QCA.news - Quad Cities news and view from both sides of the river

Saturday, January 31st, 2026
	Want to get stronger? Start with these 6 muscle-building exercises If you're curious about starting a resistance training routine and not sure to begin, start with these expert-recommended movements.
	A red hat, inspired by a symbol of resistance to Nazi occupation, gains traction in Minnesota A Minneapolis knitting shop has resurrected the design of a Norwegian cap worn to protest Nazi occupation. Its owner says the money raised from hat pattern sales will support the local immigrant community.
	Cookware recalled due to possible lead contamination The cookware may be contaminated with elevated lead levels that could leach into food.
	Venezuela announces amnesty bill that could lead to release of political prisoners Venezuela's acting President Delcy Rodríguez on Friday announced an amnesty bill that could lead to the release of hundreds of prisoners detained for political reasons.
Friday, January 30th, 2026
	DHS keeps making false claims about people. It's part of a broader pattern Trump administration officials have falsely linked Alex Pretti and Renee Macklin Good to domestic terrorism. It's part of a larger pattern by the Department of Homeland Security.
	What to know about the partial government shutdown The Senate passed a measure to avert a shutdown on Friday. But with the House on recess, funding for broad stretches of the federal government has technically lapsed.
	Changes coming to SNAP benefits on Sunday Nearly 42 million people will see changes to SNAP benefits beginning Sunday.
	Davenport library gives away formalwear Members of the community donated dresses, suits, blazers and more for the giveaway.
	St. Ambrose University holds spoken word event "Speak Your Peace" allowed audience members to vote for their favorite spoken pieces.
	Rock Island Arsenal set to receive more than $100M in funding from defense appropriations bill $100M of the Arsenal funding will be used to stabilize the flow of labor at all three U.S. Army Arsenals, including Rock Island.
	Displaced Fulton apartment fire victims find housing The people who lived in Fulton's Hotel Martin apartment building are trying to figure out what's next after a fire destroyed the historic structure last week. On Friday, they got a better idea of the options they have moving forward. "We lost everything,so you can't really put your hand on it," said Tylin Davis, a [...]
	'Melania' is Amazon's airbrushed and astronomically pricey portrait of the First Lady Amazon paid $40 million to acquire the documentary, and is spending $35 million more to promote it.
	Photos: Thousands once again protest ICE in Minneapolis and across the U.S. Demonstrators in Minneapolis and other U.S. cities participated in protests as part of a "national shutdown" to end immigration enforcement operations.
	Trump administration denies full disaster funding for Western Alaska storms, state files appeal Eric Phillip, the boardwalk foreman for Kongiganak, Alaska, surveys infrastructure damage caused by Typhoon Halong, Oct. 18, 2025. (Alaska National Guard photo by Staff Sgt. Joseph Moon)The Trump administration has denied Alaska’s request for full reimbursement for disaster relief efforts immediately following last October’s devastating Western Alaska storms, despite the Dunleavy administration’s claim that the federal disaster declaration meant the state would be fully reimbursed. Gov. Mike Dunleavy arrives in Bethel after visiting the storm-damaged villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok on Oct. 17, 2025. (Photo by Eric Stone/Alaska Public Media) That leaves the state on the hook for millions of dollars for disaster recovery, however the full amount is still unknown. The state’s request for federal support for 100% of disaster relief efforts in the first 90 days after the storms hit was denied on Dec. 20, according to a spokesperson for the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management on Thursday. The state appealed the denial on Jan. 15, and asked for a 90% federal cost reimbursement, but has not yet gotten a response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. “We have not heard back from FEMA on approval or denial and there is no timeframe requirement,” said Jeremy Zidek, public information officer for the division, by email. A spokesperson for Dunleavy’s office did not respond to a list of questions, but confirmed the appeal on Friday. “An appeal has been filed and the administration will await the federal government’s decision,” said Jeff Turner, Dunleavy’s communications director. In the meantime, the federal government is reimbursing Alaska’s disaster recovery efforts at roughly 75%, leaving the state to cover 25% of its costs, with some exceptions for certain relief programs, Zidek said. Following the West Coast storm disaster in October, Dunleavy quickly declared a state disaster emergency. On Oct. 22, his office announced that the Trump administration approved the state’s request for a federal disaster declaration, and the state’s full costs would be covered immediately following the storms. “President Trump was deeply concerned with the wellbeing of Alaskans who lost their homes and livelihoods to this historic storm,” Dunleavy said in a statement along with the announcement. “I want to thank him and his administration for approving the disaster declaration because now Alaskan families have local, state and federal support for rebuilding their lives in the months ahead.” “The federal disaster declaration authorizes a 100 percent federal cost share for all categories of relief assistance for the next 90 days,” the statement said. Dunleavy’s office did not respond to questions about his previous statement or whether his office had communication from the Trump administration about why the request was denied. Alaska’s Republican U.S. congressional delegation applauded the federal disaster declaration and Trump’s support for the Western Alaska disaster response last year. All three members said through spokespeople Friday that they support the state’s appeal. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has been actively engaged with FEMA and state officials throughout the disaster relief efforts, said her communications director, Joe Plesha, in a statement on Friday. “Alaska’s vast geography and many rural communities make disaster response more challenging and recovery efforts significantly more costly,” he said. “She supports the state’s appeal and will work to secure the maximum amount of federal support available to Alaskans who have suffered so much from this devastating storm.” A spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, Amanda Coyne, said the senator has advocated for the 100% federal cost share, as well as organized a delegation of FEMA and other Trump administration officials to visit Western Alaska. “Given the severity of the storm and its devastating impacts on communities in Western Alaska, Senator Sullivan believes an increased federal cost share is warranted,” Coyne said. “He will continue strongly advocating with FEMA and other senior officials in the Trump Administration for an increased federal cost share as the state’s appeal goes through the process.” A spokesperson for Alaska’s lone U.S. Representative, Nick Begich III, said on Friday that he supports the appeal and will continue to advocate for those impacted by Typhoon Halong at the Congressional level. “Our office is in communication with the Administration to ensure recovery efforts in Western Alaska remain a priority,” spokesperson Silver Prout wrote. Western Alaska storm recovery is ongoing The Western Alaska storms and particularly ex-Typhoon Halong brought record-breaking winds and flooding — damaging thousands of structures, roads, boardwalks, airports and other critical infrastructure. It prompted the state’s largest mass evacuation of residents from their homes to other villages, Bethel and Anchorage. Evacuees of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok wait to board an evacuation flight from Bethel to Anchorage on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon) While some Western Alaska residents are continuing to rebuild through the winter, other residents who evacuated to Anchorage are living in temporary housing. As of Thursday, the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management reports that 471 residents are still sheltering in hotels in Anchorage. The state is administering public assistance programs, which reimburse costs of repairing public infrastructure and utilities, as well as provide individual disaster assistance, in partnership with other agencies, including FEMA. FEMA has awarded $31.2 million in individual assistance to date, Zidek said. More than 2,000 residents have been awarded state individual assistance, and 1,794 households have registered for federal assistance from FEMA. Those applications for state and federal assistance are still open until Feb. 20. State disaster relief funding under debate The state’s disaster relief funding is a point of ongoing debate among lawmakers and the governor, as they kick off discussion of Dunleavy’s proposed $7.75 million budget and its $1.5 billion deficit. Last year, legislators approved $23.3 million in state disaster relief funds, but Dunleavy vetoed $10.3 million of that sum last summer, leaving $13 million in the budget. In November, following the federal government shutdown, Dunleavy announced a state disaster to help provide food aid, transferring $10 million to the state’s disaster relief funding from the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Village Safe Water and Wastewater Infrastructure program. This year, the governor has requested an additional $40 million in the state’s supplemental budget, which is a routine ask for additional money to pay the state’s bills for the previous year. Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, a co-chair of the Senate Finance Committee, didn’t mince words about the governor’s back and forth with disaster spending. “Ill-advised and foolish,” he said. “It makes no sense what he did to me, frankly, and it’s embarrassing for him, his veto.” But Stedman said he hopes the state’s federal appeal is approved, and expects legislators to pass the governor’s request for the additional $40 million. “Obviously, 100% is better than 90 and 90 is better than 75,” Stedman said of the federal cost share. “So that’s pretty much a given there. But we will fund the disaster request as the governor puts it on the table, through next week’s amendments.” Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, also a member of the Senate Finance Committee, commended the governor for his record on disaster response, and echoed hope for the appeal to move forward. “There’s no question in my mind that this is exactly what the federal disaster relief programs exist for. So I think the governor’s request was the right thing, and if it came back at less than full funding from the feds, that’s the wrong call,” Kiehl said. Kiehl described the state’s fiscal picture, with rising costs and ongoing debates on how to raise more revenues, as “bleak.” “So there isn’t cash just sitting around for disaster assistance,” he said. “We have to step up for western Alaska financially. That’s going to stink, but we have to do it, as far as I’m concerned.” A typical cost share between the federal government and a state for disaster relief efforts is a 75% federal and 25% state cost split. “We have dozens of federal declared disasters we are currently working on that have the 75/25 cost share structure,” said Zidek, with agency. “Large disasters are occasionally given a modified cost share structure adjustment, but it is not guaranteed. When we have a large disaster, we ask for modification to reduce the amount of state funding needed because as managers of state funds it is the responsible thing to do.” SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE Courtesy of Alaska Beacon
	Chicago Dance Crash in residency at Knox College, Galesburg The Knox College dance program has announced the upcoming dance residency with professional company Chicago Dance Crash. The theme of this residency project is Community Healing through the Arts., a news release says. Starting Sunday, Feb. 1, and running through Saturday, Feb. 7, members of the Chicago Dance Crash company will be on campus, working [...]
	Iowa call center connects abuse survivors to local resources statewide The Iowa Victim Services Call Center offers 24/7 support to those in active crisis or with lingering issues from trauma, violence, crime, abuse and more.
	Rock Island Library hosts Lincoln actor, QC Chordbusters, new kids' book club Escape that winter cabin fever with free events at the Rock Island Public Library. On Tuesday, Feb. 3, the library hosts the QC Chordbusters for a free live music show of barbershop and choral harmonies. Offered as part of the library’s Tuneful Tuesday series, the free program starts at noon in the Downtown Rock Island [...]
	Highlight Zone: Week 4, high school basketball The Highlight Zone returns for a fourth week.
	Community push grows for suicide prevention measures at I-74 bridge Advocates and the QC community are calling for suicide prevention measures at the I-74 Bridge, with experts saying even small interventions can interrupt a crisis.
	Brutal Cold and Walking Dogs: On and Off the Radar Weather Podcast Episode 1 Meteorologists Andy McCray and Anthony Peoples discuss the weather and more in the first episode of the On and Off the Radar Weather Podcast. How many days of below zero temperatures have we had so far this month and how many more are to come? What kind of weather is expected this weekend and beyond? [...]
	Harvest for All helping feed people in need in Carroll County The Carroll County program has donated more than $800,000 to local food banks over the last 21 years.
	Artemis II set to launch in February, one step closer to returning to the moon The first humans stepped on the moon in 1972, and since then, no one has back. Now, NASA is taking the steps to get back to the surface of the moon, this time with bigger plans in mind for the future of space exploration. Artemis II will be the next step to achieve that goal. [...]
	City of Davenport looks for public input on city spending The City of Davenport is holding a meeting Saturday, Jan. 31 to discuss the 2027 operating budget.
	Harvest for All helping feed people in need in Carroll County The Carroll County program has donated more than $800,000 to local food banks over the last 21 years.
	Sauk Valley Area Chamber names outstanding community leaders The Sauk Valley Area Chamber of Commerce has announced the recipients of its awards, celebrating people who exemplify dedication, leadership, and service to our community throughout 2025. The honorees were recognized during the Chamber’s Annual Awards Ceremony, on Thursday, Jan. 29, at McCormick Event Center. The Sauk Valley Area Chamber of Commerce recognized LeAndra Hartman [...]
	Galesburg’s Mary Davis Home to close by March amid staffing, legal issues The Mary Davis Home is a juvenile detention center in Galesburg. Officials said it will close by March 21 due to staffing, funding problems and a recent lawsuit.
	Martini Shake-Off fundraiser returns in February to support QC youth The 2026 Martini Shake-Off fundraiser returns Feb. 19 at Davenport’s RiverCenter, offering martinis, music, and more to support HAVlife® Foundation’s mission to Prevent Lost Potential® in local youth.
	Junior Achievement seeks volunteers for spring classroom programs Junior Achievement of the Heartland is recruiting community volunteers to help deliver hands‑on financial literacy, career readiness and entrepreneurship lessons in local classrooms this spring.
	Online petition seeks suicide prevention measures for I-74 bridge On Jan. 20, 2026, Blackhawk Fire Protection District firefighter Ali Jasim jumped from the I-74 Bridge into the icy waters of the Mississippi River, ending his young life. Haley DeGreve, founder and CEO of the Gray Matters Collective, who has worked tirelessly for years as a suicide prevention advocate, wants to help be sure that never happens to another person.
	Prosecutors name new witnesses in 29-year-old Appleby murder case New court documents in the Trudy Appleby cold case list additional potential prosecution witnesses as Jamison Fisher faces murder charges in Henry County, with allegations tied to a 1996 abduction, drug debt, Kershaw Trailer Park train bridge, possible body movement, and remains never found.
	Judge hears arguments in Trump's lawsuit against the Des Moines Register Trump claims a pre-election poll amounted to consumer fraud.
	Future legal path for Trump’s lawsuit against Iowa paper, pollster debated, judge pledges ruling soon Polk County Judge Scott J. Beattie, after hearing lawyers’ arguments, said Friday he will decide within two weeks whether the case can proceed to discovery.
	Bird's-eye views from across the Quad Cities region for the week of Jan. 30, 2026 Sit back, relax and enjoy these scenes captured by the News 8 drone from across the Quad Cities region this week.
	Friday morning's below 0° low could be the last of the frigid mornings for now... Friday morning marked the 12th different day we've had a below 0° temp in the Quad Cities so far this season. 5 in December and 7 have been this month. Most of our lows Friday morning we're in the range of 0 to 4 below...but a few spots (including Galesburg) were even colder than that! [...]
	New documents detail more potential witnesses, allegations in 1996 Trudy Appleby homicide New court documents in the Trudy Appleby cold case list additional potential prosecution witnesses as Jamison Fisher faces murder charges in Henry County, with allegations tied to a 1996 abduction, drug debt, Kershaw Trailer Park train bridge, possible body movement, and remains never found.
	Boil order active in Milan The boil order was issued due to a water main break.
	Pleasant Valley School District announces next superintendent The assistant superintendent of operations for Ankeny Community School District will be replacing retiring Pleasant Valley Superintendent Brian Strusz on July 1, 2026.
	Rock Island Arsenal set to receive more than $100M in funding from defense appropriations bill $100M of the Arsenal funding will be used to stabilize the flow of labor at all three U.S. Army Arsenals, including Rock Island.
	Dixon, Ill., deputy police chief retires After more than 30 years of law-enforcement service, Dixon, Ill., Deputy Chief Douglas Lehman has retired, according to a news release. Lehman started as a deputy in Boone County in December of 1995. He was hired by the Dixon Police Department in September of 1999. Lehman joined the Tactical Response Team, was a department sniper, [...]
	Pleasant Valley School District selects new superintendent The Pleasant Valley Community School District has named the district’s new superintendent
	Judge rules Luigi Mangione should not face death penalty A federal judge dropped two of the charges against Luigi Mangione — the man accused of fatally shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson — making his case no longer eligible for the death penalty.
	World Championship Ice Racing brings the Crazy Train to the QCA Hop aboard the Crazy Train with indoor ice racing! Stuntman Ken Remer joined Our Quad Cities News with all of the excitement of World Championship Ice Racing. For more information, click here.
	Some Milan residents under boil order Some Milan residents are under a boil order.
	Rock Island announces Fifth Avenue road closure The City of Rock Island announced a temporary road closure on Fifth Avenue beginning on Feb. 2, for roadwork.
	Milan issues boil order after water main break A boil order is in effect for residents in the 400 to 500 block of W. 12th Avenue and W. 13th Avenue and the 1200 block of W. 5th Street and W 4th Street in Milan due to a water main break. The boil order is in place until further notice. Click here to learn [...]
	Blue Origin pauses space tourism flights to focus on lunar lander Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, says it's stopping human spaceflights for at least two years. The move will allow it to "shift resources" to the company's lunar landing capabilities.
	These films took home top awards at Sundance — plus seven our critic loved Vibes were all over the place during the 2026 Sundance Film Festival — the last held in Park City, Utah. These are the movies critic Aisha Harris loved.
	Quad Cities students stage anti-ICE walkouts Students in some areas across the Quad Cities are organizing school walk outs on Friday.
	Portugal Golden Visa: Approvals down, family permits up in 2024 Portugal Golden Visa: Approvals down, family permits up in 2024Portugal's Golden Visa (ARI) program issued fewer residence permits in 2024 than the previous year, but family reunification permits linked to the program nearly doubled. The shift, documented in Portugal's latest official migration reporting, marks a notable change in the program's profile after years of policy revisions. Movingto analyzed the latest official migration data to track these changes.The numbersIn 2024, Portugal issued 2,081 ARI residence permits, down from 2,901 in 2023—a 28% decline year over year, according to the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA)'s annual migration and asylum report.At the same time, family reunification permits linked to ARI rose to 2,909 in 2024, up from 1,554 in 2023—an 87% increase. Moveto Moveto Who's applying?The most recent nationality breakdown, published for 2023, shows the United States led with 567 permits, followed by China with 306.Historical contextThe Golden Visa—formally the Autorização de Residência para Atividade de Investimento (ARI)—launched in October 2012. Official reporting from the program's first decade shows:More than €7.3 billion in total investment (October 2012–October 2023)Over 12,700 main applicantsMore than 33,000 total beneficiaries, including family membersReal estate routes accounting for roughly 88%–90% of historical investmentThe 2022 annual reporting (RIFA 2022) provides a granular snapshot: €654.3 million in total ARI investment that year, with property purchases representing €534.6 million across 1,008 investments.What may explain the shift?The program has undergone significant changes in recent years, including restrictions on real estate investment routes and the administrative transition from Serviço de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras (SEF) to AIMA. These changes created a complex operating environment that can influence year-to-year totals.The data doesn't explain causation, but it shows a clear pattern: fewer new ARI permits, more family reunification.MethodologyThis story summarizes publicly available reporting from Portuguese migration authorities. Year-over-year comparisons are calculated from reported annual totals. Figures may be revised by the source agency in later publications.This story was produced by Movingto and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Bettendorf Police make arrest in series of vehicle burglaries Bettendorf Police have made an arrest in connection with a series of vehicle burglaries in the city over the past few months. A post on the department’s Facebook page says on January 6, police asked for the public’s help to identify suspects in vehicle burglaries along Central Avenue. After months of investigation, officers recovered a [...]
	Lila Iké learned what "self-love" means with her Grammy-nominated album Lila Iké's full-length debut album, Treasure Self Love, has been nominated for a Grammy. Iké spoke to All Things Considered about being one of the only women ever to receive a nomination for best reggae album.
	Texas A&M University cancels programs in women's and gender studies The university said it had also modified hundreds of courses and cancelled six in efforts to eliminate teaching related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
	Temporary road closure to impact 5th Avenue, Rock Island A traffic alert for drivers in Rock Island.
	WATCH: Polk Co. judge hears arguments for motion to stay in Trump lawsuit against Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer President Trump sued the pollster, her company, the Des Moines Register and Gannett after the 2024 Selzer poll stated Kamala Harris would win Iowa.
	Suspect named in 'Geneseo John Doe' case weeks after remains identified This month, investigators identified a body found back in 1966 as a missing California teen. His now deceased half-brother has been named the suspect in his death.
	Rock Island Arsenal receiving millions from defense appropriations bill Congress passed the Fiscal Year 2026 defense appropriations bill earlier this month that funds the Department of War for the current year, October 1, 2025 – September 30, 2026. The Rock Island Arsenal Defense Alliance advocated for Rock Island Arsenal’s needs to be included in the budget with the area’s congressional delegations. The bill includes $216.5 [...]
