Are you a step-checker? Do you look at your phone, watch, or other activity tracker a few times a day, to see if you’ve hit the 10,000 steps mark yet? Do you feel guilty if your step count doesn’t ever get over, say, 7,000?
What if the 10,000-steps-per-day mark was just a publicity campaign from the 1960s that caught the public’s attention, and recent science indicates that 7,000 is the true mark that carries a health benefit with it? That is exactly the scenario that’s playing out.
The latest large-scale analysis, published in The Lancet Public Health and drawing from over 160,000 adults across 57 studies worldwide, challenges the fabled 10,000-step mark. Researchers not only concluded that walking 7,000 steps per day was in fact linked to dramatic improvements in longevity and protection against a wide array of diseases, but that going the extra 3,000 steps didn’t make that much of a difference after all.
Why 10,000 steps became ‘the goal’
For years, “10,000 steps” has been consecrated as the gold standard of daily fitness. But the origin of that benchmark wasn’t medical—it was marketing. Ahead of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, a Japanese pedometer called the “manpo-kei,” which translates to “10,000-step meter,” launched a global fitness trend. That catchy round number stuck, becoming the default goal for millions using wearable trackers.
The 10,000 steps benchmark just seems to be one of those things that lodges in your head. PopularYouTubers and fitness influencers run “10,000 step challenges” encouraging followers to meet or exceed the daily target, often featuring “walk with me” workout sessions. It’s been granted official status by digital apps, with the number “10,000” now a default setting on devices such as Fitbit. Corporate wellness programs, social media challenges, and public health campaigns also routinely use the 10,000-step mark as a motivational goal and badge of accomplishment.
The bombshell findings
The new research poured cold water on the idea of 10,000 as a scientific minimum. Compared to the least active group (2,000 steps), those who managed 7,000 steps per day saw:
47% decreased risk of premature death
25% lower chance of cardiovascular disease
38% reduced risk of dementia
6% lower cancer risk
22% lower incidence of depressive symptoms
28% reduction in falls
14% lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes
What’s more, these massive benefits approached a plateau with 7,000 steps; walking all the way to 10,000 steps per day generated only small additional reductions in risk for most conditions. For some diseases—like heart disease—benefits increased slightly beyond 7,000, but for many others, the curve flattened.
“Although 10,000 steps per day can still be a viable target for those who are more active,” according to the abstract, “7,000 steps per day is associated with clinically meaningful improvements in health outcomes and might be a more realistic and achievable target for some.” The authors add that the findings should be interpreted in light of limitations, such as the small number of studies available for most outcomes, a lack of age-specific analysis and potential biases at the individual study level.
‘More is better’—but only up to a point
Walking more remains beneficial, particularly for those who are mostly sedentary. The study found the greatest jump in health benefits when moving from very low step counts (~2,000) up to 7,000 daily. For the general adult population, 7,000 steps—about three miles—delivers the bulk of the effect. For adults over 60, benefits plateau a bit earlier, around 6,000–8,000 steps, while younger adults may see the curve level off closer to 8,000–10,000.
The researchers also revealed that the pace of walking was far less important: just getting in the steps, regardless of speed, provided the protective benefits.
Rethinking the fitness message
This research could prompt a shake-up in public health messaging, which has long promoted aspirational but somewhat arbitrary targets. Fitness professionals and wearable device makers now have fresh evidence to advise clients and consumers that a daily goal of 7,000 is both realistic and powerfully protective. Then again, 10,000 steps is catchy.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
529 accounts are tax-advantaged savings plans designed primarily for education expenses, and recent legislation has significantly broadened their uses. As of July 2025 and the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), 529 funds can now be used for a much wider range of educational pursuits and related expenses.
Key features and recent legislative changes (2025):
Expanded K–12 qualified expenses: 529 accounts were previously limited to K–12 tuition (up to $10,000 per year), but they can now be used for additional expenses such as books, online educational materials, testing fees (e.g., SAT/ACT), dual enrollment fees, tutoring by qualified professionals, and educational therapies for students with disabilities. The annual limit for all K–12 expenses will rise to $20,000 starting January 1, 2026.
Broader postsecondary and career use: In addition to traditional college and university costs, 529 funds may now pay for adult learners’ and career changers’ credential programs, including professional licenses, certificates (including registered apprenticeships), and continuing education courses in fields such as automotive repair or food safety. Recognized credentials include those covered by federal programs and military career advancement resources.
529-to-Roth IRA rollover: Under the SECURE 2.0 Act (effective since 2024), up to $35,000 in unused 529 funds can be rolled over into the beneficiary’s Roth IRA, subject to annual Roth contribution limits and other conditions (such as the 529 account being open for at least 15 years). This allows families to avoid penalties on unused funds if a beneficiary doesn’t need all 529 savings for education.
Additional changes and flexibility: 529 funds can also be applied to student loan repayments (up to certain limits), pay for K–12 and higher education expenses across public, private, or religious institutions, and support a broader set of personal education and development goals.
Implications:
529 accounts now serve not just as college savings plans, but as comprehensive education savings vehicles adaptable to a variety of academic and professional needs. This flexibility recognizes modern realities, such as students pursuing alternative postsecondary training paths and adults shifting careers.
These updates provide greater clarity and planning assurance for families, especially those saving for children who may take nontraditional education or career routes.
Caveats:
Rules regarding eligible expenses, contribution and rollover limits, and state-level nuances may still apply, so consulting a tax professional or financial advisor is highly recommended for those planning to leverage these new benefits.
The expansion’s implementation details (such as some effective dates and regulatory guidance) are still emerging as of July 2025.
In summary, 529 accounts have evolved into versatile, tax-advantaged savings vehicles for many forms of education and career development, with recent Congressional changes making them more broadly applicable and beneficial for American families and individuals.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
The U.S.-EU trade deal has been blasted as too lopsided in favor of President Donald Trump, as it sets tariffs higher than Europe wanted and pledges hundreds of billions of dollars to be spent in America. But according to an analyst at the Brookings Institution, that ignores a crucial geopolitical angle: The EU needs U.S. weapons to help Ukraine fight Russia.
The trade deal President Donald Trump announced Sunday with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen didn’t go over well in some parts of Europe.
One French executive said Trump “humiliated us,” and French Prime Minister François Bayrou described the deal as “submission.” Economist Olivier Blanchard blasted it as “completely unequal” and a defeat for the EU.
That’s as the U.S. sets a 15% tariff rate for most EU products, less than the 30% Trump threatened but more than the 10% Europe sought. The EU also pledged to invest $600 billion in the U.S., buy $750 billion of American energy products, and load up on “vast amounts” of U.S. weapons.
But according to Robin Brooks, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, the deal isn’t a defeat if you look at it from a different point of view.
“Instead, it’s recognition of economic and geopolitical realities whereby the EU needs the U.S. more than the other way around,” he wrote in a Substack post. “At the end of the day, the EU needs U.S. weapons to keep Ukraine afloat into its struggle for survival against Russia. That just isn’t a setting where you escalate a trade conflict.”
In fact, Trump has warmed up considerably toward the European view on Ukraine, which has been fighting off Russia’s invasion for more than three years.
After expressing deep skepticism on U.S. support for Kyiv, berating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House, and temporarily cutting off military aid, Trump has helped reinforce Ukraine.
Earlier this month, he vowed to send more Patriot missile-defense systems to Ukraine and agreed to a plan where European nations buy American weapons, then transfer them to Ukraine.
Trump has also indicated he’s fed up with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s lack of progress in peace talks. And on Monday, Trump gave Moscow less than two weeks to reach a deal or else face steep sanctions.
Meanwhile, analysts at Macquarie also noted that after markets previously saw the U.S. abandoning its global security obligations, the recent deals with the EU, the U.K., and Japan signal an effort to heal those relationships.
“In the background has been a renewed commitment to U.S. geopolitical engagement, too, of course—a recommitment to Ukraine’s security, taking out Iran’s nuclear assets, etc.,” they said in a note.
