What many applicants may not realize is that, nowadays, the first hurdle in applying for a job is dealing with AI. Candidates now often must clear an artificial intelligence system that screens their résumés that quietly determines who advances, and whose application is filed away in a drawer or spam folder, never to see the light of day.
Now, a new lawsuit filed on Tuesday is the first in the U.S. to accuse an AI hiring company of violating the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Eightfold AI, a venture capital-backed artificial intelligence hiring platform, is being sued by two workers in California for allegedly compiling reports used to screen job applicants without their knowledge, consent, or any opportunity to correct errors.
Ive applied to hundreds of jobs, but it feels like an unseen force is stopping me from being fairly considered, said Erin Kistler, one of the plaintiffs, in a press release. Both plaintiffs applied to roles at several companies that use Eightfold AI, including PayPal and Microsoft, according to the complaint.
Out of the thousands of jobs she has sought in the past year, only 0.3% of her applications have progressed to a follow-up or interview, Kistler told the New York Times. Its disheartening, and I know Im not alone in feeling this way.
Eightfold AIs algorithm trawls career sites, job boards, and résumé databases to create a data set of 1 million job titles, 1 million skills, and the profiles of more than 1 billion people working in every job, profession, industry, and geography, according to their websitemuch of it inaccurate, incomplete, or drawn from unknown third-party sources, the complaint alleges.
Using an AI model trained on that data, plaintiffs say, Eightfold AI scores job applications on a scale of one to five, based on their skills, experience, and the hiring managers goals. These AI-generated evaluations function as consumer reports under the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and California law, the lawsuit alleges.
Unlike credit reports (a type of consumer report which the FCRA regulates to ensure accuracy and fairness), applicants are given no feedback on their scores or how the rating was generated, rarely aware that an algorithm evaluated them at all. If the tool is making mistakes, candidates have no ability to correct them.
This creates a black box situation where we can see what goes into an AI system, and what comes out. But the reasoning in between remains hidden or incomprehensible to humans or the employers relying on the scoring when considering potential hires. This opacity is troubling at a time when more companies are relying on AI for hiring and candidate screening.
A spokesperson for Eightfold AI told Fast Company that this characterization about our products is factually incorrect. Eightfold offers technology that enterprises use to manage their talent processes and engage with candidates. Eightfold does not lurk or scrape personal web history, social media or the like to build secret dossiers. Eightfolds platform operates on data that is submitted by candidates to our customers or provided by our customers.
They continued: We use information such as skills, experience and education that applicants choose to submit to our customers and data authorized by our customers under contract. They also pointed to their blueprint to learn more about their specific data practices.
The plaintiffs, meanwhile, are not demanding the elimination of AI from hiring. Instead, they are asking for AI companies to be held to the same standards as others.
Just because this company is using some fancy-sounding AI technology and is backed by venture capital doesnt put it above the law, David Seligman, Executive Director of Towards Justice, said in the press release. This isnt the wild west.
Still, as AI becomes more pervasive in hiring, legal conflicts like this may just become more and more common.
If youve received any text messages from California-based healthcare giant Kaiser Permanente, you could be eligible for cash under the terms of a new settlement.
The Kaiser Foundation Health Plan agreed to pay $10.5 million to settle a class action suit filed in August 2025. That suit alleged that the healthcare company sent marketing texts to people who had already replied stop to opt out of receiving them.
That practice could run afoul of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), a law protecting consumers from aggressive telemarketing and robocalls, and the Florida Telephone Solicitation Act. Jonathan Fried, the plaintiff who brought the suit, lived in the Miami, Florida area at the time.
Anyone who opted out of marketing texts but received more than one message from Kaiser within a 12-month period between January 21, 2021 and August 20, 2025 is eligible to be part of the settlement class.
The settlements final approval hearing was held this week, on January 28. Anyone who meets the criteria and files a valid claim can receive $75 for each marketing text Kaiser sent after it acknowledged their request to opt out. If thats you, you can submit a claim form online or through the mail by February 12, the filing deadline.