	IRS tax extension: The ultimate guide on what it means to extend your tax return IRS tax extension: The ultimate guide on what it means to extend your tax returnEach year, millions of taxpayers elect to extend the filing of their tax return. But what does that mean? Range explains what IRS tax extensions are and how to request one.IRS Tax Extensions, ExplainedA tax extension allows you to take up to an additional six months to file your tax return, extending your deadline to Oct. 15 (or the next business day if the 15th falls on a weekend or holiday). The IRS does not require a reason to extend a return, and any taxpayer can do so. However, it's important to understand the difference between filing and paying your taxes—these can have different deadlines.You Must Still Pay Your Taxes by the April DeadlineWhen it comes to timing your taxes, payment matters more than filing. There is little a taxpayer can do to defer payment for the previous year after April 15 (or the following business day if the 15th falls on a holiday or weekend). The good news: You don't have to know your exact tax liability on April 15. As long as you can calculate (or have a professional help calculate) at least how much tax is owed, you can cover the entire bill on time and avoid underpayment penalties.Does Filing an Extension Incur Penalties?No. As long as the extension is filed and accepted by the original due date in April, there are no penalties. Once a request to extend is filed on time, taxpayers have until Oct. 15 to submit their final return before the IRS charges any failure-to-file penalties.How Do I File an Extension?The IRS offers several methods for filing an extension:Pay online and elect extension treatment: Pay your estimated tax balance through the IRS Direct Pay portal and select the option to treat it as an extension.Use IRS Free File: Electronically request an extension using the IRS Free File tool.Work with a tax professional: Have your CPA or tax preparer file an extension on your behalf and advise on payment.Request by mail: File Form 4868 by mail. You can pay electronically or include payment as directed in the form instructions.Step-by-step guides to filing your 2026 tax extension are available online.How Much Do I Need to Pay in April After Extending?Since calculating the exact amount due by April isn't always practical, many extension payments are rounded to estimated figures. A tax professional can help you determine your tax balance. For taxpayers who make quarterly estimated payments, some professionals calculate an additional sum to include in the extension payment to cover the Q1 tax liability (which is also due on April 15) in addition to the previous year's balance.Do I Need to Make Estimated Tax Payments?Quarterly tax payments don't apply to all taxpayers. They're generally not required if you have a small tax balance (under $1,000) or adequate withholding from wages or retirement distributions. As a rule of thumb, taxpayers who typically receive refunds do not need to make estimated payments because their withholding is generally sufficient.However, if your tax withholding won’t equal at least 90% of this year’s total tax or 110% of last year’s tax, you’ll likely need to make estimated quarterly tax payments.Key Tax Deadlines for 2026Keeping track of filing and payment due dates can be confusing. Here are the key dates for tax year 2025: Range April 15, 2026: Tax filing deadline (or request extension); Q1 2026 estimated payment due; payment for 2025 tax liability dueJune 15, 2026: Q2 2026 estimated payment dueSept. 15, 2026: Q3 2026 estimated payment dueOct. 15, 2026: Extended filing deadlineJan. 15, 2027: Q4 2026 estimated payment dueWho Usually Extends Their Return?Extensions are common when necessary information is incomplete or unavailable. The most frequent filers of extensions are taxpayers who hold an interest in private "pass-through” entities, such as S-Corporations or partnerships. Their individual tax return depends on the prior completion of the corresponding business return, which allocates the information shareholders need to report.Business owners aren't the only ones who extend. Sometimes gathering documents is time-consuming, and sending everything to your tax professional isn't always a priority early in the year. Since filing an extension has little to no barrier, it can be a smart choice. By extending, taxpayers and their professionals can reduce the risk of error by taking more time to collect complete information and verify return outputs.Benefits of Filing an ExtensionFiling an extension alone isn’t generally viewed as a red flag and shouldn’t increase the likelihood of a tax audit, although the IRS may select returns for many reasons. Here are two reasons why filing a tax extension may be beneficial:Reduced Risk of ErrorsOne reason many tax professionals suggest extending is to gain a better understanding and level of assurance that the details captured in the return are accurate. Taking more time helps avoid errors or potential misstatements that could eventually lead to IRS scrutiny.Statute of Limitations ConsiderationsOne consideration: The statute of limitations extends an additional six months if you extend rather than file timely. However, this additional exposure should not preclude taxpayers from filing later in the year. The likelihood of an audit is not impacted, and a rushed, inaccurate return could lead to worse outcomes than an extended but accurate one.The Bottom LineExtending your tax return deadline until Oct. 15 is a valuable option utilized by millions of taxpayers each year. It should be viewed as a prudent strategic choice, not a last resort. Extending the time to file carries no penalty, provided you accurately estimate and pay any tax owed by the April deadline.Whether you're a business owner awaiting essential financial documents or simply need more time to gather your information, an extension grants you the necessary breathing room to ensure accuracy. By reducing the risk of errors that can arise from rushed or incomplete filing, extending your return promotes both confidence and compliance.Frequently Asked Questions About Tax ExtensionsWhat happens if I miss the extension deadline?If you miss the Oct. 15 extended deadline, the IRS may charge a failure-to-file penalty of 5% of the unpaid taxes for each month (or part of a month) that the return is late, up to a maximum of 25%. If you also owe taxes, you'll face additional interest and failure-to-pay penalties. File and pay as soon as possible to minimize these charges.Can I file an extension online?Yes. You can file an extension online through the IRS Free File tool, by making an electronic payment and selecting the extension option, or through most tax software programs. However, when calculating the taxes you’d owe in April, it’s a good idea to consult a trusted tax advisor.Does an extension give me more time to pay?No. An extension only extends the time to file, not the time to pay. Any tax owed is still due by the original April deadline. If you don't pay by then, you'll accrue interest and potential penalties on the unpaid balance.Will filing an extension increase my chances of being audited?No. There is no evidence that filing an extension increases audit risk. In fact, taking additional time to ensure your return is accurate may reduce the likelihood of errors that could trigger IRS scrutiny.Do I need to explain why I'm requesting an extension?No. The IRS does not require a reason to file an extension. Any taxpayer can request one, and extensions are automatically granted when filed by the original deadline.Disclosure:The information contained in this communication is for informational purposes only. This content may not be relied on in any manner as specific legal, tax, regulatory, or investment advice. While we strive to present accurate and timely content, tax laws and regulations are subject to change, and individual circumstances can vary.You should not rely solely on the information contained here when making decisions regarding your taxes or financial situation. We strongly recommend consulting with a certified tax professional, accountant, or legal advisor to address your specific needs and ensure compliance with applicable laws.This article focuses on U.S. federal individual returns; state deadlines and rules may differ. Some taxpayers (e.g., living abroad) may have different deadlines.This story was produced by Range and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Iowa Supreme Court finds in favor of Davenport Public Defender's office in workload case The Iowa Supreme Court ruled Friday that judges were wrong to not allow public defenders to withdraw from Scott County cases citing workload.
	Catherine O'Hara, who starred in 'Home Alone' and 'Schitt's Creek,' dies at 71 O'Hara enjoyed a six-decade career in TV and films playing sometimes over-the-top, but endearing characters. "I loved playing cocky untalented people," she told Fresh Air in 1992.
	Turn shipping and mailing data into cost savings with analytics Turn shipping and mailing data into cost savings with analyticsShipping and mailing are two of those “invisible” cost centers in many businesses—you pay for postage, labels, carriers, packaging, and handling but may not have full visibility into how much you’re spending, where the inefficiencies lie, or whether your service levels justify the cost.Without that view, it’s nearly impossible to control costs, take advantage of savings opportunities, or make data-driven decisions to improve your business.Stamps.com explores how businesses and professional services organizations using data analysis in logistics and predictive analytics to gain shipping and mailing insights can uncover patterns they’d otherwise miss.By using shipping and mailing data and analytics, you can:See where your money goes: What are you spending per carrier, service level, destination, or package type?Spot inefficiencies: Are you using an expensive expedited service when a cheaper ground option would suffice or shipping small parcels with a large-parcel service?Compare carriers and services: Which carrier is the most cost-effective or ships the fastest?Forecast and optimize: Are you allocating funds effectively or choosing the best fulfillment locations?How to use reporting tools and shipping data analytics to save moneyHaving the tools is one thing; using them effectively is another. Here are the top ways to leverage reports to reduce spending.Establish a baseline of your spend and performancePull your current shipping and mailing data for the last two years via your shipping platform and review the spend. Look at the total spend and breakdown (by carrier, service level, and destination zones) and the total number of shipments and shipments by service level and package size/weight.Segment and analyze by dimensionUse filters to break up the data by carrier, service type, and cost codes, which let you track expenses and bill postage spend back to specific clients, projects, or departments.Look for patterns in the data, such as services where the cost is disproportionately high relative to volume or weight, package sizes where you might be overpaying, and carriers with below-average transit performance.Identify data-driven opportunities to optimizeBased on your analysis, formulate cost-saving opportunities such as service-level right-sizing. If many items are shipped via expedited service but the delivery time doesn’t require it, consider a slower but less expensive service. You can also consider shifting carriers or transferring more volume to a more affordable provider if one offers a lower rate for a specific zone or weight.Monitor the impact of your changes and optimize continuouslyWith reporting in place that helps you make sense of your metrics, keep a close eye on how your actions are impacting spend and performance. Create recurring reports for a convenient way to track KPIs that matter most, such as change in cost per shipment or on-time delivery rate.You can broaden the impact of your shipping and mailing analytics by sharing reports with stakeholders in finance, operations, fulfillment, and other areas of your business. Most shipping platforms support printable views and exports, making it easy to communicate and share knowledge across functions. You can also feed data from the platform into your own business intelligence dashboards or integrate data with your ERP or fulfillment systems.Shipping and mailing are dynamic—rates and services are constantly changing. Regular reporting leads to measurable ways to save time on business mailing and reduce costs.How mailing and shipping analytics lead to real-world cost savingsHere are several ways shipping analytics translate to savings:Lower postage and label cost: By shifting to the lowest rate and carrier, you reduce your per-shipment cost.Reduced time and waste: Less manual handling, fewer trips, less time spent reconciling—those hours saved translate into reduced costs.Avoid hidden costs: Reducing packaging inefficiencies, failed deliveries, returns, and reshipments.Better resource allocation: You’ll know which channels or products have high cost relative to margin—you can adjust pricing, packaging, or shipping policy accordingly.Scalable advantages: As your business grows, analytics help you ensure shipping and mailing costs don’t grow disproportionately.Leverage automation: After creating rules, automate the process to reduce mistakes and make the process easier.Mailing and shipping analytics software is a must-haveShipping and mailing aren’t just “necessary costs”—used smartly, they’re a lever for competitive advantage. Using shipping and mailing data and analytics, you can transform raw data into insights that drive significant cost savings.For small and mid-sized businesses and professional services organizations that ship and mail at scale or are growing rapidly, this kind of visibility can mean the difference between cost being a drag on margin or a managed, optimized expense. If you’re not yet tracking your shipping and mailing data with a centralized reporting tool, now is the time.This story was produced by Stamps.com and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Generative AI is eating culture. See how close it’s getting to disrupting dance Generative AI is eating culture. See how close it’s getting to disrupting danceDancers say their craft can’t be duplicated by AI. Our tests show they’re right — for now.Bird singing and dancing, as practiced by the Cahuilla Band of Indians, tell a story about the creation of the world, and how the Cahuilla migrated to their current home in Southern California. Moving the same way your ancestors did, perhaps on the exact same land, makes you feel part of the past, present, and future all at once, said tribal member Emily Clarke. She’s done bird dance with her loved ones since she was 7 years old—an act, she said, not only of spirituality but also of perseverance, since bird dance is among the acts of Native American culture nearly eradicated by colonization and U.S. government policy.So when Clarke heard that some generative artificial intelligence models, like Google’s Veo 3 and OpenAI’s Sora 2, can mimic the dance, her first thought was that it was wrong, distasteful and disrespectful. Then she wondered briefly if automated forms of bird dance could help preserve her culture—before deciding they can’t, since they will never replicate the conversations and community bonds that have helped give Cahuilla bird dance its distinct style and impassioned practitioners.“It would miss the cultural and social importance, and without that, it’s not bird dancing,” she said.Developers of AI systems are working continuously to do an increasingly better job of replicating complex human movement, including dance. Doing so has become a sort of holy grail in the field of generative AI due to the many technical challenges involved, but it remains an open question among dancers like Clarke of how much the technology will disrupt the world of dance as it progresses.Clarke’s conflicting and uncertain thoughts about AI mirror those of other dancers across California interviewed by CalMatters, who were, depending on the specific question or moment in time, optimistic, skeptical and concerned about AI’s incursion into their art form. Most settled into the view that AI is incapable of capturing the uniquely human aspects of dancing, including the cultures surrounding it, the pride and passion of dancers, the energy imparted by audiences, or the form’s essential element of improvisation. Photo courtesy of Emily Clarke CalMatters and The Markup tested four commercially-available AI video-generation models — OpenAI’s Sora, Google’s Veo, MiniMax’s Hailuo, and Kuaishou’s Kling — and so far, dancers don’t have much to worry about. Late last year, for the sake of this study, the four models were asked to depict humans performing nine different dances, including the Apple dance popularized on TikTok, bird dance, folklórico and the Mashed Potato. All but one of the 36 tests returned a video of a human dancing, but all of the videos failed to produce a video of a person performing the specific dance requested. Furthermore, a little under a third of the videos included many of the common issues seen in generative video, like inconsistencies in a subject’s appearance from frame to frame, abnormalities in movement, or too many limbs.Video generation models still make obvious mistakes like liquefying limbs or sudden changes in clothing, but they are clearly improving. When CalMatters and The Markup ran similar tests in late 2024, videos had more impossible limb movements and visual inconsistencies, failings that appear less frequently and are more difficult to spot today.Clarke said of the AI-generated videos depicting the Cahuilla Band of Indians bird dance: “None of these depictions are anywhere close to bird dancing, in my opinion. The regalia is only similar in that there are skirts with ribbons, but the songs and dance movements are completely off.”Generative AI, technology that makes it possible to quickly generate audio, text, imagery or video with a simple text prompt, raises issues beyond the dance community. It’s often made with data scraped from the internet, meaning that creatives who share their work online risk having it used to train AI models.Understanding how AI might affect the world of dance has also taken on new urgency as AI begins to influence the art and careers of creatives in adjacent fields and slop begins to crowd out images of real people on social media.A nearly five-month strike in 2023 by Hollywood writers was prompted in part by concerns around the use of artificial intelligence in entertainment. An actors’ strike also addressed the effects of AI on performers’ work. Lawmakers are trying to sort out the policy implications; the California Legislature last year passed laws sponsored by the Screen Actors Guild to protect actors from getting turned into digital replicas without their consent. Next year, lawmakers will consider the passage of a bill supported by Hollywood creatives, which places digital fingerprints on copyright material so individuals can ask tech companies whether their work was used to train generative AI models and give them grounds to demand compensation or credit.Most dancers are not unionized, although some are part of SAG-AFTRA, along with others who earn a living by moving their bodies, like stunt performers and martial artists. Within this group, video game motion actors are at the vanguard; they went on strike last year alongside voice actors as they sought protections from AI.Hip hop, folklórico, and the limits of techEdye Kelly, 23, first started dancing in a Bay Area hip-hop studio in 2016. She moved down to the Los Angeles area a couple of years ago to pursue a career in dance. She has been in a Daddy Yankee music video, and has performed at the Grammys as one of the dancers for R&B singer-songwriter SZA. She completed her first tour as a backup dancer with multiplatinum pop entertainer Usher.Kelly heard creatives talk about how AI could affect their work during the SAG-AFTRA actors’ strike, but she doesn’t think many dancers know about the possibility that the technology could have a big impact on their livelihoods.She said full-body motion technology is already beginning to encroach on human dancers’ territory: “It kind of already has happened, when you think of video games and how they use dancers for ‘Just Dance’ or ‘Michael Jackson: The Experience.’” Those video games use a combination of real dancers’ movements and motion technology, according to dancers who have talked online about their work for the games. Ubisoft, the maker of both games, on its website touts its use of AI “across the board” to “create believable worlds” and has posted to YouTube a video showing its capture process in action. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on its use of software to simulate or augment dance.Kelly, who earns money by dancing and teaching dance classes, is concerned that AI could eventually threaten dancers’ jobs and said she hopes dancers are fairly compensated if their likenesses or moves are used to train AI models.But she struck an optimistic note, too, saying, “I don’t think AI could ever get to a point of perfectly mimicking humans … We are constantly evolving. They would always be behind in some kind of way.”Nadia Arambula is an introvert, but that all melts away when she’s dancing. Arambula, 46, started folklórico dancing as a toddler in Guadalajara. Folklórico dance styles and clothing vary by state or region in Mexico, and as a child, Arambula embraced the fashions of the Jalisco region by playing dress-up in her mom’s colorful skirt and heels. When she was 5, her mom signed her up for dance classes at her daycare, and she’s been at it ever since. Today Arambula dances at events in San Diego at places such as Padres baseball games and community gatherings with her students at Ballet Folklórico El Tapatío.Arambula said she has danced nearly her entire life because she enjoys how the elegant, flowing drawing movements with skirts projects pride in Mexican culture and manifests joy and a sense of freedom. She also loves teaching insecure young people to get up on a stage and live out loud—to feel the sort of joy she feels when she dances.Arambula believes it’s impossible for AI to mimic the emotion of a dancer, especially when it comes to interacting with the audience. The tech, she said, will never be able to transmit the grace, joy and emotions she feels when she dances.“When I perform, I can feel the audience,” she said. “I give life to the people, and at the same time receive life from the people. It’s beautiful. There are no words that describe the feeling that I have when I perform and seeing the audience wants to be part of this moment.”Shown some of Jalisco folklórico AI dance videos generated by CalMatters and The Markup, Arambula said they don’t come close to representing the Jalisco dance style she grew up with and teaches today. There’s no proper footwork, posture or skirt movement — all essential elements of the style. In some instances, AI makes a head turn without shoulders following or makes part of a dress disappear for a moment, but she said she has to stop to catch the imperfections. She may not notice them if she scrolled past these videos in her social media feed without an indication they were made by AI.Dance competitionComputer scientists have for years made it a grand challenge for their AI models to generate convincing dance videos on demand from textual descriptions — not unlike similar dreams of developing AI that can drive a car next to humans on city streets or one that can detect emergencies before any humans dial 911. Videos from YouTube and TikTok provided them with ample training data, helping AI systems generate movement without needing sensor-laden humans to literally dance for them, a process known as “motion capture” that is currently required for most video games and augmented reality worlds. (YouTube now prohibits the use of videos it hosts for training models unless users opt in. TikTok did not respond to repeated requests for comment.)Researchers at UC Berkeley made important strides in 2018, when they used YouTube videos to train AI to do acrobatics like backflips, martial arts, and, perhaps most importantly, the Gangnam Style dance. Subsequent work by Berkeley researchers in 2019 used video of a ballerina on YouTube as training data. In 2022, a UCLA researcher, along with their collaborators, introduced Bailando, a generative dance AI model. The same year, Stanford researchers introduced EDGE, which can generate lengthy state-of-the-art breakdancing videos based on only five seconds of music and video. In 2024, researchers from the University of Southern California and TikTok parent company ByteDance introduced AI models that imitate facial expressions and dance moves.Making videos with AI has become even easier with the advent of generative AI models from companies like OpenAI, Midjourney and Runway.Despite this progress, AI models still struggle to create natural movement. For example, it’s easy to make a video of a fireplace ablaze or a Hollywood explosion, said UC Berkeley computer science professor James O’Brien, but it’s hard to make a video of a wildfire impacted by strong winds. This limitation means AI models may do a poor job at imitating some dance moves today, but O’Brien said it’s important to appreciate that when AI developers fix their sights on a challenge, they can make vast improvement within a matter of months. Two years ago, for example, text-to-video models were incapable of producing videos of Will Smith eating spaghetti (which, like dance, is another de facto benchmark for AI models). Today such videos are not perfect, but they’re much more lifelike than they used to be.Computer scientists are interested in being able to generate realistic videos of dance because the capability is a gateway to creating a range of photorealistic human movement, said Yuanhao Zhai, a recent Ph.D. graduate in computer vision from State University of New York at Buffalo. If you can generate video of a gymnast doing a backflip, for example, it will be easier to produce footage of a person walking down the block.Feeling dance moves under your skinA ballerina figurine atop a music box is what inspired Emma Andre, 26, to dance. They were 3 years old and mesmerized by the miniature as it spun around a tiny piano, bent in an arabesque. They told their parents they wanted to go to dance class. A creative movement class led to lessons in ballet and contemporary dance, attendance at the Boston Conservatory, and training with dance companies in New York City. Today Andre choreographs dance performances and teaches dance to kids in Berkeley in the same kind of classes where they got their start.Lately, they have enjoyed movement in dance shows like My Obsession with Hamletmachine and the Yerba Buena Garden ChoreoFest in San Francisco. They also enjoy working with their partner and fellow dancer Henry Winslow on a duet Andre calls the couple’s dance theater idea farm. Last year they performed a three-part duet in front of an 11-person audience in their one-room apartment in Oakland, a feat that required some modifications to ensure Winslow didn’t stick a leg out a window or upset downstairs neighbors. Florence Middleton for CalMatters Florence Middleton for CalMatters Andre said they are open to exploring the use of AI in dance, but believes that it is a uniquely human form of movement, incorporating elements that cannot be imitated by AI. Even if AI got every step right, it cannot capture the lessons and experiences that sometimes determine the next step for human dancers. A pirouette, a spin on one leg, is different every single time, they said.“I do a lot of improvisation for my choreography, so I don’t even know what I’m gonna make. And so it’s really crazy to me that an AI could predict that?” they asked. “We talk a lot about fascia, which is the layer of connective tissue under your skin that goes throughout your entire body. And I feel like a lot of my movement stems from a fascia level. You can’t map that externally.”What drives them to continue to dance is the joy of movement and connection, of meeting people and building relationships through dance. Ephemeral, beautiful, intimate moments of movement make dance what it is, they said. Andre is also motivated to pass on that passion to young people — seeing them discover and feel creative and confident the same way Andre learned when they were a child fuels their interest in exploration.“I have a choice, but I will always choose to dance,” they said.Andre said they found a depiction of the Horton modern dance style generated using the Veo 3 model “staggeringly lifelike,” but they caught moments in a majority of the generated videos where something is“not quite right,” like when a dancer’s head is momentarily on backward in one video, or when a ballet dancer bounces on to their tippy toes, but they’re wearing soft shoes, and you would only do that in hard toe ballet slippers.“It’s really confusing to me why anyone would prefer this instead of hiring one of the thousands of really capable, really talented dancers in most major U.S. cities,” they said. “The whole point of dance is connecting with the human form.”Winslow enjoys how dance connects him with Andre and other people in order to create something meaningful together, and delights in feeling the history of movement styles developed over generations that traveled across continents.Sometimes a dance step is new and sometimes it’s something in the zeitgeist or you didn’t know you picked up from theater camp as a teenager. The majority of the time it isn’t new but something you learned over time, something programmed into a dancer’s nervous system over the span of days or decades, or mirror neurons that fire in the brains of experienced dancers when they watch other dancers perform. He questions how AI can imitate those human processes.