To be sure, Europe has also committed to rearming its own military forces and has pledged massive spending increases, including money for homegrown defense contractors.
But that will take time, as NATO forces are already highly reliant on and integrated with American weapons systems.
In February, the Danish Defense Intelligence Service assessed the risk from Russia once its Ukraine war stops or freezes in place.
Russia could launch a local war against a bordering country within six months, a regional war in the Baltics within two years, and a large-scale attack on Europe within five years if the U.S. does not get involved, according to a translation of the report from Politico.
“Russia is likely to be more willing to use military force in a regional war against one or more European NATO countries if it perceives NATO as militarily weakened or politically divided,” the report said. “This is particularly true if Russia assesses that the U.S. cannot or will not support the European NATO countries in a war with Russia.”
In just seven years, Social Security will reach a fiscal cliff that could leave millions of American retirees with drastically reduced benefits, according to a recent analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). The think tank’s new report projects that, unless Congress acts, Social Security’s main trust fund will be insolvent by the end of 2032, triggering automatic and painful benefit cuts for everyone relying on the program.
How painful? Around $18,000 less-per-year for retirees who depend on the program. This is not the first time the CRFB has warned about this, and it’s a common refrain from no less than the Oracle of Omaha himself: famed investor Warren Buffett.
The ticking clock
Social Security and Medicare, the two bedrock programs supporting older Americans, are drawing closer to insolvency than many might realize. The most recent data, compiled from the programs’ own trustees and enhanced by CRFB calculations, forecasts that by late 2032, Social Security’s retirement program will no longer be able to pay out promised benefits in full. At that point, the law dictates that payments must be limited to the amount coming in from payroll taxes—resulting in an immediate, across-the-board benefit reduction.
The scope of the cut: $18,100 shortfall for typical couples
For millions of future retirees, the numbers are stark. CRFB’s estimate reveals that a typical dual-earning couple retiring at the start of 2033 would see their annual Social Security benefit drop by approximately $18,100. The percentage cut is projected to be 24% for that year, instantly slashing retirement incomes for over 62 million Americans who depend on the program.
The pain would be widespread but would vary by income and household type. For example, Single-earner couples could see a $13,600 cut, low-income, dual-earner couples face an $11,000 shortfall, and high-income couples might lose up to $24,000 a year.
Major cuts are headed for social security, the CRFB says.
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget
While the dollar cut is smaller for lower-income households, the relative burden is even more severe, devouring a larger share of retirement income and past earnings. Also, these cuts are in nominal dollars; adjusted to 2025 dollars, the actual cut would be about 15% less.
What’s causing the crisis?
Social Security is funded by a dedicated payroll tax, but the gap between what goes out in benefits and what comes in through taxes is growing. The newly enacted One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) has accelerated the timeline by reducing Social Security’s revenue through tax rate cuts and an expanded senior standard deduction. According to CRFB, these policies increase the necessary benefit reduction by about one percentage point; if the changes become permanent, the benefit cuts would be even deeper.
Over time, the gap is expected to worsen: by the end of the century, CRFB adds, Social Security could face required benefit cuts of over 30%, unless lawmakers shore up the program’s finances. Despite these dire projections, many policymakers have pledged not to alter Social Security, promising to keep benefits untouched. But if nothing changes, the law automatically enforces cuts when the trust fund runs dry.
The CRFB report urges policymakers to be candid about the situation and to work towards bipartisan solutions that secure Social Security’s future. Ideas could include new revenue sources, adjusting benefits, or a combination—anything to avoid the “steep and sudden” cut that looms for tens of millions. Without meaningful congressional action before 2032, the Social Security safety net will be abruptly—and dramatically—shrunk, so Americans approaching retirement will at least want to pay close attention to Congressional action on the looming cliff.
Buffett’s bugbear
Warren Buffett has been vocal about the dangers of Social Security insolvency and the looming benefit cuts that millions of retirees could face if action is not taken soon. The retiringBerkshire Hathaway CEO has stated that reducing Social Security payments below their current guaranteed levels would be a grave mistake, and urged prompt Congressional action.
Buffett, who has signed the Giving Pledge and has advocated for higher taxes on higher earners, has criticized the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes, arguing that higher earners—including himself—should contribute more. He’s also suggested that Social Security’s finances could partially be eased by raising the retirement age, with the 95-year-old investing legend himself working well beyond the standard end of most careers.
CRFB background
The CRFB is not just any think tank, either, it’s a respected bipartisan institution that stretches back to 1981. Its board has consistently included former members and directors of key budgetary, fiscal, and policy institutions, such as the Congressional Budget Office, the House and Senate Budget Committees, the Office of Management and Budget, and the Federal Reserve. The CRFB regularly produces analyses of government spending, tax proposals, debt and deficit trends, and trust fund solvency (such as Social Security and Medicare), as well as recommendations and scorecards for major fiscal legislation.
The CRFB has consistently advanced a centrist position on budgetary matters, regularly advocating for reducing federal deficits and controlling the growth of national debt. The organization has often criticized large spending bills that are not offset by reductions elsewhere, as well as tax cuts that are not revenue-neutral.
The think tank favors reforms to federal “entitlement” programs, especially Social Security and Medicare, aiming to make them fiscally sustainable, an emphasis that has drawn criticism from the left. For example, Paul Krugman characterized it as a “deficit scold” when he was still with The New York Times.
In the Social Security sphere, the CRFB has supported or proposed ideas like raising the retirement age, adjusting cost-of-living increases (using the chained CPI), increasing the amount of wages subject to payroll tax, and progressive indexing (where benefits grow more slowly for higher earners). They have also weighed proposals for new revenue streams and some means-testing of benefits. On the right wing, the CRFB’s proposed reforms to Social Security have drawn criticism for, as Charles Blahous of the Manhattan Institute put it, creating a structure more like “welfare” than an earned income benefit.
Still, the CRFB is widely respected in policy circles as a knowledgeable, data-driven budget watchdog, with a long track record of analysis and advocacy for sustainable fiscal policy.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
My mother worked for the U.S. Postal Service when she was pregnant with me. She sued for racial and gender discrimination after her requests for light duty were denied.
For years, as the case went back and forth on appeal before ultimately being overturned, my mother suffered in silence, as she went head to head with the federal government. I was in the third or fourth grade when she finally lost her case, but she never spoke about it and I didn’t learn many of the details until I was in graduate school.
My mother never showed the emotional or psychological toll of this nine-year legal battle because she didn’t want it to affect me and my four siblings. Many may hear this and immediately blame stigma around mental health within the Black community, especially considering studies like this, which found 63% of Black Americans believe that a mental health condition is a sign of personal weakness.
However, in my mother’s case and many others, stigma is an oversimplification of the mental health barriers facing people of color.
The stigma stereotype
The American Psychiatric Association defines public stigma as negative or discriminatory attitudes that others have about mental illness. It has become the go-to, catchall explanation for the Black communities’ low engagement with mental health services.
However, many of the barriers are more closely related to a lack of resources and access. Historically, therapy, mental health, and wellness have not been part of the conversation in Black households and if it’s not discussed openly, then seeking treatment isn’t a normal, accessible course of action. It’s one of the reasons why some of my Black patients will still ask if they should lie down on a couch or if we need to discuss their childhood during therapy.
These stereotypes, which likely came from portrayals of therapy in movies or television shows, reflect a lack of familiarity that contributes to the disparities in access to care for Black communities. In 2018, the CDC found 58% of Black and African American young adults 18-25 and 50% of adults 26-49 with serious mental illness did not receive treatment.
Attributing everything to stigma is a disservice to those untreated Black patients because it implies an internal voice drove them away from treatment when it’s just as likely that the option was never available.
Meeting people where they are
We shouldn’t discount the innovation that’s been happening on the ground. Churches, faith-based groups, and barbershops have become unofficial mental health havens, where Black individuals often feel more comfortable speaking openly about their struggles. To optimize the experience, we should be arming these groups with resources, training, and access to mental health professionals, so we can provide support in the spaces they already feel safe.
