Artificial intelligence is no longer just a buzzword thrown around in the boardroom. This technology now powers modern finance, shaping how money moves and how decisions are made. Through rapid trading, personalized wealth management, algorithmic credit scoring, and automated back-office functions, AI is helping financial institutions reduce costs and deliver greater value to their clients.

Yet these benefits will primarily help those that already have access to a bank—and not the more than one billion that still lack access to formal financial systems. A staggering $5.2 trillion credit gap prevents small businesses in emerging markets from growing. Financial inclusion is stubbornly out of reach for these business and individuals.

AI, combined with Web 3.0 technologies, could expand access to unbanked and underbanked populations, but only if it’s not treated as an afterthought. Financial institutions must harness AI, develop advanced methods to determine consumers’ intent to repay loans, and use alternative datasets to unlock collateral-free credit for those most in need. Collaboration, not disruption, is the way forward.

In Kenya, Indonesia, and Brazil, startups are utilizing alternative datasets, such as mobile usage and merchant transactions, to deliver microloans and insurance to last-mile customers overlooked by traditional banks. In India, multilingual AI chatbots are already breaking down language barriers. In Latin America, fintech platforms have leveraged AI to reach millions of customers, making financial services accessible at scale.

But financial exclusion won’t be eliminated by just another app. Instead, policymakers need to create inclusion frameworks that embed equity and access directly into the financial system.

This requires building global infrastructure where inclusion is the norm, not the exception. For example, the UPI-PayNow bridge between India and Singapore is a real-time payments corridor allowing instant transfers with just a mobile number. But this bridge wasn’t built overnight; it’s the result of years of policy coordination, regulatory alignment, and public-private trust.

Furthermore, in banking, collateral remains the cornerstone of traditional lending: If you want a loan, you must pledge an asset. This approach excludes low-income individuals—millions without property or savings—from accessing formal credit.

While banks use AI mainly for efficiency today, the real potential lies elsewhere. Banks could develop strong behavioral data models using AI, serving as proxies for collateral and indicators of creditworthiness, thereby opening access for those left behind.

Lasting change in any sector requires sustained collective action, not just individual brilliance. Disruptive breakthroughs spark innovation, but when multiple stakeholders work together toward common goals, they can overcome resistance, manage complexities, ensure everyone’s input, and keep up momentum to make progress resilient and deeply rooted.

In finance, AI can have unintended consequences due to opaque algorithms, biases that reinforce risks, and systems that are hard to understand. For AI to promote inclusion, it must be transparent and understandable to regulators. Institutions that use such AI need to be accountable. This involves rigorous bias testing, built-in human oversight, and clear channels for appealing major decisions. Trust is essential: Without it, liquidity dries up, credit markets freeze, and economic growth slows.

As the world enters a new technological age, AI, digital token networks, and quantum information systems are poised to transform global financial inclusion. AI will redefine financial services. Digital token networks will enable borderless, low-cost transactions through asset tokenization, eliminating the need for traditional infrastructure. And quantum information systems will enhance cybersecurity and streamline digital identification, payments, and smart contracts.

Together, these technologies will build a trustworthy financial infrastructure, providing everyone, regardless of location, literacy, or economic status, with safe and affordable access to the global economy.

By embedding inclusion into our financial infrastructure, we’ll have another opportunity to create a system that meets the needs of the world’s eight billion people.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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The Trump administration halted construction on a nearly complete offshore wind project near Rhode Island as the White House continues to attack the battered U.S. offshore wind industry that scientists say is crucial to the urgent fight against climate change.

Danish wind farm developer Orsted says the Revolution Wind project is about 80% complete, with 45 out of its 65 turbines already installed.

Despite that progress — and the fact that the project had cleared years of federal and state reviews — the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued the order Friday, saying the federal government needs to review the project and “address concerns related to the protection of national security interests of the United States.”

It did not specify what the national security concerns are.

President Donald Trump has made sweeping strides to prioritize fossil fuels and hinder renewable energy projects. Trump recently called wind and solar power “THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY!” in a social media post and vowed not to approve wind or “farmer destroying Solar” projects. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!” he wrote on his Truth Social site this week.

Scientists across the globe agree that nations need to rapidly embrace renewable energy to stave off the worst effects of climate change, including extreme heat and drought; larger, more intense wildfires and supercharged hurricanes, typhoons and rainstorms that lead to catastrophic flooding.

Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee criticized the stop-work order and said he and Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont “will pursue every avenue to reverse the decision to halt work on Revolution Wind” in a post on X. Both governors are Democrats.

Construction on Revolution Wind began in 2023, and the project was expected to be fully operational next year. Orsted says it is evaluating the financial impact of stopping construction and is considering legal proceedings.

Revolution Wind is located more than 15 miles (24 kilometers) south of the Rhode Island coast, 32 miles (51 kilometers) southeast of the Connecticut coast and 12 miles (19 kilometers) southwest of Martha’s Vineyard. Rhode Island is already home to one offshore wind farm, the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm.

Revolution Wind was expected to be Rhode Island and Connecticut’s first commercial-scale offshore wind farm, capable of powering more than 350,000 homes. The densely populated states have minimal space available for land-based energy projects, which is why the offshore wind project is considered crucial for the states to meet their climate goals.

“This arbitrary decision defies all logic and reason — Revolution Wind’s project was already well underway and employed hundreds of skilled tradesmen and women. This is a major setback for a critical project in Connecticut, and I will fight it,” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Wind power is the largest source of renewable energy in the U.S. and provides about 10% of the electricity generated in the nation.

“Today, the U.S. has only one fully operational large-scale offshore wind project producing power. That is not enough to meet America’s rising energy needs. We need more energy of all types, including oil and gas, wind, and new and emerging technologies,” said Erik Milito, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, a group that supports offshore oil, gas and wind.

Green Oceans, a nonprofit that opposes the offshore wind industry, applauded the BOEM’s decision. “We are grateful that the Trump Administration and the federal government are taking meaningful action to preserve the fragile ocean environment off the coasts of Rhode Island and Massachusetts,” the nonprofit said in a statement.

This is the second major offshore wind project the White House has halted. Work was stopped on Empire Wind, a New York offshore wind project, but construction was allowed to resume after New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Gov. Kathy Hochul, both Democrats, intervened.

“This administration has it exactly backwards. It’s trying to prop up clunky, polluting coal plants while doing all it can to halt the fastest growing energy sources of the future – solar and wind power,” said Kit Kennedy, managing director for the power division at Natural Resources Defense Council, in a statement. “Unfortunately, every American is paying the price for these misguided decisions.”

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The end of an exemption on tariff duties for low-value packages coming into the United States is causing multiple international postal services to pause shipping as they await more clarity on the rule.

The exemption, known as the “de minimis” exemption, allows packages worth less than $800 to come into the U.S. duty free. A total of 1.36 billion packages were sent in 2024 under this exemption, for goods worth $64.6 billion, according to data from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Agency.

It is set to expire on Friday. On Saturday, postal services around Europe announced that they are suspending the shipment of many packages to the United States amid confusion over new import duties.

Postal services in Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Italy said they will stop shipping most merchandise to the U.S. effective immediately. France and Austria will follow on Monday.

The U.K.’s Royal Mail said it would halt shipments to the U.S. on Tuesday to allow time for those packages to arrive before duties kick in. Items originating in the United Kingdom worth over $100 — including gifts to friends and family — will incur a 10% duty, it said.

“Key questions remain unresolved, particularly regarding how and by whom customs duties will be collected in the future, what additional data will be required, and how the data transmission to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection will be carried out,” DHL, the largest shipping provider in Europe, said in a statement.

The company said starting Saturday it “will no longer be able to accept and transport parcels and postal items containing goods from business customers destined for the US.”

A trade framework agreed on by the U.S. and the European Union last month set a 15% tariff on the vast majority of products shipped from the EU. Packages under $800 will now also be subject to the tariff.

The U.S. duty-free exemption for goods originating from China ended in May as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to curb American shoppers from ordering low-value Chinese goods. The exemption is being extended to shipments from around the world.

Many European postal services say they are pausing deliveries now because they cannot guarantee the goods will enter the U.S. before Aug. 29. They cite ambiguity about what kind of goods are covered by the new rules, and the lack of time to process their implications.

Postnord, the Nordic logistics company, and Italy’s postal service announced similar suspensions effective Saturday.

“In the absence of different instructions from US authorities … Poste Italiane will be forced, like other European postal operators, to temporarily suspend acceptance of all shipments containing goods destined for the United States, starting August 23. Mail shipments not containing merchandise will continue to be accepted,” Poste Italiane said Friday.