“Because we’ve been doing this for a while, there’s just a lot under the surface,” he said.Social media: To share or not to shareAndre said they stopped sharing their dance on Instagram in order to take a mental health break from the unhealthy dopamine dependency such platforms can enable. Posting dance videos on Instagram has helped Andre find jobs, but they said that if generative AI started imitating their favorite dance styles they would be less likely to post videos online in the future because they don’t like the idea that their body and movements can be copied and used by an AI model.And they are worried about constricting their posting that way because they believe dance is meant to be shared. If fewer dancers share their videos, it can reduce learning and access. They have a contemporary dance degree from Boston Conservatory, but learned how to do fouetté turns from a YouTube video and has drawn inspiration for how to choreograph dance performances from other videos posted on social media.“My body and my dancing is mine, and the idea that that can just be siphoned through this process and then become part of AI without my consent is something that I don’t love the idea of,” they said.Conversely, Arambula said she’s fine with the makers of AI scraping video of her performances because she’s confident that a machine cannot imitate the way she connects with an audience.Emily Clarke said that if she found out her videos were part of data used to train video-generating AI, she too would stop publicly posting videos on social media, but she’s not worried about that negatively impacting community connection since it’s more common to learn bird dancing from an elder or another tribe member than it is to learn on social media.Zion Harris is 25 years old and has been dancing since he was 5. He was 12 when he made it onto the Golden State Warriors’ Junior Jam dance team as a part-time employee of the NBA franchise, which is when he said he seriously began to think of making a living as a dancer. Alisha Jucevic for CalMatters Now he’s doing it. Harris, who grew up in the Bay Area, has been on tour as a backup dancer with Puerto Rican rappers Bad Bunny and Daddy Yankee, getting to explore North and South America in the process. He has performed at the Grammys with country/hip-hop crossover star Lil Nas X. He’s been in a Coach commercial with Houston rapper Megan Thee Stallion.Dance has helped him get through his “hardest times,” Harris said. “It blows my mind every day that I can do this.” His main sources of income are tours, music videos and stage performances. When there are human dancers at a concert, “it definitely helps with the crowd… and brings the artist’s vision alive,” he said. “Having a hologram, or digital images on a screen, would be boring.”There are times when things get slow for Harris. But when he’s not on a job, he is training — taking dance classes or holding practice sessions with his fellow dancers.Harris is signed with a casting agency that helps him book jobs, but social media plays a huge role in getting him noticed and sometimes helps him find opportunities directly. So the possibility of his moves and likeness being copied off social media platforms by AI is “definitely a big worry,” he said.“Everything is becoming easy to replicate or use without consent,” Harris said. “But if we don’t post [on social media], our opportunities could stop. You really just have to take the gamble.”Dancers and educators experimenting with AIThough some dancers are clearly concerned about having their work exploited to build artificial intelligence models, others are experimenting with incorporating AI into their craft. Performers associated with the dance tech nonprofit Kinetech have used AI in a number of ways since the organization formed in 2013, including in dance performances with robotic arms or AI systems that use motion capture to mimic the steps of a live performer.Regular contributors to Kinetech shows run the gamut from a computer scientist so stiff it looks like they can’t move their shoulders to dancers with little to no experience in technology, said Daiane Lopes da Silva, a dancer who cofounded Kinetech alongside technologist and director Weidong Yang. Juliana Yamada for CalMatters Members of the group come together in order to use technology as a tool to highlight humanity, Yang said.That play and experimentation takes place at a weekly “open lab” gathering in San Francisco’s Mission District. Amid exercises at an open lab last year ahead of the group’s annual DanceHack show, Lopes da Silva led warmups for about 30 dancers and technologists with snaps, claps, shoulder rolls, and an order to “make magic with your hands like an alchemist.”Lopes da Silva thinks motion capture technology can help dancers, capturing their unique style of movement and serving as a tool for self reflection. She recently used motion capture to discover that she dances more enthusiastically on her right side than her left.The best part about humans making art with machines, Yang told dancers and technologists at an open lab ahead of DanceHack, is when things go wrong.“Artists like glitches,” he said. “That can lead to improvisation, unexpected events that cannot be reproduced.”Ari Kalinowski runs a lab at Gray Area, a nonprofit arts organization known for putting human dancers on the same stage as robots. He supports lawsuits against companies like Stability AI and Midjourney, which artists accuse of copyright infringement. Neither company responded to requests to comment. At the same time, he has also been working with Kinetech on AI that can mimic and interact with dancers and wants dancers to explore dancing with AI agents.The art form can withstand integration with AI, he believes.“People still play chess after Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov,” he said. “We now have in addition to chess, augmented chess, and as an artist I’m not interested in replacing artists. I’m interested in expanding creativity to include human-agent interaction in different ways.”Kate Ladenheim is an assistant professor of choreography at UCLA and a self-described creative technologist. Ladenheim was once asked to choreograph a ballet about Anonymous, the hacker group, which “pointed me toward digital life as a really strong influence for my work,” Ladenheim said.Ladenheim uses motion capture extensively and has explored the intersection of dance and technology in various other ways, including by teaching a class about modern dance as it relates to tech development, and working with a member of the Martha Graham Dance Company on a chatbot that responds in the voice of Graham, the famous dancer and choreographer.Ladenheim said the impact of technology on dance is nothing new, and that fears about technology’s effect on labor have been around since the industrial revolution. Generative systems that are producing dance animations aren’t very good yet, in Ladenheim’s opinion. Still, they acknowledged that AI has the potential to get so adept that it brings up an “essential question for the field of choreography: What is the implication if we can (subtract the human) body from it?”About half an hour away at the University of Southern California’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, associate professor d. Sabela grimes is facing AI head-on instead of fearing it. Many dancers have been early tech adopters, he said, embracing sampler and drum machines, and the internet as a way to share music files.The professor encourages his dance students to use ChatGPT to help formulate questions. He also believes generative AI can help students in their choreography classes and help teachers engage students. AI models are “going to be integrated in so many systems, so why not get ahead of it,” he said. Yet he added that there’s an important conversation to be had around “the ethics of plagiarizing people’s styles and using it for datasets.”Should dancers be worried about AI replacing them? It depends on what audiences and artists want, grimes said: “If people value a virtual experience vs. a human experience, there will be a danger.”Kat Lin is a technologist who has danced since she was 3 years old and taken part in Kinetech performances since 2018. She’s never seen Kinetech do shows that didn’t involve AI in some way. Though AI or metaphors about AI are part of many Kinetech dance performances, Lin doubts that AI can easily replicate their shows because they’re often improvised and technological glitches are treated like opportunities to explore the unexpected.There’s a lot of fearmongering today about AI taking jobs from creatives, Lin said, but she doesn’t view the relationship between AI and art as antagonistic. Humans might take inspiration from dancing with AI or learn things, like how their dance steps land heavier on their right side than their left. But Lin doesn’t believe AI is a threat to dancers’ jobs. “There’s always going to be something different about having a human stand in front of you and moving,” she said. “Nothing will ever replace that kind of energy, probably because humans are very social, and there’s just something magical to that.”Lin said AI can’t imitate the community she enjoys at Kinetech open labs, which she has participated in since moving to San Francisco seven years ago. And it can’t mimic the connection she felt with Weidong Yang, whom she met while doing a handstand. He joined her there, upside down with his legs against the wall, and she now considers him a great friend.“I often say that getting to do dance pieces or be in rehearsal is just an excuse to hang out with friends,” she said. “Community is everything.”This story was produced by CalMatters and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Rock Island closing 5th Avenue for road work Drivers in Rock Island who use 5th Avenue will need to find another way to get across town starting next week. A news release from the City of Rock Island says 5th Avenue will be temporarily closed starting Monday, Feb 2 to accommodate planned roadwork. Both eastbound lanes of 5th Avenue will be closed to [...]
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	Heavy manufacturing turns to rooftop solar to cut costs and carbon Heavy manufacturing turns to rooftop solar to cut costs and carbonAs Deloitte states in its report Boosting Industrial Manufacturing Capacity for the Energy Transition, the manufacturing sector has a pressing need to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, both as a means of minimizing operational costs and shrinking its carbon footprint. The capabilities of renewable energy sources continue to evolve, and upfront installation costs are consistently declining.For heavy manufacturing facilities managing multi-megawatt energy profiles, the decision to install on-site generation has historically been hindered by high capital expenditure (CapEx) and long return-on-investment (ROI) horizons.However, the convergence of plummeting photovoltaic (PV) hardware costs and federal incentives has fundamentally altered this calculus. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), the cost to install solar has dropped by more than 40% over the last decade. For industrial facilities with available roof space exceeding 50,000 square feet, this price compression creates a specific economic tipping point where self-generation moves from a sustainability initiative to a core operational expense (OpEx) reduction strategy.The Rise of Rooftop Solar in Heavy ManufacturingWhile residential solar demand has fluctuated — McKinsey & Company notes a flattening in domestic installations in 2024 after a prior surge — the industrial sector is decoupling from this trend.Projections from Grand View Research in their Rooftop Solar PV Market Summary indicate the industrial segment will account for 40.1% of revenue growth through 2025. This divergence is driven by two key financial levers: energy independence and tax equity.Grid insulation: Heavy manufacturing operations rely on consistent uptime. On-site arrays reduce exposure to grid volatility and peak-demand pricing.Tax incentives: The Investment Tax Credit (ITC) and Production Tax Credit (PTC) remain primary drivers. The Congressional Budget Office, in its Business Tax Credits for Wind and Solar Power Report, estimates that without these subsidies, renewable energy spending would be roughly 33% lower. These mechanisms allow facilities to offset significant portions of the initial CapEx, accelerating the break-even timeline.Solar panel costs have also dropped by 99% in the past 50 years. The long-term operational value of rooftop solar now outweighs the initial installation burden.More rooftop solar projects are underway in heavy manufacturing at the moment, with many recently completed. Emergent Solar Energy notes that this includes projects for the likes of Toyota Material Handling, as well as work backed by the USDA Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) to support pork farming in Indiana.As more pressure is applied to businesses in this sector to encourage a reduction in Scope 2 emissions associated with off-site energy generation, rooftop solar could become more attractive for businesses.Key Structural Factors To Consider Before Installing Rooftop SolarBefore a heavy manufacturing facility commits to rooftop solar, it’s important to examine the building itself. Large industrial roofs might seem like an ideal candidate for big solar arrays, but not every structure is ready to support the weight, layout, or long‑term demands of a full photovoltaic system.The primary variable is structural integrity. Many manufacturing buildings were designed decades ago, prior to the standardization of rooftop equipment. According to the NREL Solar Ready Buildings Guide, a standard PV array adds a static dead load of 3–6 pounds per square foot.Engineers will usually start by checking load capacity, roof age, and any signs of wear. If the roof is nearing its replacement cycle, it’s almost always more prudent to address it upfront rather than retrofitting panels and removing them later.Roof design also dictates successful implementation. Flat roofs offer flexibility for mounting angles, but they also require careful drainage planning to avoid pooling under or near mounting hardware. Older sloped roofs introduce different challenges, like limited usable surface area or materials that are difficult to penetrate safely. Roof obstructions are another factor; vents, ducts, skylights, and mechanical equipment can interrupt panel layout, reducing total capacity or complicating installation.Electrical integration also presents a logistical hurdle. Solar systems require space for inverters, disconnects, and wiring routes. Under National Electric Code (NEC) Article 690, disconnects must be "readily accessible," often requiring reorganization of electrical rooms or main switchgear upgrades to handle the backfeed.Finally, long-term access matters. Maintenance crews must be able to reach panels without interrupting production or compromising worker safety. This often necessitates the installation of permanent walkways and guardrails to comply with OSHA standard 1910 for walking-working surfaces.The Future of Heavy Manufacturing’s Relationship with Rooftop SolarHeavy manufacturing prioritizes ROI on any new tech or solution it invests in, so the cost-effectiveness of rooftop solar makes it easy to justify as a priority project. Coupled with the selling point of energy independence and the adjacent upside of improving operational resilience that this brings, it’s possible to envision a point at which every facility has such a setup in place.The challenges of retrofitting rooftop solar notwithstanding, it’s also an element that gives manufacturers the chance to showcase their green credentials to customers and clients, whether or not these are actually central to their overarching mission statement.What may hold back this trend is changes to government incentives, such as the availability of ITC and PTC. Given how much these are catalyzing investment at the moment, if they are reduced or removed, the industry's current growth trajectory could be curtailed.This story was produced by Emergent Solar Energy and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	$20 adoptions at King's Harvest Pet Rescue Jan. 31 If you’ve thought about adding a furry friend to your family, tomorrow, January 31 may be the day to take action. King’s Harvest Pet Rescue is offering $20 adoptions on January 31 only for all long-term dogs and cats, those who have been at the shelter for six months or longer, according to a post [...]
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	Sales tech stack ROI: What C-suite executives must fix now Sales tech stack ROI: What C-suite executives must fix nowYour sales organization is spending an average of $1,200 per rep annually on sales tools, yet 67% of purchased features go unused. According to Gartner, IT spending is growing 9.3% in 2025, but most C-suite teams can’t answer a simple question: What revenue did last quarter’s tech investment actually generate? Apollo.io explains what C-suite executives should understand about sales tech stack ROI. Apollo.io Key TakeawaysStop tracking adoption rates, measure revenue impact per dollar spent on each tool in your stack.According to ICONIQ, 2025 State of AI Report, 47% of AI-native companies have reached critical scale and proven market fit, compared to only 13% of companies that simply "enabled" existing products with AI features.Your biggest waste isn’t the tools you bought; it’s the duplicate data, disconnected systems, and time reps spend toggling between platforms.Build ROI models that account for implementation drag, training costs, and the productivity dip before value kicks in.What’s actually broken with sales tech stack ROI?The problem isn’t that your sales tools don’t work. It’s that nobody knows what “working” means in dollars and cents.Your CRO says the new engagement platform increased activity by 40%. Your CFO asks how much revenue that activity generated.Silence.Here’s what’s happening: Each department bought tools to solve its own problems. Sales got a dialer and sequencing platform.Marketing added attribution software and a customer data platform. RevOps implemented data enrichment and analytics. Nobody mapped how these systems work together, and now you’re paying for three different contact databases that don’t sync, two conversation intelligence platforms that capture different calls, and four reporting dashboards that show conflicting numbers.The financial impact is measurable. When your VP of sales presents pipeline growth, she’s using data from the customer relationship management tool.When your CMO shows marketing-influenced revenue, he’s pulling from the marketing automation platform. When your CFO asks why the customer acquisition costs increased 23% while conversion rates stayed flat, nobody can connect the dots because the data lives in silos.Research from Gartner found that 65% of B2B sales organizations will transition from intuition-based to data-driven decision-making by 2026. But you can’t make data-driven decisions when your data is fragmented across disconnected systems.The real cost isn’t the subscription fees. It’s the revenue you’re not closing because reps spend too much of their time on nonselling tasks, updating multiple systems, searching for contact information that exists in three different databases with three different versions, and attending training sessions for tools that overlap with tools they already use.What metrics actually matter for measuring tech stack ROI?Track revenue per tool dollar, not feature adoption. The question isn’t whether your team uses the new platform. The question is whether using it generates more revenue than it costs.Here’s what to measure: Calculate the fully loaded cost of each tool (subscription + implementation + training + ongoing management + integration maintenance). Then measure the incremental revenue impact.If your engagement platform costs $180,000 annually all-in and increases closed-won revenue by $500,000, that’s a 2.8 times return. If your conversation intelligence platform costs $120,000 and you can’t quantify the revenue impact, that’s a problem.Stop measuring vanity metrics like “emails sent” or “calls logged.” Measure business outcomes: pipeline created per dollar spent, revenue influenced per tool investment, and time saved that converts to actual selling hours. When Pipeline360 surveyed B2B marketers for its 2025 State of the B2B Pipeline report, it found that 70% of marketers prefer actionable insight over more tools. The same applies to sales tech: Your board wants ROI, not dashboards showing how many features you’ve activated.Track integration costs as a separate line item. Every new tool requires connections to your CRM, your data warehouse, your analytics platform, and your other sales tools.Those integrations break. They require ongoing maintenance. They create data sync issues. Calculate the monthly cost of keeping your stack connected; it’s often 20%-30% of your total tech spend.Measure the productivity dip during implementation. When you roll out a new platform, rep productivity drops for four to eight weeks while they learn the system.Calculate that cost. If you have 50 reps averaging $500,000 in annual quota, a six-week productivity dip at 30% reduced output costs you $865,000 in delayed revenue.Your ROI model must account for this.Why are AI-native tools outperforming legacy platforms?AI-native tools eliminate manual work instead of creating new workflows. Legacy tools add steps, log this call, update this field, and create this task.ICONIQ’s 2025 State of AI Report observed that 47% of AI-native companies have reached critical scale and proven market fit, compared to only 13% of companies that simply "enabled" existing products with AI features.AI-native tools remove steps by automating the busywork entirely.But that number is misleading if you don’t understand why. The ROI isn’t from the AI itself. It’s from what the AI eliminates.When a rep uses a legacy dialer, they manually pull a list, upload it, dial through prospects, log each call outcome, update the CRM record, schedule the next task, and repeat. An AI-native system does all of that automatically while the rep focuses on the actual conversation.The ROI comes from converting nonselling hours into selling hours.The trap: Adding AI features to your existing stack without removing the old workflows. If your team is using an AI email writer but still manually personalizing every message because they don’t trust the output, you’ve added cost without eliminating work.Real ROI requires replacing old processes, not supplementing them.Here’s the evaluation framework: For every AI tool you’re considering, identify exactly which manual tasks it eliminates. If it doesn’t remove at least three hours per rep per week of current work, the ROI won’t justify the investment.You’re not buying AI. You’re buying back your reps’ time to sell.What does tech stack consolidation actually look like?It means cutting tools, not adding integrated platforms.They’re swapping 10-point solutions for three “comprehensive platforms” that still don’t talk to each other. Real consolidation starts with a capability audit. List every sales tech tool you’re paying for. Map what each one does. Identify the overlaps.Most organizations discover they’re paying for the same capability three to four times across different platforms.Example: You have contact data in your CRM, your engagement platform, your conversation intelligence tool, and your data enrichment service. Each one charges based on contact volume.Each one maintains a separate database. When a phone number changes, it gets updated in one system but not the others, so your reps waste time calling dead numbers.You’re paying four times for data that should live in one place.The consolidation decision: Choose platforms that replace multiple tools, not platforms that integrate with everything. Integration sounds good until you’re paying a developer $150 per hour to fix broken syncs every quarter.The real ROI comes from reducing the number of systems that need to stay connected. Calculate your “integration tax,” the total cost of keeping your current stack working together. Include API costs, developer time, data sync failures, and the opportunity cost when reps can’t access information because a connection broke.For most organizations, the integration tax is 25%-40% of total tech spend. Consolidation eliminates that entirely.How do you build an ROI model that executives actually trust?Start with real costs, not list prices. When your sales tech vendor quotes $50,000 annually, the actual cost is $50,000 plus implementation (typically 20%-30% of annual cost), plus training (calculate hours times burdened labor cost), plus integration (developer time to connect it to your stack), plus ongoing management (who owns this tool and how much of their time does it consume?).For a $50,000 platform, your all-in first-year cost is usually $75,000-$90,000. Your steady-state annual cost after year one is $60,000-$70,000.Use these real numbers in your ROI calculations, not the subscription fee.Build your revenue impact model bottom-up, not top-down. Don’t say, “This will increase win rates by 10%.” Say, “This eliminates five hours per rep per week of manual data entry. We have 40 reps. That’s 200 hours per week, or 10,400 hours annually. At an average hourly rate of $150 for selling time, that’s $1.56 million in recaptured selling capacity. If they convert that time at our average efficiency, it generates $468,000 in additional revenue.”Show the board three scenarios: conservative (tool delivers 50% of promised value), expected (tool delivers 80% of promised value), and optimistic (tool delivers 100% of promised value). Use the conservative case for your go/no-go decision.If the ROI works in the conservative scenario, approve it. If it only works in the optimistic scenario, pass.Track actual performance against your model quarterly. Most organizations build an ROI model to justify the purchase, then never look at it again.The CFO’s question six months later, “Is this actually delivering what you said it would?” catches everyone off guard. Build quarterly check-ins into your implementation plan. Measure the actual impact. If it’s not hitting your conservative case by quarter two, you either fix the implementation or cut the tool. Apollo.io What questions should you ask before approving the next sales tech investment?Start with: “What manual work does this eliminate, and how many hours per rep per week?” If the answer is vague or starts with, “Well, it helps reps be more efficient,” that’s a no. You need specific workflows that get removed entirely.Ask: “What tools does this replace?” If the answer is, “It integrates with everything we already have,” you’re adding to the stack, not consolidating. The ROI case should include the cost savings from retiring old tools, not just the incremental value from the new one.Demand: “Show me the fully loaded three-year cost.” Get implementation costs, integration costs, training costs, and ongoing management costs in writing. Add 20% for unknowns. Use that number in your ROI model, not the annual subscription fee.Require: “What’s our exit strategy? If this doesn’t work out, what does it cost to switch? How hard is it to extract our data? What happens to our workflows?” You’re not planning to fail, but you’re planning for the possibility that the tool doesn’t deliver. Build that exit cost into your decision framework.Challenge: “What’s the productivity dip during rollout?” Get specific. How many weeks will reps be less productive? By what percentage? Who’s responsible if the actual dip is worse than projected?Calculate that cost and add it to your ROI model.Finally, ask: “Who owns this tool, and what happens to their other responsibilities?” Every platform needs someone to manage it, configurations, user support, integration monitoring, and vendor management. If you’re adding work to someone’s plate without removing something else, you’re creating ROI drag.Factor in the management cost or plan to hire for it.How do you make the final decision on tech stack investments?Use a scoring framework that weights ROI above everything else. Create a simple decision matrix: ROI (50% weight), strategic fit (20%), implementation risk (15%), vendor stability (15%).Score each potential investment 1-10 in each category. Multiply by weights. Anything below 7.0 overall is a pass.For the ROI component, use your conservative scenario model. If the tool delivers $3 in revenue for every $1 spent, that’s a 10. If it breaks even, that’s a 5. If it costs more than it returns, that’s a 0.Be ruthless here; most vendors will show you optimistic case studies that assume perfect implementation and full adoption. Cut their projected impact in half and use that for your score.Run a pilot before full deployment. Pick 10 reps, implement the tool properly, and measure the results for 90 days. If the pilot doesn’t show measurable improvement in your key metrics (pipeline created, revenue closed, time saved), don’t scale it. The vendor will say, “You need full adoption for it to work.” That’s often true, but if you can’t prove value with 10 engaged users, you won’t see it with 100 skeptical ones.Set kill criteria upfront. Before you buy, agree on what “not working” looks like.Example: “If we don’t see a 15% improvement in connect rates by month six, we cancel.” Put it in writing. Share it with the vendor.When month six arrives and you’re at 8% improvement, you have a clear decision framework instead of a political debate about sunk costs.Remember: The best sales tech investment is often the one you don’t make. Your stack is already too complex.Your reps are already spending too much time on tools instead of selling. Before adding another platform, ask whether you can get the same result by using what you already have more effectively.The ROI on better process execution is infinite; it costs nothing and generates immediate value.This story was produced by Apollo.io and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Durant man sentenced to prison for transporting child sex abuse materials The case began in 2023 after Davenport police received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
	The Heart of the Story: Bringing history alive Our Quad Cities News is partnering with award-winning journalist Gary Metivier for The Heart of the Story. Each week, Gary showcases inspiring stories of everyday people doing cool stuff, enjoying their hobbies and living life to the fullest. Stories that feature the best of the human condition. Kids in the QCA can learn about World [...]
