In 1990, a British passport let you visit about 55 countries without a visa. Today, it lets you visit more than 190 — nearly every country on earth. The passport hasn’t changed much. What changed is the architecture of the international agreements that make it useful. Mobility, it turns out, is a negotiated asset. And…
Bending Spoons has acquired Evernote, Vimeo, AOL, and Eventbrite. It employs a few hundred people to run all of them. That’s the point. Bending Spoons does not look like a company managing billions of dollars in software brands. It looks like a very selective Italian startup that happens to own the internet’s back catalog. The…
New York’s tolling system has reduced traffic and generated hundreds of millions for transit. It has also revealed something more uncomfortable: policies designed around averages can impose disproportionate costs on the workers least able to change how they move through the city. Six months into New York’s congestion pricing experiment, the results are in —…
New data from Quest Diagnostics shows corporate positive rates rising as major employers quietly drop pre-hire marijuana screening — with or without a clear federal signal to do so. The numbers are moving in two directions at once, and together they tell a story about how corporate marijuana policy is actually being made in America…
The automaker’s plan to shrink its model lineup by as much as half is being presented as simplification. The unresolved question is how much labor and factory capacity disappears with it. Volkswagen has decided that it makes too many cars. After reporting an 8.6% decline in second-quarter global sales — including a drop of more…
The former Miami rapper’s response to JT’s “Satan’s ex-wife” role shows how conversion can change the meaning of a cultural legacy without giving its creator control over what the next generation does with it. Ariela Anís of Hollywood Unlocked reported that JT faced criticism after appearing as “Satan’s ex-wife” in PsyFi, a 34-minute video installation written…
Houston lost 5,000 oil and gas jobs in 2026 while gasoline prices in the region rose 58 percent from January through April. The city that powers America’s energy industry is absorbing a cost its energy workers did not cause. Houston’s employment growth went nearly flat in early 2026. From February 2025 through February 2026, metro…
Austin added 120,000 housing units over the past decade and watched its rents fall more than 16 percent from their peak. The city is being celebrated as a supply-side model. The workers who still cannot afford it are harder to find in the celebration. Austin’s median rent fell more than 7 percent year over year…
Texas has preempted local minimum wage ordinances since 2003. As living costs in Austin, Houston, and Dallas compounded over two decades, the floor stayed fixed at $7.25. The state sets the rule. The cities absorb the consequences. Texas has not raised its minimum wage since 2009, when it matched the federal floor at $7.25 per…
The UAE raised its minimum wage for Emirati citizens to AED 6,000 per month in 2026. No statutory minimum wage exists for the migrant workers who constitute the country’s majority workforce. The UAE raised the minimum wage for Emirati citizens employed in the private sector to AED 6,000 per month — approximately $1,635 — effective…