While this one is pretty cut and dry, its not the only settlement Kaiser Permanente has been involved in lately. In mid-January Kaiser agreed to pay out $46 million to settle allegations that its website and app included tracking code that shared patient health and personal data with third parties.
Earlier this month, Kaiser also agreed to pay $556 million in a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice over allegations that it fraudulently billed the government for conditions that patients didnt have. Kaiser provides health insurance and care for 12.6 million people across the country.
More than half of our nations Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans, and the government expects those who participate in the program to provide truthful and accurate information, Justice Departments Civil Division Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said of the settlement.
The Justice Department accused the health provider of bringing in around $1 billion between 2009 and 2018 by adding on diagnoses to Medicare Advantage patients charts. In a press release issued earlier this month, Kaiser emphasized that the settlement does not amount to an admission of wrongdoing or liability and was chosen to avoid a longer litigation process.
Multiple major health plans have faced similar government scrutiny over Medicare Advantage risk adjustment standards and practices, reflecting industrywide challenges in applying these requirements, the healthcare consortium wrote.
President Donald Trump says hell tap former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh as the next Fed chair to replace Jerome Powell in May with Trump believing that he can finally get the booming economy that he promised to voters.
When Trump said that Warsh comes from central casting, the president revealed a lot about his own views of the 55 year-old’s looks and conventional pedigree. Warsh has many of the trappings of a traditional pick to lead the world’s most important central bank, yet he’s doing so at a decidedly unconventional moment for the Fed as Trump has said the new chair needs to cut its benchmark rates to the White House’s liking.
Hes very smart, very good, strong, young, pretty young, Trump told reporters on Friday about Warsh. He was the central casting guy that people wanted.
The president added, Looks dont mean anything, but hes got the look.
Rate cuts of the degree sought by Trump could temporarily boost growth, but they also pose the risk of overheating the economy at a time when inflation is already elevated and affordability is a top concern for much of the American public.
Warsh was previously a runner-up for the Senate-confirmed post of Fed Chair in 2017, when Trump selected Powell to lead the central bank. Trump has since said that he was given bad advice regarding Powell.
Warsh is credentialed with degrees from Stanford University and Harvard University Law School. He is also married to Jane Lauder, the daughter of billionaire cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder, a major Republican donor.
At 35, Warsh became the youngest governor on the Fed’s seven member board, serving in that post from 2006 to 2011. He was previously an economic aide in George W. Bushs Republican administration and was an investment banker at Morgan Stanley.
Warsh worked closely with then-Chair Ben Bernanke in 2008-09 during the central banks efforts to combat the financial crisis and the Great Recession. Bernanke later wrote in his memoirs that Warsh was one of my closest advisers and confidants and added that his political and markets savvy and many contacts on Wall Street would prove invaluable.
Still, Warsh appeared in key moments to be misguided about the depth of the challenges confronting the U.S. economy as mortgage defaults and layoffs mounted in the Great Recession. He wanted the Fed to keep its benchmark rates higher when the economy was at risk of deflation and possibly collapsing.
Warsh raised concerns in 2008 that further interest rate cuts by the Fed could spur inflation. Yet even after the Fed cut its rate to nearly zero, inflation stayed low.
And he objected in meetings in 2011 to the Feds decision to purchase $600 billion of Treasury bonds, an effort to lower long-term interest rates, though he ultimately voted in favor of the decision at Bernankes behest.
Warsh also behaved at times like a pre-Trump Republican, calling in a 2010 speech for ending the creep of trade protectionism that he declared to be the opposite of pro-growth policies. Trump has since largely overhauled GOP dogma by pushing for massive hikes in import taxes, having unilaterally imposed them last year by declaring an economic emergency.
Warsh has been working as a visiting economics fellow at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank located at Stanford University. He is also a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and a partner at the Duquesne Family Office, which manages the wealth of billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller.