	Financial planning for 2026: Your Q1 action plan for goal-setting success Financial planning for 2026: Your Q1 action plan for goal-setting successThe first quarter of 2026 is underway, and with it comes that feeling of a fresh start we all love. Whether you’re working toward early retirement, building wealth with equity compensation, or finally buying that dream home, Q1 is your launchpad for making 2026 your most financially confident year yet.Why Q1 Matters for Your Financial SuccessThe beginning of the year isn’t just symbolic—it’s strategic. Tax season looms, retirement contribution limits reset, and you have a full 12 months ahead to make meaningful progress. Research shows that households with a financial plan are 2.5 times more likely to save enough for retirement, and 76% of people with formal plans wish they’d started sooner.Domain Money shares how to make Q1 2026 count.1. Set Financial Goals That Actually WorkVague aspirations like “save more money” don’t cut it. The most successful goal-setters use the SMART framework: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.Break your goals into three categories:Short-term (0-12 months): Build a $15,000 emergency fund, pay off high-interest credit card debt, or save for a vacation.Medium-term (1-5 years): Accumulate a $100,000 down payment, fund a wedding, or start a business.Long-term (5+ years): Retire by age 55, fund your children’s education, or build a $3 million portfolio.Example: Instead of “invest more,” try “maximize my 401(k) employer match by contributing $1,200 per month, plus increase my Roth IRA contributions to $7,500 for 2026.”People with written financial plans save 10% more of their income compared to those without plans. Even better? Those with a plan are 3.7 times more confident they’ll reach their financial goals.2. Maximize Your Retirement Contributions in Q1The IRS has set 2026 contribution limits, and Q1 is when you should lock in your strategy. Aim to contribute at least 10%-15% of your income toward retirement, adjusting based on your age and goals.2026 contribution limits:401(k): $24,500 (plus $8,000 catch-up if 50+, which must be in a Roth account for high earners)IRA/Roth IRA: $7,500 (plus $1,100 catch-up if 50+)HSA: $4,400 individual / $8,750 family (plus $1,000 if 55+)Pro tip: If you received a year-end bonus or raise, consider redirecting a portion directly to your retirement accounts before you adjust to the higher income. Even a 2% increase in contributions can translate to hundreds of thousands more by retirement, thanks to compound growth.3. Get Your Tax Strategy Right NowTax optimization isn’t just about filing on time—it’s about making smart moves throughout the year that reduce your liability. Q1 2026 is critical for several reasons.Key Q1 tax moves:Contribute to traditional IRAs or HSAs (if covered by a high deductible healthcare plan) to reduce taxable income for 2025 (you have until April 15, 2026).Review your 2025 tax return with a professional to identify missed opportunities.Consider Roth conversions if you’re in an unusually low-income year.Evaluate backdoor or mega backdoor Roth strategies if you exceed income limits.The One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) has changed several key tax rules, including making changes from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent, giving you more certainty for long-term planning. Work with a financial professional to understand how ongoing changes in the tax landscape might affect your strategy.4. Build or Replenish Your Emergency FundOnly 11% of Americans report living their definition of financial freedom, and a major reason is a lack of emergency savings. Financial experts recommend three to six months of living expenses in a high-yield savings account.If you’re starting from zero: Set a goal to save your first $1,000 this quarter. Then, gradually build toward one month of expenses, then three months, and eventually six months.If you had to tap your fund, Q1 is perfect for replenishment. Calculate your monthly essential expenses (housing, utilities, food, insurance, minimum debt payments), multiply by three to six, and create automatic transfers to rebuild your safety net.Consider parking these funds in a FDIC-insured high-yield savings account that still offers competitive rates, even as the Federal Reserve continues rate adjustments.5. Review and Rebalance Your Investment PortfolioMarket performance in 2025 may have shifted your asset allocation away from your target. Q1 2026 is the time to rebalance, ensuring your portfolio aligns with your risk tolerance and timeline.Professional financial guidance adds approximately 3% in net returns annually through optimized investment decisions, strategic tax planning, and behavioral coaching. With a $500,000 portfolio, expert guidance could result in $1.3 million more after 30 years compared to self-directed investing.6. Tackle High-Interest Debt StrategicallyThree in five Americans carry credit-card debt, and many say it holds them back from reaching financial goals. Eliminating high-interest debt—especially credit cards with rates reaching 20%-30%—should be a Q1 priority.Two proven strategies:The Avalanche Method: Pay minimums on all debts, then attack the highest-interest debt first. This saves the most money over time.The Snowball Method: Pay minimums on all debts, then focus on the smallest balance first. Quick wins build momentum and motivation.Consider using your tax refund, work bonus, or year-end equity compensation to make principal-only payments, which shorten your repayment timeline and reduce total interest paid.7. Optimize Your Cash Flow and BudgetQ1 is the perfect time for a spending audit. Look at your 2025 expenses—where did your money actually go versus where you planned for it to go?Common cash flow leaks:Subscription services you don’t use.Dining out more frequently than budgeted.One-click purchases that add up.Insurance policies you’re overpaying for.Create a system that works:Automate savings and investing first.Segment accounts by specific goals (travel, emergency, home down payment, retirement).Use budgeting apps like Copilot Money, YNAB, or Monarch Money to track spending in real time.Consider the 50/30/20 rule: 50% necessities, 30% discretionary, 20% savings and debt repayment (but if you’re a high earner, you may find that it doesn’t apply to you).Remember: Budgeting isn’t about restriction—it’s about alignment. Make sure your spending reflects what you actually value.8. Plan for Major 2026 Expenses NowAre you buying a home? Planning a wedding? Starting a business? Major expenses require major planning, and Q1 gives you the full year to prepare.Break down the cost into quarterly savings goals:$30,000 down payment = $7,500 per quarter$20,000 wedding = $5,000 per quarter$10,000 home renovation = $2,500 per quarterCreate separate savings accounts for each goal and set up automatic transfers. This approach means you’re less likely to rely on credit cards or personal loans when the time comes, saving you significant interest costs.Consider which accounts make sense as funding sources—taxable investment accounts, high-yield savings, or even strategic equity compensation sales where applicable.9. Review Insurance and Estate PlanningLife changes fast. Marriage, children, home purchases, job changes, and business ventures all impact your insurance and estate planning needs.Q1 insurance checklist:Review life insurance coverage—do your beneficiaries still reflect your wishes?Evaluate disability insurance, especially if you’ve changed jobs or had income increases.Compare home and auto insurance rates; switching providers could save hundreds annually.Consider umbrella liability policies if your net worth has grown.Maximize HSA contributions if eligible.Estate planning essentials: Nearly 60% of people have encountered conflict from a lack of estate planning. Don’t let your family be part of that statistic. At a minimum, you need:Last will and testamentPower of attorneyHealthcare directiveAppropriate beneficiary designations on applicable accountsIf you have significant assets, complex family situations, or own a business, consider working with an estate planning attorney to establish trusts and implement tax-efficient wealth transfer strategies.10. Make Q1 Your Financial Review QuarterSet a specific date—ideally in January or early February—to conduct a comprehensive financial review. This isn’t just about setting goals; it’s about understanding where you stand today.Your Q1 financial review should include:Net worth calculation (assets minus liabilities)Review of all account statements and balancesAssessment of 2025 financial goals—what worked, what didn’tTax document gathering and 2025 return preparationInsurance policy reviewEstate planning document updatesInvestment performance analysisDebt paydown progress trackingSchedule quarterly check-ins throughout 2026 to monitor progress, celebrate wins, and adjust course when needed. Financial planning isn’t set-it-and-forget-it—it’s an ongoing process that adapts to your life.Your 2026 Action Plan: Get Started This WeekDon’t let Q1 slip away. Here’s your immediate action plan:This week:Calculate your current net worth.List your top three financial goals for 2026.Review your 2025 spending and identify areas for optimization.Check your emergency fund balance.This month:Schedule time to gather tax documents and review your 2025 return.Increase retirement contributions if you received a raise.Set up automatic transfers to savings goals.Review and update insurance beneficiaries.This quarter:Complete a comprehensive financial plan or review one made by a professional.Rebalance investment portfolio.Implement tax-loss harvesting if appropriate.Create or update estate planning documents.The first quarter sets the tone for your entire financial year. Small steps today lead to big wins tomorrow. You’ve worked hard to build your career and earn your income—now make 2026 the year your money works just as hard for you.This story was produced by Domain Money and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Flu shot 2026: What to expect, timing, and effectiveness Flu shot 2026: What to expect, timing, and effectivenessEvery year, flu vaccines are updated to match the flu viruses expected to circulate. For 2026, the vaccine focuses on several influenza strains that research predicts will be most prevalent. This includes both influenza A and B types, which cause seasonal outbreaks. The goal is to reduce the risk of infection and limit the severity of symptoms if you do get sick.The flu shot is formulated based on global surveillance data collected months in advance. Scientists analyze which strains have been most active and how they have mutated. This process helps create a vaccine that offers the best possible protection for the upcoming flu season. The vaccine development process involves collaboration among various health organizations and research institutions worldwide, ensuring that the most current data influences the formulation. This global effort is crucial, as flu viruses can change rapidly, and staying ahead of these changes is essential for effective vaccination.Telehealth platform Doctronic provides guidance on the 2026 flu vaccine, including timing, effectiveness, and who should get vaccinated.Key TakeawaysThe 2026 flu vaccine targets the most common and dangerous flu strains expected this season.Optimal timing for the flu shot is early fall, ideally before flu activity peaks.Flu vaccine effectiveness varies from year to year but remains the best defense against severe illness.Understanding the benefits and limitations of the flu shot helps you make informed health decisions.What Strains Are Included in the 2026 Vaccine?The 2026 flu vaccine typically covers:Influenza A (H1N1) strain, a common cause of seasonal fluInfluenza A (H3N2) strain, often linked to more severe outbreaksTwo influenza B strains from the Victoria and Yamagata lineagesThese strains are chosen to provide broad coverage and help protect vulnerable populations such as the elderly, young children, and people with chronic health conditions. Beyond just protecting these high-risk groups, the vaccine also plays a vital role in community immunity. When a significant portion of the population gets vaccinated, it reduces the overall spread of the virus, thereby protecting those who may not be able to receive the vaccine, such as individuals with certain allergies or compromised immune systems. This collective responsibility underscores the importance of annual flu vaccinations, as they not only safeguard individual health but also contribute to the well-being of the entire community.When Is the Best Time to Get Your Flu Shot?Timing your flu shot correctly is essential for maximizing its effectiveness. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends getting vaccinated by the end of October. This timing allows your body enough time to build immunity before flu activity peaks, which usually happens between December and February. Understanding the dynamics of flu season can help you make informed decisions about your health and the health of those around you.Early Fall: The Ideal WindowGetting vaccinated in early fall, around September or October, is best. The immune protection from the flu shot generally lasts about six months, so receiving it too early in the summer might mean reduced protection later in the flu season. The flu virus can mutate, leading to new strains each year. Getting vaccinated at the recommended time ensures that you are protected against the most prevalent strains circulating during the peak months.Who Should Get Vaccinated?Everyone over 6 months old should get the flu vaccine annually. It is especially important for:Older adults aged 65 and abovePregnant individualsPeople with chronic illnesses such as asthma, diabetes, or heart diseaseHealthcare workers and caregiversEven healthy adults benefit from vaccination because it reduces the spread of flu to others. In fact, community immunity is crucial; when a significant portion of the population is vaccinated, it helps protect those who cannot receive the vaccine for medical reasons. This includes infants under 6 months old and individuals with severe allergies to vaccine components. By getting vaccinated, you not only safeguard your health but also contribute to your community's overall well-being.It's worth noting that the flu vaccine is updated annually to match the most common circulating strains. This means that even if you received the vaccine last year, it’s important to get vaccinated again to ensure optimal protection. Public health campaigns often emphasize the importance of flu vaccinations, especially during years when flu activity is expected to be high. Staying informed about flu trends and vaccination recommendations can empower you to make proactive health choices.How Effective Is the Flu Shot in 2026?Flu vaccine effectiveness varies each year depending on how well the vaccine strains match circulating viruses. On average, the flu shot reduces the risk of flu illness by 40 to 60 percent when the vaccine is well-matched. While not perfect, the vaccine significantly lowers the risk of severe complications, hospitalizations, and death.Factors Influencing EffectivenessSeveral factors affect how well the flu shot works:Virus match: The closer the vaccine strains match circulating viruses, the better the protection.Age and health status: Older adults and people with weakened immune systems may have a reduced response.Previous vaccinations: Past flu shots can positively or negatively influence the immune response.Why Get Vaccinated Even If Effectiveness Varies?Even in years when the vaccine is less effective at preventing infection, it often reduces the severity of illness. Vaccinated individuals tend to experience milder symptoms and recover faster. This can prevent complications like pneumonia and reduce the burden on healthcare systems.Preparing for Your Flu Shot VisitKnowing what to expect during your flu shot appointment can make the experience smoother. Whether you get vaccinated at a pharmacy, clinic, or through your healthcare provider, the process is quick and straightforward.What Happens During the Flu Shot?The flu vaccine is usually given as an injection in the upper arm. Some people may experience mild side effects such as soreness, redness, or swelling at the injection site. These reactions typically resolve within a day or two.After the Flu ShotIt takes about two weeks for your body to build full immunity after vaccination. During this time, continue practicing good hygiene and avoid close contact with sick individuals to reduce your risk of infection.Looking to 2026: One step ahead of the fluGetting the flu shot is a simple step that can protect you and those around you from serious illness. By choosing the right timing and understanding the vaccine’s benefits, you make an informed choice for your health. Stay proactive this flu season and prioritize your well-being.Frequently Asked QuestionsCan I get the flu shot and the COVID-19 vaccine at the same time?Yes, it is safe to receive the flu vaccine and the COVID-19 vaccine during the same visit. This helps ensure you are protected against both viruses.Are there any people who should avoid the flu shot?Most people can safely get the flu shot. However, individuals with severe allergies to vaccine ingredients or a history of Guillain-Barré syndrome should consult their healthcare provider first.How long does the flu shot protection last?Protection generally lasts about six months, which is why annual vaccination is recommended before each flu season.What should I do if I get flu symptoms after vaccination?If you develop flu symptoms, contact a healthcare provider promptly.Is the nasal spray flu vaccine available in 2026?The nasal spray vaccine may be available, but it is recommended only for certain age groups and healthy individuals. Your healthcare provider can advise if it is appropriate for you.The Bottom LineThe flu shot remains one of the most effective ways to reduce your risk of serious illness and protect those around you. Getting vaccinated at the right time and understanding its benefits helps you stay prepared each flu season.This story was produced by Doctronic and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Davenport man arrested on false imprisonment, theft charges A Davenport man is in the Scott County Jail after police say he tried to illegally buy a firearm and stole a vehicle occupied by a woman and her baby. Criminal complaints filed in the case say police were dispatched to G&G Retailers, 1655 W 17th Street on January 29 at about 1:41 p.m. and [...]
	Brown University pays out first workforce grants under deal with Trump The Ivy League school is giving $1.5 million to a community college and to a nonprofit apprenticeship program.
	Crazy Train Tour comes to Vibrant Arena to showcase ice racing Stuntman, Ken Remer, talks about the Crazy Train Tour coming to Vibrant Arena to showcase ice racing Jan. 31.
	Slick conditions in Davenport due to sewer overflow and water main break Davenport Police Department advise drivers to avoid Kimberly and Gaines due to slick conditions caused by sewer overflow and water main break.
	New SNAP work requirements take effect Feb.1 : Who’s affected, what changes New federal SNAP work requirements take effect Sunday, potentially affecting thousands in the Quad Cities. Local food banks prepare for increased demand.
	Slick conditions due to sewer overflow in Davenport Kimberly and Gaines are experiencing slick conditions due to a sewer system overflow in Davenport.