For many people to feel truly comfortable with their therapist, they need to feel a shared sense of community values and belonging. For the Black community, that often means a preference for a Black provider, but there aren’t nearly enough to meet the need. According to recent statistics from the American Psychological Association, only about four percent of its members are Black or African American.
There’s no magical way to increase that number, but something we can do is require all providers to be trained in cultural humility. Right now, only 11 states in the U.S. require psychologists to have continuing education credits in diversity, but it’s clear that all providers should be trained so they can properly treat patients from different backgrounds.
Even if a patient has the same social identity as their therapist or psychologist, they may not be the right person to treat them. For example, I’m a Black psychologist, but I don’t specialize in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, so if I’m treating a Black patient with that particular issue, another provider may be better equipped to help–but only if they have a real understanding of the unique cultural experiences and/or racial trauma that many in the community face.
A focus on joy
While an understanding of racial trauma is crucial for every mental health provider, it shouldn’t be the sole focus of treatment. Don’t get me wrong: Racial trauma is still happening daily in Black communities, but with BLM and other advocacy groups raising awareness, mental health doesn’t always need to be discussed from this point of view.
By also incorporating celebration, Black joy, and liberation psychology–which focuses on empowerment, hope, strength, and resistance to oppression–we can shift the narrative away from stigma and help Black patients realize there’s much more to their story than the color of their skin.
Now that I’m a psychologist, my family talks about mental health all of the time. And when I talk to my mother now about the trauma she faced taking on the federal government, she often says, “I wish I knew then what I know now.”
She didn’t avoid the topic or suffer silently because of stigma. She simply didn’t have the resources or understanding to know that mental health treatment was a potential solution for the negative feelings she faced.
More than three decades later, the Black community deserves more.
Dr. Jessica Jackson is a licensed psychologist and global DEIB Care Lead for Modern Health, a leading workplace mental health platform supporting 300+ enterprises globally.
By incorporating celebration, Black joy, and liberation psychology–which focuses on empowerment, hope, strength, and resistance to oppression–we can shift the narrative away from stigma.
A federal judge on Monday ruled Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide must continue to be reimbursed for Medicaid funding as the nation’s largest abortion provider fights President Donald Trump’s administration over efforts to defund the organization in his signature tax legislation.
The new order replaces a previous edict handed down by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani in Boston last week. Talwani initially granted a preliminary injunction specifically blocking the government from cutting Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood members that didn’t provide abortion care or didn’t meet a threshold of at least $800,000 in Medicaid reimbursements in a given year.
“Patients are likely to suffer adverse health consequences where care is disrupted or unavailable,” Talwani wrote in her Monday order. “In particular, restricting Members’ ability to provide healthcare services threatens an increase in unintended pregnancies and attendant complications because of reduced access to effective contraceptives, and an increase in undiagnosed and untreated STIs.”
A provision in Trump’s tax bill instructed the federal government to end Medicaid payments for one year to abortion providers that received more than $800,000 from Medicaid in 2023, even to those like Planned Parenthood that also offer medical services like contraception, pregnancy tests and STD testing.
Although Planned Parenthood is not specifically named in the statute, which went into effect July 4, the organization’s leaders say it was meant to affect their nearly 600 centers in 48 states. However, a major medical provider in Maine and likely others have also been hit.
In her Monday order, Talwani said that the court was “not enjoining the federal government from regulating abortion and is not directing the federal government to fund elective abortions or any healthcare service not otherwise eligible for Medicaid coverage.” Instead, Talwani said that her decision would block the federal government from excluding groups like Planned Parenthood from Medicaid reimbursements when they have demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success in their legal challenge.
In its lawsuit, Planned Parenthood had argued that they would be at risk of closing nearly 200 clinics in 24 states if they are cut off from Medicaid funds. They estimated this would result in more than 1 million patients losing care.
“We’re suing the Trump administration over this targeted attack on Planned Parenthood health centers and the patients who rely on them for care,” said Planned Parenthood’s president and CEO Alexis McGill Johnson in a statement on Monday. “This case is about making sure that patients who use Medicaid as their insurance to get birth control, cancer screenings, and STI testing and treatment can continue to do so at their local Planned Parenthood health center, and we will make that clear in court.”
The lawsuit was filed earlier this month against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. by Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its member organizations in Massachusetts and Utah.
The federal department of health did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Previously, the department said it strongly disagreed with the judge’s initial order that allowed some Planned Parenthood members to receive Medicaid funding.
“States should not be forced to fund organizations that have chosen political advocacy over patient care,” said the department’s communication director, Andrew Nixon. Doing so, he said, “undermines state flexibility” and “concerns about accountability.”
Medicaid is a government health care program that serves millions of low-income and disabled Americans. Nearly half of Planned Parenthood’s patients rely on Medicaid.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A pilot was arrested aboard a Delta Air Lines flight and federal agents took him into custody from the cockpit after the plane landed at San Francisco International Airport.
The pilot, whose identity wasn’t immediately released, was arrested on charges relating to child sexual abuse material, an official with the Department of Homeland Security said Monday.
Passengers aboard the flight from Minneapolis to San Francisco on Saturday posted video online showing federal agents walking through the aisle of the plane.
A message left with Delta Air Lines on Monday was not immediately returned and authorities provided no other details about the arrest.
A Delta spokesperson on Sunday deferred comment to law enforcement.
CANTON, Ohio (AP) — Vice President JD Vance is hitting his home state on Monday to continue promoting the GOP’s sweeping tax-and-border bill.
A crowd in neon green, orange, yellow and red hardhats and safety glasses gathered at the steel company Metallus Inc. in Canton, about 60 miles (96.56 kilometers) from Cleveland, to await his visit.
The visit marks Vance’s second trip this month to sell the package, filled with a hodgepodge of conservative priorities that Republicans have dubbed the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” as the vice president becomes its chief promoter on the road.
In West Pittston, Pennsylvania, Vance told attendees at an industrial machine shop that they should be able to keep more of their pay in their pockets, highlighting the law’s new tax deductions on overtime.
Vance also discussed a new children’s savings program called Trump Accounts and how the new law promotes energy extraction, while decrying Democrats for opposing the bill that keeps the current tax rates, which would have otherwise expired later this year.
The legislation cleared the GOP-controlled Congress by the narrowest of margins, with Vance breaking a tie vote in the Senate for the package that also sets aside hundreds of billions of dollars for Trump’s immigration agenda while slashing Medicaid and food stamps.
The vice president is also stepping up his public relations blitz on the bill as the White House tries to deflect attention away from the growing controversy over Jeffrey Epstein.
The disgraced financier killed himself, authorities say, in a New York jail cell in 2019 as he awaited trial on sex trafficking charges. Trump and his top allies stoked conspiracy theories about Epstein’s death before Trump returned to the White House and are now reckoning with the consequences of a Justice Department announcement earlier this month that Epstein did indeed die by suicide and that no further documents about the case would be released.
A small group of protesters assembled outside the Metallus plant brandishing signs that spelled out “JD Protects Pedophiles” and indicating that “GOP” stands for “Guardians Of Pedophiles.” Signs also called the Big Beautiful Bill “ugly” and “bulls(asterisk)(asterisk)(asterisk)t.”
Questions about the case continued to dog Trump in Scotland, where he on Sunday announced a framework trade deal with the European Union.
Asked about the timing of the trade announcement and the Epstein case and whether it was correlated, Trump responded: “You got to be kidding with that.”
“No, had nothing to do with it,” Trump told the reporter. “Only you would think that.”
The White House sees the new law as a clear political boon, sending Vance to promote it in swing congressional districts that will determine whether Republicans retain their House majority next year.
The northeastern Pennsylvania stop is in the district represented by Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan, a first-term lawmaker who knocked off a six-time Democratic incumbent last fall.
On Monday, Vance will be in the district of Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes, who is a top target for the National Republican Congressional Committee this cycle.
A spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called it “another desperate attempt to lie to Ohioans about the devastating impact the Big, Ugly Law will have on working families.” in a statement.
In the statement, Katie Smith said Sykes “fought tooth and nail against this disastrous law.”
Polls before the bill’s passage showed that it largely remained unpopular, although the public approves of some individual provisions such as increasing the child tax credit and allowing workers to deduct more of their tips on taxes.
A photograph of US President Donald Trump and convicted child sex offender Jeffery Epstein is displayed on the side of a van in Aberdeen city centre, north east Scotland on July 28, 2025.
Ryan Reynolds’ Maximum Effort production company was involved with the latest Astronomer video featuring Gwyneth Paltrow. The ad is being hailed as a master class in crisis PR. It comes days after the former CEO and former head of HR were seen embracing at a Coldplay concert.
Astronomer might have gotten the last laugh following the viral moment that caught its former CEO and former head of HR in an embrace at a Coldplay concert. And it has, in some ways, Ryan Reynolds to thank for that.
Late Friday, Astronomer released a video featuring Gwyneth Paltrow (who was formerly married to Coldplay lead singer Chris Martin), who was hired as a spokesperson on a “very temporary basis.” In the humorous clip, Paltrow answers questions such as “OMG, what the actual f” and “How is your social media team holding…” by promoting the company’s services and upcoming analytics event.
If the tongue-in-cheek approach—from the phrasing of the questions to Paltrow’s blithely chipper answers—seems to have a Ryan Reynolds tinge to it, that’s because the ads were created by Reynolds’ Maximum Effort production company.
The company confirmed its participation in the ads on Sunday in a post on social media, writing “Thank you for your interest in Maximum Effort, @astronomerio! We’ll now get back to what we do best: motion pictures with Hugh Jackman, Fastvertising and Wrexham football,” the post said. “We’ll leave data workflow automation to Gwyneth Pa Astronomer.”
Pete DeJoy, Astronomer’s cofounder, who stepped in as CEO after Andy Byron’s resignation following the kiss cam incident, thanked Maximum Effort in a LinkedIn post Sunday.
“I’d also like to thank the team at Maximum Effort for their remarkable work with our very temporary spokesperson,” DeJoy said. “As Gwyneth Paltrow said, now it’s time for us to return to what we do best: delivering game-changing results for our customers. We look forward to what this next chapter holds for Astronomer.”
Maximum Effort, founded in 2018, has made a name for itself with its irreverent video spots, some of which are ads, some of which are simply meant to amuse. It also co-produced the films Free Guy and Deadpool & Wolverine.
The Paltrow video has been viewed more than 36 million times on X/Twitter alone, with more than 150,000 likes. It has another 534,000 views on YouTube to date.
Ryan Reynolds, actor, entrepreneur and co-owner of Welsh soccer club Wrexham AFC, gestures on stage during the OMR digital and marketing fair in the exhibition halls.
U.S. existing home sales fell sharply in June 2025, dropping to their lowest level in nine months as elevated mortgage rates and record-high prices continued to sideline many prospective buyers. According to the National Association of Realtors (NAR), existing home sales slipped 2.7% from May to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.93 million transactions, exceeding analysts’ expectations for a more modest decline. Compared with last year, sales were flat overall, with concentrated declines in several regions.
The housing market is traditionally busiest in spring, but this year’s key buying season proved lackluster. The month-over-month decline largely reflected affordability challenges: Mortgage rates hovered close to 7% throughout April and May, when most June closings would have entered contract.
“Existing home sales have been in purgatory since mortgage rates spiked in 2022,” Lance Lambert, editor-in-chief of ResiClub, told Fortune Intelligence. “Some of that’s because strained affordability in many markets is making it harder for sellers to find a buyer at their asking price—which is also why active inventory is rising. And some of it is because many would-be home sellers, who’d like to sell and buy something else, either can’t afford that next payment or don’t want to part with their lower mortgage rate and payment. No matter how you look at it, this is an unhealthy housing market.”
Sky-high prices
On a nationwide basis, home prices climbed to an all-time high, underpinning the market’s affordability squeeze. The median price for existing homes reached $435,300 in June, up 2% from the same month a year earlier and marking the 24th consecutive month of yearly price gains. NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun sounded an optimistic tone about this staggering climb: “The record-high median home price highlights how American homeowners’ wealth continues to grow—a benefit of homeownership. The average homeowner’s wealth has expanded by $140,900 over the past five years.”
Despite weak sales, inventory is slowly rebuilding: 1.53 million homes were listed for sale at the end of June, up nearly 16% from a year ago—the highest level in years—though still 0.6% lower than in May owing to seasonal factors. This puts the market’s unsold inventory at a 4.7-month supply, matching pre-pandemic norms and up from 4.0 months a year prior.
Regional dynamics varied. Sales dropped in the Northeast, Midwest, and South, but edged higher in the West, with year-over-year changes mirroring these splits. Single-family home sales slipped 3%, while sales of condominiums and co-ops were stable compared with May but down 5.3% against June 2024.
One positive for buyers: more supply and slightly longer time on market. Realtor.com reported that active inventory for June rose for the 20th straight month, climbing nearly 29% year over year to 1.08 million homes, and the average home spent 53 days on market, five days longer than a year earlier. However, these gains are offset by persistent undersupply when compared with the pre-pandemic market, and price cuts became more common, with nearly 21% of listings experiencing downward adjustments—the highest June share since 2016.
“Multiple years of undersupply are driving the record-high home price,” Yun said, noting that construction continues to lag population growth and is holding back first-time buyers. “If the average mortgage rates were to decline to 6%, our scenario analysis suggests an additional 160,000 renters would become first-time homeowners and a boost in activity from existing homeowners,” Yun added.
If mortgage rates decrease in the second half of this year, Yun said, he expects home sales to increase across the country owing to strong income growth, healthy inventory, and a record-high number of jobs. For now, though, it’s a familiar story of peak prices and affordability as the main obstacles for would-be homebuyers in the U.S.
For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing.
As a newly minted billionaire, Google CEO Sundar Pichai says that embracing discomfort is key to personal and professional growth—a mantra that helped him advance from a little-known product manager to CEO of the $2.3 trillion tech giant. While climbing up the logical paths up that ladder may seem right, he tells Gen Z that listening to your heart will help you find your true calling.
The path to success is never easy—even for the world’s top leaders. In fact, for Google CEO Sundar Pichai, there were times he felt that stinging feeling that other people in the room were better than him. But he assures Gen Z that feelings of discomfort are all part of the process.
“At various points in my life, I’ve worked with people who I felt were better than me,” Pichai recently told Lex Fridman’s podcast. “You want that feeling a few times, trying to get yourself in a position where you’re working with people who you feel are kind of like stretching your abilities is what helps you grow.”
“Putting yourself in uncomfortable situations, and I think often you’ll surprise yourself,” he added.
For Pichai, this mantra has helped him climb the ranks at the tech giant after starting out as just a product manager in 2004. Within a decade, he had caught the eye of cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin before being named CEO in 2015. And while he admits there is always an element of luck to success, he encourages Gen Z to do what they love—even if it seems irrational at first.
“You’re thinking about what you want to do, your brain is telling you something. But when you do things, I think it’s important to listen to your heart, and see whether you actually enjoy doing it.”
Success in the workplace centers around the people
Finding the right people to work with is not only important for personal growth, Pichai added, but also making sure work gets done, something he said has been part of his secret for maintaining Google’s growth into a multi-trillion-dollar giant.
“You find mission-oriented people who are in the shared journey, who have this inner drive to excellence, to do the best, and motivate people and, and you can achieve a lot that way.”
The drive for excellence at Google may also mean the willingness to work far beyond the 9-to-5, according to Sergey Brin. In an internal memo seen by The New York Times, the cofounder encouraged the company’s AI-focused workers to be in the office “at least every weekday”—with 60-hour workweeks being the “sweet spot of productivity.” And while Pichai has publicly said in the past that he anticipated the future of work to be focused around flexibility, the AI arms race has put pressure on tech giants to be ahead of the game.
