David Lidsky's Blog, page 220

Senator Mitch McConnell won’t seek reelection in 2026

McConnell, the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history, chose his 83rd birthday to share his decision not to run for another term in Kentucky and to retire when his current term ends.

Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell announced on Thursday that he won’t seek reelection next year, ending a decadeslong tenure as a power broker who championed conservative causes but ultimately ceded ground to the fierce GOP populism of President Donald Trump.

Playing by the rules of AI

The uncertainty of future regulation and rapid AI advances call for measured approaches to its adoption.

The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more.

How to compete globally in the critical minerals race

The U.S. needs to improve domestic sourcing of raw materials and manufacturing.,

The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more.

Social Security sending out checks to millions of dead people? It’s not just false. It’s absurd

Elon Musk’s easily disprovable misrepresentation of a table of numbers threatens to erode confidence in one of the most reliable programs we have.

Social Security has been considered among the most efficient, cleanest government programs in the country. For instance, a study by the Inspector General of the Social Security Administration, published in July, found that from 2015-2022, the government had made $25 billion in Social Security overpayments—typically payments that went out after someone had already died.

Why healthcare navigation is a broken system

The solution is an all-in-one healthcare model. How is that different?

The Fast Company Impact Council is a private membership community of influential leaders, experts, executives, and entrepreneurs who share their insights with our audience. Members pay annual membership dues for access to peer learning and thought leadership opportunities, events and more.

By the numbers: Trump and Musk’s layoffs at U.S. agencies

Here are details on some of the layoffs at federal departments and agencies.

U.S. President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk, one of his closest advisers, have mounted a sweeping campaign to slash the size of the 2.3 million-strong federal workforce, firing more than 10,000 employees in an unprecedented effort that shows no sign of slowing.

Trump’s trade and immigration policies stoked inflation concerns at Fed meeting, minutes show

The meeting’s participants also noted that some measures of inflation expectations, a key concern for the Fed, ‘had increased recently.’

President Donald Trump’s initial policy proposals raised concern at the Federal Reserve about higher inflation, with firms telling the U.S. central bank they generally expected to raise prices to pass through the cost of import tariffs, policymakers said at a meeting held about a week after Trump’s January 20 inauguration.

‘It has nothing to do with government efficiency’: JFK Library reopens after DOGE federal firings force abrupt closure

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston temporarily shuttered Tuesday after a move from the Trump administration left it short-staffed.

The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum reopened Wednesday, with free admission, a day after the historic Boston institution was abruptly shut down after multiple employees were suddenly fired in the latest wave of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts to federal employees.

This brand’s ‘hard honey’ is bringing mead into the 21st century

Lixir Hard Honey is pushing to make ancient drink mead appealing to drinkers—and make its product sustainably.

When he was a teenager, Collin McKenna’s interest in changing the food system led him to move from Colorado to Hawaii for high school. It was on that school’s regenerative farm that the now 30-year-old entrepreneur discovered mead—the sweet, fermented honey beverage often referred to as “honey wine.” His first taste of alcohol was mead made by Hawaiian locals.

HP just blew $116 million of your ink cartridge money to buy one of Silicon Valley’s biggest flops

Even though the public didn’t buy into Humane’s nonsense with its Ai Pin, HP found something worth paying for.

This week, the startup Humane—which raised $240 million to build an iPhone-killing Ai Pin—announced its sale to HP for $116 million. While far short of the company’s original $1 billion asking price, it’s astonishing that the brand scrapped for anything at all. A product that had promised to change the world instead became a worldwide laughingstock, indicative of the worst tendencies of Silicon Valley-founder hubris. Universally panned, Humane sold fewer than 10,000 units. Sometimes, its returns outpaced its sales. Units could catch fire.