In recent months, Warsh has appeared to engage in an active campaign for the Fed post with TV interviews and articles. He has become much more critical of the Fed, calling for regime change and assailing Powell for engaging on issues like climate change and diversity, equity and inclusion, which Warsh said are outside the Feds mandate.
In a July interview on CNBC, Warsh said Fed policy has been broken for quite a long time.
The central bank that sits there today is radically different than the central bank I joined in 2006, he added. By allowing inflation to surge in 2021-22, the Fed brought about the greatest mistake in macroeconomic policy in 45 years, that divided the country.
In a November opinion article in The Wall Street Journal, Warsh said that the Fed should abandon the dogma that inflation is caused when the economy grows too much and workers get paid too much. Inflation is caused when government spends too much and prints too much.
He suggested that inflationary pressures would be lowered because technologies such as artificial intelligence would lead to higher levels of productivity. His bet that AI will lead to growth without inflation aligns closely with Trump’s own belief that inflation has been defeated and that the AI buildout will power growth this year.
AI will be a significant disinflationary force, increasing productivity and bolstering American competitiveness, Warsh wrote.
Josh Boak and Christopher Rugaber, Associated Press
The Farmers’ Almanac isn’t going out of business after all, but it is leaving Maine for the bright lights of New York City and a new owner.
Beloved by farmers and gardeners, the almanac was first printed in 1818 and like the arguably more famous Old Farmers Almanac relies on a secret formula of sunspots, planetary positions, and lunar cycles to generate long-range weather forecasts.
It’s been acquired by Unofficial Networks, a digital publisher focused on skiing and outdoor recreation. That means the almanac will keep operating despite announcing in November that its 208-year run was coming to an end.
A new Farmers Almanac website will be a living, breathing publication with fresh, daily content and there are plans to bring back a print edition, said Tim Konrad, founder and publisher of New York-based Unofficial Networks.
I saw the announcement that one of Americas most enduring publications was set to close, Konrad said, and it felt wrong to stand by while an irreplaceable piece of our national heritage disappeared.
The deal will prioritize preserving and sustaining the iconic publication, according to a statement from Unofficial Networks and Peter Geiger, the almanac’s longtime publisher.
The Farmers Almanac was founded in New Jersey before moving its headquarters to Lewiston, Maine, in 1955. The Old Farmers Almanac is based in New Hampshire.
Over the years, scientists have sometimes chafed at the publications’ predictions. Studies of their accuracy have found them to be a little more than 50% accurate. That is about on par with random chance.
But Geiger, whose family had the Farmers’ Almanac for more than 90 years, said they’re going out a winner by having predicted a cold and snowy 2026.
For more than 200 years, the values and wisdom of the Farmers Almanac have been protected and nurtured by four owner-publishers,” Geiger said. “I am grateful to have found the right next custodian in Tim Konrad. I am also confident he will honor its heritage and carry it forward for generations to come.
Unofficial Networks was started in 2006 by Konrad and his brother John in a California basement, according to the company’s website.
Patrick Whittle, Associated Press
Financial markets are churning on Friday as investors try to figure out what President Donald Trumps new nominee to lead the Federal Reserve will mean for interest rates. The initial reactions were uneasy because of the uncertainty.
U.S. stocks fell, with the S&P 500 down 0.8% in midday trading. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 507 points, or 1%, as of 1 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1% lower.
The value of the U.S. dollar, meanwhile, climbed but only after swiveling a couple of times following Trumps nomination of Kevin Warsh. And some of the wildest action was again in precious metals markets, where the price of gold screeched lower following its stellar run over the last year.
Whoever leads the Fed has a big influence on the economy and markets worldwide by helping to dictate where the U.S. central bank moves interest rates. Such decisions lift or weigh on prices for all kinds of investments, as the Fed tries to keep the U.S. job market humming without letting inflation get out of control. Trump has been pushing for lower interest rates, which usually help goose the economy but can also cause higher inflation.
A fear in financial markets has been that the Fed will lose some of its independence because of Trump. That fear in turn helped catapult the price of gold and weaken the U.S. dollars value over the last year.