Shipping by services such as DHL Express remains possible, it added.

Björn Bergman, head of PostNord’s Group Brand and Communication, said the pause was “unfortunate but necessary to ensure full compliance of the newly implemented rules.”

In the Netherlands, PostNL spokesperson Wout Witteveen said the Trump administration is pressing ahead with the new duties despite U.S. authorities lacking a system to collect them. He said that PostNL is working closely with its U.S. counterparts to find a solution.

“If you have something to send to America, you should do it today,” Witteveen told The Associated Press.

Austrian Post, Austria’s leading logistics and postal service provider, stated that the last acceptance of commercial shipments to the U.S., including Puerto Rico, will take place Tuesday.

France’s national postal service, La Poste, said the U.S. did not provide full details or allow enough time for the French postal service to prepare for new customs procedures.

″Despite discussions with U.S. customs services, no time was provided to postal operators to re-organize and assure the necessary computer updates to conform to the new rules,″ it said in a statement.

PostEurop, an association of 51 European public postal operators, said that if no solution can be found by Aug. 29 all its members will likely follow suit.

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• Vladimir Putin has staved off additional U.S. sanctions, for now, as he bought more time to prosecute his war on Ukraine by meeting with President Donald Trump in Alaska last week, sparking a flurry of diplomatic activity as European allies try to forge security guarantees for Kyiv. But time may not be Russia’s ally as its economy comes under increased strain.

Russia could slip into a recession soon and is having its worst harvest in 17 years, further straining an economy that’s already seen energy revenue plunge.

For now, Vladimir Putin has staved off additional U.S. sanctions, as he bought more time to prosecute his war on Ukraine by meeting with President Donald Trump in Alaska last week, sparking a flurry of diplomatic activity as European allies try to forge security guarantees for Kyiv.

But time may not be Russia’s ally.

While Trump didn’t follow through on his threats to penalize Moscow for failing to reach a ceasefire agreement, there’s also been no sign of talks to remove existing sanctions and revive economic cooperation.

“So it’s too early to adopt a more optimistic view on the Russian economy, which we think is teetering on the brink of a recession,” Tatiana Orlova, lead economist at Oxford Economics, said in a note on Monday.

Since the Alaska meeting produced nothing that would move the needle, she reaffirmed her forecast for Russian GDP growth to slow sharply this year to just 1.2% from 4.3% in 2024.

And after that, the economy will stagnate even further, coming to a near standstill with growth dropping below 1% in 2026 and 2027.

“We also think there’s a significant probability of Russia’s economy slipping into a technical recession in the coming quarters,” Orlova added.

Similar alarms have been piling up this year. In June, Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov warned that Russia was “on the brink” of a recession. Russian banks have also raised red flags on a potential debt crisis as high interest rates weigh on borrowers’ ability to service loans.

Last month, the central bank slashed interest rates by 200 basis points to revive stalling growth, after hiking them to sky-high levels to fight inflation that’s been stoked by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Harvest season and Russia’s economy

Meanwhile, Russia is having a disastrous harvest despite being an agricultural powerhouse, putting further pressure on the economy and the Kremlin’s finances.

The country’s grain and fertilizer exports haven’t been sanctioned due to concerns about food shortages and have been a source of economic strength for Russia.

But July saw the lowest grain exports for that month since 2008, according to Peter Frankopan, associate fellow on Russia and Eurasia at International Institute for Strategic Studies, who attributed it to intensifying climate volatility.

This year, crops have been damaged by unseasonable frost in the spring as well as record heat and drought conditions in the summer, he explained in a recent post. Total grain production is now expected to fall to 130 million metric tons, down 18% from a 2022 peak.

“Russia’s bad 2025 harvest is more than a weather event: it reveals the structural fragility of Russia’s war economy and the growing risks to a system built on fiscal buffers and fossil fuels,” Frankopan wrote.

In fact, Russia’s fiscal buffer is disappearing as cash from energy dwindles. The Kremlin’s oil and gas revenue, which is its main source of funds, tumbled 27% in July from a year ago to 787.3 billion rubles, or about $9.8 billion. 

As war spending soars, the result has been widening budget deficits. Russia has had to tap reserves in its National Wealth Fund, which has shrunk from $135 billion in January 2022 to just $35 billion this past May.

“Russia’s economy is fast approaching a fiscal crunch that will encumber its war effort,” economist and Russia expert Anders Åslund wrote in a Project Syndicate op-ed earlier this month. “Though that may not be enough to compel Putin to seek peace, it does suggest that the walls are closing in on him.”

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• While markets focused on the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy, minutes from the central bank’s last meeting revealed concern among some policymakers about the housing market, which has been raising alarms on Wall Street as a slowdown drags on. Fresh data also pointed to more worrying signs, especially in new homes.

Wall Street has been laser-focused on the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy this past week, but minutes from the central bank’s last meeting revealed concern among some policymakers about the housing market.

As the sector’s slump drags on, it has triggered more alarm bells because activity in housing, such as residential investment and construction, has often served as a leading indicator on the overall economy.

Minutes from the Fed’s earlier meetings didn’t include such concerns. But that changed during the July 29-30 gathering.

“Participants observed that growth of economic activity slowed in the first half of the year, driven in large part by slower consumption growth and a decline in residential investment,” the minutes, which were released on Wednesday, said.

To be sure, housing was just one of several concerns that policymakers raised. Others included the labor market, the effect of tariffs on inflation, real income growth, elevated asset valuations, and low crop prices.

But Fed officials were also specific about their housing market worries, suggesting they were starting to pay more attention to the data.

“A few participants noted a weakening in housing demand, with increased availability of homes for sale and falling house prices,” the minutes said.

And not only did housing show up on the Fed’s radar, policymakers flagged it as a potential risk to jobs, along with artificial intelligence technology.

“In addition to tariff-induced risks, potential downside risks to employment mentioned by participants included a possible tightening of financial conditions due to a rise in risk premiums, a more substantial deterioration in the housing market, and the risk that the increased use of AI in the workplace may lower employment,” the minutes added.

Housing market data

The fact that the housing market is emerging as a worry at the Fed means that it could also weigh more on rate decisions, which influence mortgage rates.

In his Jackson Hole speech on Friday, Chairman Jerome Powell opened the door to a rate cut at the central bank’s meeting in September after months of maintaining a more hawkish stance, stoking a furious rally on Wall Street and sending the 10-year Treasury yield down sharply.

But in the meantime, fresh data show that the housing market remains stuck as elevated borrowing costs have kept would-be buyers on the sidelines.

Sales of existing homes rose in July but have largely been flat for most of the year, even as the number of listings has climbed, suggesting demand is weak. That’s suppressed home prices, with a gauge of median prices falling in all but one month this year. 

“Weekly data suggests home prices may remain subdued in coming months, close to flat on the year or rising only very modestly,” analysts at Citi Research wrote on Thursday. “Home price declines are rare outside of hiking cycles or recessions.”

In addition, construction of new single-family homes remains lethargic, and data for July showed that building permits have declined in six out of seven months this year. In fact, permits—a volatile but leading indicator of future activity—fell to the lowest level since 2019, excluding the pandemic.

That was reflected in the NAHB homebuilder confidence index, which fell in August to reverse a modest uptick earlier. It also showed that the share of homebuilders offering sales incentives hit a post-pandemic high.

“As housing demand remains weak with high mortgage rates and high home prices, we expect further softening in housing activity this year,” Citi said in a separate note on Tuesday. 

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• Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell opened the door to a rate cut at the central bank’s meeting in September after months of maintaining a more hawkish stance, stoking a furious rally on Wall Street. But don’t expect a unanimous decision among policymakers, and Powell may be the decisive factor, according to JPMorgan.

A consensus view on Wall Street for a rate cut next month doesn’t mean there will be a consensus on the Federal Reserve as policymakers still appear divided.

In his Jackson Hole speech on Friday, Chairman Jerome Powell opened the door to a rate cut at the central bank’s meeting in September after months of maintaining a more hawkish stance, stoking a furious rally on Wall Street.

His emphasis on growing risks to the labor market coupled with a more muted warning on the inflationary impact of tariffs marked a shift in his tone. But not everyone on the Federal Open Market Committee sounded as dovish, including Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid.

That sets up another FOMC meeting with dissenting votes, after two policymakers voted to lower rates last time, going against the majority that kept rates steady.

While Powell counts as one vote on the FOMC, he carries outsized influence as the chairman and could prove to be decisive in another split vote.