	The best 6-seat SUV options for 2026 The best 6-seat SUV options for 2026Although not as commonplace as their seven- and eight-seat counterparts, there are still lots of great 2026 six-passenger SUVs and crossovers on the market today. With captain’s seats in the first and second rows, these vehicles offer ample comfort, plus the added usability of a third-row seat when needed. Some six-seater SUVs have a full center console in the second row that makes it feel like a first-class cabin, while others have a pass-through to the rear seat — a nonnegotiable feature for some parents. But regardless of your own priorities and needs (plus that all-important budget question), there’s probably a six-seat SUV on sale for 2026 that’ll be perfect for you.Every year, the Edmunds team drives, tests, and rates hundreds of vehicles on the road, on the trail, and at their private test track. Their 227-point vehicle testing process uses professional-grade satellite equipment to track every move a car makes with pinpoint accuracy.Based on this testing, Edmunds suggests several small, midsize, and large options to check out.Small 6-seater SUVs2026 Kia SorentoThe Kia Sorento was the automaker’s first three-row SUV, and over the years, it’s become one of the best options around for small families who don’t want to deal with the cumbersome size of larger cars. Although it comes standard with second- and third-row bench seats and seating for seven, second-row captain’s chairs are optional on the midlevel EX trim and standard on X-Line, X-Pro and SX models, allowing you to trade maximum passenger capacity for easier third-row access. The Sorento also offers hybrid and plug-in hybrid powertrains in six-seat form, good news for shoppers who want both efficiency and comfort.Starting MSRP: $33,635 ($41,735 for six seats)Cargo space:12.6 cubic feet behind the third row45 cubic feet behind the second row75.5 cubic feet behind the first row2026 Hyundai Santa FeThe 2026 Hyundai Santa Fe is very closely related to the Kia Sorento. Its techno-Defender styling gives it decent cargo space and third-row headroom, something that’s not always true of crossovers in this class. Like the Sorento, the Hyundai crossover comes standard with seating for seven, but opt for the luxurious Limited model and you’ll find second-row bucket seats that make the Santa Fe a spacious, comfortable six-seater SUV.Starting MSRP: $36,400 ($45,950 for six seats)Cargo space:14.6 cubic feet behind the third row40.5 cubic feet behind the second row79.6 cubic feet behind the first rowMidsize 6-seater SUVs2026 Hyundai Ioniq 9The Hyundai Ioniq 9 has a spacious cabin and bold styling that blends futurism with a little old-fashioned glamour. It also happens to be electric. No matter which trim you choose, every Ioniq 9 can travel more than 300 miles per charge in EPA testing, and during the Edmunds range test, an SEL trim went 366 miles before needing to stop for a jolt of electricity. Second-row captain’s chairs aren’t available on entry-level models, so you have to jump into the luxurious all-wheel-drive Limited if you want six seats. But the added comfort may be worth it.Starting MSRP: $60,555 ($72,850 with six seats)Cargo space:21.9 cubic feet behind the third row46.7 cubic feet behind the second row86.9 cubic feet behind the first row2026 Kia EV9Although the Kia Telluride is only offered in seven-seat or eight-seat form, its similarly sized and all-electric EV9 sibling can be had with six seats courtesy of a two-passenger rear bench and optional second-row buckets (unavailable on the base Light trim but a zero-cost option on the Light Long Range). The Kia EV9 was awarded Edmunds Top Rated honors three times, and its long electric range, roomy passenger cabin and downright fast acceleration make it a compelling option for six-seat SUV shoppers thinking about going with an EV.Starting MSRP: $56,495 ($59,495 with six seats)Cargo space:20.2 cubic feet behind the third row43.5 cubic feet behind the second row81.7 cubic feet behind the first row2026 Ford ExplorerThe Ford Explorer is one of the few 2026 SUVs that doesn’t charge extra or force customers into a higher trim level if they want second-row bucket seats. Even the base Explorer Active comes with the choice of seating for six or seven, with the second row available as a bench or a pair of captain’s chairs. That makes the Explorer the cheapest third-row six-seat SUV on the market, thanks to a starting price of $40,025 — more than $1,500 less than the smaller Kia Sorento. The Ford also comes in off-road-ready Tremor form, as well as a sporty lowered ST trim for those who want to go fast and look good.Starting MSRP: $40,025Cargo space:16.3 cubic feet behind the third row46 cubic feet behind the second row85.8 cubic feet behind the first row2026 Volkswagen AtlasSearching for the most spacious way to cart around six passengers? Look no further than the 2026 Volkswagen Atlas. When optioned with second-row captain’s chairs, the Atlas offers lots of room for six, as well as commendable cargo space with the seats up or folded. That configuration starts at $45,900, representing a midlevel SE with Technology trim level optioned up with a $695 worth of second-row bucket seats. Surprisingly, premium features like ventilated front seats and spill-resistant V-Tex synthetic leather are standard on even the base VW crossover. The Atlas offers tons of value if passenger room is the main priority.Starting MSRP: $40,785 ($45,900 with six seats)Cargo space:20.6 cubic feet behind the third row55.5 cubic feet behind the second row96.8 cubic feet behind the first rowMidsize luxury 6-seater SUVs2026 Lexus GXThe Lexus GX is a standout three-row SUV thanks to its well-crafted interior and impressive towing and off-road capability. Seating for seven is standard, but opt for the Premium+ trim and captain’s chairs are optional, giving the GX luxurious seating for seven. Unfortunately, you can’t get six seats on the rugged Overtrail trim, which is limited to two rows only. Still, with a powerful twin-turbocharged V6, a luxurious ride, and some genuine off-road street cred, every GX is a great pick for anyone ready to upgrade from their 4Runner.Starting MSRP (2025): $66,185 ($71,090 with six seats)Cargo space:10.3 cubic feet behind the third row40.2 cubic feet behind the second row76.9 cubic feet behind the first row2026 Acura MDXTechnically the Acura MDX is a seven-seat SUV, but there’s one thoughtful feature we thought merited inclusion in this list. The center seating position of the second-row bench seat is completely removable, opening up an aisle to ease access to the third row or to allow long, skinny items to poke through without losing rear seating. The MDX received a nice update for 2025, which finally replaced the terrible True Touchpad Interface controls with a conventional touchscreen. Acura also offers a Type S model with 355 horsepower for those who want a little sport with their six-seat SUV.Starting MSRP: $53,150Cargo space:16.3 cubic feet behind the third row39.1 cubic feet behind the second row71.4 cubic feet behind the first row2026 Volvo XC90The Volvo XC90, available with both plug-in hybrid and mild hybrid powertrains, offers a six-passenger configuration that swaps in individual bucket seats for a second-row bench. Those seats also don’t skimp on comfort and convenience, with their own armrests and integrated beverage holders that pop out very gracefully. The XC90 also wins points for its sleek Scandinavian design and minimalist interior, although some might find the Google-based infotainment system to be a little confusing to operate.Starting MSRP: $62,345 ($66,845 with six seats)Cargo space:10.6 cubic feet behind the third row34.6 cubic feet behind the second row85.7 cubic feet behind the first rowLarge luxury 6-seater SUVs2026 Mercedes-Benz GLSThe Mercedes-Benz GLS offers six seats as a zero-cost option. The GLS comes in three basic flavors: the six-cylinder GLS 450, a V8-powered GLS 580, and a mighty AMG GLS 63 with 603 fearsome horsepower. But although the motive force changes when you move up the trim walk, the spacious and well-appointed interior doesn’t. Every GLS has ample room for six adults, and even the base models feature great cabin materials, including soft-touch plastic, open-pore wood trim, and supple MB-Tex synthetic leather upholstery — fine Nappa leather is also an option.Starting MSRP: $91,500Cargo space:17.4 cubic feet behind the third row42.7 cubic feet behind the second row84.7 cubic feet behind the first row2026 BMW X7BMW’s largest offering of all time is the X7 SUV, but just because it’s big, don’t confuse that for slow or inelegant. In fact, the X7 offers quite possibly the best blend of performance and luxury of any three-row vehicle on the market, with even the base xDrive40i model boasting swift acceleration and connected handling. An impeccably finished interior is icing on the cake, offering seating for six or seven depending on which second-row option you choose. There’s even an ultra-luxurious Alpina XB7 trim level, which gets unique upholstery and trim and a boldly styled exterior befitting its flagship status.Starting MSRP: $87,875 ($88,725 with six seats)Cargo space:12.8 cubic feet behind the third row46.8 cubic feet behind the second row90.4 cubic feet behind the first rowThis story was produced by Edmunds and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Maine’s shellfish harvesters are caught up in climate-related closures Maine’s shellfish harvesters are caught up in climate-related closuresChris Warner has been harvesting seafood in coastal Maine since he was a teenager. It’s never been easy, but he’s never let the obstacles stand in his way. Sometimes, he told The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Inside Climate News, it feels like he’s spent 34 years in an endless state of adaptation.Warner was on a boat the last day before the regional shrimp moratorium went into effect in 2013. He saw the sea urchin industry rise and fall. He was out there the day limits were put on haddock. Still, he and his fellow harvesters found ways to pivot and keep themselves afloat, fighting to preserve one of the region’s few reliable industries and their place in shaping Maine’s identity.Today, Warner farms oysters and digs softshell clams for half his income and makes the rest as a real estate agent. But even what remains is now threatened, he said, by an uptick in harvest closures driven by increased pollution along Maine’s booming coastline and heavier and more frequent rains washing it into waterways.Commercial shellfisheries in Maine and beyond are regulated by the National Shellfish Sanitation Program, an interstate compact developed in 1925 and administered at the state level to protect the public from unsafe seafood. In Maine, 2 inches of rain within a 24-hour period automatically triggers an emergency closure of shellfish growing areas under the NSSP; harvesters can’t get back to work until the state’s water-quality testing shows the risk of shellfish polluted by fecal coliform has subsided. Many of the state’s growing areas are on stricter limits, closing for as many as 14 days after rainfall totals as low as three-quarters of an inch—closures that can be extended for weeks by intervening storms.Each of those closures deals a blow to the community of shellfish harvesters whose work helps sustain Maine’s seafood economy. As climate change coincides with a post-pandemic rush of residents and tourists to the state’s serene seaside towns, overtaxing septic systems and bringing a surge of new pollution, those working on the water describe being pushed to the brink. Warner and others like him are tangling with the reality that they may need to pivot once again—only this time, they’re running out of options.“It’s horrifying,” Warner said. “Every time it rains, you’re done.”“An Onslaught of Issues”Maine’s iconic lobster remains the undisputed heavyweight of the state’s commercial fisheries, but clams and oysters rank second and third, respectively, bringing in about $15 million each in 2024. Because both are filter feeders, their safety for consumers relies on water quality that’s become harder to maintain.Since 1970, Maine’s annual rainfall has increased by 4 inches, according to a Climate Central report, powered by higher temperatures that trap more moisture in the air. Across the Northeast, the heaviest rain events now bring 60% more precipitation. And Maine faced more 2-inch rainfall events in the 2010s than any previous decade, while anticipating overall precipitation to rise annually by 5% to 14% in the decades to come. All that rain carries polluted runoff into the mudflats and estuaries where shellfish grow.Maine’s shellfish industry has faced “an onslaught of issues in the past couple decades,” said Marissa McMahan, senior director of fisheries at the nonprofit Manomet Conservation Sciences, where she works to build resilience in fishing communities and marine ecosystems. The Gulf of Maine is warming faster than 99% of the world’s oceans, and those warmer waters have contributed to an influx of invasive green crabs and other predators, as well as algal blooms and other biotoxins that lead to separate harvest closures under the NSSP. Ocean acidification adds another layer of concern. By reducing the amount of calcium carbonate in the water, it makes it harder for clams and oysters to grow their protective shells. Conditions could drop below critical levels for shellfish health by 2050.“There are still places that are thriving and viable,” McMahan said. “But now those places are being closed because of water quality. It’s just compounding the issue.”To make matters worse, climate change is bringing more people to Maine, sending housing prices through the roof and making it harder for shellfish harvesters to stay in the towns where they live. Because harvesting licenses are tied to residency, some are faced with an unenviable choice: keep working in increasingly unaffordable coastal towns or move and give up their license. In the midst of what Warner calls a “perfect storm,” commercial shellfish licenses fell from 1,510 in 2022 to 1,207 in 2024, a 20% decline, according to the state’s Department of Marine Resources.Even before Maine’s coastal towns were inundated with people “from away,” the economic toll of rainfall-related closures was putting a pinch on shellfish harvesters. A 2016 study from the University of Maine found that temporary closures sapped more than one-quarter of total shellfish revenue from Machias Bay in the state’s Downeast region.The confluence of factors is also affecting an even more vulnerable group, McMahan said. The low cost of a recreational license—often between $10 and $20—opens the door to sustenance fishing. Digging a pack of clams a day provides more than enough food to feed a family and requires little more than a sturdy pair of boots and a clam hoe for raking the catch out of the mud. Rainfall-related closures, which limit commercial and recreational clamming, are likely taking food directly off of dinner tables, McMahan said. “There’s a real danger that we’re overlooking how important it is for food security for people.”Strain on the SystemUnable to stop the rain, many harvesters have turned their ire on the Department of Marine Resources, which implements the NSSP in Maine. The agency is tasked with monitoring 47 growing areas, each of which comprises numerous coves that are assigned a different status depending on their historic water quality and monitored via 1,179 sampling stations. In some areas, harvesting is fully approved or fully prohibited; in others, harvesting is conditional upon weather patterns, closing down seasonally or following heavy rains. Still others are restricted, meaning shellfish can’t be taken to market until they’ve gone through depuration, a process in which they spend time in clean water to purge low-level contamination.The DMR always aims for the least-restrictive classification, which often leads to conditional designations that allow areas to be kept open in good weather, according to Bryant Lewis, one of the agency’s two growing-area supervisors.Half the department’s role is classifying and monitoring growing areas; the other half is promoting the shellfish industry. But it isn’t responsible for or capable of addressing pollution sources that lead to classification downgrades and harvest closures. Around a dozen DMR employees conduct shoreline surveys along the state’s nearly 3,500 miles of coastline, rotating through growing areas across a 12-year cycle. They search for failing or overwhelmed septic systems, dog parks and other sources leeching fecal coliform—bacteria found in the intestines of warm-blooded animals that indicate a heightened risk of dangerous pathogens—into rivers and bays. The agency informs towns of any concerns, at which point remediation is up to municipalities.Garnering support for the remediation and any necessary changes to prevent future contamination, though, is often an uphill battle. There’s a “societal trade-off” being made in small communities bearing the brunt of harvest closures, said Bob Rheault, executive director of the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association. In budget conversations, sewer improvements are up against schools and policing and often fall to the end of the line, he said.“What are your priorities as a community? Do you want to have open growing areas that you can harvest freely from on a regular basis?” Rheault said. “If you do, then you need to invest in your wastewater treatment infrastructure where your population centers exist.”The DMR does what it can in Maine, Lewis said, but lacks the authority to compel individuals to replace failing septic systems or to make towns reduce combined sewer overflows.Unfortunately, McMahan said, there’s a “mismatch in the pace at which we’re seeing more and more sources of pollution versus what the DMR is capable of doing and what that ultimately means for the industry and impact to harvesters.”In Brunswick, a Midcoast town with about 22,000 residents and 61 miles of coastline, a section of Maquoit Bay that has been harvested for generations—and once fed the Wabanaki and Micmac tribes—was recently reclassified to be closed for two weeks every time it rains an inch, said Dan Devereaux, the town’s coastal resource manager. Based on last year’s particularly rainy weather patterns, he calculated that the area could now be closed for up to half the year, removing around 400 productive acres—25% of the town’s total—from harvest.“You close down these areas, you better make damn sure you’ve done everything you can to keep them open,” he said. “And I don’t think that’s necessarily happening here.”Devereaux and others have lamented the collision of a rigid regulatory structure with a water quality testing regime that hasn’t kept up with the increased pressure on Maine’s coastline, even while acknowledging the DMR lacks the staffing and resources necessary to meet the challenge. Faced with a complicated set of circumstances, the state and its municipalities need to do more—both in terms of testing and addressing pollution—to avoid unnecessary closures, he said.“The most conservative way to do it for public health is just to keep everything closed, but because of our heritage and our rich history, we can’t sit around and let that happen to our community,” Devereaux said. “We have 100 years of people making a living off the clam flats in this region and across the state and a municipal responsibility as part of the management partnership.”Rainfall closures and growing area reclassifications have a pernicious effect on Maine’s 150 or so oyster farmers, too. Eric Oransky, whose Maine Ocean Farms is situated in the town of Freeport in Casco Bay, said he and his partner studied years of water quality data before choosing their location but have lost tens of thousands of dollars because of harvest closures in the past two years.Shellfish farmers don’t have the ability to simply harvest in another location if theirs is temporarily closed, and unexpected breaks can disrupt relationships with wholesalers or restaurants that require consistency from their suppliers. Unlike wild harvesters, farmers can keep their shellfish in the water until harvesting is allowed and recoup any losses, although doing so takes a level of financial flexibility that not everyone can muster.“We want to protect public health more than anyone,” Oransky said. He and his colleagues believe more diligent testing and shoreline surveying can balance the needs of consumers and producers. He wants to see “better science, more data and people who are asking questions with an eye on how this affects people’s ability to earn a living along the water.”Rainfall and RemediationDespite the challenges, some towns have found ways to successfully navigate the increase in harvest closures as rainfall rises.In Biddeford, a town of around 22,000 people south of Portland, residents just approved a $20 million overhaul of the municipal sewer system. Brunswick, meanwhile, has given grants to individuals to update their septic systems, said Carissa Maurin, the aquaculture program manager at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute. Harvesters along the Medomak River in the Midcoast region formed a working group that identified and remediated pollution from a kelp processor.“There are towns and communities working toward that goal because they see how important it is to the livelihood of people in their communities,” Maurin said.Changes to the state’s sampling regime could also make a meaningful difference, McMahan said. Monthly sampling—as opposed to the current six annual tests—could balance the state’s busier summer months with calmer winter months to lower scores and keep growing areas in less-restrictive classifications. Harvest peaks between May and October but takes place year-round.If the state conducted hydrodynamic modeling, it could get a better idea of how effluent moves through its waterways when it rains, perhaps making clear that shellfish in certain areas are unaffected, McMahan said. “Most towns don’t have the capacity to do that,” McMahan said. “And the state says they don’t have the capacity. So who’s going to do it?”David Taylor has been doing his part since 2019. A former harvester who started digging when he was 13, he’s now 71 and put down his clam hoe a few years ago. Taylor collects water samples along the Georges River and sends them to a professor at the University of New Hampshire for DNA testing that reveals the source of fecal coliform, rather than just its presence, as DMR tests indicate. (The agency won’t use his data, he said.)With that information, Taylor has helped ameliorate pollution and informed the reopening of multiple growing areas, he said. In all the testing he’s seen, he’s never come across a sample that doesn’t include dog waste, so he carries a straightforward message with him when he speaks with towns and residents about the connection between their land use and the shellfish they love to eat: Pick up after your pets.“Please work with us,” he said. “You’re talking about people’s livelihoods.”Keeping Tradition AliveEven after more than three decades fishing, Chris Warner still loves it. Some nights he’s so excited to wake up and get to work he has to take Benadryl to sleep. But it’s getting harder to stay with it as the rains fall more intensely and more often. The longest harvest closure he’s faced while working the Kennebec River was 78 days.For 30 years, he said, “I’ve lived and died on water quality.”Closures, for Warner, are about more than a day’s pay. He’s seen the tangible impact on the lives of his fellow harvesters—lost income, sure, but foreclosures and divorces that followed, too. “People don’t get to do what they enjoy, what they do best, what they’ve been brought up to do,” he said.As he’s watched precarity edge its way into shellfish harvesting, he’s started to question whether he made a mistake passing on the tradition to his son, rather than steering him toward another career. He encourages young people to get as much education as they can and diversify their options, rather than rely solely on clamming.He’s not ready to give it up himself, even though he’s taken his own advice by becoming a real estate agent to supplement his income. A prospective buyer recently remarked on the constant reinvention required by his fellow fishermen. “You’re more resilient than anybody,” they told him.“We believe in fighting for that,” Warner said.Co-published by The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Inside Climate News.This story was produced by The Economic Hardship Reporting Project and Inside Climate News, and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	DOJ releases tranche of Epstein files, says it has met its legal obligations The Department of Justice on Friday released more than 3 million pages, more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images in its files tied to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
	4 Your Money \| Bad Sentiment, No Problem The U.S. Consumer Sentiment Index tracks consumers' confidence in the economy, reflecting their financial outlook and spending intentions. David Nelson, CEO of NelsonCorp Wealth Management, explains how the current data shows consumer confidence at historic lows but reminds us that the markets are focused on the future, not today.
	Is New York City getting its composting program right? Is New York City getting its composting program right?On ground that was once the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island, trucks unload food scraps and yard waste, filling the air with the sharp tang of decaying garbage. Machines hum as they separate plastics and other contaminants from fruit and vegetable peels, leftovers and leaves, while speakers play fake bird sounds to keep scavengers away. Still, seagulls perch atop the slowly transforming compost, now resting in concrete bunkers. Nearby, heaps of dark, rich finished compost sit ready for gardens and parks. This is where organic waste from the country’s largest city gets a second life.Opened in 1991 to process yard trimmings, the Staten Island Composting Facility has become a pillar of the city’s composting efforts. It recently underwent an expansion, boosting its capacity by nearly 2,000% to accommodate a growing volume of food scraps and yard waste collected from neighborhoods across the city.In October 2024, New York City took a major step in tackling its trash problem by making curbside composting mandatory. Residents are asked to separate peels, leftovers and leaves and place them in a lidded brown bin on their recycling day, when sanitation workers collect them.There should be a steady supply of organic waste. About a third of the city’s total waste stream is compostable, and composting offers many benefits. The initiative aims to keep food scraps and yard waste out of landfills, cut planet-warming emissions and even help curb the city’s rat problem. (The sanitation department says that composting bins actually help reduce rodent activity when the lids are consistently kept closed.)When organic materials decompose in landfills, they release methane — a greenhouse gas about 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. Composting would also save on the estimated $215 million per year that the city spends exporting solid waste to landfills and incinerators.The city’s Department of Sanitation has hailed the expansion as a success. For instance, between Nov. 16 and 22, it collected more than 6 million pounds of material, surpassing records set earlier this past spring. But Floodlight and Sentient have found that researchers and advocates are not convinced the program is working as well as it could. An examination of the data reveals that inconsistent enforcement and inadequate education and outreach have contributed to lower participation than would be needed for the program’s long-term sustainability.Tackling the city’s participation problemSince enforcement began in April 2025, the city says it has collected an average of about 5 million pounds of compostable materials per week. But in April, May and June, New Yorkers still sent 91% of their compostable materials to landfills or incinerators, according to an analysis done by Samantha MacBride, a professor at Baruch College in Manhattan who researches urban waste.The city’s curbside composting program still captures only a small share of food scraps and yard waste. The capture rate for organic waste — which indicates how much of the city’s organic waste is actually collected — was just 10% by spring of this year. This was far behind Seattle’s 60% capture rate. Evan Simon // Floodlight “When you have empty trucks, you have wasted money, wasted wages. You have wasted emissions,” MacBride, who used to work as the sanitation department’s director of research and operations, tells Sentient. The Department of Sanitation counters that the capture rate “can be imprecise,” as the volume of compostable materials varies by neighborhood and season, according to an email from Vincent Gragnani, the agency’s press secretary.For the program to become viable, MacBride argues, the city needs to reach at least a 30% capture rate within five years. By comparison, the city’s curbside recycling reached 40% in just a year, she says. Organics tend to be trickier than recyclables. Unlike bottles or papers, organic waste like food scraps can smell, attract pests and get messy, making people reluctant to separate them properly, MacBride explains.Suburban neighborhoods like Staten Island and eastern Queens do better when it comes to capture rates because there are more homes with yards to generate waste like leaves and grass clippings — materials that are generally less gross than food waste. But dense areas like Manhattan, southern Bronx and much of Brooklyn lag behind since most residents live in apartments with little yard waste. Most of their organics come from food scraps, which can be more unpleasant to handle and collect, especially in small apartments.Even when apartment residents do their part, building staff must ensure the scraps and other waste are set up for delivery. Building superintendents must put the bins out on collection day and clean them thoroughly — on top of their regular duties without extra pay — which can further limit participation, says MacBride.There was another major setback on April 19 — less than three weeks after enforcement began — when the city paused fines for small residential buildings that failed to follow composting rules. The reversal came following complaints from New Yorkers who found the system confusing and were unsure of which bins to use. The pause in enforcement will remain in place through the end of the year, though the sanitation department said it will continue to issue warnings and will fine large residential buildings that have already received four notices.Putting fines on hold has created even more confusion, City Council member Shahana Hanif, who introduced the composting bill, tells Sentient. “This stop-and-start timeline and mixed messaging from our administration isn’t how New Yorkers will be able to adopt new behaviors and build muscle memory like the way we’ve done with recycling,” she says.That brief period of enforcement — during which nearly 4,000 tickets were issued — did make a difference. It led to a “significant and sustained improvement” in the organics capture rate, according to MacBride’s analysis. Still, she cautions that relying on penalties is not a sustainable strategy. “What is indeed needed is trust and continuity” between the city government and residents, she says. Building that trust may take time. Since New York City first piloted curbside composting in 2012, the program has expanded, been scaled back and relaunched in different forms under different administrations, she notes.These challenges highlight the importance of consistent and well-funded community outreach to help New Yorkers embrace a system that requires them to change how they deal with waste.For the city’s composting outreach to become truly effective, the government should go beyond simply distributing flyers or mailing notices, MacBride argues. She says a more hands-on approach is needed: City personnel should visit buildings in person to meet superintendents and staff and maintain ongoing relations so people can ask questions and get help over time.