The longtime assumption has been that the Fed can operate separately from the rest of Washington so that it can make decisions that are painful in the short term but necessary for the long term. To get inflation down to the Fed’s goal of 2%, for example, may require the unpopular choice to keep interest rates high and grind down on the economy for a while.
The big question is what Warsh’s nomination, which still requires approval from the Senate, means for the Fed’s independence.
Warsh used to be a governor on the Feds board, so investors are familiar with him. That could also mean Warsh is familiar with and hopes to continue the institution of the Fed as an independent operator. And while with the Fed, Warsh criticized the central bank’s buying of bonds to keep interest rates low.
Some on Wall Street took Warsh’s nomination as an encouraging signal for a still-independent Fed that will keep rates high, if necessary.
But Warsh has also recently been critical of the Feds current chair, Jerome Powell, and has voiced support for lower rates.
Indeed, Warsh is not the Feds guy, he is Trumps guy, and has shadowed Trump on monetary policy almost every step of the way since 2009, according to Thierry Wizman, a strategist at Macquarie Group. This doesnt necessarily mean that Warsh will push the Fed into rate cuts soon, but it could indicate he may be quicker to do so when the time comes.
On Wall Street, stocks of metals miners tumbled as the price of gold dropped 8.9% to $4,878.80 per ounce. Gold’s price has suddenly run out of momentum following a tremendous rally where it roughly doubled over 12 months. It topped $5,000 for the first time on Monday and got near $5,600 on Thursday.
Silver, which has been on a similar, jaw-dropping tear, fell even more. It plunged 23.5%.
Prices for gold and other precious metals had been surging as investors looked for safer places for their money while weighing a wide range of risks, including a potentially less independent Fed, a U.S. stock market that critics say is expensive, political instability, threats of tariffs and heavy debt loads for governments worldwide.
The dramatic halt in momentum may have been inevitable given how far and how fast metal prices had surged over the last year. Nothing goes up in price forever.
Friday’s drops for metals prices helped send the stock of miner Newmont down 10.9%. Freeport-McMoRan, another miner, dropped 8.4%.
Apple was the heaviest weight on the S&P 500 after sinking 1.4%, even though the iPhone maker reported a stronger profit for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
Helping to limit the market’s losses was Tesla, which rose 4.3%. It bounced back after dropping on Thursday despite delivering better profit reports for the latest quarter than analysts expected.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury held at 4.24%, where it was late Thursday. It got near 4.28% in the overnight and early-morning hours before falling back. A rise in a bond’s yield indicates that its price is weakening.
Yields may have felt some upward pressure from a report released Friday showing U.S. inflation at the wholesale level was hotter last month than economists expected. That could put pressure on the Fed to keep interest rates steady for a while instead of cutting them, as it did late last year.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in much of Europe following a mixed performance in Asia.
Stocks rose 1.2% in Jakarta after the CEO of Indonesias stock market, Imam Rachman, resigned Friday. Stocks had stumbled there in prior days after MSCI, an influential company in the investment industry that creates stock and other indexes, warned about market risks such as a lack of transparency.
Stan Choe, AP business writer
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
If you enter a query into Quili.AI on January 31, your question wont be answered by a large language model, but instead by residents from the Chilean community of Quilicura.
The project aims to replace artificial intelligence with analog intelligence, to both highlight the environmental impact of AI, and to get people thinking consciously about their AI use.
Were inviting people to have a day without AI, Lorena Antiman from Corporación NGEN, an environmental organization focused in part on protecting Quilicuras wetlands, says while speaking through a translator. Corporación NGEN spearheaded the project.
Instead of going through a data center, each prompt into the chatbot will be answered directly by Quilicura residents. Artists, teachers, and others in the community will all meet in one place on Saturday, ready to respond to the queries.
Quilicura and data centers
The people of Quilicura, Chile are directly living with the impact of AI data centers. The community is located on the edge of Santiago, which is becoming a data center hub: 16 such facilities have been approved for construction there since 2012.