“Guidance from a range of Fed speakers was mixed this week, while the July minutes struck a modestly hawkish tone,” JPMorgan economists led by Bruce Kasman wrote in a note on Friday. “A consensus decision in September looks unlikely, and it is Chair Powell who holds the key to the meeting’s outcome.”

Another contested meeting would mark further deviation from the Fed’s traditional consensus-driven, decision-making process, which typically results in unanimous votes.

But future meetings could see continued division as hawks point to inflation still running above the Fed’s 2% target and other economic data signaling resilience. Indeed, the composition of the Fed is in flux, potentially leading to more push and pull among policymakers.

Stephen Miran, who has previously blasted the Fed’s consensus-based approach, is set to join the board of governors and add to the dovish votes. Meanwhile, Powell’s term as chair expires in May, and President Donald Trump has threatened to fire Governor Lisa Cook if she doesn’t resign.

Outlook for Fed rate cut cycle

And even if the Fed lowers rates next month, the pace of future cuts isn’t clear, providing more fodder for debate at the central bank as Trump-appointed officials push for dovish policy.

Some Wall Street analysts don’t see an aggressive easing cycle on the horizon, and Powell indicated any rate cuts would happen in a cautious manner.

“This message may not be welcomed by an administration looking for immediate aggressive easing,” JPMorgan said.

Capital Economics chief markets economist John Higgins said in a note Friday that Powell “poured three cups of cold water” on hopes for a major loosening of Fed policy.

They include indications that the current rate is only modestly restrictive, that the neutral level may be higher than in the 2010s, and that a revised policy framework would return to a more symmetric approach to upside and downside inflation risks.

Similarly, Ryan Sweet, chief US economist at Oxford Economics, said a rate cut in September would be more akin to an “insurance” move as Powell has previously vowed not to be late on labor market signals.

In fact, his stance veers away from others at the Fed as he puts greater emphasis on the employment side of the dual mandate while tariffs are expected to cause a short-lived bump in inflation.

“Powell appears to be setting the stage, assuming the economy performs as he expects and risks do not change appreciably, for a gradual approach to normalizing interest rates,” Sweet said in a note. “In other words, one cut at every other remaining meeting this year.”

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The world tends to see Europe as fragmented, bureaucratic, and underfunded — a tough place to build global companies. But those very constraints are why Europe is producing some of the most resilient billion-dollar businesses today. Scarcity forces discipline. Fragmentation gives startups diverse talent. And limited funding pushes founders to act globally from day one.

In today’s market, where investors reward efficiency over hype and customers demand solutions that work across borders, Europe’s supposed weaknesses have become its greatest strengths. Our own $1 billion journey proves it.

Progress beats polish every time 

In DataSnipper’s early days, our founders didn’t have much capital, brand recognition, and certainly no fancy office. They had a few laptops, a shared workspace that doubled up as the lunchroom, and a product that barely worked. That might sound like a list of disadvantages, but I believe they’re the main reasons why the business moved fast enough to win. 

When you don’t have extensive resources, you must turn to being creative, resourceful, and fast. Instead of over-engineering, you test ideas quickly. Instead of waiting for the “perfect” conditions, you take action with what you have. 

For example, they ruthlessly focused on getting our product into customers’ hands as quickly as possible. Often, far too early. This was intentional. It created a very swift feedback loop to build and improve our offering. They moved fast and iterated rapidly. 

Scrappiness changes your psychology. Every obstacle becomes a puzzle to solve, not a reason to pause. They didn’t have the budget for big-ticket marketing campaigns, so they built an army of customer advocates by personally solving their problems. They didn’t have a data science team, so they taught themselves analytics at night to understand the metrics. They didn’t have a dedicated Quality Assurance department, so every single employee diligently tested features, including the founders themselves.

That constant bias toward progress over polish allowed us to iterate in weeks what typically took larger companies months to decide on. The lean and scrappy approach they used out of necessity became part of our DNA. Even when we could afford to spend more resources down the line, we strived to operate with the same mindset. 

Use your European location to sell globally

Unlike U.S. startups that can grow large while staying domestic, European founders operate globally from day one. They have to and it’s an advantage.

From a single HQ, we could sell across Europe’s diverse markets, hire multilingual talent, and reach customers in three continents within 24 hours. A morning call with Asia, a midday demo with Madrid, and an afternoon pitch to New York, all without leaving Amsterdam.

Europe’s diverse talent pool makes this even more powerful. You can hire native speakers for your key markets without opening foreign subsidiaries. You can easily hire from outside the EU and sponsor their visa without any of the H1-B visa challenges you would face in the United States. It’s one of the reasons we were able to expand revenue globally while still being headquartered in Europe. Geography, diversity, and time zones turned into strategic advantages.

Think globally when fundraising

Too many European founders confine fundraising to their home turf. That’s a mistake. If you want to build a global company, you need global capital.

That means reaching out to investors in the U.S., Asia, and the Middle East. Not just the individuals a friend can introduce you to over coffee. One of our biggest backers came from cold outreach. You should be picking up the phone (or sending a well-researched email) to explain why your product has worldwide potential.

Raising from global investors also signals ambition to your team and your market. It’s not about asking for money; it’s about showing that you’re building something that transcends local markets. The right investors aren’t just writing a check, they’re opening doors to customers, talent, and partnerships in their regions.

Why Europe can compete with (and even beat) Silicon Valley

Would we have grown faster in the U.S.? Maybe. But “faster” isn’t always better. Europe’s constraints forced discipline. We didn’t raise too much too soon. We didn’t hire ahead of revenue. We didn’t chase shiny features no one needed.

Today, our HQ is still in Europe. Our team spans continents. Our customers are in 170 countries. The next billion-dollar story might not come from California. It could come from a city where the coffee is stronger, the buildings older, and the team is already thinking globally from day one.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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© DataSnipper

Innovation has a blind spot — and it’s not in the boardroom. It’s behind the counter, in the clinic, and on the shop floor before sunrise. While much of the tech world races toward the next big breakthrough, it’s overlooking something even bigger: the 2.7 billion people who make up the global shift-based workforce. These are the people who clock in, not just log on.

I grew up watching two of them every day — my mother working long hours in a shoe factory, and my father driving a truck through all kinds of weather. Their work wasn’t glamorous, but it was essential. I saw first-hand how unpredictable schedules, physical demands, and economic pressures shaped not only their jobs but also our family’s daily life. Those experiences taught me about the gap between the way technology is designed and the way most of the world actually works.

This disconnect isn’t just personal — it’s systemic. The next era of innovation shouldn’t start with code or capital. It should start with people. When I look at how to bridge this gap, I keep coming back to Harvard professor Clayton Christensen’s “Jobs to Be Done” theory: people hire products to solve real, everyday problems. But too many solutions are still dreamed up in conference rooms, far away from the break rooms and shop floors where those problems live.

Nearly 80% of the global workforce is shift-based, yet they remain largely invisible to the innovation economy. While knowledge workers enjoy the benefits of remote tools, flexible hours, and automation, frontline industries are still grappling with burnout, staffing shortages, and unpredictable hours. And that gap is only widening, with less than 1% of technology investment going toward the people who work on their feet.

What shadowing a barista showed me

Recently, I spent a day shadowing baristas at one of our customers’ locations. I watched how something as small as a confusing schedule or a delayed break could ripple through the day, affecting not just the worker’s mood but also the team’s energy and the customer’s experience. Real progress requires proximity; you have to see the friction to understand it.

One barista told me, “I want to be the person who guides you through your order and gets you exactly what you want.” That’s not just about coffee — it’s about pride in the work. The question for us as innovators is: Are we building systems that protect that pride or chip away at it?

Christensen’s framework offers a way forward: start with the real “job” people are hiring your product to do. Not the imagined job in your pitch deck, but the actual one in their lives. If we applied that lens to the workforce, we’d see the problem clearly: Many decision-makers have never experienced the unpredictability of shift work, the juggling of multiple jobs, or the anxiety of waiting for next week’s schedule — yet they’re designing solutions for these very challenges.

The goal shouldn’t be to replace people — it should be to make work more stable, predictable, and dignified for those whose jobs require them to be on site. Issues like unpredictable shifts and last-minute callouts aren’t just operational inefficiencies — they’re human costs. More than 85% of hourly workers say unpredictable scheduling impacts their health and ability to plan ahead. And for many, that unpredictability also ripples into their families. From the healthcare worker trying to arrange last-minute childcare to retail managers missing school pickup, or baristas trading shifts to care for an aging parent – these are real jobs technology must help solve if we want a society that can thrive inside and outside of work. 