“That’s very labor intensive and involves having a lot of boots on the ground,” MacBride says, noting that the city must increase its outreach budget to make that possible. The sanitation department did not provide a specific outreach budget to Sentient, saying that the same team responsible for education also handles other duties.So far, Department of Sanitation teams have knocked on 740,000 doors, participated in more than 1,000 outreach events, and sent multiple pamphlets to every New Yorker, alongside press conferences and community discussions, Gragnani said.More outreach is needed, MacBride says, and such efforts should include immigrant households and Black and brown neighborhoods near landfills or other sources of environmental pollution — communities that face greater barriers to participation, Hanif adds.The city government should also expand the presence of community composters — small-scale, neighborhood-based organizations that turn organics into compost locally, MacBride says. In November 2023, the administration of Mayor Eric Adams cut funding for community composting programs amounting to $7.1 million, but the City Council later restored over $6 million.Even though community compost programs do not process huge volumes, they are highly effective at education and engagement, showing residents the tangible benefits of turning food scraps into compost, MacBride says. “This is an excellent method to show what composting is to get over some of the disgust and fear around it.”Neighborhood programs like these complement the city’s larger-scale operations, which handle the bulk of organic waste.On Staten Island, the upgrade of the facility sped up decomposition of organics, allowing the site to turn food scraps and yard waste into finished compost in just three to four months — down from six to eight months.Before the expansion, the facility could handle about 3 million pounds of food waste a year. Now, it can process up to 62.4 million pounds annually, along with 147 million pounds of yard waste. City officials estimate the improvements could prevent roughly 2 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year by diverting more organic waste from landfills.But even with its expanded role, the Staten Island facility currently processes only about a third of the city’s compostable material — mostly from Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn and the Bronx, local media outlet The City reported. Other organic waste goes to the Newtown Creek Wastewater Resource Recovery Facility in Brooklyn to be turned into biogas, while the rest is sent to facilities outside the city. Evan Simon // Floodlight In 2024, Council member Sandy Nurse introduced a bill that would require the city to maintain at least 180,000 tons of annual composting capacity in each borough. The legislation has been stalled, however, since the summer of 2024. A report released in October by the office of Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso found that Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens have more than enough space to meet that capacity target, but Manhattan does not. Staten Island was not included in the site analysis because the borough already has substantial capacity and scope for expansion at the city-run composting facility.The sanitation department opposes the proposal, arguing it would require building hundreds of small composting facilities. Still, the agency does plan to establish eight new composting sites and upgrade its 17 existing facilities, according to a draft solid waste management plan, which will guide the city’s sanitation policy for the next decade. A city ordinance also mandates composting facilities at five parks in each borough by 2028, though implementation will depend on available funding.At the Staten Island compost facility, processed materials are screened by machines and divided into three piles: fines, mid-grade and overs. The fines are the good stuff — finished compost product ready to be bagged and distributed to residents and city agencies like the parks department and sold to landscapers. The mid-grade material — still mostly organic — is sent back through the composting process to achieve a finer texture. The overs — which have larger bits of contaminants like plastic mixed in with organics — are sent to the landfill.The contamination rate for compost was low, around 4%, back when curbside composting was still in its early stages. Now that the program is citywide, the sanitation department is seeing much higher contamination in material collected from schools — about 25%, Gragnani said. MacBride attributes the high contamination in school organics to both a lack of education and institutional challenges: Students often are not taught proper composting practices, and schools lack coordinated support among principals, custodians and cafeteria staff to ensure proper sorting and participation.As the city’s composting program grows, the sanitation department has no plans to further expand the Staten Island facility’s footprint, says Jennifer McDonnell, the agency’s deputy commissioner for solid waste management. The facility could bolster its current practices here and there. For instance, it could process some landscaping waste into mulch — material spread over soil to retain moisture and suppress weeds — instead of compost. That, McDonnell says, helps free up more capacity for food scraps and other materials that require full composting.The expansion of the largest facility in the city is impressive — expanding food waste capacity by about 2,000% — but it alone cannot solve New York City’s trash problem. Without cooperation from city officials, building staff and residents, much of the city’s organic waste will continue to rot where it shouldn’t.This story is a partnership between Floodlight and Sentient, with visual reporting by Floodlight’s Evan Simon.This story was produced by Floodlight and Sentient, and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	17 signs you could benefit from therapy 17 signs you could benefit from therapyAt some point, many people find themselves quietly wondering: Do I need therapy? The question tends to arrive after a stressful week, during a tough conversation, or while lying awake at night trying to make sense of everything on your mind.If you’re asking that question, you’re already doing something important: paying attention to how you’re feeling. This guide from Spring Health will help you figure out when it’s time to get support, what the research says about therapy’s benefits, and how to take the next step if you choose to.That said, if you’re currently in crisis, don’t hesitate to call or text 988 to reach the 24/7 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.How Do I Know if I Need Therapy?First things first: There’s no minimum threshold to start therapy. You don't need to be diagnosed with a mental health condition like bipolar disorder or be experiencing a mental health crisis to benefit from professional mental health support.Therapy can help with both mental health conditions and life challenges. Everything from symptoms of anxiety, depression, or PTSD to stress, burnout, relationship difficulties, grief, or simply wanting to understand yourself better can be addressed by therapy.Basically, if you're reading this article and wondering whether therapy is for you, that curiosity itself might be worth exploring.17 Signs You Might Benefit From TherapyThere are many reasons to consider therapy, so keep in mind that this isn’t an exhaustive list. And you don't need to check every box on this list to benefit from therapy. But if anything here resonates with you, booking a session with a mental health provider might be helpful.1. Your emotions feel overwhelming or out of controlWhen everyday feelings become too intense to manage, or you find yourself having emotional reactions that seem disproportionate to the situation, therapy can help you develop healthier ways to process and regulate those emotions.2. You're struggling with anxiety or constant worryIf worry follows you everywhere, making it hard to concentrate, sleep, or enjoy your day, it might be time to start therapy for anxiety. Persistent anxiety isn't something you have to live with, and it can improve with the right support and coping strategies.3. You feel hopeless or stuckFeeling like there's no light at the end of the tunnel, or that nothing will ever change, can be a sign of depression. These feelings can be serious, and therapy can help you identify causes, build coping tools, and explore additional care options if needed.4. Your sleep or eating habits have changed significantlyWhether you're sleeping too much or barely at all, eating significantly more or less than usual, these changes in your physical patterns often signal that your mental health needs attention. A therapist can help you understand how stress, trauma, or emotional distress may be connected to these changes.5. You're withdrawing from friends, family, or activities you once enjoyedSocial isolation is one of the most common signs that something's off. If you're actively avoiding people or have lost interest in things that used to bring you joy, therapy can help you understand why and reconnect with them.6. You're unable to create or nurture healthy relationshipsFrequent conflict, difficulty communicating your needs, emotional distance, or a pattern of unhealthy relationship dynamics are all signs that therapy—whether individual or couples counseling—could help.7. You struggle to communicate effectivelyIf you find it difficult to express your thoughts and feelings, or you frequently feel misunderstood, a therapist can help you develop better communication skills that can help you in pretty much all of your relationships.8. You've experienced traumaWhether it's a recent traumatic event or an experience from your past, trauma-informed therapy can help you process difficult experiences in a safe, supportive environment.9. You're dealing with grief that's affecting your daily lifeGrief doesn't have a timeline, and it's not just about death. You can mourn job loss, relationship endings, and major life changes. If grief is interfering with your ability to function, grief counseling can provide crucial support.10. You're using substances to copeIf you're relying on alcohol, drugs, or other substances to manage stress, numb emotions, or get through the day, this is a clear sign that professional help could benefit you. Therapists can help you understand these coping patterns and connect you with substance use resources when appropriate. If you are in recovery, a therapist can help you understand how to cope with stressors and avoid relapse.11. You feel unfulfilled or disconnected from your lifeEven when things look "fine" on paper, feeling empty, purposeless, or like you're just going through the motions is worth addressing in therapy. A therapist can help you think about your life differently and reignite your passion.12. You have a desire to grow and become a better version of yourselfTherapy isn't just for crisis management. It's also a powerful tool for personal development, self-discovery, and achieving your goals. If you’ve been feeling stuck for a while now, a therapist can help you explore different possibilities.13. You want to change your perspective or break unhelpful patternsIf you notice yourself repeating the same patterns in relationships, work, or life decisions, therapy can help you identify these cycles and develop healthier alternatives.14. Your work performance or productivity is sufferingDifficulty concentrating, missed deadlines, increased errors, or conflicts with coworkers can all be signs that stress or mental health concerns are impacting your professional life.15. You're experiencing physical symptoms without a clear medical causeChronic headaches, stomach issues, muscle tension, or other physical symptoms can sometimes be manifestations of mental health challenges like anxiety, depression, or stress. Therapy can help you understand the mind-body connection and coordinate with your medical providers when appropriate.16. People you trust have expressed concern about youWhen friends, family, or colleagues mention they're worried about you, it's worth considering their perspective. They may be seeing changes you haven't fully recognized.17. You feel like you've run out of resources, or nothing else has helpedYou've tried self-help books, meditation apps, exercise, and talking to friends… and while these tools can be valuable, they're not substitutes for professional mental health support when you need it.What Type of Therapy Should You Start With?If you're ready to start therapy but aren't sure which approach is right for you, know that there are many effective therapeutic modalities, or therapy types, to choose from.Don’t worry, finding the right therapy modality isn’t your job. Think of these modalities as tools and your therapist as the expert who chooses the right ones to help you reach your goals.The most common and well-researched types of therapy include:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): Focuses on identifying and changing negative thought patterns and behaviors. Great for anxiety, depression, and specific phobias.Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT): Helps with emotional regulation and distress tolerance. DBT is particularly effective for intense emotions.Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): Used primarily for processing trauma and PTSD through guided eye movements.Psychodynamic Therapy: Explores how past experiences and unconscious patterns influence current behavior.If you have specific considerations, like being neurodivergent or looking for an LGBTQ+ affirming therapist, this can also help you decide what type of therapist you’re looking for.Why Therapy Helps—and What the Research SaysWhile therapy looks different for everyone, research consistently shows that therapy leads to meaningful improvements in mood, emotional health, and everyday functioning:A 2025 peer-reviewed study in the Online Journal of Public Health Informatics (OJPHI) found that 92.3% of participants getting therapy through Spring Health reliably improved or recovered from anxiety or depression—and a whopping 61.7% achieved remission.A 2023 meta-analysis found that psychotherapy for depression was as effective as medication in the short term but likely more effective in the long term, while a combination of both therapy and medication was the most effective option.Emerging research in neuroscience supports that psychological treatments may produce real biological changes. Therapy, including talk therapy, can affect brain function and connectivity, which support emotional regulation, cognitive flexibility, and resilience.Common Myths About TherapyWhile the research shows therapy can be helpful for many people, common myths and misconceptions still prevent some from seeking help. Here’s what you should know.Myth: Only people with serious mental health conditions need therapy.Fact: Therapy benefits people dealing with all levels of challenges, from everyday stress to diagnosed conditions. You don't need to be in crisis to find therapy effective. Many people use therapy for personal growth, life transitions, or simply to better understand themselves.Myth: Therapy is too expensive and usually not covered by insurance.Fact: Many insurance plans cover mental health services, and there are increasingly accessible options for affordable therapy.Myth: I'll have to be in therapy forever.Fact: How long you stay in therapy depends on what you’re working toward. Some people find short-term therapy enough, while others want ongoing support. It’s really up to you.Myth: Therapy is just venting to someone who nods and says, "How does that make you feel?"Fact: Therapy is active work, not passive conversation. While therapists do provide a space to express yourself, they're also trained professionals who use research-backed strategies to help you develop new insights and coping skills.Myth: I should be able to handle this on my own.Fact: Seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness. Just as you'd see a doctor for a physical health concern, consulting a mental health professional for emotional or psychological challenges is a smart, proactive choice.If you’re still on the fence about whether therapy is right for you, start with the 10 things nobody tells you about starting therapy or some of the most frequently asked questions about therapy.Benefits of Starting TherapyBeyond the research, therapy provides practical benefits that extend far beyond symptom reduction. A skilled therapist helps you:Feeling seen and heardOne of the biggest benefits of therapy is finally having a space where your emotions and experiences are taken seriously. A therapist helps you make sense of what you’re feeling, offering support and understanding that can be grounding, especially if you’ve been carrying things alone for a long time.Gaining a clearer perspectiveWhen you’re in the middle of stress or uncertainty, it can be hard to see the full picture. Therapists bring an outside viewpoint that isn’t shaped by your past, your relationships, or your expectations of yourself. That clarity can help you recognize patterns, challenge assumptions, and explore new possibilities.Building skills that actually helpTherapy isn’t just talking; it’s also about learning what works for you. Depending on your goals, you may learn practical tools for coping with anxiety, regulating emotions, improving communication, setting boundaries, or navigating conflict. These skills support long-term resilience, not just short-term relief.Processing emotions in a safe space‍Therapy creates room for emotions you may not express anywhere else. Whether you’re navigating grief, anger, shame, sadness, or even big transitions that feel overwhelming, the therapy room offers a safe, steady place to release and process what’s been building up internally.Frequently Asked Questions About Starting TherapyHow long does therapy usually take?Therapy timelines vary. Some people feel better in a few months, while others prefer ongoing support. The length depends on your personal goals, your therapist’s approach, and what you’re working through. You and your therapist will check progress regularly to help determine when you’ve met your goals.What actually happens in a therapy session?A therapy session is a guided conversation where you talk through what’s been on your mind and explore what might be underneath your emotions or patterns. Your therapist helps you reflect, make connections, and understand yourself with more clarity. Depending on your goals, you might also learn coping skills or strategies to use between sessions. Most sessions end with a quick check-in to help you feel grounded and prepared for the week ahead.What if I don’t know what to talk about in therapy?That’s completely normal. Your therapist will guide the conversation with questions and help you explore what’s underneath the surface.CBT focuses on thoughts and behaviors, DBT supports emotional regulation, and EMDR helps you process trauma. Read more about finding the right therapy modality for you. Your therapist can also help determine which approach fits best based on your goals and readiness.How often should I go to therapy?Weekly sessions are common, but some people go biweekly or monthly based on their needs and progress. You and your therapist will adjust the schedule based on progress and need.How do I know if therapy is working?Signs therapy is starting to work may include handling challenges better, feeling more grounded, understanding your patterns, communicating more clearly, and feeling more like yourself. Slow progress is still progress.What if I don’t click with my therapist?It’s okay to switch. The therapeutic relationship is one of the strongest predictors of success. If something feels off, you can talk to your therapist or find someone new without guilt.How do I prepare for my first session?You don’t need to prepare anything, but thinking about your goals, feelings, and what’s been going on in your life can be helpful. Many people bring notes or examples from their week.What if talking about my feelings is uncomfortable?That’s common, especially if you weren’t raised to talk openly about emotions. Your therapist will help you go at a pace that feels safe and manageable.How much does therapy cost, and is it covered by insurance?Many therapists accept insurance, and more plans now offer strong mental health coverage.This story was produced by Spring Health and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
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	Can Canada capture enough carbon to make a difference? Can Canada capture enough carbon to make a difference?Alberta can have another pipeline to the West Coast — at least theoretically — but only if the oil and gas industry puts carbon capture systems in place to ensure the bitumen that flows through it is “low-emission.”That tradeoff is at the heart of the “grand bargain” unveiled by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney in November 2025, when they both expressed support in principle for a new pipeline to connect Alberta’s landlocked oilsands to international markets.What will make this bitumen cleaner than what currently flows through Alberta’s pipelines? The answer has nothing to do with the product itself, The Narwhal reports, but with the processes that will be used to create it.According to the terms of Smith and Carney’s memorandum of understanding, the federal government’s support for Alberta’s new pipeline is contingent on the success of a massive carbon capture project being pitched by the Pathways Alliance, a coalition of Canada’s major oilsands companies.If Pathways companies build the carbon capture infrastructure they’re promising, and use it to “decarbonize the production of their bitumen,” to use Smith’s words, then they can have their new pipeline and ship their product to their collective hearts’ content, the prime minister has promised. (That is, of course, if a company or consortium signs on to acquire the necessary approvals and actually build it — the memorandum stipulates the pipeline will be built by the private sector, with opportunities for Indigenous co-ownership.)You’re likely to hear a lot more about carbon capture technology, now that Carney has adopted it as a key strategy to thread the needle and reduce Canada’s emissions without forgoing the economic benefits of the nation’s number one export. His office identified the Pathways carbon capture project as a contender for a federal “major project” designation late last year, meaning it could see fast-tracked federal approvals, and his government has extended Trudeau-era subsidies for constructing carbon capture projects.So, what is carbon capture? And can it really save our planet from the worst impacts of climate change?What is carbon capture and storage?Technologies to lower carbon emissions from industrial processes, which Carney and other politicians are embracing, are known as carbon capture, utilization and storage — often abbreviated as CCUS or CCS.These technologies capture carbon before it escapes into the atmosphere, and then bury it deep underground (“storage”) or repurpose it to make other products (“utilization”). These systems are often designed with the goal of capturing 90% of the emissions produced by an industrial process — but early carbon capture projects in Canada have failed to achieve that threshold.Captured carbon can’t be stored just anywhere. The process requires a porous rock formation deep underground into which the carbon can be injected. On top of that, an impermeable “cap-rock” layer is necessary to seal the carbon in for centuries to come.In many cases, sites where oil has previously been removed prove suitable for carbon storage. That’s one reason why the Prairie provinces have so far been the epicentre of carbon storage activities in Canada. According to one estimate, Saskatchewan and Alberta are home to approximately 9% of the total onshore carbon storage capacity in North America.But the search is on for “pore space” elsewhere, too. The Ontario government has identified the lakebeds and shorelines of lakes Erie and Huron as potential carbon storage locations.In addition to projects that capture carbon as it’s emitted, there is also technology under development that sucks carbon right out of the air. That’s called direct air carbon capture. It is a less developed and less proven technology, but some companies are trying to make it work — including Deep Sky, a venture capital-funded startup that wants to build a direct air carbon capture facility in rural Manitoba.What projects already exist? And what is the Pathways Alliance planning?There are a few dozen carbon capture, utilization and storage projects in operation around the world, but they’ve yet to reach a scale that would make a meaningful dent in emissions. According to the Global CCS Institute, existing projects have the capacity to capture about 64 million tonnes of carbon per year — that’s about 0.1% of global emissions. A recent study estimated that more than 383 million tonnes of carbon dioxide have been stored underground worldwide since 1996.Comparatively, the latest federal figures show annual emissions from Alberta’s oilsands were 89 megatonnes in 2023, with the broader oil and gas sector in Canada contributing 208 megatonnes of carbon emissions in that year.The Pathways Alliance proposal doesn’t include the actual capture of any carbon. Rather, it’s a plan for a shared carbon transportation network and storage facility, with individual companies expected to build their own infrastructure for capturing carbon at their facilities and feeding it into the Pathways network. The companies stated in 2023 that their project could lead to a net reduction of between 10 and 12 megatonnes of emissions per year by 2030.A handful of the world’s carbon capture and storage projects are already located in Canada.Cumulatively, Canadian carbon capture and sequestration projects stored roughly five megatonnes in 2023, according to federal figures. That is a small fraction of what the projects were predicted to store. That number doesn’t account for all the carbon that was captured: some is injected into the earth to help extract more oil, a process known as enhanced oil recovery.In Alberta, Shell Canada’s Quest project has been in operation for just over a decade. Quest syphons carbon from one of the company’s Edmonton-area plants and transports it by pipeline to a storage area where it’s injected and stored more than two kilometres underground. The project, which cost more than $1 billion to build, captures and stores about one million tonnes of carbon each year.Also in Alberta, the Carbon Trunk Line hauls captured carbon from a fertilizer plant and a refinery and pipes it 240 kilometres south to old oil reservoirs. The pipeline has the capacity to transport up to 14 million tonnes of carbon per year, though it only transported 1.5 megatonnes in 2023.In Saskatchewan, the best-known carbon capture project is the Boundary Dam coal-fired power plant, operational since 2014 and the world’s first commercial-scale coal plant with the technology. Carbon from the Boundary Dam is transported by pipeline to a largely depleted oil field near Weyburn, Saskatchewan, where it is injected into reservoirs to loosen up the remaining oil. The plant has never achieved its original goal of capturing one megatonne per year, but it was also an early demonstration project.How are Canadian governments supporting carbon capture technology?Canadian governments’ support of carbon capture technology comes down to, simply, paying for it.The cost to build carbon capture, utilization and storage facilities typically runs into the billions of dollars. Then, there are operational expenses. A 2025 analysis found Alberta’s two major carbon capture and storage facilities each cost tens of millions of dollars per year to operate.Alberta’s oilsands companies — which collectively posted more than $29.1 billion in profits in 2024 — find those costs too high. The Pathways Alliance has stated on its website that its carbon capture plan “will require ongoing collaboration” with governments, including “making significant investments together.” In theory, carbon pricing should encourage more carbon capture projects, as the more expensive carbon emissions are, the more likely a company is to implement emission reductions strategies.Yet in 2024, Edmonton-based power generator Capital Power abandoned its plans for a facility, saying carbon capture and storage was “not economically feasible.”If the industrial carbon tax is a stick, our governments are also dangling carrots in front of major polluters in the form of subsidies.Under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, the federal government introduced a refundable tax credit that subsidizes up to 50% of the cost of eligible carbon capture, storage and utilization projects. The tax credit first became available in 2022, and the Parliamentary Budget Office has estimated its cost will rise to more than $2 billion per year by 2027-28, as companies start to build their projects and take advantage of the subsidy.The Alberta Carbon Capture Incentive Program, meanwhile, provides additional provincial grants to companies building carbon capture projects in Alberta.In Carney and Smith’s memorandum of understanding, both the federal and Alberta governments committed to extending their respective incentive programs to support the Pathways project, which means a significant portion of the megaproject’s $16 billion price tag is likely to be publicly funded. That agreement also included a provision that tax credits for carbon capture extend to projects for enhanced oil recovery — which was previously excluded, as the Trudeau government responded to critics pointing out that extracting more oil results in more carbon emissions not just during production, but when the fossil fuel is eventually used by consumers.Can carbon capture technology make a dent in climate change?On its own, carbon capture technology will not make a dent in climate change.However, combined with other efforts, especially an overall reduction in fossil fuel use, it might help a little.The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said the technology has the potential to decrease global emissions, but not by anywhere near as much as transitioning to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. It’s also a more expensive mitigation strategy than moving to renewables.According to the International Energy Agency, carbon capture, utilization and storage could achieve 8% of the emissions reductions needed to reach net-zero in the energy sector by 2050.In Canada, the oil and gas sector accounted for 30% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2023; reducing the sector’s emissions through carbon capture, utilization and storage would be a win.But there’s a catch. That accounting only considers carbon emissions from the industrial processes that make oil and gas products — not the emissions associated with their use.It’s important for an oil refinery to reduce its own emissions, but carbon capture projects don’t address the emissions produced by the car that eventually burns the fuel produced by that refinery. This is a big deal, because most of the carbon footprint associated with a barrel of oil — 70% to 80%, according to one estimate — comes from the oil product’s end use. In Canada, the highest emitting industry after oil and gas is transportation.That’s why carbon capture and storage isn’t a silver bullet in the fight against climate change. According to the World Resources Institute, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report makes clear there are “no scenarios in which [carbon capture, utilization and storage] would allow continued use of fossil fuels at current levels, let alone expanded oil and gas production.”The Alberta government estimates the province has about 160 billion barrels of oil still available for extraction in the oilsands. The new pipeline — if it ever gets built — will drastically increase the amount of bitumen that can be shipped to international markets.By that time, Canada’s billion-dollar investments into carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies might have helped clean up the industries that produce oil in Alberta. But they will have done nothing to address the bigger problem: the use of the oil products themselves.Drew Anderson and Carl Meyer contributed to this story.This story was produced by The Narwhal and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	When did throw-away culture become big business? When did throw-away culture become big business?It’s no secret that fashion has a waste problem.The industry is estimated to generate over 101 million cubic tons of waste every year, including textile scraps, microplastics, chemical waste, and packaging materials. It’s a number that’s likely to go up in the coming years as the rate at which we buy, wear, and discard our clothes speeds up. It’s also a number that shows just how instrumental throw-away culture is to the fashion system at every stage of the supply chain.