Still, amid the high-stakes environment, Pichai told Fridman he prefers staying calm as a manager, believing that the best employees are usually the first to know when they’ve messed up—and overreacting can just make matters worse.
“At times, you’re working with people who are so committed to achieving, if they’ve done something wrong, they feel it more than you do, so you treat them differently,” Pichai said. “Occasionally, there are people who you need to clearly let them know like that wasn’t okay or whatever it is, but I’ve often found that not to be the case.”
Fortune reached out to Pichai for comment.
Striving toward the billionaires club
Though Pichai has been the leader of one of the biggest public companies in the world for just shy of a decade, he’s only now just joining the billionaires club—a far cry from that of Brin and Page, who are among the top 10 wealthiest people in the world, according to Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. Their net worths are about $163 billion and $174 billion, respectively. Compared to Pichai’s $1.1 billion net worth.
While there is no perfect path to emulating the success of Google, Page told college graduates in 2009 that they should think about solving problems that can ultimately allow them to be lazier:
“Technology, and especially the internet, can really help you be lazy,” he said to University of Michigan students. “…Find the leverage in the world, so you can be more lazy.”
“Overall, I know it seems like the world is crumbling out there, but it is actually a great time in your life to get a little crazy, follow your curiosity, and be ambitious about it,” Page said. “Don’t give up on your dreams. The world needs you all.”
A class-action lawsuit against Anthropic could expose the AI company to billions in copyright damages over its alleged use of pirated books from shadow libraries like LibGen and PiLiMi to train its models. While a federal judge ruled that training on lawfully obtained books may qualify as fair use, the court will hold a separate trial to address the allegedly illegal acquisition and storage of copyrighted works. Legal experts warn that statutory damages could be severe, with estimates ranging from $1 billion to over $100 billion.
The class-action lawsuit against the company centers on Anthropic’s use of potentially pirated books to train its large language model, Claude, and could leave the company on the hook for billions of dollars’ worth of damages.
According to court filings, the company downloaded millions of copyrighted works from shadow libraries like LibGen and PiLiMi to train AI models and build a “central library” of digital books that would include “all the books in the world” and preserve them indefinitely. The plaintiffs—who include authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber, and Kirk Wallace Johnson—allege that millions of these works were obtained from piracy websites in direct violation of copyright law.
The judge presiding over the case, William Alsup, has recently ruled that training AI models on lawfully acquired books qualifies as “fair use,” and that AI companies do not need a license from copyright holders to conduct such training, a decision that was viewed as a major win for the AI sector.
However, the still unresolved issue is how Anthropic obtained and stored the copyrighted books. The judge drew a distinction when it came to the use of pirated materials, advising Anthropic that a separate trial “on the pirated copies” and “the resulting damages” would be forthcoming.
“The problem is that a lot of these AI companies have scraped piracy sites like LibGen … where books have been uploaded in electronic form, usually PDF, without the permission of the authors, without payment,” Luke McDonagh, an associate professor of law at LSE, told Fortune.
“The judge seems to be suggesting that if you had bought a million books from Amazon in digital form, then you could do the training, and that would be legal, but it’s the downloading from the pirate website that is the problem, because there’s two things, there’s that acquiring of the copy, and then the use of the copy,” he added.
Santa Clara law professor Ed Lee said in a blog post that the ruling could leave Anthropic facing “at least the potential for business-ending liability.”
Theplaintiffs are unlikely to prove direct financial harm, such as lost sales, and are likely to instead rely on statutory damages, which can range from $750 to $150,000 per work. That range depends heavily on whether the infringement is deemed willful. If the court rules that Anthropic knowingly violated copyright law, the resulting fines could be enormous, potentially in the billions, even at the lower end of the scale.
The number of works included in the class action and whether the jury finds willful infringement is still a question mark, but potential damages could range from hundreds of millions to tens of billions of dollars. Even at the low end, Lee argues, damages in the range of $1 billion to $3 billion are possible if just 100,000 works are included in the class action. That figure rivals the largest copyright damage awards on record and could far exceed Anthropic’s current $4 billion in annual revenue.
Lee estimated that the company could be on the hook for up to $1.05 trillion if a jury decides that the company willfully pirated 6 million copyrighted books.
Anthropic did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fortune. However, the company has previously said it “respectfully disagrees” with the court’s decision and is exploring its options, which might include appealing Alsup’s ruling or offering to settle the case. A trial, which is the first case of a certified class action against an AI company over the use of copyrighted materials, is currently scheduled for Dec. 1.
The verdict could determine the outcomes of similar cases, such as a high-profile ongoing battle between OpenAI and dozens of authors and publishers. While the courts do appear to be leaning toward allowing fair use arguments from AI companies, there’s a legal divergence regarding the acquisition of copyrighted works from shadow sites.
In a recent copyright case against Meta, Judge VinceChhabria argued that the transformative purpose of the AI use effectively legitimizes the earlier unauthorized downloading. The ruling, according to McDonagh, suggested that the positive, transformative use of the works could “correct” the initial problematic acquisition, whereas Judge Alsup viewed the downloading of books from unauthorized shadow libraries as “inherently wrong,” suggesting that even if the AI training use might be considered fair use, the initial acquisition of works was illegitimate and would need compensation.
The two judges also diverged on whether AI-generated outputs could be deemed to compete with the original copyrighted works in their training data. Judge Chhabria acknowledged that if such competition was proved it might undercut a fair use defense but found that, in the Meta case, the plaintiffs had failed to provide sufficient evidence of market harm, whereas Judge Alsup concluded that generative AI outputs do not compete with the original works at all.
The legal question around AI companies and copyrighted work has also become increasingly political, with the current administration pushing to allow AI companies to use copyrighted materials for training under broad fair use protections, in an effort to maintain U.S. leadership in artificial intelligence. McDonagh said the case against Anthropic was unlikely to leave the company bankrupt, as the Trump administration would be unlikely to allow a ruling that would essentially destroy an AI company.
Judges are also generally averse to issuing rulings that could lead to bankruptcy unless there is a strong legal basis and the action is deemed necessary. Courts have been known to consider the potential impact on the company and its stakeholders when issuing rulings that could result in liquidation.
“The U.S. Supreme Court, at the moment, seems quite friendly to the Trump agenda, so it’s quite likely that in the end, this wouldn’t have been the kind of doomsday scenario of the copyright ruling bankrupting Anthropic,” McDonagh said. “Anthropic is now valued, depending on different estimates, between $60 and $100 billion. So paying a couple of billion to the authors would by no means bankrupt the organization.”
Anthropic cofounder and CEO Dario Amodei in May. The class action lawsuit against Anthropic centers on the company’s use of potentially pirated books to train its large language model.
Lawyers seeking a temporary restraining order against an immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades say that “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been barred from meeting attorneys, are being held without any charges and that a federal immigration court has canceled bond hearings.
A virtual hearing in federal court in Miami was being held Monday on a lawsuit that was filed July 16. A new motion on the case was filed Friday.
Lawyers who have shown up for bond hearings for “Alligator Alcatraz” detainees have been told that the immigration court doesn’t have jurisdiction over their clients, the attorneys wrote in court papers. The immigration attorneys demanded that federal and state officials identify an immigration court that has jurisdiction over the detainees and start accepting petitions for bond, claiming the detainees constitutional rights to due process are being violated.
“This is an unprecedented situation where hundreds of detainees are held incommunicado, with no ability to access the courts, under legal authority that has never been explained and may not exist,” the immigration attorneys wrote. “This is an unprecedented and disturbing situation.”
The lawsuit is the second one challenging “Alligator Alcatraz.” Environmental groups last month sued federal and state officials asking that the project built on an airstrip in the heart of the Florida Everglades be halted because the process didn’t follow state and federal environmental laws.