I’ve seen the difference when technology actually works for people: when workers can see their hours and earnings clearly, swap a shift without stress, and count on a schedule that doesn’t change at the last minute. The appetite for better solutions is clear: 80% of hourly workers believe digital tools would improve their performance, and 70% of frontline workers want better tech. The demand is there, and so is the opportunity.

My challenge to builders, investors, and innovators is this: broaden your definition of “user.” Go to the cafe at 6 a.m. Talk to a nurse on their break. Watch a store manager handle a last-minute change from the parking lot. Listen. Then design with that reality in mind.

The same care we bring to designing for desk workers – intuitive tools, real-time insights, delight in the details — should be the baseline for the people who keep the world running. When we start there, we don’t just make work better. We build a future of work that actually reflects how most of the world works.

Because if we’re serious about shaping the future, we have to start where the work actually happens — with the real jobs to be done.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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On the Mercator projection, one of the world’s most popular maps, Greenland and Africa appear to be about the same size. But on the Equal Earth projection showing continents in their true proportions, 14 Greenlands would easily fit inside the African continent.

Criticism that the Mercator projection does not accurately reflect Africa’s real size is not new.

However, a recent campaign by African advocacy groups is gaining momentum online as it urges organizations and schools to adopt the Equal Earth projection, which they say more accurately displays the size of the continent of more than 1.4 billion people.

The African Union, the continent’s diplomatic organization with 55 member countries, endorsed the campaign last week in what advocates call a major milestone.

Here is what to know about the effort to show Africa’s real size to the world.

Africa appears too small on most modern maps

The Mercator map was created in the 16th century by Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator. Designed to help European navigators at sea, the map distorted landmasses by enlarging regions near the poles such as North America and Greenland while shrinking Africa and South America.

The 2018 Equal Earth projection is a modern map that follows the Earth’s curvature and shows continents in their true proportions, unlike the distorted Mercator map.

The Mercator projection is still common in classrooms and tech platforms. Google Maps dropped the widely used projection for a 3D globe on desktop in 2018, but users can switch back to the old map. The mobile app still defaults to the Mercator projection.

Groups campaign to replace the global map

Two African advocacy groups, Africa No Filter and Speak Up Africa, launched a campaign in April to push schools, followed by international organizations and media outlets, to use the Equal Earth projection, which it says more accurately reflects the true size of Africa.

“Correcting the map is not only an African issue. It is a matter of truth and accuracy that concerns the entire world. When whole generations, in Africa and elsewhere, learn from a distorted map, they develop a biased view of Africa’s role in the world,” said Fara Ndiaye, co-founder and deputy executive director of Speak Up Africa.

For non-Africans, a shrunken representation of Africa minimizes its demographic, economic and strategic significance, Ndiaye added.

The African Union endorsed the campaign on Aug. 14, the largest body to sign on to the campaign so far, marking a significant milestone for the Change The Map campaign.

Geographers say the Mercator projection is outdated

Mark Monmonier, a Syracuse University professor of geography, said the Mercator projection is obsolete and geographers have long advised people to not use it as a world map.

“It was a useful navigation tool in the 16th century, because it has straight lines, giving navigators a line of constant direction to sail along,” Monmonier said. “But outside of that very narrow navigation application, there is no point in using it.”

While maps following the curvature of the earth, like the Equal Earth projection, offer a more accurate scale of continents true sizes, he nonetheless warned that bar graphs remain the best way to compare the sizes of different continents.

“When you put irregularly shaped areas on a flat paper, people are going to have a hard time accurately comparing the size of landmasses,” Monmonier said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Frank Caprio, a retired municipal judge in Rhode Island who found online fame as a caring jurist and host of “Caught in Providence,” has died. He was 88.

His official social media accounts said Wednesday that he “passed away peacefully” after “a long and courageous battle with pancreatic cancer.”

Caprio billed his courtroom as a place “where people and cases are met with kindness and compassion.” He was known for dismissing tickets or showing kindness even when he handed out justice.

Last week, Caprio posted a short video on Facebook about how he had “a setback,” was back in the hospital and was asking that people “remember me in your prayers.”

Caprio’s show was filmed in his courtroom and featured his folksy humor and compassion. Clips from the show have had more than 1 billion views on social media.

During his time on the bench, Caprio developed a persona at odds with many TV judges — more sympathetic and less confrontational and judgmental.

In his bite-sized segments on YouTube, Caprio is often seen empathizing with those in his courtroom. Many of the infractions are also relatively minor, from failing to use a turn signal to a citation for a loud party.

Caprio also used his fame to address issues like unequal access to the judicial system.

“The phrase, ‘With liberty and justice for all’ represents the idea that justice should be accessible to everyone. However it is not,” Caprio said in one video. “Almost 90% of low-income Americans are forced to battle civil issues like health care, unjust evictions, veterans benefits and, yes, even traffic violations, alone.”

Caprio’s upbeat take on the job of a judge drew him millions of views. His most popular videos have been those where he calls children to the bench to help pass judgment on their parents. One shows him listening sympathetically to a woman whose son was killed and then dismissing her tickets and fines of $400.

In another clip, after dismissing a red-light violation for a bartender who was making $3.84 per hour, Caprio urged those watching the video not to duck out on their bills.

“If anyone’s watching I want them to know you better not eat and run because you’re going to get caught and the poor people who are working hard all day for three bucks an hour are going to have to pay your bill,” he said.

His fame reached as far as China, where clips of his show have been uploaded to social media in recent years. Some fans there posted about his death, recalling and praising the humanity he showed in his rulings.

His family described Caprio “as a devoted husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather and friend.”

“Beloved for his compassion, humility, and unwavering belief in the goodness of people, Judge Caprio touched the lives of millions through his work in the courtroom and beyond,” the family wrote online. “His warmth, humor, and kindness left an indelible mark on all who knew him.”

State and local politicians mourned his passing and celebrated his life.

“Judge Caprio not only served the public well, but he connected with them in a meaningful way, and people could not help but respond to his warmth and compassion,” Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee said in a statement. “He was more than a jurist — he was a symbol of empathy on the bench, showing us what is possible when justice is tempered with humanity.”

Robert Leonard, who co-owned a restaurant with Caprio, said he was “going to be sorely missed” and was “all around wonderful.”

“There is nothing he wouldn’t do for you if he could do it,” Leonard said.

Caprio retired from Providence Municipal Court in 2023 after nearly four decades on the bench.

According to his biography, Caprio came from humble beginnings, the second of three boys growing up in the Federal Hill neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island.

“I hope that people will take away that the institutions of government can function very well by exercising kindness, fairness, and compassion in their deliberations. We live in a very contentious society,” he said in 2017. “I would hope that people will see that we can dispense justice without being oppressive.”

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LeBlanc, an Associated Press journalist who retired in January, was the primary writer of this obituary. Associated Press writers Michael Casey in Boston, Audrey McAvoy in Honolulu and Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Michelle R. Smith, File

Turn off the lights. The Nesting Ospreys have defeated the Apple Valley Eagles in Minnesota high school football.

They haven’t actually played each other, but the ospreys took charge when they built a huge nest to raise their chicks, high up on a light pole at the Apple Valley High School football field. Because of it, the migratory raptors that are protected under state and federal law forced the school, known as the Eagles, to rearrange their football and soccer schedules, switching to day games instead of night.

Turning on the hot floodlights would have risked cooking the birds and starting a fire.

“When you tell someone this story of ‘Wow, we have to reschedule because there’s an osprey nest in our stadium,’ they’re like, ‘You can’t make this type of stuff up, right?’” said Cory Hanson, athletic director at the school in the Minneapolis suburbs.

Working with the state Department of Natural Resources, the school has been sending up a drone twice a week to monitor the chicks so that once the young ospreys are old enough and fly off, crews can remove the nest and switch on the traditional Friday Night Lights.

“Luckily for Apple Valley, they should be able to remove the nest within probably a week because the birds have already taken some of their first flights,” Heidi Cyr, the department’s nongame wildlife permit coordinator, said Friday.

Hanson said he’s seen as many as four chicks in the drone photos. He said the school became aware of the nest around June.

“When you see these large birds flying across your field with these humongous sticks, you start to ask questions like, ‘What is going on here?’” he said. “And you take one look at that nest, right? And you’re like, ‘OK, this is not your average bird.’”

DNR officials confirmed it was an osprey nest, and told school officials that federal law made it clear that they could not disturb it for now.

So, Hanson said, they had no choice but to revise their schedules. But he said other schools have been great about finding alternate sites and times, despite their initial disbelief.

According to the DNR, ospreys are one of the larger birds of prey that inhabit Minnesota, with wingspans of 4.5 to 6 feet (1.4 to 1.8 meters).