Data centers both use immense amounts of energy, and lots of water to cool the servers. Understanding AI water use can be complicated, but some experts have tried to quantify it. A 2024 Washington Post article says that generating a 100 word email with GPT-4 requires 519 milliliters of water, or just over a bottle.
Google opened its first Latin American data center in Quilicura in 2015. That facility uses 50 liters of water a secondor the same as 8,000 Chilean householdsthe New York Times reported in 2025, based on environmental records filed with the government. (Google says the sites used less water the year prior, about the same water use as a golf course.)
This data center boom from tech companies is happening as Chile experiences a 15-year megadrought. The country is expected to lead the world in terms of water stress by 2040.
Community activists in Quilicura have highlighted the impact of these data centers by showing before and after photos of the regions wetlands, appearing dry even during the rainy season.
[Photo: Quili.AI]
How Quili.AI works
Up to 50 community members will be participating in the day without AI, ready to respond to Quili.AI prompts over the 24 hours of January 31 only.
Each of them will bring their unique skills to the task. Prompt Quili.Ai to make a certain image, and a local artist will draw it. Ask Quili.AI for a recipe, and someone will share their own.
Or need something explained to you like youre 5? a community member says in a video promoting the action. Ask Mateo. Hes 5.
Instead of servers and cloud computing, community members will use their own experiences, their cultural knowledge, and their human judgment. Responses may not be immediate, but Antiman says theyll do their best to reply to as many queries as they can.
And though the humans powering this analog intelligence are local to Quilicara, the organizers say anyone can use the tool.
Instilling better AI habits
Antiman hopes the action helps people think more responsibly about what they turn to AI for, and if their prompts are worth the resources they require. Just like were taught to turn off lights when we leave a room, or to not run water while we brush their teeth, she hopes people can learn better AI habits.
Many people may simply not be aware of the impacts of using AI. Antiman is a teacher, and she says her students are surprised when she highlights those effects.
They dont know the consequences of the way theyre using AI, she says.
The day without AI is also an invitation, she adds, for people to look to their own neighbors or communities for knowledge. Maybe your neighbor knows how to change a tire, or another already has a recipe for cupcakes, so you dont need to ask ChatGPT.
This connection between real people is what makes the Quili.AI project so exciting to Antiman.
The most magical thing about it is the community is the one working on it, she says. Theyre all coming together to make this happen.
Federal prosecutors cant seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, a federal judge ruled Friday, foiling the Trump administrations bid to see him executed for what it called a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.
Judge Margaret Garnett dismissed a federal murder charge that had enabled prosecutors to seek capital punishment, finding it technically flawed. She wrote that she did so to foreclose the death penalty as an available punishment to be considered by the jury” as it weighs whether to convict Mangione.
Garnett also dismissed a gun charge but left in place stalking charges that carry a maximum punishment of life in prison. To seek the death penalty, prosecutors needed to show that Mangione killed Thompson while committing another “crime of violence.” Stalking doesn’t fit that definition, Garnett wrote in her opinion, citing case law and legal precedents.
In a win for prosecutors, Garnett ruled they can use evidence collected from his backpack during his arrest, including a 9mm handgun and a notebook in which authorities say Mangione described his intent to wack an insurance executive. Mangiones lawyers had sought to exclude those items, arguing the search was illegal because police hadnt yet obtained a warrant.
During a hearing Friday, Garnett gave prosecutors 30 days to update her on whether they’ll appeal her death penalty decision. A spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, which is prosecuting the federal case, declined to comment.
Garnett acknowledged that the decision may strike the average person and indeed many lawyers and judges as tortured and strange, and the result may seem contrary to our intuitions about the criminal law.” But, she said, it reflected her “committed effort to faithfully apply the dictates of the Supreme Court to the charges in this case. The law must be the Courts only concern.
Mangione, 27, appeared relaxed as he sat with his lawyers during the scheduled hearing, which took place about an hour after Garnett issued her written ruling. Prosecutors retained their right to appeal but said they were ready to proceed to trial.