Critics have condemned the facility as a cruel and inhumane threat to the ecologically sensitive wetlands, while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other Republican state officials have defended it as part of the state’s aggressive push to support President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has praised Florida for coming forward with the idea, as the department looks to significantly expand its immigration detention capacity.
Boeing Co. expects more than 3,200 union workers at three St. Louis-area plants that produce U.S. fighter jets to strike after they rejected a proposed contract Sunday that included a 20% wage increase over four years.
The International Machinists and Aerospace Workers union said the vote by District 837 members was overwhelmingly against the proposed contract. The existing contract was to expire at 11:59 p.m. Central time Sunday, but the union said a “cooling off” period would keep a strike from beginning for another week, until Aug. 4.
Union leaders had recommended approving the offer, calling it a “landmark” agreement when it was announced last week. Organizers said then that the offer would improve medical, pension and overtime benefits in addition to pay.
The vote came two days before Boeing planned to announce its second quarter earnings, after saying earlier this month that it had delivered 150 commercial airliners and 36 military aircraft and helicopters during the quarter, up from 130 and 26 during the first quarter. Its stock closed Friday at $233.06 a share, up $1.79.
The union did not say specifically why members rejected the contract, only that it “fell short of addressing the priorities and sacrifices” of the union’s workers. Last fall, Boeing offered a general wage increase of 38% over four years to end a 53-day strike by 33,000 aircraft workers producing passenger aircraft.
“Our members are standing together to demand a contract that respects their work and ensures a secure future,” the union said in a statement.
Dan Gillan, general manager and senior Boeing executive in St. Louis, said in a statement that the company is “focused on preparing for a strike.” He described the proposal as “the richest contract offer” ever presented to the St. Louis union.
“No talks are scheduled with the union,” said Gillan, who is also vice president for Boeing Air Dominance, the division for the production of several military jets, including the U.S. Navy’s Super Hornet, as well as the Air Force’s Red Hawk training aircraft.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is worth $151 billion—and he’s bringing his team along to the billionaires club with him. The AI boss said that he’s minted more billionaires on his management team than “any CEO in the world.” The culture at Nvidia is intense, but by shelling out for staffers, Huang reasons: “You take care of people, everything else takes care of itself.”
Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang has amassed a $151 billion net worth thanks to the success of his $4 trillion semiconductor company. And the ninth richest person in the world says he’s bringing his team into the exclusive billionaire club thanks to Nvidia’s envy-inducing compensation packages.
“I’ve created more billionaires on my management team than any CEO in the world,” Huang said recently during a panel hosted by venture capitalists running the All-In podcast. “They’re doing just fine.”
Tech leaders at Meta, OpenAI, and Google are now also shelling out to attract top AI experts—with Meta even attempting to poach OpenAI employees with $100 million signing bonuses, according to leader Sam Altman. With the AI race being so hot, chief executives are reaping billion-dollar net worth gains from their company’s rising stock valuation, begging the question of whether their staffers are getting in on the pot of gold too. But Huang asserts that his employees are well-rewarded for Nvidia’s success.
“Don’t feel sad for anybody at my layer,” Huang said. “My layer is doing just fine.”
In fact, Huang noted that he personally reviews all employee compensation to ensure staffers’ wallets are stuffed. While he said the rumor that he has a stash of stock options on deck “is nuts,” he does confirm that he bumps wages every year to keep Nvidia workers happy.
“I review everybody’s compensation up to this day,” Huang said. “I sort through all 42,000 employees, and 100% of the time I increase the company’s spend on [operating expenses]. And the reason for that is because you take care of people, everything else takes care of itself.”
Fortune reached out to Huang for comment.
Huang’s loves a small, well-paid team of AI geniuses—and ‘tortures’ them into greatness
Nvidia employs tens of thousands of people—but having a small, nimble, well-funded AI team may be the ticket to the top. Huang emphasized that DeepSeek and Moonshot AI both have relatively slim AI crews, yet have capitulated to great business success.
“150 or so AI researchers can probably, with enough funding behind them, create an OpenAI,” Huang said during the panel. “OpenAI was about 150 people, [as well as] Deepmind. They’re all about that size. There’s something about the elegance of small teams.”
Once talent manages to get onto the lean-and-mean AI team at Nvidia, they have to reckon with Huang’s cutthroat culture. Current and former staffers have described an “always-on” expectation, with one ex-employee saying she attended seven to 10 meetings every day, where fighting and shouting was common. The CEO’s grindset has clearly bled into the way staffers approach their work, and Huang’s leadership strategy entails pushing workers to the brink. But he isn’t willing to give up and fire people if they can’t do the job at hand, because he always thinks “they could improve.”
“I’d rather torture you into greatness because I believe in you,” Huang said during a fireside chat with Stripe CEO Patrick Collison last year. While the CEO said he was being “tongue-in-cheek,” he doubled down: “I think coaches that really believe in their team torture them into greatness.”
And there’s an upside for working long hours and sitting through tense meetings—Nvidia employees get special compensation perks. The tech company allows employees to contribute up to 15% of their salaries to buy up company shares at a 15% discount. One mid-level employee even reportedly bought in for 18 years, and retired with shares worth $62 million. It’s a deal that’s so lucrative that it’s become “golden handcuffs” for many staffers who can’t bear the thought of losing the perk. In 2023, Nvidia had a 2.7% turnover rate, compared to 17.7% in the semiconductor industry at large.
As Huang said in an interview with 60 Minutes last year: “If you want to do extraordinary things, it shouldn’t be easy.”
The tech executive is worth $151 billion, and Nvidia’s unique employee stock option allows staffers to reap the gains of the $4 trillion semiconductor company.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Part of the roof and front facade of a Family Dollar store in Kansas City, Missouri, collapsed Sunday, killing a 68-year-old man and seriously injuring a 50-year-old woman, authorities said.
The building’s partial collapse occurred about 2:45 p.m. Sunday, the Kansas City Fire Department said. Two other people also were injured outside the building but were treated at the scene and refused further medical care, according to local television news reports.
Those television reports showed part of the roof and front facade missing at what appeared to be the main entrance of the store, with brick, stone and wood debris on the ground.
Fire Department Battalion Chief Mike Hopkins said the man who died may have been walking by the building at the time. The woman who was seriously injured remained hospitalized.
KMBC-TV reported that a public inspection record said that someone reported Friday that the building had begun “slowly tilting.” Authorities did not yet have an explanation for the collapse.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A chief architect of Project 2025, Paul Dans, is launching a Republican primary challenge to Sen. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina, joining a crowded field that will test the loyalties of President Donald Trump and his MAGA movement in next year’s midterm election.
“What we’ve done with Project 2025 is really change the game in terms of closing the door on the progressive era,” Dans said in an AP interview. ”If you look at where the chokepoint is, it’s the United States Senate. That’s the headwaters of the swamp.”
Dans, who is set to formally announce his campaign at an event Wednesday in Charleston, said Graham has spent most of his career in Washington and “it’s time to show him the door.”
Challenging the long-serving Graham, who has routinely batted back contenders over the years, is something of a political long shot in what is fast becoming a crowded field ahead of the November 2026 midterm election that will determine control of Congress.
Trump early on gave his endorsement of Graham, a political confidant and regular golfing partner of the president, despite their on-again-off-again relationship. Graham, in announcing he would seek a fifth term in the Senate, also secured the state’s leading Republicans, Sen. Tim Scott and Gov. Henry McMaster, to chair his 2026 run. He has amassed millions of dollars in his campaign account.
Graham, in an appearance Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” did not discuss his reelection campaign but fielded questions on topics including his push to release “as much as you can” from the case files on Jeffrey Epstein, something many of Trump’s supporters want the government to do.
Dans, an attorney who worked in the first Trump administration as White House liaison to the office of personnel management, said he expects to have support from Project 2025 allies, as well as the ranks of Trump’s supporters in the state who have publicly tired of Graham.
After Trump left the White House, Dans, now a father of four, went to work at the Heritage Foundation, often commuting on weekdays to Washington as he organized Project 2025. The nearly 1,000-page policy blueprint, with chapters written by leading conservative thinkers, calls for dismantling the federal government and downsizing the federal workforce, among other right-wing proposals for the next White House.