They’ll return to their nests every year and will build them up with new materials every season. Their nests can get as large as 10 feet deep (3 meters) and 3 to 6 feet (1 to 2 meters) in diameter. Their diet is almost exclusively live fish. They’ll dive from high altitudes to grab fish with their sharp talons, plunging as deep as 3 feet (1 meter) underwater.

Ospreys like to build their nests in high places with clear views, including dead old trees and structures that resemble them, like utility poles, channel markers and cellphone towers. That sometimes creates fire hazards. So the DNR issues a number of nest removal permits every year. But permission to remove nests that still hold young ospreys is normally denied unless there’s a major health and human safety concern. Stadium lighting doesn’t qualify, Cyr said.

Efforts to restore their population, which have included building nest platforms, have been a success in Minnesota and elsewhere, Cyr noted. They came off the state’s special concern list in 2015. Depending on the time of year, they can now be found across most of North America.

Once the chicks at Apple Valley fly off for good, Hanson said, school officials and the DNR will relocate the nest from the light tower to a new platform on school grounds in hopes that the parents will return next year. But just to be safe, they’ll also erect deterrents on the lights so the ospreys don’t try to nest there again.

“So if anyone sees that happening, don’t worry,” Cyr said. “The birds are safe. They’ve successfully left the nest and they’re on their way to becoming adults themselves.”

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Associated Press writer Steve Karnowski reported from Minneapolis.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Mark Vancleave

Hall of Fame jockey Ron Turcotte, who rode Secretariat to the Triple Crown in 1973, has died. He was 84.

Turcotte’s family said through his longtime business partner and friend Leonard Lusky that the Canada-born jockey died of natural causes Friday at his home in Drummond, New Brunswick.

He won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes twice each, most notably sweeping the three with Secretariat to end horse racing’s Triple Crown drought that dated to Citation in 1948.

“Ron was a great jockey and an inspiration to so many, both within and outside the racing world,” Lusky said. “While he reached the pinnacle of success in his vocation, it was his abundance of faith, courage, and kindness that was the true measure of his greatness.”

Secretariat’s record time of 2:24 in the Belmont, winning by 31 lengths at a 1 1/2-mile distance, still stands 52 years later.

“I still had a lot of horse when I passed the wire,” Turcotte said in 2023, nearly 50 years to the day since riding Secretariat in the Belmont. “He was not tired. … It was amazing.”

Turcotte won 3,032 races over a nearly two-decade career that ended in 1978 when he fell off a horse early in a race and suffered injuries that made him paraplegic. Permanently Disabled Jockeys Fund chairman William J. Punk Jr. called Turcotte one of the sport’s greatest champions and ambassadors and praised him for his advocacy and efforts to help fellow fallen riders.

“While his courage as a jockey was on full display to a nation of adoring fans during that electrifying time, it was after he faced a life altering injury that we learned about the true character of Ron Turcotte,” New York Racing Association president and CEO David O’Rourke said. “By devoting himself to supporting fellow jockeys struggling through similar injuries, Ron Turcotte built a legacy defined by kindness and compassion.”

Turcotte was inducted into the National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame in 1979.

“The world may remember Ron as the famous jockey of Secretariat, but to us he was a wonderful husband, a loving father, grandfather, and a great horseman.” the Turcotte family said in a statement through Lusky.

Turcotte was born in Drummond on July 22, 1941, as one of 12 children. He quit school to work as a lumberjack before moving to Toronto to get involved in horse racing, first as a hotwalker and then a jockey, becoming the leading rider at Woodbine Racetrack before rising to the Triple Crown level.

Woodbine chairman Jim Lawson said Turcotte was “a true Canadian icon whose impact on horse racing is immeasurable.”

“Ron carried himself with humility, strength and dignity,” Lawson said. “His legacy in racing, both here at Woodbine and around the world, will live forever.”

Turcotte won the Preakness in 1965 aboard Tom Rolfe and the Derby and Belmont in 1972 with Riva Ridge. But it was his time with Secretariat that made Turcotte a household name in racing, and he called it “love at first ride.”

“He was the type of horse that you’ll never see again,” Turcotte said two years ago. “He was doing something that you’ve never seen before and will probably never see again.”

Turcotte was the last surviving member of Secretariat’s team: The colt died in 1989, groom Eddie Sweat in 1998, trainer Lucien Laurin in 2000, owner Penny Chenery in 2017 and exercise rider Charlie Davis in 2018.

“Ron Turcotte was an icon and will forever be fondly remembered as the trusted partner of legendary Kentucky Derby and Triple Crown winner Secretariat, arguably the most popular thoroughbred in history,” Churchill Downs Racetrack president Mike Anderson said. “Ron’s many accomplishments on the racetrack and his deep passion for horse racing brought countless fans to the sport. He will be greatly missed.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Bettmann Archive/Getty Images

Braxton Kimura dreads eating at restaurants. The California teenager is severely allergic to peanuts, shellfish and most tree nuts. Consuming even a tiny amount could send him to the emergency room.

“Eating out is definitely really dangerous. It’s something that I try to avoid,” Kimura, 17, said at his home in San Jose. “When dining out, obviously I always bring my EpiPens, and I’m really nervous all the time.”

Restaurant dining in California could soon become a little less stressful for Braxton and the growing number of Americans with severe food allergies.

State lawmakers are set to vote on legislation that would make California the first U.S. state to require restaurants to disclose whether a menu item contains any of the nine most common food allergens: milk, eggs, fish, shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, sesame and soybeans.

Restaurants could post the allergen information on physical menus, an allergen chart, allergen-specific menu or other printed materials. They can also post a QR code to access a digital menu that lists allergens. Food trucks and carts wouldn’t be required to make changes.

In September, the Legislature is expected to vote on Senate Bill 68, known as the Allergen Disclosure for Dining Experiences Act (ADDE). If approved and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, the new law would take effect on July 1, 2026.

“It’s really to protect the millions of people in California who have allergies like me,” said Democratic state Sen. Caroline Menjivar of the San Fernando Valley, who introduced the bill earlier this year.

Menjivar, who is severely allergic to most nuts and fruits, said she’s had to go to the hospital multiple times for anaphylaxis — a life-threatening allergic reaction — to something she accidentally consumed.

The Southern California lawmaker got the idea for the legislation last year while traveling in Europe, which has required restaurants to disclose food allergens since 2014.

Soon after Menjivar returned to the U.S., she was approached about sponsoring legislation by parents whose daughter has severe allergies.

Since then 9-year-old Addie Lao has become the bill’s most visible advocate, appearing in social media videos, news interviews and legislative hearings.

“I want to be able to eat out with my friends and family like everyone else,” the third grader told state senators in Sacramento in April. “I have to avoid the foods I’m allergic to since it’s like poison to my body and can harm me.”

The bill has the backing of numerous groups representing medical practitioners and people who suffer from asthma and allergies.

But the California Restaurant Association opposes the legislation. The group says the law would increase costs and burdens on restaurants that are already struggling with rising food prices, tariffs, labor shortages and cost-conscious consumers.

The restaurant industry wants more flexibility in how allergen information is posted as well as more liability protections.

“You get into a situation where the menu becomes unwieldy and it becomes incredibly impractical and expensive to be constantly converting menus out with each ingredient shift that may occur and the need to do a new allergy notification,” said Matthew Sutton, senior vice president at the California Restaurant Association.

Some restaurant chains — such as Chipotle Mexican Grill, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers and Olive Garden — already post allergen information on their menus.

Brian Hom, who owns two Vitality Bowl restaurants in San Jose, is one of the bill’s biggest backers. His oldest son died on his 18th birthday in 2008 after he accidentally ate peanuts at a resort in Mexico.

This legislation “is going to save lives,” Hom said. “I don’t want to see anybody suffer what my wife and I are suffering.”

An estimated 33 million Americans, including nearly 4 million in California, have at least one food allergy, according to the nonprofit Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE). And the numbers are rising.

Among them is Kimura, who was diagnosed with food allergies at 14 months old when he was rushed to the hospital in anaphylactic shock after eating a peanut off the floor.

“I always have to be cautious,” Kimura said.

Kimura, a high school senior and basketball player, launched an initiative called Beyond the Shell, which produced a documentary called “The Last Bite” that shows what it’s like to live with life-threatening allergies.

Even if SB 68 becomes law, Kimura says he’d still need to talk to restaurant staff to make sure dishes are allergen-free and there’s no cross-contamination, but allergen labels would reduce the stress of eating in restaurants.

