BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has said it would commit $100 million to training the next generation of skilled trades workers who can support a growing demand for new infrastructure.
In its announcement, BlackRock explained that its philanthropic Future Builders Initiative will “help address urgent labor needs,” noting that there’s been an increase in “demand for workers in skilled trades such as electricians, HVAC technicians, plumbers, and ironworkers.” The company said that demand is expected to continue to surge in the coming years, and explained that it would help to meet that demand by supporting future workers during all stages of training through licensure.
Throughout our history, tradespeople have built our country, Larry Fink, Chairman and CEO of BlackRock, who also serves as the chairman of the AI Infrastructure Partnership. said in the announcement.
America needs an estimated $10 trillion in infrastructure investment by 2033 to modernize aging systems and build new energy, digital, and AI infrastructure. Capital alone is not enough people are central to building our nations future.”
The announcement comes at a time when the rate of joblessness for Gen Z is surging, and college enrollment may be on the decline. As more young adults skip college degrees, unconvinced that four years of college, and oftentimes, taking on the burden of thousands in student loans will actually ensure a financially stable future, they’re pursuing blue-collar work more often.
According to a 2025 Resume Builder report, 42% of Gen Z adults are turning to the trades in the wake of rising economic concerns and growing job instability.
Experts say that a greater investment in the trades can help solve some of today’s current workforce challenges. Julian Scadden, CEO of Nexstar Network, an organization that helps skilled trades workers grow their business, says those jobs are “hand-on, high-impact and future proof.”
Scadden explains that, “For too long, we’ve treated the trades as a fallback rather than a first-choice career option, but that perception is finally changing. The need isnt just a flash in the pan, as there are longer term prospects and enormous opportunities for people in skilled trade careers.
That certainly feels true as concerns about finding a job that can actually enable young adults to afford modern living are real, and they’re rampant. But cost of living conversations aside, also driving those concerns are fears around AI taking human jobs. Interestingly, while AI may be able to take on a growing number of tasks once done by human workers, it’s also increasing the need for more skilled trade workers (at least for now).
When speaking at the World Economic Forum alongside Larry Fink in January, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang spoke to the fact that demand for skilled trade workers is surging as construction for AI data centers rises.
“This is the largest infrastructure buildout in history and that’s gonna create a lot of jobs,” Huang said, while adding that pay for skilled trade work is increasing at the same time. “Salaries have gone upnearly double,” the CEO said.
He continued, “Everybody should be able to make a great living. You don’t need to have a PhD in computer science to do so.”
Through that lens, experts say the investment in trades comes at the right time.
Steve Metzmen, CEO of iBusiness Technologies, a mobile technology integrator and Apple partner, where he developed the Connected Apprentice platform for trades workers, tells Fast Company the investment is “very smart” and that “deep funding for trades training is needed now.” The CEO says that’s true given we’re at what he calls an “inflection point” where “cutting-edge technology and long-overdue appreciation for skilled trades are converging at exactly the same moment.”
Metzmen continues, comparing the current transformative period to that of the 1800s, when railways were first being built: “Without those tracks, the great transformations of American industry and capitalism were not possible,” Metzmen says. “Required infrastructure had to come first, everything else waited and followed,” the CEO adds.
Ironically, while BlackRock is clearly invested in supporting trade workers, they’re also deeply committed to the power of AI.
In a 2025 transactionone of the largest data center transactions everthe firm purchased Aligned Data Centers in a $40 billion deal. “With this investment in Aligned Data Centers, we further our goal of delivering the infrastructure necessary to power the future of AI,” Fink said at the time.
Likewise, per the recent announcement, the firm’s contribution will also go toward the building of new AI data centers.
Still, while the investment may eventually add to the growing anxiety around AI taking over a growing number of jobs, BlackRock’s investment is bound to help those who want to pursue work in the trades find financial stability in the near future.
Metzmen says, “This investment doesn’t just support laborit helps to relieve the greatest constraint on the entire resource delivery pipeline.”
The U.S. economy, hobbled by last falls 43-day government shutdown, advanced at an unexpectedly sluggish 0.7% annual rate from October through December, the Commerce Department reported Friday in a big downgrade of its initial estimate.
Growth in gross domestic product the nations output of goods and services was down sharply from 4.4% in last years third quarter and 3.8% in the second. And the fourth-quarter number was half the governments first estimate of 1.4%; economists had expected the revision to go the other way and show stronger growth.
Federal government spending and investment, clobbered by the shutdown, plunged at a 16.7% rate, hacking 1.16 percentage points off fourth-quarter growth.
For all of 2025, GDP grew 2.1%, solid but down from an initial estimate of 2.2% and from growth of 2.8% in 2024 and 2.9% 2023.
In the fourth quarter, consumer spending grew at a 2% clip, down from 3.5% in the third quarter and the 2.4% the government had initially estimated. Business investment, excluding housing, increased at a healthy 2.2% pace, likely reflecting money being poured into artificial intelligence, but the increase was down from 3.2% in the third quarter and from the 3.7% advance in the Commerce department’s initial estimate.