Outside court afterward, Mangione’s attorney Karen Friedman Agnifilo said her client and his defense team were relieved by the incredible decision.
Jury selection in the federal case is set for Sept. 8, followed by opening statements and testimony on Oct. 13. The state trial’s date hasnt been set. On Wednesday, the Manhattan district attorneys office urged the judge in that case to schedule a July 1 trial date.
That case is none of my concern, Garnett said, adding that she would proceed as if the federal case is the only case unless she hears formally from parties involved in the state case. She also said the federal case will be paused if the government appeals her death penalty ruling.
Thompson, 50, was killed on Dec. 4, 2024, as he walked to a midtown Manhattan hotel for UnitedHealth Groups annual investor conference. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting him from behind. Police say delay, deny and depose were written on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase used by critics to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Mangione, an Ivy League graduate from a wealthy Maryland family, was arrested five days later at a McDonalds in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of Manhattan.
Following through on Trumps campaign promise to vigorously pursue capital punishment, Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered Manhattan federal prosecutors last April to seek the death penalty against Mangione.
It was the first time the Justice Department sought the death penalty in President Donald Trumps second term. He returned to office a year ago with a vow to resume federal executions after they were halted under his predecessor, President Joe Biden.
Garnett, a Biden appointee and former Manhattan federal prosecutor, ruled after hearing oral arguments earlier this month.
Besides seeking to have the death penalty rejected on the grounds Garnett cited, Mangiones lawyers argued that Bondis announcement flouted long-established Justice Department protocols and was based on politics, not merit.
They said her remarks, followed by posts to her Instagram account and a TV appearance, indelibly prejudiced the grand jury process resulting in his indictment weeks later.
Prosecutors urged Garnett to keep the death penalty on the table, arguing that the charges were legally sound and Bondis remarks werent prejudicial, as pretrial publicity, even when intense, is not itself a constitutional defect.
Prosecutors argued that careful questioning of prospective jurors would alleviate the defenses concerns about their knowledge of the case and ensure Mangiones rights are respected at trial.
What the defendant recasts as a constitutional crisis is merely a repackaging of arguments rejected in previous cases, prosecutors said. None warrants dismissal of the indictment or categorical preclusion of a congressionally authorized punishment.
Michael R. Sisak and Larry Neumeister, Associated Press
Relationships can feel like both a blessing and the bane of your existence, a source of joy and a source of frustration or resentment. At some point, each of us is faced with a clingy child, a dramatic friend, a partner who recoils at the first hint of intimacy, a volatile parent, or a controlling boss in short, a difficult relationship.
As a psychology professor and relationship scientist, Ive spent countless hours observing human interactions, in the lab and in the real world, trying to understand what makes relationships work and what makes them feel utterly intractable.
Recently, I teamed up with psychologist Rachel Samson, who helps individuals, couples and families untangle difficult dynamics in the therapy room. In our new book, Beyond Difficult: An attachment-based guide for dealing with challenging people, we explore the roots of difficult behavior and evidence-based strategies for making difficult relationships more bearable.
So whats really going on beneath the surface of difficult behavior? And more to the point, what can you do about it?
Difficult interactions can have deep roots
When a conversation with a co-worker goes sideways or a phone call with a friend goes off the rails, its easy to assume the issue stems from the situation at hand. But sometimes, big emotions and reactions have deeper roots. Difficult interactions often result from differences in temperament: your biologically based style of emotional and behavioral responses to the world around you.
People with a sensitive temperament react more strongly to stress and sensory experiences. When overwhelmed, they may seem volatile, moody or rigid but these reactions are often more about sensory or emotional overload than malice. Importantly, when sensitive children and adults are in a supportive environment that fits their temperament, they can thrive socially and emotionally.
Beyond neurobiology, one of the most common threads underlying difficult relationships is what psychologists call insecure attachment. Early experiences with caregivers shape the way people connect with others later in life. Experiences of inconsistent or insensitive care can lead you to expect the worst of other people, a core feature of insecure attachment.