“Waste is a factor of human existence, and as long as we’ve had big business, we’ve had waste,” Oliver Franklin-Wallis, journalist and author of “Wasteland: The Dirty Truth About What We Throw Away, Where It Goes, and Why It Matters,” told Atmos. “Fashion is in many ways the business of waste, because it’s predicated on making things obsolete.”Since the dawn of industrialization, our economy has operated on a linear model of consumption—a “take-make-waste cycle,” according to Valérie Boiten, senior policy officer at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Fashion is a particularly egregious culprit. Two percent of the world’s energy goes into producing fast-fashion items, and the industry as a whole is responsible for up to 8% of global carbon emissions, according to the UN Environment Program. Meanwhile, the lifespan of clothes is getting shorter thanks to worsening garment quality and an ever-accelerating trend cycle. On average, a fast-fashion garment is worn just seven times before it is discarded.The repercussions are dire, with textile waste often burned or dumped. “[Those] pathways all lead to the release of pollutants, including hazardous chemicals, threatening species and habitats,” said Boiten. Microplastics can follow those pathways, too—and since more than 50% of clothing is made of plastic, textiles account for up to 35% of microplastics released to oceans worldwide.But at what point does a garment actually become waste? “Is it the moment somebody throws the garment away because they don’t need it anymore?” asked Bobby Kolade, founder of Buzigahill, a Kampala, Uganda-based brand repurposing the Global North’s second-hand garments and sending them back to the countries from which they came. “Is it the moment the garment can’t be sold, resold, and re-worn? In which case, is it a resource or is it a discard?”Here’s just a few of the ways that excess and waste are instrumental to how the fashion system works.Raw MaterialsAbout 40% of the fibers that end up in our clothes are agricultural products.Crops like cotton are water- and land-intensive. It takes an average of 2,700 liters of water to produce just one cotton T-shirt, about the same amount of water one person would need to drink for 2.5 years, according to a study by the European Parliament. The textile sector is also the third-largest cause of water pollution and land-use degradation. Crops like cotton rely on potentially harmful pesticides to meet demand.“We’ve come to see waste as the thing we can visualize, like a landfill or items of clothing in waterways,” said Maxine Bédat, founder of fashion think tank New Standard Institute and author of “Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment.” “But if we are creating a cotton garment with the enormous amounts of chemicals that are typically used in the creation of that product, and it’s only used once, then that’s incredibly wasteful.”Then there are the clothes made from fossil fuel-derived textiles, which account for roughly 60% of our garments. Synthetic fibers like spandex, polyester, and nylon are essentially made of plastic, and the production of textiles alone accounts for 1.35% of global oil consumption, according to a study by nonprofit Changing Markets— more than the annual oil consumption of the entire population of Spain.Milling, Ginning, Weaving, DyeingOnce the raw material fibers are ready, they are transported to the next stage of textile manufacturing: the milling, ginning, weaving or knitting, and dyeing of fibers.At textile mills, raw fibers are generally cleaned, straightened, and aligned to be spun into yarn. It’s an energy-intensive process responsible for around 57% of energy used by textile manufacturers—34% of the total energy consumption goes towards spinning fibers into yarns and 23% goes towards weaving yarns into fabric. The entire process is fueled by fossil fuels, because factories often rely on coal to power the equipment.Then there’s dyeing. The vast majority of textile dyes used today are synthetic, many of which don’t biodegrade, and some of which have been linked to cancer and other serious health issues. “The waste we need to be talking about is the waste that goes into the making of dyes and chemicals, which then pollutes rivers and overburdens local waste infrastructure in countries like India and Bangladesh,” said Franklin-Wallis.Cut-and-SewAfter raw materials are transferred to textile and garment manufacturers—another energy-intensive process—the goods are brought to the cutting-room floor. Here, millions of tons of fabric scraps are discarded, which is estimated to account for up to 15% of the total fabric in some cases. It’s often cheaper for brands to spend capital on producing too much than to invest in adopting more efficient practices.“It’s a deeply wasteful business,” said Venetia La Manna, slow fashion campaigner and cofounder of Remember Who Made Them. “Just 50 years ago, traditional and Indigenous methods of creating and using clothing were zero waste as standard. Today, the scale and pace at which Big Fashion operates is inherently wasteful.”OverproductionThe fashion industry simply produces too many clothes, and that’s intentional. Brands overproduce to ensure they have enough stock of popular items and to avoid the possibility of missed sales.It’s a wildly inefficient model that generates between 15 and 45 billion unsold garments of the estimated 150 billion garments that are produced every year, according to a report by WGSN and OC&C. This is, in part, because brands can’t predict what will and what won’t sell. But even in instances where a company invests in data collection and analytics that helps them better understand customer demand, garments are still discarded at alarming rates.“The current business model is to blame for rampant overproduction,” said Yayra Agbofah, founder and creative director of The Revival, a community-led organization in Ghana that upcycles discarded textiles. “The industry is trying to just make profit, profit, profit—because brands need to appease their shareholders and investors.”OverconsumptionBehind the fashion industry is a multi-billion dollar marketing machine. On social media, hashtag challenges, user-generated video content, live-streamed shopping, and influencer marketing have created new channels for shoppers to spend more—and waste more. Viral fashion does not last long, even less so now that TikTok has paved the way for the microtrend, which typically lasts less than a month. The average consumer buys 60% more clothing than they did in 2000, but they only keep it for half as long, according to McKinsey & Company.“Brands are relying on Instagram and TikTok algorithms to [manipulate us] into spending more,” said La Manna. “[We’re also seeing] the gamification of online shopping.” The integration of gaming aspects into online shopping has become increasingly common; ultra-fast fashion retailers like Temu and Shein have repeatedly been described as “addictive” by shoppers because of gamified reward programs, countdowns, and animated elements that keep people on their sites for longer.“The more time we spend on apps shopping, the less time we have to not only find joy or be with our friends and our communities, but also to get organized and to rally for a system that is fair and just for all of us,” said La Manna.DisposalAfter a few wears, clothes are often either discarded or tossed in a donation bin. But that’s not the end of their journey.Unsold and secondhand products from the Global North are routinely shipped to the Global South, where they end up in markets, landfills, and incinerators. “People don’t think of charity shops as part of the waste industry, but the fact is that they are,” said Franklin-Wallis. “We give them things we don’t want, and they make them disappear…With clothing, the majority is sent off to be graded and sorted and sent around the world to places in the Global South.”The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of those places. It’s why Eddy Ekete, who lives between Paris and Kinshasa, decided in 2015 to found the KinAct Festival, an annual street art fair that displays costumes made from rubbish collected from the streets. The motivation, according to Ekete, was to create a platform for local Congolese artists to showcase their talent—and to help manage the city’s waste crisis in the process.“Western [waste] pollutes more than African waste. African waste [typically] comes from nature: like banana leaves, mango leaves, coconuts, pieces of trees, bark,” said Ekete. “The advantage of our waste is that when you throw it on the ground, it gives life to the Earth. Western waste, on the other hand, is the kind of waste that lingers, that heats up the Earth, that damages everything.”Today, the KinAct Festival exhibits sculptural contemporary costumes made from both plastic waste and organic matter, and offers street performances and creative workshops to help inspire more people to get involved. “[We are] showing the authorities that there is the possibility of reducing waste with what we do—but we need help,” Ekete said. “We’re doing this with our own resources. We don’t have a lot of space, we don’t have a lot of money, but we have the drive to work with it. That’s determination.”But the problem Ekete is tackling was started by corporations and consumers in the Global North, and a solution cannot—and should not—be left to local community efforts in the Global South.An estimated 70% of clothes donated in Europe end up in Africa, according to a 2015 report by Oxfam. For third-party companies known as “textile recyclers” (a misleading term, as many of the garments are not so much recycled as offloaded to dumping sites in the Global South), there’s also a lot of money to be made from buying bales of secondhand clothing and selling them to clothing importers.The trade of secondhand clothing, an industry that’s currently valued at over $230 billion, has played a critical role in the battering of the textile industry across Africa. The repercussions are manifold. Buyers of these clothing bales cannot see the contents before purchase, and much of the bale often turns out to be unusable. The system perpetuates financial insecurity for local secondhand clothing traders.The fashion industry simply produces too many clothes, and that’s intentional.“Because the buyers of the secondhand clothing bales can’t see what’s in them, and because much of it [ends up going unsold], they aren’t able to guarantee they’ll even make back the money they’ve invested in purchasing the bale to begin with,” said anti-fast fashion advocate Yvette Tetteh, who swam the length of Ghana’s Volta River to draw attention to waste colonialism. “In other words, they start off in debt.”As legislation like the EU’s mandatory and harmonized Extended Producer Responsibility policy is being debated, there are growing calls by advocates to ensure that equity and justice are built into those laws. Currently, when made, EPR payments by brands often end up funding waste collection in the Global North without necessarily directing payments to countries like Ghana or Kenya, where the clothes end up. The pressure on frontline communities, who are made responsible for processing and discarding waste that’s not theirs, is enormous.Kolade describes the process of sending bales of clothing from Europe to Africa that are embedded with unsellable clothing as “smuggling” waste. “We’re not saying that the trade should be banned…There are too many millions of people on the continent who rely on the trade for their livelihoods. The issue is the smuggling of waste—the whole system needs to change.”A Reality CheckThe fashion industry’s waste crisis is, in many ways, a crisis of responsibility; of brands in the Global North refusing to take accountability for the waste that they produce, leaving communities in the Global South to clean up the mess.The system is upheld by the industry’s failure to account for waste management costs from the get-go. “For too long, it’s been too easy to incinerate leftover stock,” said Christina Dean, founder of Redress, a nonprofit organization focused on accelerating the industry’s transition to circular fashion. “Now, there’s a reputational risk of incineration and some legislation in place—those two things should put more pressure on a mildly adjusted cost structure.”But many feel that crucial legislative milestones are being implemented too slowly. The EU’s EPR policy is still being negotiated in the European Parliament, and New York’s groundbreaking Fashion Act—whose drafting was led by Bédat and which takes aim at, among other things, chemical mismanagement in fashion’s supply chains—has yet to pass.For communities in Ghana, the need to restructure the industry with equity and justice at its core could not be more urgent. The Revival’s Agbofah said that it’s the industry’s deliberate refusal to take responsibility for the extent of its waste production that has caused large swathes of Ghana to become dumping grounds.“I am tired of conversations. There have been so many, and none have led to action at the pace they should,” said Agbofah. “Much of the policy has goals 10 years from now. In that time, we’ll see mass destruction…Change can’t come soon enough.”This story was produced by Atmos and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Can Canada capture enough carbon to make a difference? Can Canada capture enough carbon to make a difference?Alberta can have another pipeline to the West Coast — at least theoretically — but only if the oil and gas industry puts carbon capture systems in place to ensure the bitumen that flows through it is “low-emission.”That tradeoff is at the heart of the “grand bargain” unveiled by Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Prime Minister Mark Carney in November 2025, when they both expressed support in principle for a new pipeline to connect Alberta’s landlocked oilsands to international markets.What will make this bitumen cleaner than what currently flows through Alberta’s pipelines? The answer has nothing to do with the product itself, The Narwhal reports, but with the processes that will be used to create it.According to the terms of Smith and Carney’s memorandum of understanding, the federal government’s support for Alberta’s new pipeline is contingent on the success of a massive carbon capture project being pitched by the Pathways Alliance, a coalition of Canada’s major oilsands companies.If Pathways companies build the carbon capture infrastructure they’re promising, and use it to “decarbonize the production of their bitumen,” to use Smith’s words, then they can have their new pipeline and ship their product to their collective hearts’ content, the prime minister has promised. (That is, of course, if a company or consortium signs on to acquire the necessary approvals and actually build it — the memorandum stipulates the pipeline will be built by the private sector, with opportunities for Indigenous co-ownership.)You’re likely to hear a lot more about carbon capture technology, now that Carney has adopted it as a key strategy to thread the needle and reduce Canada’s emissions without forgoing the economic benefits of the nation’s number one export. His office identified the Pathways carbon capture project as a contender for a federal “major project” designation late last year, meaning it could see fast-tracked federal approvals, and his government has extended Trudeau-era subsidies for constructing carbon capture projects.So, what is carbon capture? And can it really save our planet from the worst impacts of climate change?What is carbon capture and storage?Technologies to lower carbon emissions from industrial processes, which Carney and other politicians are embracing, are known as carbon capture, utilization and storage — often abbreviated as CCUS or CCS.These technologies capture carbon before it escapes into the atmosphere, and then bury it deep underground (“storage”) or repurpose it to make other products (“utilization”). These systems are often designed with the goal of capturing 90% of the emissions produced by an industrial process — but early carbon capture projects in Canada have failed to achieve that threshold.Captured carbon can’t be stored just anywhere. The process requires a porous rock formation deep underground into which the carbon can be injected. On top of that, an impermeable “cap-rock” layer is necessary to seal the carbon in for centuries to come.In many cases, sites where oil has previously been removed prove suitable for carbon storage. That’s one reason why the Prairie provinces have so far been the epicentre of carbon storage activities in Canada. According to one estimate, Saskatchewan and Alberta are home to approximately 9% of the total onshore carbon storage capacity in North America.But the search is on for “pore space” elsewhere, too. The Ontario government has identified the lakebeds and shorelines of lakes Erie and Huron as potential carbon storage locations.In addition to projects that capture carbon as it’s emitted, there is also technology under development that sucks carbon right out of the air. That’s called direct air carbon capture. It is a less developed and less proven technology, but some companies are trying to make it work — including Deep Sky, a venture capital-funded startup that wants to build a direct air carbon capture facility in rural Manitoba.What projects already exist? And what is the Pathways Alliance planning?There are a few dozen carbon capture, utilization and storage projects in operation around the world, but they’ve yet to reach a scale that would make a meaningful dent in emissions. According to the Global CCS Institute, existing projects have the capacity to capture about 64 million tonnes of carbon per year — that’s about 0.1% of global emissions. A recent study estimated that more than 383 million tonnes of carbon dioxide have been stored underground worldwide since 1996.Comparatively, the latest federal figures show annual emissions from Alberta’s oilsands were 89 megatonnes in 2023, with the broader oil and gas sector in Canada contributing 208 megatonnes of carbon emissions in that year.The Pathways Alliance proposal doesn’t include the actual capture of any carbon. Rather, it’s a plan for a shared carbon transportation network and storage facility, with individual companies expected to build their own infrastructure for capturing carbon at their facilities and feeding it into the Pathways network. The companies stated in 2023 that their project could lead to a net reduction of between 10 and 12 megatonnes of emissions per year by 2030.A handful of the world’s carbon capture and storage projects are already located in Canada.Cumulatively, Canadian carbon capture and sequestration projects stored roughly five megatonnes in 2023, according to federal figures. That is a small fraction of what the projects were predicted to store. That number doesn’t account for all the carbon that was captured: some is injected into the earth to help extract more oil, a process known as enhanced oil recovery.In Alberta, Shell Canada’s Quest project has been in operation for just over a decade. Quest syphons carbon from one of the company’s Edmonton-area plants and transports it by pipeline to a storage area where it’s injected and stored more than two kilometres underground. The project, which cost more than $1 billion to build, captures and stores about one million tonnes of carbon each year.Also in Alberta, the Carbon Trunk Line hauls captured carbon from a fertilizer plant and a refinery and pipes it 240 kilometres south to old oil reservoirs. The pipeline has the capacity to transport up to 14 million tonnes of carbon per year, though it only transported 1.5 megatonnes in 2023.In Saskatchewan, the best-known carbon capture project is the Boundary Dam coal-fired power plant, operational since 2014 and the world’s first commercial-scale coal plant with the technology. Carbon from the Boundary Dam is transported by pipeline to a largely depleted oil field near Weyburn, Saskatchewan, where it is injected into reservoirs to loosen up the remaining oil. The plant has never achieved its original goal of capturing one megatonne per year, but it was also an early demonstration project.How are Canadian governments supporting carbon capture technology?Canadian governments’ support of carbon capture technology comes down to, simply, paying for it.The cost to build carbon capture, utilization and storage facilities typically runs into the billions of dollars. Then, there are operational expenses. A 2025 analysis found Alberta’s two major carbon capture and storage facilities each cost tens of millions of dollars per year to operate.Alberta’s oilsands companies — which collectively posted more than $29.1 billion in profits in 2024 — find those costs too high. The Pathways Alliance has stated on its website that its carbon capture plan “will require ongoing collaboration” with governments, including “making significant investments together.” In theory, carbon pricing should encourage more carbon capture projects, as the more expensive carbon emissions are, the more likely a company is to implement emission reductions strategies.Yet in 2024, Edmonton-based power generator Capital Power abandoned its plans for a facility, saying carbon capture and storage was “not economically feasible.”If the industrial carbon tax is a stick, our governments are also dangling carrots in front of major polluters in the form of subsidies.Under former prime minister Justin Trudeau, the federal government introduced a refundable tax credit that subsidizes up to 50% of the cost of eligible carbon capture, storage and utilization projects. The tax credit first became available in 2022, and the Parliamentary Budget Office has estimated its cost will rise to more than $2 billion per year by 2027-28, as companies start to build their projects and take advantage of the subsidy.The Alberta Carbon Capture Incentive Program, meanwhile, provides additional provincial grants to companies building carbon capture projects in Alberta.In Carney and Smith’s memorandum of understanding, both the federal and Alberta governments committed to extending their respective incentive programs to support the Pathways project, which means a significant portion of the megaproject’s $16 billion price tag is likely to be publicly funded. That agreement also included a provision that tax credits for carbon capture extend to projects for enhanced oil recovery — which was previously excluded, as the Trudeau government responded to critics pointing out that extracting more oil results in more carbon emissions not just during production, but when the fossil fuel is eventually used by consumers.Can carbon capture technology make a dent in climate change?On its own, carbon capture technology will not make a dent in climate change.However, combined with other efforts, especially an overall reduction in fossil fuel use, it might help a little.The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has said the technology has the potential to decrease global emissions, but not by anywhere near as much as transitioning to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. It’s also a more expensive mitigation strategy than moving to renewables.According to the International Energy Agency, carbon capture, utilization and storage could achieve 8% of the emissions reductions needed to reach net-zero in the energy sector by 2050.In Canada, the oil and gas sector accounted for 30% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2023; reducing the sector’s emissions through carbon capture, utilization and storage would be a win.But there’s a catch. That accounting only considers carbon emissions from the industrial processes that make oil and gas products — not the emissions associated with their use.It’s important for an oil refinery to reduce its own emissions, but carbon capture projects don’t address the emissions produced by the car that eventually burns the fuel produced by that refinery. This is a big deal, because most of the carbon footprint associated with a barrel of oil — 70% to 80%, according to one estimate — comes from the oil product’s end use. In Canada, the highest emitting industry after oil and gas is transportation.That’s why carbon capture and storage isn’t a silver bullet in the fight against climate change. According to the World Resources Institute, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest report makes clear there are “no scenarios in which [carbon capture, utilization and storage] would allow continued use of fossil fuels at current levels, let alone expanded oil and gas production.”The Alberta government estimates the province has about 160 billion barrels of oil still available for extraction in the oilsands. The new pipeline — if it ever gets built — will drastically increase the amount of bitumen that can be shipped to international markets.By that time, Canada’s billion-dollar investments into carbon capture, utilization and storage technologies might have helped clean up the industries that produce oil in Alberta. But they will have done nothing to address the bigger problem: the use of the oil products themselves.Drew Anderson and Carl Meyer contributed to this story.This story was produced by The Narwhal and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	When did throw-away culture become big business? When did throw-away culture become big business?It’s no secret that fashion has a waste problem.The industry is estimated to generate over 101 million cubic tons of waste every year, including textile scraps, microplastics, chemical waste, and packaging materials. It’s a number that’s likely to go up in the coming years as the rate at which we buy, wear, and discard our clothes speeds up. It’s also a number that shows just how instrumental throw-away culture is to the fashion system at every stage of the supply chain.