Exports fell at a 3.3% annual rate in the fourth quarter, a bigger drop than the government first estimated.
A category within the GDP data that measures the economys underlying strength came in weaker than previously reported, growing at a 1.9% clip, down from 2.9% in the third quarter and from the first estimate of 2.4%. This category includes consumer spending and private investment, but excludes volatile items like exports, inventories and government spending.
Following two consecutive strong readings for the second and third quarters, the economy was expected to soften heading into year-end. Its now increasingly clear that the economy not only slowed but stumbled into the finish line, Jim Baird, chief investment officer at Plante Moran Financial Advisors, said in a commentary. “The government shutdown was certainly a major factor in the loss of momentum, but a sharp decline in consumption growth also played a role.”
The U.S. economy the worlds largest has shown surprising resilience in the face of President Donald Trumps policies, including sweeping import taxes and mass deportations. But the war with Iran has driven up oil and gas prices and clouded the economic outlook.
Meanwhile, the American job market is in a slump. Last month, companies, nonprofits and government agencies cut 92,000 jobs. In 2025, they added fewer than 10,000 jobs a month, the weakest hiring outside recession years since 2002.
Fridays GDP was the second of the three estimates of fourth-quarter growth. The final report is due April 9.
Paul Wiseman, AP economics writer
Feeld markets itself as the dating app for the curious. For most of its users, that means curiosity about kink and casual sexbut its newest tool asks you to be curious about yourself.
As a favorite platform for the kink, fetish, and nonmonogamous communities, Feeld is a place where taboos are the norm. But a new survey from the app suggests that kink is more mainstream than dominant culture would have you believe. And Feelds new tool, Reflections, lets anyoneFeeld users and otherwiseassess their own relationship with nontraditional sex.
Feeld surveyed thousands of its own users and external respondents for opinions on the perceived normality of traits like nonmonogamy, queerness, and kinkiness. It published the results in a report titled “State of Reflections, Vol. 1.”
The survey found that while Feeld users were unsurprisingly more open-minded on average, the general public wasnt far behind in its attitudes toward non-vanilla sex. Nearly half of non-Feeld users (42%) said they practice kink, compared with 68% of the apps user base.
In some areas, everyday folks were even kinkier than Feeld members: Among those who practice kink, 44% of external respondents said they engage in role-play, just above the 41% of Feeld users that said the same.
But despite whats actually happening behind closed doors, kink remains largely stigmatized. Only 25% of non-Feeld users said that talking about safe sex is normal, and just 23% said its normal to prioritize conversations about consent. And 28% of those external participants believe alternative relationship structuresdynamics like ethical nonmonogamyare somewhat or extremely abnormal.
Reflecting on taboos
To help break down those stigmas, Feeld launched Reflections, its new self-assessment tool. Reflections is a collection of surveys that asks respondents to rate their interests and behaviors across three categories: desire, boundaries, and relationships.
In the desire section, users reflect on their comfort with a variety of kinksfrom being blindfolded to role-playing a doctor-patient relationship to bringing toys into the bedroom.
The boundaries section asks them to consider what qualifies as a red flag in a relationshipgoing through a partners phone without consent might be a bridge too far, for exampleand how much any given partner impacts their own self-expression.
Finally, the relationships portion delves into attachment style and interest in nonmonogamy.
After each section, Feeld provides an analysis of those answers, providing scores out of 100, under headings including kink affinity, feeling authentic in sex, and voice and consent. (Reflections is available to anyone online, or to users directly in the Feeld app.)
In a press release, Feeld CEO Ana Kirova described Reflections as one of the most defining experiences weve brought to Feeld.
It embodies what weve always stood forcuriosity, self-discovery, and opennesswhile reflecting our core belief that meaningful connection starts with self-understanding, Kirova said. Reflections creates the space for introspection, so every connection that follows can be more honest, intentional, and true to who you are.
Carnival Cruise Line has announced that it is launching a new dining experience on its ships for people who dont like the long, leisurely evening dinners that cruises are known for. Heres why Carnival is introducing the new option, and what it means for you if youre traveling on a Carnival cruise soon.
Whats happened?
This week, Carnival announced that it is rolling out a new Express Dining option on more than a dozen of its ships. The cruise giant says that the new dining experience is designed to offer a freshly prepared multi-course dinner experience in under an hour for groups of six guests or fewer.
The idea behind Express Dining is that if Carnival offers a faster way to enjoy an evening meal, guests who want to explore the ship’s other entertainment options, like shows or bars, will have more time to do so.
Our guests continue to tell us they value greater flexibility in how they spend their time on board, and Express Dining was designed with that in mind, Carnival president Christine Duffy said, announcing the new dining option.
Are leisurley dinners going away?