People with insecure attachment may cling, withdraw, lash out or try to control others not because they want to make others miserable, but because they feel unsafe in close relationships. By addressing the underlying need for emotional safety, you can work toward more secure relationships.
Managing difficult emotions
In challenging interactions, emotions can run high and how you deal with those emotions can make or break a relationship.
Research has shown that people with sensitive temperament, insecure attachment or a history of trauma often struggle with emotion regulation. In fact, difficulty managing emotions is one of the strongest predictors of mental illness, relationship breakups and even aggression and violence.
Its easy to label someone as too emotional, but in reality, emotion is a social event. Our nervous systems constantly respond to one another which means our ability to stay regulated affects not only how we feel, but how others react to us. The good news is that there are evidence-based strategies to calm yourself when tensions rise:
Take a breath. Slow, deep breathing helps signal safety to the nervous system.
Take a break. Relationship researchers John and Julie Gottman found that taking a 20-minute break during conflict helps reduce physiological stress and prevent escalation.
Move your body. Exercise particularly walking, dancing or yoga has been shown to reduce depression and anxiety, sometimes even more effectively than medication. Movement before or after a difficult interaction can help work out the tension.
Reframe the situation. This strategy, called cognitive reappraisal, involves changing the way you interpret a situation or your goals within it. Instead of trying to fix a difficult family member, for example, you might focus on appreciating the time you have with them. Reappraisal helps the brain regulate emotion before it escalates, lowering activity in stress-related areas like the amygdala.
Giving better feedback
Difficult people are usually unaware of how their behavior affects you unless you tell them. One of the most powerful things you can do in a difficult relationship is give feedback. But not all feedback is created equal.
Feedback, at its core, is a tool for learning. Without it, you would never have learned to write, drive or function socially. But when feedback is poorly delivered, it can backfire: People become defensive, shut down or dig in their heels. Feedback is most effective when it stays focused on the task rather than the individual; in other words, dont make it personal.
Research points to four keys to effective feedback, based in learning theory:
Mutuality: Approach the conversation as a two-way exchange. Be open to the needs and ideas of both parties.
Specificity: Be clear about what behaviors youre referring to. Citing particular interactions is often better than You always .
Goal-directedness: Connect the feedback to a shared goal. Work together to find a constructive solution to the problem.
Timing: Give feedback close to the event, when its still fresh but emotions have settled.
Also, skip the so-called compliment sandwich of a critique between two pieces of positive feedback. It doesnt actually improve outcomes or change behavior.
Interestingly, the most effective sequence is actually to start with a corrective, followed by positive affirmation of whats going well. Leading with honesty shows respect. Plus, the corrective is more likely to be remembered. Following up with warmth builds connection and shows that you value te person.
The bottom line
Difficult relationships are part of being human; they dont mean someone is broken or toxic. Often, they reflect deeper patterns of attachment, temperament and differences in how our brains work.
When you understand whats underneath the behavior and take steps to regulate yourself, communicate clearly, and give compassionate feedback you can shift even the most stuck relationship into something more bearable, perhaps even meaningful.
Strengthening relationships isnt always easy. But the science shows that it is possible and can be rewarding.
Jessica A. Stern is an assistant professor of psychology at Pomona College.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
In the 1950s, the Air Force designed cockpits for the average pilot by measuring thousands of pilots and calculating the average for ten key physical dimensionsheight, arm length, torso size, etc. They assumed most pilots would be close to average in most dimensions.
When researchers actually checked, they found that out of 4,063 pilots, exactly zero were average on all ten dimensions. Not a single pilot fit the average they’d designed for. Even when they reduced it to just three dimensions, fewer than 5% of pilots were average on all three. By designing for the average, the Air Force created a cockpit that fit virtually no one well, and that had serious consequences for pilot performance and safety.
The solution might sound obvious: adjustable seats, adjustable pedals, adjustable controls, etc. The cockpit was fine once they designed for the range of human variation, rather than an average person that doesnt exist.
