it matters: This year, the shopping holiday is less about "online-only deals" and more about AI-assisted gift-hunting — a shift experts say is transforming how shoppers discover products.
Black and Latino men are trading in hoodies and sneakers for quarter-zip sweaters, tailored suits and fedoras — a sharp, self-assured look that signals dignity, intentionality and a reimagined masculinity in the post-COVID era.
Why it matters: It's pushing back against decades of narrow stereotypes that linked urban masculinity to athletic gear and reclaiming pride through presentation.
Americans' social media habits are splintering in ways that echo the fractured traditional news landscape, according to a new Pew Research Center report.
Why it matters: The same fragmentation that reshaped news is now reshaping social media, making it harder for companies, brands and public figures to reliably reach large swaths of the public.