“To be clear, I believe that there is a ‘deep state’ out there, and I’m the single one who stepped forward at the end of the first term of Trump and really started to drain the swamp,” Dans said, noting he compiled much of the book from his kitchen table in Charleston.
Among the goals, he said, was to “deconstruct the administrative state,” which he said is what the Trump administration has been doing, pointing in particular to former Trump adviser Elon Musk’s work at the Department of Government Efficiency shuttering federal offices.
Dans and Heritage parted ways in July 2024 amid blowback over Project 2025. It catapulted into political culture that summer during the presidential campaign season, as Democrats and their allies showcased the hard-right policy proposals — from mass firings to budget cuts — as a dire warning of what could come in a second Trump term.
Paul Dans, director of The Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, speaks at the National Conservative Conference in Washington D.C., Wednesday, July 10, 2024.
Investors kicked off 2025 hoping to see the healthy return of what had become a rare species: the initial public offering, or IPO. After three years of stalled transactions and historically low deal activity, many believed the Trump administration would prioritize deregulation and economic growth, triggering a healthy flurry of new IPOs in the process.
And indeed, that confidence led to the busiest start of a year for IPOs since the boom of 2020 and 2021. To be sure, after an initial burst of exuberance, March and April were rocky: A gale of macroeconomic forces—including tariffs and persistently high inflation and interest rates—led the pipeline to dry up as some firms put IPO plans on ice.
In the late spring, though, equities rebounded, and the pulse of the IPO market picked up again. Volume reached a total of 103 IPOs in the first half of 2025 on U.S. exchanges, compared with 78 for the same period in 2024, according to Dealogic analysis. The largest IPO so far has been for Venture Global, a liquefied natural gas exporter, which successfully raised $1.75 billion in January; in all, the year’s first-half IPOs raised $17 billion. (We offer outlooks on these pages for four of the most widely watched members of this year’s IPO class.)
Analysts and investors are optimistic that IPOs will remain strong into the fourth quarter, following a typical period of quiet through Labor Day.
“There’s a lot of continued strong interest around IPOs from companies that we’re speaking with,” says Rachel Gerring, EY Americas IPO leader. That’s “fueling optimism even beyond ’25 into ’26.”
Many analysts now view the current market conditions as a return to form, and expect 2025 to be the best year for IPOs since 2021, another step in the slow and steady climb back to pre-COVID levels of activity. And that could provide plenty of opportunities for discerning investors.
Encouraging signs
Several recent high-profile success stories illustrate why some analysts remain bullish. A flashy debut from Circle Internet Group saw the stablecoin issuer trading up post-issuance, and the company has experienced an extraordinary surge since its June 5 IPO. Its share price opened at $69 before peaking at over $263 later in the month; in mid-July it hovered around $230, more than triple its IPO price.
Circle’s success likely caught the attention of other pre-IPO cryptocurrency companies like Gemini, an exchange that confidentially filed for its debut in June. CoreWeave, an AI infrastructure company, had a lackluster debut amid the broader tech selloff in March, but its share price in mid-July was up 231% since its offering, having climbed from $40 to $132.
Others that listed in the first quarter have, of course, demonstrated less stellar post-offering performance. Still, analysts like what they see.
Gerring notes that activity is nowhere near 2021 levels. That was a record-breaking year that preceded a sharp contraction—total U.S. IPOs fell from 908 that year to just 149 in 2022, according to S&P Global. There was historically low activity from 2022 to 2024—and that’s a good thing, in Gerring’s book. Instead of a repeat of a cycle of over-exuberance followed by a prolonged hangover, she sees the IPO market recalibrating to pre-2020 levels, though she adds it will take time to get there.
“We’re not discouraged at all by the numbers and volumes that we’re seeing,” Gerring says, especially given that “there’s something occurring almost every quarter that companies have to navigate, that kind of shocks the system.”
One major difference between 2021 and now, says Mike Bellin, deals partner at PwC and leader of its U.S. IPO practice, is that companies coming to market this year are larger, have stronger growth fundamentals, and are more often profitable or on a path to profitability. That in turn can help performance not only at the IPO but after, which is what investors are looking for.
“There’s a deeper pipeline of quality companies. But there are a lot of known unknowns.”
Mike Bellin, Leader of U.S. IPO Practice, PWC
“There’s momentum in the market,” says Bellin, which in turn “opens the door further for some of the smaller, midcap-type companies that are in process and in the pipeline.”
Another encouraging feature of the current environment is that companies across sectors are preparing for their IPOs. Technology and health care companies are leading the way this year, but firms from the realms of fintech, energy, and defense are also moving to go public.
In any batch of IPOs, there will always be a select few that will be viewed fairly or not—by analysts and investors as best in breed. This year, the companies generating the most excitement about their potential debut on the public market include fintech company Klarna, digital design company Figma, payment processing company Stripe, and ticket exchange StubHub. The success of their offerings—and whether they happen at all—will depend of course, on macro-conditions.
“There’s a deep pipeline of quality companies that are looking at the capital markets,” Bellin says. “But there are a lot of known unknowns still in the market. I’ll say the door’s open for the IPO market in the second half of ’25, but it’s not wide open.”
What investors need to know
For the average retail investor, IPOs don’t necessarily represent buying opportunities; because of lockup periods and other restrictions, it can be nearly impossible for outsiders to invest before companies’ debuts, making any first-day pop in price moot for all but insiders and venture capitalists. Initial trading days can be extremely volatile, which won’t appeal to long-term investors. And of course, a newly public stock can always tank.
Concerns about the broader economy also affect the IPO market. Uncertainty is the overarching condition of 2025, the result in part of President Trump’s evolving and often unpredictable policy preferences, the acceleration of AI, and geopolitical conflict in many parts of the world. Macroeconomic conditions are on every analyst’s mind.
That uncertainty, particularly related to tariffs, has prompted some companies that at one time planned to list in early 2025 to delay their entrances, at least until later in the year and possibly until early 2026, to see how the president’s policies affect consumer spending, inflation, and interest rates. On the other hand, if Trump rethinks his tariff strategy and the Federal Reserve is able to cut benchmark rates this year, more IPOs will likely be on the horizon.
“The trade policy, if that starts to take a turn for the worse, that will ultimately shut down the IPO market,” says Bellin. On the other hand, he says, “If we do continue to get good readouts from a macro perspective and limited geopolitical disruption, the capital markets will be an exciting place to be and to watch.
This article appears in the August/September 2025 issue of Fortune with the headline “Is it safe to get back in the IPO waters?“
Fintech
Chime
Chime Financial is a fintech that provides banking services to lower-income U.S. consumers, in part through its mobile app, though it isn’t a bank itself. It went public in June at an $11.6 billion valuation. While that’s less than half of the $25 billion private market Chime boasted in 2021, analysts generally believe the company is in better shape than it was back then: Chime is now profitable, with 8.6 million active users. It has been criticized for its failure to diversify its finances. Much of Chime’s revenue comes from interchange, the fee merchants pay when consumers use a Chime-issued debit or credit card. And it has lots of competition from rivals that are banks or fintechs offering similar services. —Luisa Beltran
Bull case: Chime continues to grow its sticky user base to drive increased product adoption and expand.
Bear case: Chime fails to expand its revenues beyond interchange, and its share price drops below its $27 IPO level.
Crypto
Circle
Crypto may be known for extreme price swings, as investors leap in and out of assets like Bitcoin and Shiba Inu. But there’s an increasingly popular option for those who want exposure to the sector without buying actual cryptocurrencies: Circle, a stablecoin company that issues a dollar-backed cryptocurrency, USD Coin (USDC). Ahead of its June IPO, analysts warned that Circle’s core business—earning revenue off the interest from the assets backing USDC—did not offer much upside. But since then, the stock has behaved more like a cryptocurrency, with wild fluctuations including the biggest two-day pop of any major stock since 1980. —Leo Schwartz
Bull case: Circle benefits from a broader crypto boom and thawing regulatory outlook, as more companies push into stablecoin adoption.