“It would kind of give me more of a peace of mind and would overall just create a better environment and more awareness around food allergies as a whole,” Kimura said. “It’s definitely a step in the right direction.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Terry Chea

Elon Musk’s X has reached a tentative settlement with former employees of the company then known as Twitter who’d sued for $500 million in severance pay.

The parties disclosed the deal in a Wednesday court filing asking for a scheduled Sept. 17 hearing in the case to be postponed. The San Francisco federal appeals court on Thursday agreed to postpone the hearing so that both sides could finalize the settlement agreement.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The proposed class action lawsuit by former Twitter employees Courtney McMillan and Ronald Cooper, who said the company failed to pay them and other fired workers severance they were owed.

Musk took over the social media platform in 2022 and let thousands of employees go, eliminating entire teams dedicated to trust and safety, human rights and making the site accessible to people with disabilities. Other lawsuits, including one filed by Twitter executives including former CEO Parag Agrawal, are still pending.

The billionaire’s approach to gutting Twitter’s workforce served as a template for his months-long leadership of President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, as it cut tens of thousands of federal workers earlier this year.

An email announcing a “deferred resignation offer” to federal workers, promising pay through September without having to work, was titled “Fork in the Road,” echoing a similar email Musk sent to the Twitter workforce in 2022.

Musk’s drawn-out legal battles with more than 2,000 former Twitter workers were also a precursor to the court battles the Trump administration is now fighting over federal downsizing, though the circumstances are different.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File

• Billionaire CEOs, like Jensen Huang and Elon Musk, proudly embrace not taking a day off of work. However, not taking PTO may do more harm than good for business, according to Bill Cassidy, CEO of Lactalis U.S. Yogurt (home to brands like Yoplait and Siggi’s). He tells Fortune he works to live—and encourages his team to take their dream vacations.

Each year, nearly half of U.S. workers forgo their dream vacation—like a trip to Paris or Hawaii—and instead log more hours in the office. The result: more than 700 million unused paid time off (PTO) days, according to a 2019 study.

For some employers, this culture of loving time in the office is good news for the bottom line, thanks to more than $65 billion-worth of benefits going unused. But for others, including Bill Cassidy, CEO of Lactalis U.S. Yogurt, the trend is a warning sign.

As the leader behind $750-million-a-year cooler-aisle names like Yoplait, Go-Gurt, and Siggi’s, Cassidy promotes a philosophy that runs counter to high-profile billionaires like Jensen Huang and Elon Musk, who proudly embrace 24/7 work. 

Cassidy’s alternate stance is simple: “I work to live.”

“Work is an enabler to do all the other stuff that we want to accomplish in our lives,” he tells Fortune. “I love what I do. I love my family and friends more than work. But when you put the two together, you have that right level of balance.”

At a time when many CEOs view advancing technology and AI disruption as reasons to double-down on hustle culture, Cassidy said he believes striking the appropriate balance is what will lead to success for workers and leaders alike.

“To be a better leader, I also need that right amount of time to disconnect from the business, spend time with family and friends and come back—whether it’s a two-day vacation, a week’s vacation—that’s kind of irrelevant, but I come back recharge with more energy to drive the business,” he adds.

Encouraging employees to take PTO

While some business leaders may take pride in working all the time—seven days a week, with no vacations—Cassidy says that’s not a lifestyle he ever planned to embrace.

“One thing I never wanted in life was to have regrets that I did not spend the right amount of time with my kids, in particular,” he says. 

In fact, even while climbing the corporate ranks, he continued to coach his kids’ football, baseball, and soccer teams—even if it meant he had to substitute responding to emails for team practice.

It’s a workplace culture he’s tried to build as CEO by encouraging all employees to use their full PTO benefits each year—and avoid being among the millions of workers who don’t. 

That mindset even spilled into marketing. Earlier this year, Siggi’s launched a PTO-focused campaign with the goal of calling attention to the lack of vacation days throughout the business world. The company gave 10 winners $5,000 and a flight voucher to go take their time off—something Cassidy says all companies should encourage.

“Don’t feel as if you’re not here, work’s not going to get done,” Cassidy says.  “It’s more about the culture of taking time off and it being okay to take time off.” 

Younger workers in particular are taking this philosophy to heart and  believe working to live is a top priority. More than 42% of all Gen Z and millennials say their managers should help set boundaries and facilitate work-life balance, according to a 2025 Deloitte study.

Striking the right PTO balance

Determining how much PTO is awarded for employees is a major consideration of many job seekers—and can even be a make-or-break factor. In fact, one survey found 1 in 5 workers would turn down a job without unlimited PTO, even though it’s only found at about 6% of companies, according to SHRM.

Beyond being an enticing perk for new-hires, unlimited PTO is viewed as something that could give companies a competitive edge. Some 57% of retail investors expressed the belief that companies offering unlimited vacation could fare better than the top 500 companies listed on the U.S. stock exchange, according to a survey by Bloomberg.

Netflix is considered one of the companies that brought the policy into the mainstream—thanks in part to an affinity for time off by its billionaire cofounder Reed Hastings. He takes around six weeks of vacation each year and hopes his employees will do the same.

“I take a lot of vacation and I’m hoping that certainly sets an example,” the former Netflix CEO said in 2015. “It is helpful. You often do your best thinking when you’re off hiking in some mountain or something. You get a different perspective on things.”

But other companies have tried unlimited PTO—and reversed course. A LinkedIn post from Ryan Breslow, the CEO of fintech startup Bolt, went viral earlier this year for announcing the death of unlimited PTO at his company due it causing more harm than good for employees.

“We just killed unlimited PTO at Bolt,” Breslow wrote. “It sounds progressive, but it’s totally broken. When time off is undefined, the good ones don’t take PTO. The bad ones take too much.”

And while Lactalis did not provide specifics of their PTO policy besides being “generous and flexible,” Cassidy said he believes the companies that thrive won’t be the ones that glorify constant work, but the ones that help employees take time off—without guilt.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Courtesy of Lactalis U.S. Yogurt

Canada is dropping many of its retaliatory tariffs to match U.S. tariff exemptions for goods covered under the United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, Prime Minister Mark Carney announced Friday.

Carney said Canada will include the carve-out that the U.S. has on Canadian goods under the 2020 free trade deal that shields the vast majority of goods from the punishing duties, easing Canada’s previous stance on holding the line on punitive tariffs until U.S. President Donald Trump relents more on those imposed by the U.S.

Some Canadian politicians and union leaders characterized Carney’s move as capitulation, but the prime minister accentuated what he considered Canada’s favorable position so far and said that the exemptions would jump-start further trade talks with Washington.

“Canada currently has the best trade deal with the United States. And while it’s different from what we had before, it’s still better than that of any other country,” Carney said.

Carney and Trump spoke on the phone Thursday, and Carney met with his Cabinet on Friday before making the announcement.

“We had a very good call,” Trump said Friday in the Oval Office. “We are working on something. We want to be very good to Canada. I like Carney a lot. I think he’s a very good person.” He also said: “I am fighting for the United States, and Canada and Mexico have taken a lot of our business over the years.”

Carney said Trump told him that lifting the tariffs would reset trade negotiations. The United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, or USMCA, is up for review in 2026, and Carney called the pact a unique advantage for Canada at a time when it is clear that the U.S. is charging for access to its market.

Carney said the commitment of the U.S. to the core of USMCA means that over 85% of Canada-U.S. trade continues to be free of tariffs. He said the U.S. average tariff rate on Canadian goods is 5.6% and remains the lowest among all its trading partners.

Canadian and Mexican companies can claim preferential treatment under the USMCA.

Canada and China are the only countries that have retaliated against Trump in his trade war. Canada imposed 25% tariffs on a long list of American goods in March, including oranges, alcohol, clothing and shoes, motorcycles and cosmetics.

Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau initially put on retaliatory tariffs in response to U.S. tariffs, but before the U.S. tariffs were applied the Trump administration exempted goods covered by the free trade deal.

Most imports from Canada and Mexico are still protected by the USMCA, but U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has said, “I think the president is absolutely going to renegotiate USMCA.”

Preserving the free trade pact will be critical for Canada and Mexico. More than 75% of Canada’s exports go to the U.S. while more than 80% of Mexico’s exports go there.

Trump has announced some sector-specific tariffs that do apply for Canada despite the USMCA — known as 232 tariffs — which are having an impact on the Canadian economy. There is a 50% tariff on steel and aluminum imports, for example.

“Canada and the United States have reestablished free trade for the vast majority of our goods,” Carney said. “Canada will retain our tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos as we work intensively to resolve the issues there.”

Carney previously rescinded Canada’s plan to tax U.S. technology firms after Trump said he was suspending trade talks with Canada over those plans, which he called “a direct and blatant attack on our country.”