“Waste is a factor of human existence, and as long as we’ve had big business, we’ve had waste,” Oliver Franklin-Wallis, journalist and author of “Wasteland: The Dirty Truth About What We Throw Away, Where It Goes, and Why It Matters,” told Atmos. “Fashion is in many ways the business of waste, because it’s predicated on making things obsolete.”Since the dawn of industrialization, our economy has operated on a linear model of consumption—a “take-make-waste cycle,” according to Valérie Boiten, senior policy officer at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Fashion is a particularly egregious culprit. Two percent of the world’s energy goes into producing fast-fashion items, and the industry as a whole is responsible for up to 8% of global carbon emissions, according to the UN Environment Program. Meanwhile, the lifespan of clothes is getting shorter thanks to worsening garment quality and an ever-accelerating trend cycle. On average, a fast-fashion garment is worn just seven times before it is discarded.The repercussions are dire, with textile waste often burned or dumped. “[Those] pathways all lead to the release of pollutants, including hazardous chemicals, threatening species and habitats,” said Boiten. Microplastics can follow those pathways, too—and since more than 50% of clothing is made of plastic, textiles account for up to 35% of microplastics released to oceans worldwide.But at what point does a garment actually become waste? “Is it the moment somebody throws the garment away because they don’t need it anymore?” asked Bobby Kolade, founder of Buzigahill, a Kampala, Uganda-based brand repurposing the Global North’s second-hand garments and sending them back to the countries from which they came. “Is it the moment the garment can’t be sold, resold, and re-worn? In which case, is it a resource or is it a discard?”Here’s just a few of the ways that excess and waste are instrumental to how the fashion system works.Raw MaterialsAbout 40% of the fibers that end up in our clothes are agricultural products.Crops like cotton are water- and land-intensive. It takes an average of 2,700 liters of water to produce just one cotton T-shirt, about the same amount of water one person would need to drink for 2.5 years, according to a study by the European Parliament. The textile sector is also the third-largest cause of water pollution and land-use degradation. Crops like cotton rely on potentially harmful pesticides to meet demand.“We’ve come to see waste as the thing we can visualize, like a landfill or items of clothing in waterways,” said Maxine Bédat, founder of fashion think tank New Standard Institute and author of “Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment.” “But if we are creating a cotton garment with the enormous amounts of chemicals that are typically used in the creation of that product, and it’s only used once, then that’s incredibly wasteful.”Then there are the clothes made from fossil fuel-derived textiles, which account for roughly 60% of our garments. Synthetic fibers like spandex, polyester, and nylon are essentially made of plastic, and the production of textiles alone accounts for 1.35% of global oil consumption, according to a study by nonprofit Changing Markets— more than the annual oil consumption of the entire population of Spain.Milling, Ginning, Weaving, DyeingOnce the raw material fibers are ready, they are transported to the next stage of textile manufacturing: the milling, ginning, weaving or knitting, and dyeing of fibers.At textile mills, raw fibers are generally cleaned, straightened, and aligned to be spun into yarn. It’s an energy-intensive process responsible for around 57% of energy used by textile manufacturers—34% of the total energy consumption goes towards spinning fibers into yarns and 23% goes towards weaving yarns into fabric. The entire process is fueled by fossil fuels, because factories often rely on coal to power the equipment.Then there’s dyeing. The vast majority of textile dyes used today are synthetic, many of which don’t biodegrade, and some of which have been linked to cancer and other serious health issues. “The waste we need to be talking about is the waste that goes into the making of dyes and chemicals, which then pollutes rivers and overburdens local waste infrastructure in countries like India and Bangladesh,” said Franklin-Wallis.Cut-and-SewAfter raw materials are transferred to textile and garment manufacturers—another energy-intensive process—the goods are brought to the cutting-room floor. Here, millions of tons of fabric scraps are discarded, which is estimated to account for up to 15% of the total fabric in some cases. It’s often cheaper for brands to spend capital on producing too much than to invest in adopting more efficient practices.“It’s a deeply wasteful business,” said Venetia La Manna, slow fashion campaigner and cofounder of Remember Who Made Them. “Just 50 years ago, traditional and Indigenous methods of creating and using clothing were zero waste as standard. Today, the scale and pace at which Big Fashion operates is inherently wasteful.”OverproductionThe fashion industry simply produces too many clothes, and that’s intentional. Brands overproduce to ensure they have enough stock of popular items and to avoid the possibility of missed sales.It’s a wildly inefficient model that generates between 15 and 45 billion unsold garments of the estimated 150 billion garments that are produced every year, according to a report by WGSN and OC&C. This is, in part, because brands can’t predict what will and what won’t sell. But even in instances where a company invests in data collection and analytics that helps them better understand customer demand, garments are still discarded at alarming rates.“The current business model is to blame for rampant overproduction,” said Yayra Agbofah, founder and creative director of The Revival, a community-led organization in Ghana that upcycles discarded textiles. “The industry is trying to just make profit, profit, profit—because brands need to appease their shareholders and investors.”OverconsumptionBehind the fashion industry is a multi-billion dollar marketing machine. On social media, hashtag challenges, user-generated video content, live-streamed shopping, and influencer marketing have created new channels for shoppers to spend more—and waste more. Viral fashion does not last long, even less so now that TikTok has paved the way for the microtrend, which typically lasts less than a month. The average consumer buys 60% more clothing than they did in 2000, but they only keep it for half as long, according to McKinsey & Company.“Brands are relying on Instagram and TikTok algorithms to [manipulate us] into spending more,” said La Manna. “[We’re also seeing] the gamification of online shopping.” The integration of gaming aspects into online shopping has become increasingly common; ultra-fast fashion retailers like Temu and Shein have repeatedly been described as “addictive” by shoppers because of gamified reward programs, countdowns, and animated elements that keep people on their sites for longer.“The more time we spend on apps shopping, the less time we have to not only find joy or be with our friends and our communities, but also to get organized and to rally for a system that is fair and just for all of us,” said La Manna.DisposalAfter a few wears, clothes are often either discarded or tossed in a donation bin. But that’s not the end of their journey.Unsold and secondhand products from the Global North are routinely shipped to the Global South, where they end up in markets, landfills, and incinerators. “People don’t think of charity shops as part of the waste industry, but the fact is that they are,” said Franklin-Wallis. “We give them things we don’t want, and they make them disappear…With clothing, the majority is sent off to be graded and sorted and sent around the world to places in the Global South.”The Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of those places. It’s why Eddy Ekete, who lives between Paris and Kinshasa, decided in 2015 to found the KinAct Festival, an annual street art fair that displays costumes made from rubbish collected from the streets. The motivation, according to Ekete, was to create a platform for local Congolese artists to showcase their talent—and to help manage the city’s waste crisis in the process.“Western [waste] pollutes more than African waste. African waste [typically] comes from nature: like banana leaves, mango leaves, coconuts, pieces of trees, bark,” said Ekete. “The advantage of our waste is that when you throw it on the ground, it gives life to the Earth. Western waste, on the other hand, is the kind of waste that lingers, that heats up the Earth, that damages everything.”Today, the KinAct Festival exhibits sculptural contemporary costumes made from both plastic waste and organic matter, and offers street performances and creative workshops to help inspire more people to get involved. “[We are] showing the authorities that there is the possibility of reducing waste with what we do—but we need help,” Ekete said. “We’re doing this with our own resources. We don’t have a lot of space, we don’t have a lot of money, but we have the drive to work with it. That’s determination.”But the problem Ekete is tackling was started by corporations and consumers in the Global North, and a solution cannot—and should not—be left to local community efforts in the Global South.An estimated 70% of clothes donated in Europe end up in Africa, according to a 2015 report by Oxfam. For third-party companies known as “textile recyclers” (a misleading term, as many of the garments are not so much recycled as offloaded to dumping sites in the Global South), there’s also a lot of money to be made from buying bales of secondhand clothing and selling them to clothing importers.The trade of secondhand clothing, an industry that’s currently valued at over $230 billion, has played a critical role in the battering of the textile industry across Africa. The repercussions are manifold. Buyers of these clothing bales cannot see the contents before purchase, and much of the bale often turns out to be unusable. The system perpetuates financial insecurity for local secondhand clothing traders.The fashion industry simply produces too many clothes, and that’s intentional.“Because the buyers of the secondhand clothing bales can’t see what’s in them, and because much of it [ends up going unsold], they aren’t able to guarantee they’ll even make back the money they’ve invested in purchasing the bale to begin with,” said anti-fast fashion advocate Yvette Tetteh, who swam the length of Ghana’s Volta River to draw attention to waste colonialism. “In other words, they start off in debt.”As legislation like the EU’s mandatory and harmonized Extended Producer Responsibility policy is being debated, there are growing calls by advocates to ensure that equity and justice are built into those laws. Currently, when made, EPR payments by brands often end up funding waste collection in the Global North without necessarily directing payments to countries like Ghana or Kenya, where the clothes end up. The pressure on frontline communities, who are made responsible for processing and discarding waste that’s not theirs, is enormous.Kolade describes the process of sending bales of clothing from Europe to Africa that are embedded with unsellable clothing as “smuggling” waste. “We’re not saying that the trade should be banned…There are too many millions of people on the continent who rely on the trade for their livelihoods. The issue is the smuggling of waste—the whole system needs to change.”A Reality CheckThe fashion industry’s waste crisis is, in many ways, a crisis of responsibility; of brands in the Global North refusing to take accountability for the waste that they produce, leaving communities in the Global South to clean up the mess.The system is upheld by the industry’s failure to account for waste management costs from the get-go. “For too long, it’s been too easy to incinerate leftover stock,” said Christina Dean, founder of Redress, a nonprofit organization focused on accelerating the industry’s transition to circular fashion. “Now, there’s a reputational risk of incineration and some legislation in place—those two things should put more pressure on a mildly adjusted cost structure.”But many feel that crucial legislative milestones are being implemented too slowly. The EU’s EPR policy is still being negotiated in the European Parliament, and New York’s groundbreaking Fashion Act—whose drafting was led by Bédat and which takes aim at, among other things, chemical mismanagement in fashion’s supply chains—has yet to pass.For communities in Ghana, the need to restructure the industry with equity and justice at its core could not be more urgent. The Revival’s Agbofah said that it’s the industry’s deliberate refusal to take responsibility for the extent of its waste production that has caused large swathes of Ghana to become dumping grounds.“I am tired of conversations. There have been so many, and none have led to action at the pace they should,” said Agbofah. “Much of the policy has goals 10 years from now. In that time, we’ll see mass destruction…Change can’t come soon enough.”This story was produced by Atmos and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Iowa Supreme Court rules for Scott County public defenders At issue was whether the public defenders can opt out of cases when they have temporary overloads.
	10 workforce trends HR leaders say will shape 2026 10 workforce trends HR leaders say will shape 2026The start of a new year is a natural checkpoint for HR leaders. And as organizations enter 2026, HR leaders are reassessing whether their talent strategies align with evolving employee expectations, accelerating technology, and increasing business pressures.While the issues themselves are familiar, leaders say the differentiator this year will be execution—specifically, whether organizations can turn plans into measurable action.A recent survey of HR professionals conducted by payroll and HCM provider Paylocity between November 2025 and January 2026 identifies the 10 workforce trends expected to have the greatest impact in the year ahead.The findings point to sustained challenges around retention and compensation, uneven adoption of artificial intelligence, and a widening gap between what companies aim to achieve and what they are prepared to deliver.1. Retention and Engagement Remain HR’s Top PriorityRetention continues to dominate the HR agenda. More than 61% of respondents ranked retention and engagement among their top three priorities, and nearly 80% placed it in their top five.No other issue appeared as consistently across the survey results, underscoring the importance of employee stability and day-to-day experience in driving organizational performance.“Employee retention is both HR’s biggest priority and biggest challenge,” one respondent noted.2. AI and Automation Adoption Emerges as the Most Polarizing TrendArtificial intelligence topped the list of priorities for 26% of respondents—the highest share of any trend surveyed. Yet roughly one-quarter ranked AI among their lowest concerns.This divide reflects sharp differences in organizational readiness, governance structures, and risk tolerance, rather than a lack of interest in AI’s potential.3. Compensation and Benefits Remain a Persistent Pressure PointWith pay closely tied to retention and trust, compensation continues to weigh heavily on HR teams. More than 70% of respondents ranked compensation and benefits among their top five priorities.Leaders say compensation is increasingly seen as a signal of organizational commitment, not merely a market benchmark.4. Manager Capability Becomes a Critical LeverManager effectiveness remains a fundamental driver of the employee experience. Two-thirds of HR leaders ranked manager capability in their top five priorities, emphasizing that strong front-line managers have an outsized influence on engagement, performance, and retention.5. Skills and Upskilling Shift Toward Skills-Based ModelsSkills development remains a high priority, with 66% of respondents citing skills and upskilling among their top concerns. The focus is moving away from standalone training programs toward skills-based ecosystems that support internal mobility and adaptability as roles evolve in 2026.6. Compliance Challenges Intensify Amid Workforce ComplexityMore than 42% of respondents ranked employment law and compliance among their chief concerns. Remote work, multistate hiring, and rapid regulatory change are adding complexity and increasing pressure on HR teams charged with managing risk.7. An Execution Gap Emerges as a Defining ChallengeAlthough urgency is high, many organizations lack clear pathways to act. Nearly 98% of respondents said their top workforce issue carries high or critical business impact, yet only 15% reported having a defined plan in place.Fewer than 4 in 10 said they had both a budget and a timeline established, highlighting a growing execution gap between strategic intent and operational readiness.8. HR–Finance Alignment Proves Key to Driving ActionAlignment between HR and finance strongly correlated with execution readiness. Among respondents reporting full alignment, more than 73% had both a budget and a timeline in place.That figure declined sharply for those with limited collaboration, underscoring the importance of financial partnership in translating workforce strategy into action.9. AI Adoption Expected to Focus on Automation and Learning—Despite Trust ConcernsIn 2026, HR leaders expect AI use to concentrate on workflow automation, learning and development, and workforce analytics. Adoption remains slower in areas where judgment and nuance are critical, such as performance management and employee feedback.Security, data privacy, and limited internal expertise remain the top barriers to adoption.“AI too often generates incorrect or incomplete data. The technology is not yet trustworthy,” one respondent said.10. HR Technology Priorities Shift Toward Integration and SecurityHR teams are increasingly prioritizing tools that reduce friction and support compliance. Automation across HR, finance, and IT ranked as the most important platform characteristic, followed by enhanced security and data privacy features.While vendor consolidation remains attractive, a slight majority still prefer multisystem flexibility, reflecting the complexity of many organizations’ technology ecosystems.Looking Ahead for 2026The survey suggests that 2026 will be less about identifying new workforce challenges and more about effectively addressing known ones. Retention, compensation, manager effectiveness, and skills development remain foundational priorities, while AI adoption continues to accelerate—albeit unevenly.Organizations that successfully align strategy, budget, and execution may be the best positioned to translate workforce ambitions into measurable impact in the year ahead.About the Source: The survey this article is based on was conducted from Nov. 11, 2025, to Jan. 8, 2026, by Dr. Shari Simpson, an HR thought leader and speaker employed by Paylocity. It received 403 responses, of which 276 were completed. Results are unweighted and reflect the views of participating HR professionals.This story was produced by Paylocity and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Coping with loss: Should you borrow for a funeral? Coping with loss: Should you borrow for a funeral?Saying goodbye to a loved one is never easy. The emotional toll of grief and the financial burden of funeral planning can be overwhelming. Many families struggle to find the money to pay for a funeral, and you often don’t get much time to figure out how you’ll pay.The costs of a funeral can strain even healthy finances. A solution that works for some people is a funeral loan. It’s a personal loan for people who need a helping hand to cover the costs of saying goodbye.Achieve explains how funeral loans work and what alternatives may be available.Key takeaways:Funeral loans are personal loans that help you pay for funeral expenses over time.In some cases, a personal loan could be approved and funded within days after you apply. Sometimes that’s all the time you get to put a funeral together.In addition to paying for the service and burial, you could use the loan to cover related costs like airfare and hotels for family and friends attending the funeral.What are funeral loans, and how do they work?Funeral loans are usually unsecured personal loans. You get a lump sum of money up front when your loan is approved, and you repay it in equal monthly payments, usually over two to five years. There are typically very few restrictions on how you can use a personal loan. Once you receive the money, you could use it to cover expected or unexpected expenses, including final arrangements for a loved one.Most people apply for funeral loans online, although you could also apply with your lender in person or over the phone if you’re more comfortable doing it that way. The lender will check your credit report and verify your income to decide how much you can borrow and what the interest rate on your loan will be.If the lender approves your loan and you sign your loan documents, you could receive the money in as little as 24-72 hours.Once you have the money in your account, you can pay for expenses such as:Embalming or cremationCasket or urnBurial plotAirfare and hotel expenses for people attending from out of townEvent space rentalOfficiant feeDonation to the religious institutionObituary in your local newspaperCopies of the death certificateThose expenses can add up fast. A funeral loan allows you to spread the costs out over time.The pros and cons of funeral loans Achieve Choosing the right funeral loanA lot goes into choosing the right funeral loan. Here are a few important things to consider when deciding what funeral loan is right for you:How much do you need to borrow? Is the lender’s minimum more than what you need?Is there a prepayment penalty? If you borrow more than you need or family members help you repay the loan, can you pay it down ahead of schedule without a penalty?How long do you need to repay the loan? A two-year loan may have a lower interest rate or lower origination fee than a five-year loan.How much are the fees? An origination fee is the fee the lender charges for making the loan. It’s usually deducted from the amount you borrow, so the lower the origination fee, the more of the loan amount you receive. This fee may depend, in part, on your credit score.Exploring alternatives to funeral loansA funeral loan isn’t the only way to cover funeral expenses. Here are a few more tools that may help you pay for a funeral.The Social Security Administration can pay a death benefit of $255 to a qualified surviving spouse or dependent child. While the amount may not seem like much, every little bit helps.Your state or county might offer a grant to cover part of the funeral costs. The Pew Charitable Trust says 20 states have a cash grant to help low-income families pay for funeral or burial expenses. To find out if you are eligible for assistance, search “funeral grant in [your state or county]."A secured loan may be easier to qualify for than an unsecured personal loan. A home equity loan or home equity line of credit is for homeowners who have sufficient home equity to borrow against. Equity is the difference between your home’s current market value and the amount you still owe on the mortgage (if you have a mortgage). You pledge your home as a guarantee that you’ll repay the loan. This lowers the risk for the lender, so they can be more flexible with qualification requirements. Secured loans often have a lower interest rate compared to unsecured loans and credit cards, and higher maximum loan amounts.Providing support and comfort to your loved onesIt’s natural to feel overwhelmed when a loved one passes away, and those around you likely feel the same‌ way. Dealing with funeral expenses, especially if they’re unexpected, can cause anyone stress. Figuring out how you’ll pay for those expenses could give you and your loved ones the space you need to focus on supporting each other.This story was produced by Achieve and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	10 workforce trends HR leaders say will shape 2026 10 workforce trends HR leaders say will shape 2026The start of a new year is a natural checkpoint for HR leaders. And as organizations enter 2026, HR leaders are reassessing whether their talent strategies align with evolving employee expectations, accelerating technology, and increasing business pressures.While the issues themselves are familiar, leaders say the differentiator this year will be execution—specifically, whether organizations can turn plans into measurable action.A recent survey of HR professionals conducted by payroll and HCM provider Paylocity between November 2025 and January 2026 identifies the 10 workforce trends expected to have the greatest impact in the year ahead.The findings point to sustained challenges around retention and compensation, uneven adoption of artificial intelligence, and a widening gap between what companies aim to achieve and what they are prepared to deliver.1. Retention and Engagement Remain HR’s Top PriorityRetention continues to dominate the HR agenda. More than 61% of respondents ranked retention and engagement among their top three priorities, and nearly 80% placed it in their top five.No other issue appeared as consistently across the survey results, underscoring the importance of employee stability and day-to-day experience in driving organizational performance.“Employee retention is both HR’s biggest priority and biggest challenge,” one respondent noted.2. AI and Automation Adoption Emerges as the Most Polarizing TrendArtificial intelligence topped the list of priorities for 26% of respondents—the highest share of any trend surveyed. Yet roughly one-quarter ranked AI among their lowest concerns.This divide reflects sharp differences in organizational readiness, governance structures, and risk tolerance, rather than a lack of interest in AI’s potential.3. Compensation and Benefits Remain a Persistent Pressure PointWith pay closely tied to retention and trust, compensation continues to weigh heavily on HR teams. More than 70% of respondents ranked compensation and benefits among their top five priorities.Leaders say compensation is increasingly seen as a signal of organizational commitment, not merely a market benchmark.4. Manager Capability Becomes a Critical LeverManager effectiveness remains a fundamental driver of the employee experience. Two-thirds of HR leaders ranked manager capability in their top five priorities, emphasizing that strong front-line managers have an outsized influence on engagement, performance, and retention.5. Skills and Upskilling Shift Toward Skills-Based ModelsSkills development remains a high priority, with 66% of respondents citing skills and upskilling among their top concerns. The focus is moving away from standalone training programs toward skills-based ecosystems that support internal mobility and adaptability as roles evolve in 2026.6. Compliance Challenges Intensify Amid Workforce ComplexityMore than 42% of respondents ranked employment law and compliance among their chief concerns. Remote work, multistate hiring, and rapid regulatory change are adding complexity and increasing pressure on HR teams charged with managing risk.7. An Execution Gap Emerges as a Defining ChallengeAlthough urgency is high, many organizations lack clear pathways to act. Nearly 98% of respondents said their top workforce issue carries high or critical business impact, yet only 15% reported having a defined plan in place.Fewer than 4 in 10 said they had both a budget and a timeline established, highlighting a growing execution gap between strategic intent and operational readiness.8. HR–Finance Alignment Proves Key to Driving ActionAlignment between HR and finance strongly correlated with execution readiness. Among respondents reporting full alignment, more than 73% had both a budget and a timeline in place.That figure declined sharply for those with limited collaboration, underscoring the importance of financial partnership in translating workforce strategy into action.9. AI Adoption Expected to Focus on Automation and Learning—Despite Trust ConcernsIn 2026, HR leaders expect AI use to concentrate on workflow automation, learning and development, and workforce analytics. Adoption remains slower in areas where judgment and nuance are critical, such as performance management and employee feedback.Security, data privacy, and limited internal expertise remain the top barriers to adoption.“AI too often generates incorrect or incomplete data. The technology is not yet trustworthy,” one respondent said.10. HR Technology Priorities Shift Toward Integration and SecurityHR teams are increasingly prioritizing tools that reduce friction and support compliance. Automation across HR, finance, and IT ranked as the most important platform characteristic, followed by enhanced security and data privacy features.While vendor consolidation remains attractive, a slight majority still prefer multisystem flexibility, reflecting the complexity of many organizations’ technology ecosystems.Looking Ahead for 2026The survey suggests that 2026 will be less about identifying new workforce challenges and more about effectively addressing known ones. Retention, compensation, manager effectiveness, and skills development remain foundational priorities, while AI adoption continues to accelerate—albeit unevenly.Organizations that successfully align strategy, budget, and execution may be the best positioned to translate workforce ambitions into measurable impact in the year ahead.About the Source: The survey this article is based on was conducted from Nov. 11, 2025, to Jan. 8, 2026, by Dr. Shari Simpson, an HR thought leader and speaker employed by Paylocity. It received 403 responses, of which 276 were completed. Results are unweighted and reflect the views of participating HR professionals.This story was produced by Paylocity and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
	Skier Lindsey Vonn's Winter Olympic comeback dream is in jeopardy after a crash Vonn was seen clutching her left knee after crashing in a race in Switzerland on Friday, the last before the Winter Olympics. Her comeback after retiring in 2019 was one of Team USA's biggest stories.
	1 Marine 1 Life Foundation hosting euchre tournament in Rock Island for Jacob's Stone The 1 Marine 1 Life Foundation is hosting a euchre tournament to raise awareness for Jacob’s Stone , a program that buys memorial headstones for families that have lost a child. The tournament will be on Sunday, February 1 from 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. at Icons Martini, 124 18th Street in Rock Island. It [...]
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	'ChatGPT saved my life.' How patients, and doctors, are using AI to make a diagnosis Hundreds of millions of people are turning to chatbots to help figure out what's wrong with them. Doctors say that's not always a bad thing. In fact, many are using it themselves.

Saturday, January 31st, 2026

Friday, January 30th, 2026