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The Statistical Ghost
Most American transportation systems suffer from the same fallacy. The car becomes treated as a prosthetic extension of the human body rather than what it actually is: a tool used for one segment of a multi-modal journey.
Designing for the average driver creates a phantom usera person who materializes inside their vehicle, drives, and dematerializes upon arrival. This ghost never walks across a street, never uses a bicycle or scooter, never uses a downtown circulator bus, and only makes long trips. The ghost is capable of seeing and hearing everything, is always alert and sober, doesnt experience chronic pain, doesnt need a cane or wheelchair, isnt young, and isnt old. And of course if the imaginary average driver has to wait a few seconds behind other people, the economy will collapse.
Even the most car-dependent commuter is a pedestrian at the beginning and end of every trip. They walk from their front door to their driveway, from a parking space to the office entrance, from their car across a parking lot into the grocery store. By optimizing transportation systems for the average motorist, we’re making significant portions of every trip uncomfortable or dangerous for everyone.
Like the Air Force’s phantom pilot, the average driver doesn’t exist. Designing for the statistical middle means designing well for none of them.
Mode-Switching Humans
Complete Streets is an engineering principle that acknowledges what actually exists: people switch modes throughout their day and even within single trips. The same person might drive to a park-and-ride, take transit downtown, walk to lunch, bike to a meeting, then return to the park-and-ride in an Uber.
The approach works. Over 1,700 American communities have adopted Complete Streets policies, and cities that implement them will see real results. Des Moines, Iowa, went from being the 24th safest metro area for pedestrians to the 5th safest in just three years. Boulder, Colorado, cut carbon emissions by half a million pounds annually as more people chose walking, biking, and transit.
Like the adjustable cockpit, Complete Streets accommodates the full range of users with protected bike lanes, accessible curb cuts, varied lane widths by context, pedestrian refuges, and transit priority lanes.
Still, progress on implementation remains frustratingly slow. Despite widespread policy adoption, most communities have struggled to translate policies into actual street improvements. Planning and designing transportation systems for real, mode-switching humans instead of phantom average drivers creates safer, healthier, more livable communities. The question isn’t whether Complete Streets worksit’s whether we’ll finally implement it at scale.
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This Sunday’s full moon, or “big cheese,” as it’s sometimes called, comes with a side of queso and chips.
Fast-casual restaurant chain Qdoba is offering stargazers a free 4-ounce serving of its signature 3-Cheese Queso or Queso Diablo and chips all day on February 1, according to a press release. The deal is available for Qdoba Rewards members with the purchase of a full-size entrée in-restaurant, online at Qdoba.com, and through the Qdoba mobile app. No telescope is required.
The moon may not really be made of cheese, but we think a free side of our creamy, cheesy queso and tortilla chipsseasoned with salt and limeis the next best thing,” Qdoba’s chief marketing officer Jon Burke said.
Even better news: Qdoba is offering the deal on the day of each full moon in 2026. Those days are: March 3, April 1, May 1, May 31, June 29, July 29, August 28, September 26, October 26, November 24, and December 23.
This weekend’s full moon, on February 1, is also dubbed the “snow” moon. Here’s what to know about it.
What is the ‘snow’ moon?
The second full moon of 2026 is called the Snow Moon, because it comes during a period of heavy snowfall in the northern hemisphere. (For those in the Northeast, you just have to look outside to see how fitting this is.)
And this moon comes with a special treat: It will appear with “one of the most beautiful open star clusters in the night sky . . . in the Leo constellation,” according to Live Science.
When can I see the February 2026 full moon?
The best time to view the February full moon is at “moonrise” at 5:09 p.m. EST on February 1. It will also appear full and still be bright the following night, on Monday, February 2.
The best way to view this full moon is to stand at an elevated point or an open space, looking toward the eastern horizon with binoculars or a telescope, though you’ll be able to see it with just your own eyes too, per Live Science.