The prime minister disputed any notion that Canada is appeasing Trump, noting that Canada is matching what the U.S. is doing.

“The president and I had a long conversation,” Carney said. “There is a review of the free trade agreement in the spring. We’re starting our preparations.”

Lana Payne, president of Unifor, Canada’s largest private sector union, characterized Carney’s announcement as Canada backing down, and said the country shouldn’t back down unless the U.S. drops all punitive tariffs.

“Trump’s attacks on auto, steel, aluminum, and forestry sectors are hurting Canadian workers in real time,” she posted on social media. “Walking back counter-tariffs isn’t an olive branch. It only enables more U.S. aggression.”

Opposition Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre called it a capitulation by Carney. Poilievre said he would have gone to the U.S. president and asked him respectfully to remove all the tariffs.

“Any small tariff on Canada, any amount, by the United States has an outsized effect because more than 20% of our economy is exports to the U.S.,” he said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Spencer Colby/The Canadian Press via AP

Now that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has signaled that the central bank could soon cut its key interest rate, he faces a new challenge: how to do it without seeming to cave to the White House’s demands.

For months, Powell has largely ignored President Donald Trump’s constant hectoring that he reduce borrowing costs. Yet on Friday, in a highly-anticipated speech, Powell suggested that the Fed could take such a step as soon as its next meeting in September.

It will be a fraught decision for the Fed, which must weigh it against persistent inflation and an economy that could also improve in the second half of this year. Both trends, if they occur, could make a cut look premature.

Trump has urged Powell to slash rates, arguing there is “no inflation” and saying that a cut would lower the government’s interest payments on its $37 trillion in debt.

Powell, on the other hand, has suggested that a rate cut is likely for reasons quite different than Trump’s: He is worried that the economy is weakening. His remarks on Friday at an economic symposium in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming also indicated that the Fed will move carefully and cut rates at a much slower pace than Trump wants.

Powell pointed to economic growth that “has slowed notably in the first half of this year,” to an annual rate of 1.2%, down from 2.5% last year. There has also been a “marked slowing” in the demand for workers, he added, which threatens to raise unemployment.

Still, Powell said that tariffs have started to lift the price of goods and could continue to push inflation higher, a possibility Fed officials will closely monitor and that will make them cautious about additional rate cuts.

The Fed’s key short-term interest rate, which influences other borrowing costs for things like mortgages and auto loans, is currently 4.3%. Trump has called for it to be cut as low as 1% — a level no Fed official supports.

However the Fed moves forward, it will likely do so while continuing to assert its longstanding independence. A politically independent central bank is considered by most economists as critical to preventing inflation, because it can take steps — such as raising interest rates to cool the economy and combat inflation — that are harder for elected officials to do.

There are 19 members of the Fed’s interest-rate setting committee, 12 of whom vote on rate decisions. One of them, Beth Hammack, president of the Federal Reserve’s Cleveland branch, said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press that she is committed to the Fed’s independence.

“I’m laser focused … on ensuring that I can deliver good outcomes for the for the public, and I try to tune out all the other noise,” she said.

She remains concerned that the Fed still needs to fight stubborn inflation, a view shared by several colleagues.

“Inflation is too high and it’s been trending in the wrong direction,” Hammack said. “Right now I see us moving away from our goals on the inflation side.”

Powell himself did not discuss the Fed’s independence during his speech in Wyoming, where he received a standing ovation by the assembled academics, economists, and central bank officials from around the world. But Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said that was likely a deliberate choice and intended, ironically, to demonstrate the Fed’s independence.

“The not talking about independence was a way of trying as best they could to signal we’re getting on with the business,” Posen said. “We’re still having a civilized internal discussion about the merits of the issue. And even if it pleases the president, we’re going to make the right call.”

It was against that backdrop that Trump intensified his own pressure campaign against another top Fed official.

Trump said he would fire Fed Governor Lisa Cook if she did not step down from her position. Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee to head the agency that regulates mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, alleged Wednesday that Cook committed mortgage fraud when she bought two properties in 2021. She has not been charged.

Cook has said she would not be “bullied” into giving up her position. She declined Friday to comment on Trump’s threat.

If Cook is somehow removed, that would give Trump an opportunity to put a loyalist on the Fed’s governing board. Members of the board vote on all interest rate decisions. He has already nominated a top White House economist, Stephen Miran, to replace former governor Adriana Kugler, who stepped down Aug. 1.

Trump had previously threatened to fire Powell, but hasn’t done so. Trump appointed Powell in late 2017. His term as chair ends in about nine months.

Powell is no stranger to Trump’s attacks. Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, noted that the president also went after him in 2018 for raising interest rates, but that didn’t stop Powell.

“The president has a long history of applying pressure to Chairman Powell,” Strain said. “And Chairman Powell has a long history of resisting that pressure. So it would be odd, I think, if on his way out the door, he caved for the first time.”

Still, Strain thinks that Powell is overestimating the risk that the economy will weaken further and push unemployment higher. If inflation worsens while hiring continues, that could force the Fed to potentially reverse course and increase rates again next year.

“That would do further damage to the Fed’s credibility around maintaining low and stable price inflation,” he said.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© AP Photo/Amber Baesler

President Donald Trump is calling national security and privacy concerns related to TikTok and its Chinese parent company “highly overrated” and said Friday he’ll keep extending the deadline for the popular video-sharing platform until there’s a buyer.

Congress approved a U.S. ban on TikTok unless its parent company, ByteDance, sold its controlling stake. But Trump has so far extended the deadline three times during his second term — with the next one coming up on Sept. 17.

“We’re gonna watch the security concerns,” Trump told reporters, but added, “We have buyers, American-buyers,” and “until the complexity of things work out, we just extend a little bit longer.”

The first extension was through an executive order on Jan. 20, his first day in office, after the platform went dark briefly when a national ban — approved by Congress and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — took effect. The second was in April, when White House officials believed they were nearing a deal to spin off TikTok into a new company with U.S. ownership that fell apart after China backed out following Trump’s tariff announcement.

His comments follow the White House starting a TikTok account this week.

“I used TikTok in the campaign,” Trump said.

“I’m a fan of TikTok,” he said. “My kids like TikTok. Young people love TikTok. If we could keep it going.”

As the extensions continue, it appears less and less likely that TikTok will be banned in the U.S. any time soon. The decision to keep TikTok alive through an executive order has received some scrutiny, but the administration has not faced a legal challenge in court — unlike many of Trump’s other executive orders.

Americans are even more closely divided on what to do about TikTok than they were two years ago.

A recent Pew Research Center survey found that about one-third of Americans said they supported a TikTok ban, down from 50% in March 2023. Roughly one-third said they would oppose a ban, and a similar percentage said they weren’t sure.

Among those who said they supported banning the social media platform, about 8 in 10 cited concerns over users’ data security being at risk as a major factor in their decision, according to the report.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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President Donald Trump on Friday announced the U.S. government has secured a 10% stake in struggling Silicon Valley pioneer Intel in a deal that was completed just a couple weeks after he was depicting the company’s CEO as a conflicted leader unfit for the job.

“The United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL, a Great American Company that has an even more incredible future,” Trump wrote in a post.

The U.S. government is getting the stake through the conversion of $11.1 billion in previously issued funds and pledges. All told, the government is getting 433.3 million shares of non-voting stock priced at $20.47 apiece — a discount from Friday’s closing price at $24.80. That spread means the U.S. government already has a gain of $1.9 billion, on paper.

The remarkable turn of events makes the U.S. government one of Intel’s largest shareholders at a time that the Santa Clara, California, company is in the process of jettisoning more than 20,000 workers as part of its latest attempt to bounce back from years of missteps taken under a variety of CEOs.

Intel’s current CEO, Lip-Bu Tan, has only been on the job for slightly more than five months, an d earlier this month, it looked like he might be on shaky ground already after some lawmakers raised national security concerns about his past investments in Chinese companies while he was a venture capitalist. Trump latched on to those concerns in an August 7 post demanding that Tan resign.

But Trump backed off after the Malaysian-born Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, leading to a deal that now has the U.S. government betting that the company is on the comeback trail after losing more than $22 billion since the end of 2023. Trump hailed Tan as “highly respected” CEO in his Friday post.

In a statement, Tan applauded Trump for “driving historic investments in a vital industry” and resolved to reward his faith in Intel. “We are grateful for the confidence the President and the Administration have placed in Intel, and we look forward to working to advance U.S. technology and manufacturing leadership,” Tan said.