Bear case: Circle’s share price continues to drop back to earth, and the company continues to struggle with the same revenue-stream questions.
AI
Coreweave (CRWV)
CoreWeave’s tepid IPO meant little to investors who wanted apiece of one of the market’s hottest trades: AI infrastructure (cloud-based, in CoreWeave’s case). CoreWeave generated nearly $1 billion in revenue in its most recent quarter, and Nvidia and OpenAI are investors. In July, it agreed to buy data center provider Core Scientific for $9 billion in stock. In return, it would get about 1.3 gigawatts of power capacity and eliminate more than $10 billion in longterm lease obligations. CoreWeave is still highly leveraged, however. Analysts estimated it has between $12 billion and $17 billion in debt. Losses have increased, and CoreWeave is heavily reliant on Microsoft for revenue. —L.B.
Bull case: Buying Core Scientific helps de-risk CoreWeave, and its financials improve.
Bear case: AI adoption slows, and CoreWeave topples under its heavy debt load.
Stock trading
eToro
When eToro went public in May, investors saw the trading platform’s performance as a harbinger of whether the fintech IPO window would open back up. Its share price popped—and the window opened—but that doesn’t necessarily make eToro a good investment. As a competitor to Robinhood, eToro offers an app-driven next generation alternative to stodgier brokerages like Schwab, providing experimental products like copy trading, where customers can mimic the investing behavior of other users, as well as an array of crypto assets.
Bull case: eToro can ride the wave of interest in retail trading of riskier—and higher-upside—assets like crypto.
Bear case: The platform fails to gain traction against larger rivals like Robinhood or well-heeled incumbents.
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are hanging near record highs Monday after the United States agreed to tax cars and other products coming from the European Union at a 15% rate, lower than President Donald Trump had earlier threatened. Many details are still to be worked out, however, and Wall Street is heading into a week full of potential flashpoints that could shake markets.
The S&P 500 added another 0.1% in early trading after setting an all-time high every day last week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 19 points, or less than 0.1%, as of 9:35 a.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite is 0.3% higher, coming off its own record.
Stocks of U.S. companies that produce and move liquefied natural gas helped drive the market after the head of the European Commission said the bloc’s members would buy $750 billion of U.S. energy products over the next three years. That would help lessen Europe’s reliance on Russia for natural gas. Cheniere Energy climbed 4.2%, while NextDecade rose 3.4%.
Tesla added 0.2% after its CEO, Elon Musk, said it signed a deal with Samsung Electronics that could be worth more than $16.5 billion to provide chips for the electric-vehicle company. Samsung’s stock in South Korea jumped 6.8%.
Many more fireworks may be ahead this week. “This is about as busy as a week can get in the markets,” according to Chris Larkin, managing director, trading and investing, at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley.
Hundreds of U.S. companies are lined up and ready to report how much profit they made during the spring, with nearly a third of all the businesses in the S&P 500 index scheduled to deliver updates. That includes market heavyweights Apple, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft. Those companies have grown so huge that their stock movements can almost solely dictate what the overall S&P 500 index does. Microsoft alone is worth roughly $3.8 trillion,
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will announce its latest decision on interest rates.
Trump has been loudly and angrily calling for the Fed to cut interest rates, a move that could help give the economy a boost. But Fed Chair Jerome Powell has been insisting that he wants to wait for more data about how Trump’s tariffs are affecting the economy and inflation before the Fed makes its next move. Lower interest rates also can give inflation more fuel, and the economy only recently came out of its scarring run where inflation briefly topped 9%.
The widespread expectation on Wall Street is that the Fed will wait until September to resume cutting interest rates, though a couple of Trump’s appointees could dissent in the vote. The Fed has been on hold with interest rates this year since cutting them several times at the end of 2024.
This week will also feature several potentially market-moving updates about the economy. On Tuesday will come reports on how confident U.S. consumers are feeling and how many jobs openings U.S. employers were advertising. Wednesday will show the first estimate of how quickly the U.S. economy grew during the spring, and economists expect to see a slowdown from the first three months of the year.
On Thursday, the latest measure of inflation that the Federal Reserve prefers to use will arrive. A modest reading could give the Fed more leeway to cut interest rates in the short term, while a hotter-than-expected figure could make it more cautious.
And Friday will bring an update on how many more workers U.S. employers hired during June than they fired.
Treasury yields held relatively steady in the bond market ahead of all that action. The yield on the 10-year Treasury was remaining at 4.40%, where it was late Friday. The two-year Treasury yield, which more closely tracks expectations for Fed action, edged up to 3.92% from 3.91%.
In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe amid mostly modest movements following the announcement of the trade deal’s framework.
Chinese stocks rose as officials from the world’s second-largest economy prepare to meet with a U.S. delegation in Sweden for trade talks. Stocks climbed 0.7% in Hong Kong and 0.1% in Shanghai.
Indexes were mixed across the rest of Asia, where Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.1% for one of the world’s bigger losses. Doubts surfaced over what exactly last week’s trade truce between Japan and Trump entails, especially Japan’s $550 billion pledge of investment in the U.S.
Terms of the deal are still being negotiated, and nothing has been formalized in writing, said an official who insisted on anonymity to detail the terms of the talks. The official suggested the goal was for a $550 billion fund to make investments at Trump’s direction.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk gestures as he arrives to visit the construction site of the future US electric car giant Tesla, on September 03, 2020 in Gruenheide near Berlin.
In today’s edition: an EU-Trump trade deal, the Lionnesses’ victory, and the improbability and impact of Mira Murati’s $2 billion.
– Mission impossible. Earlier this month, Mira Murati’s Thinking Machines Lab confirmed long-rumored news: the AI company had closed a $2 billion seed round at a $12 billion valuation.
It was the largest seed round ever, in the history of venture capital and startups. It was hardly underreported. And yet, there’s an aspect to this news that hasn’t seemed to have been fully appreciated—just how unlikely, and meaningful, this is for female founders.
Murati is, undoubtedly, in a league of her own as a founder. The Albania-born former CTO of OpenAI, she helped create ChatGPT and start the generative AI revolution. She left OpenAI earlier this year to build her own company. She brought top talent with her; the question everyone wants to know the answer to is what, exactly, she is building.
Mira Murati raised a record-breaking $2 billion seed round for Thinking Machines Lab.
Not that many details are known about what Thinking Machines is doing. But a source familiar with what Murati is building tells me that it’s creating powerful AI systems capable of tackling the world’s toughest problems—climate change, disease eradication, and more. The company is eager to bring along the world’s smartest people in other fields—like science—rather than only those who work in the AI industry itself, all before AI systems become too powerful for that to matter. And its more open approach is expected to benefit businesses, policymakers, and others.
But Thinking Machines is entering the game late, hence the $2 billion: it needs compute and talent to compete with the AI leaders like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google that have a years-long head start.
In an environment where startups with at least woman on the founding team took in $38 billion in funding last year—and those founded solely by women earned 2.1% of VC dollars, for a total sum of $3.7 billion, across about 800 deals—the $2 billion number is extraordinary.
A report released by Female Founders Fund and Inc. last week showed what women are doing with the paltry share of venture funding they are getting; last year women were responsible for 24% of exits. They put capital to work more efficiently, earning 78 cents of revenue for every dollar raised, compared to 31 cents at male-founded startups.
So imagine what will be possible with $2 billion—and a generational founder at the helm. Known investors in the company include Accel, AMD, Cisco, Jane Street, Nvidia, and ServiceNow. They’re surely expecting their investment to pay off (see: $12 billion valuation). But more important is how Murati and her capital will impact humanity. The true entry of Thinking Machines into the AI race helps diversify the perspectives that will shape the future of our world. And Murati’s achievement lets other women know, in frontier tech and beyond—what seems impossible, can be possible.
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