Intel’s current stock price is just slightly above where it was when Tan was hired in March and more than 60% below its peak of about $75 reached 25 years ago when its chips were still dominating the personal computer boom before being undercut by a shift to smartphones a few years later. The company’s market value currently stands at about $108 billion – a fraction of the current chip kingpin, Nvidia, which is valued at $4.3 trillion.

The stake is coming primarily through U.S. government grants to Intel through the CHIPS and Science Act that was started under President Joe Biden’s administration as a way to foster more domestic manufacturing of computer chips to lessen the dependence on overseas factories.

But the Trump administration, which has regularly pilloried the policies of the Biden administration, saw the CHIPs act as a needless giveaway and is now hoping to make a profit off the funding that had been pledged to Intel.

“We think America should get the benefit of the bargain,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said earlier this week. “It’s obvious that it’s the right move to make.”

About $7.8 billion had been been pledged to Intel under the incentives program, but only $2.2 billion had been funded so far. Another $3.2 billion of the government investment is coming through the funds from another program called “Secure Enclave.”

Although U.S. government can’t vote with its shares and won’t have a seat on Intel’s board of directors, critics of the deal view it as a troubling cross-pollination between the public and private sectors that could hurt the tech industry in a variety of ways.

For instance, more tech companies may feel pressured to buy potentially inferior chips from Intel to curry favor with Trump at a time that he is already waging a trade war that threatens to affect their products in a potential scenario cited by Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics for the Cato Institute.

“Overall, it’s a horrendous move that will have real harms for U.S. companies, U.S. tech leadership, and the U.S. economy overall,” Lincicome posted Friday.

The 10% stake could also intensify the pressure already facing Tan, especially if Trump starts fixating on Intel’s stock price while resorting to his penchant for celebrating his past successes in business.

Nancy Tengler, CEO of money manager Laffer Tengler Investments, is among the investors who abandoned Intel years ago because of all the challenges facing Intel.

“I don’t see the benefit to the American taxpayer, nor do I see the benefit, necessarily to the chip industry,” Tengler said while also raising worries about Trump meddling in Intel’s business.

“I don’t care how good of businessman you are, give it to the private sector and let people like me be the critic and let the government get to the business of government.,” Tengler said.

Although rare, it’s not unprecedented for the U.S. government to become a significant shareholder in a prominent company. One of the most notable instances occurred during the Great Recession in 2008 when the government injected nearly $50 billion into General Motors in return for a roughly 60% stake in the automaker at a time it was on the verge of bankruptcy. The government ended up with a roughly $10 billion loss after it sold its stock in GM.

The U.S. government’s stake in Intel coincides with Trump’s push to bring production to the U.S., which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world. By lessening the country’s dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the U.S. will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence.

Even before gaining the 10% stake in Intel, Trump had been leveraging his power to reprogram the operations of major computer chip companies. The administration is requiring Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, two companies whose chips are powering the AI craze, to pay a 15% commission on their sales of chips in China in exchange for export licenses.

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Liedtke reported from San Ramon, California.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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Jeffrey Epstein’s imprisoned former girlfriend repeatedly denied to the Justice Department witnessing any sexually inappropriate interactions with Donald Trump, according to records released Friday meant to distance the Republican president from the disgraced financer.

The Trump administration issued transcripts from interviews that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche conducted with Ghislaine Maxwell last month as the administration was scrambling to present itself as transparent amid a fierce backlash over an earlier refusal to disclose a trove of records from the sex-trafficking case.

The records show Maxwell repeatedly showering Trump with praise and denying under questioning from Blanche that she had observed Trump engaged in any form of sexual behavior. The administration was presumably eager to make such denials public at a time when the president has faced questions about a long-ago friendship with Epstein and as his administration has endured continued scrutiny over its handling of evidence from the case.

The transcript release represents the latest Trump administration effort to repair self-inflicted political wounds after failing to deliver on expectations that its own officials had created through conspiracy theories and bold pronouncements that never came to pass. By making public two days worth of interviews, officials appear to be hoping to at least temporarily keep at bay sustained anger from Trump’s base as they send Congress evidence they had previously kept from view.

After her interview with Blanche, Maxwell was moved from the low-security federal prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas to continue serving a 20-year sentence for her 2021 conviction on allegations that she lured teenage girls to be sexually abused by Epstein. Her trial featured sordid accounts of the sexual exploitation of girls as young as 14 told by four women who described being abused as teens in the 1990s and early 2000s at Epstein’s homes.

Neither Maxwell’s lawyers nor the federal Bureau of Prisons have explained the reason for the move, but one of her lawyers, David Oscar Markus, said in a social media post Friday that Maxwell was “innocent and never should have been tried, much less convicted.”

‘Never inappropriate’

“I actually never saw the President in any type of massage setting,” Maxwell said, according to the transcript. “I never witnessed the President in any inappropriate setting in any way. The President was never inappropriate with anybody. In the times that I was with him, he was a gentleman in all respects.”

Maxwell recalled knowing about Trump and possibly meeting him for the first time in 1990, when her newspaper magnate father, Robert Maxwell, was the owner of the New York Daily News. She said she had been to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, sometimes alone, but hadn’t seen Trump since the mid-2000s.

Asked if she ever heard Epstein or anyone else say Trump “had done anything inappropriate with masseuses” or anyone else in their orbit, Maxwell replied, “Absolutely never, in any context.”

Maxwell was interviewed over the course of two days last month by Blanche at a Florida courthouse. She was given limited immunity, allowing her to speak freely without fear of prosecution for anything she said except for in the event of a false statement.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department on Friday began sending to the House Oversight Committee records from the investigation that the panel says it intends to make public after removing victim’s information.

High-profile contacts

The case had long captured public attention in part because of the wealthy financer’s social connections over the years to prominent figures, including Prince Andrew, former President Bill Clinton and Trump, who has said he had a falling-out with Epstein years ago and well before Epstein came under investigation.

Maxwell told Blanche that Clinton was initially her friend, not Epstein’s, and that she never saw him receive a massage — nor did she believe he ever did. The only times they were together, she said, were the two dozen or so times they traveled on Epstein’s plane.

“That would’ve been the only time that I think that President Clinton could have even received a massage,” Maxwell said. “And he didn’t, because I was there.”

She also spoke glowingly of Britain’s Prince Andrew and dismissed as “rubbish” the late Virginia Giuffre’s claim that she was paid to have a relationship with Andrew and that he had sex with her at Maxwell’s London home.

Maxwell sought to distance herself from Epstein’s conduct, repeatedly denying allegations made during her trial about her role. Though she acknowledged that at one point Epstein began preferring younger women, she insisted she never understood that to “encompass children.”

“I did see from when I met him, he was involved or — involved or friends with or whatever, however you want to characterize it, with women who were in their 20s,” she told Blanche. “And then the slide to, you know, 18 or younger looking women. But I never considered that this would encompass criminal behavior.”

Epstein was arrested in 2019 on sex-trafficking charges, accused of sexually abusing dozens of teenage girls, and was found dead a month later in a New York jail cell in what investigators described as a suicide.

A story that’s consumed the Justice Department

The saga has consumed the Trump administration following a two-page announcement from the FBI and Justice Department last month that Epstein had killed himself despite conspiracy theories to the contrary, that a “client list” that Attorney General Pam Bondi had intimated was on her desk did not actually exist, and that no additional documents from the high-profile investigation were suitable to be released.

The announcement produced outrage from conspiracy theorists, online sleuths and Trump supporters who had been hoping to see proof of a government coverup. That expectation was driven in part by comments from officials, including FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino, who on podcasts before taking their current positions had repeatedly promoted the idea that damaging details about prominent people were being withheld.

Patel, for instance, said in at least one podcast interview before becoming director that Epstein’s “black book” was under the “direct control of the director of the FBI.”

The administration had an early stumble in February when far-right influencers were invited to the White House in February and provided by Bondi with binders marked “The Epstein Files: Phase 1” and “Declassified” that contained documents that had largely already been in the public domain.

After the first release fell flat, Bondi said officials were poring over a “truckload” of previously withheld evidence she said had been handed over by the FBI and raised expectations of forthcoming releases.

But after a weekslong review of evidence in the government’s possession, the Justice Department determined that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted.” The department noted that much of the material was placed under seal by a court to protect victims and “only a fraction” of it “would have been aired publicly had Epstein gone to trial.”

Faced with fury from his base, Trump sought to quickly turn the page, shutting down questioning of Bondi about Epstein at a White House Cabinet meeting and deriding as “weaklings” supporters who he said were falling for the “Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.”

The Justice Department has responded to a subpoena from House lawmakers by pledging to turn over information.

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Associated Press writer Adriana Gomez Licon contributed to this report.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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