If youre one of the many people who find the long, leisurely dinners one of the major appeals of cruises, dont worrythose arent going away. Instead, Carnival will offer guests the choice of Express Dining or the lines traditional dining experience.
Those who opt for the new Express Dining service should be aware that, due to the faster service, not all food options from the traditional dining service will be available.
Carnival says that while the Express Dining service significantly reduces service time and mirrors much of the main dining experiences offerings, the new service does have a slightly abbreviated selection.
What ships is Carnivals new Express Dining service available on?
Carnival says the new Express Dining option is now available on the following 15 ships:
Carnival Jubilee
Carnival Celebration
Mardi Gras
Carnival Venezia
Carnival Firenze
Carnival Panorama
Carnival Horizon
Carnival Sunrise
Carnival Vista
Carnival Breeze
Carnival Radiance
Carnival Conquest
Carnival Dream
Carnival Glory
Carnival Freedom
Carnival says all ships in Carnivals fleet will offer Express Dining by the end of May.
Carnivals stock has faced rough waters in 2026
While Carnival is betting that its guests will likely appreciate the option to sit down to a faster meal, the companys announcement, as expected, seems to have been met with indifference from investors. After all, Carnival has bigger problems than serving food quickly right now.
The companys stock price (NYSE: CCL) has declined nearly 22% in the past month, particularly after the outbreak of the war in Iran, which is serving to drive up oil pricesa commodity that Carnivals ships rely on. Higher oil prices mean higher costs for Carnival, and thus fewer profits.
As of the time of this writing, CCL shares have now fallen over 19% since the year began. However, over the past 12 months, CCL shares have risen a healthy 29%.
OpenAIs first artist in residence is launching a new company that aims to turn your thoughts into actual products. Today, entrepreneur and roboticist Alexander Reben announces Phyzify, a lab using AI tools to rapidly prototype physical objects based on your imagination.
There’s a huge gap between idea and [bringing that] thing into existence, says Reben, cofounder of Phyzify. And I really think AI and robotics and quantum computing and all the technology that’s about to come is going to accelerate [closing] that gap [and] make walking across that bridge a lot easier.
But what Reben has in mind is far greater than just 3D printing. Hes envisions Phyzify as a platform where AI handles the entire execution of an idea, from potential prompts to multitudes of physical outputs. For example, translating music into paintings that an artist could sell as merch. On top of that, he sees Phyzify handling the backend of the more mundane aspects of product development, from securing domain names to filing patents and trademarks.
Phyzify closed a pre-seed round led by Logan Kilpatrick, product lead for Google AI Studio, DeepMind. Kilpatrick was drawn to Phyzify as an investor because he sees 2026 as a huge year for physical AI and generative mediaand he believes Phyzify is at the front of the wave.
Alex has a unique ability to bring new ideas at the intersection of AI and Art to life, Kilpatrick said in an email. I saw this first hand working with him at OpenAI, and now I couldnt be more excited to back him as he and the team build the tools and platforms to enable people to bring their ideas to life.
Phyzify is a natural evolution of Rebens career that sits at the intersection of advanced technology and creative experimentation. In 2010 at MIT Media Lab, Rebens graduate research focused on social robotics. One of his early creations, Boxie, became the inspiration of the character Baymax in Disneys Big Hero 6.
In 2014, Reben became the director of technology and research at Stochastic Labs, a residency program in Berkeley convening minds across tech, art, and science. Hes made headlines for his various AI-based artworks. And in 2024, he was announced as OpenAIs first artist-in-residence, where he spent the better part of the year gaining access to the companys technology to explore how AI systems can participate in artistic practices.
And now, Reben wants to push the boundaries of AI and creativity even further with Phyzifybut with a clear intent on keeping humans at the center of it all.
Phyzify Cofounders Jake Witzenfeld and Alexander Reben [Photos: courtesy Phyzify]
Looking to the future of automation and a lot of the research and papers and things people have been thinking about, it’s still pretty clear that asking the questions, being creative, imagining is something that makes sense for humans to keep doing, Reben says. That’s something that’s very, very hard for an AI to do, if not ultimately impossible.
The companys lab is headquartered in a North Carolina factory where theyre primarily working with fabric looms to transform AI-based concepts to physical products. In a virtual demo, I controlled various creative expressions of my webcam feed via a MIDI controller. Apparently there were more than 604 sextillion AI-generated options to choose fromI did not get through all of them. Once I locked in my choice, I could see a live feed of my image being woven on a loom in real-time and the tapestry was sent to my office the next day.
This idea of bringing stuff [into] the physical realm needs a starting place, Reben says. Fabric is something that’s quite intriguing given it’s turned into so many different objects as well. So even the post-processing steps after creating a unique piece of fabric is fairly unlimited.
As it expands across mediums, Phyzify is collaborating with five creative professionals in fashion, music, food, gaming, and more to help stress test and experiment with various interfaces and physical outputs.
There’s an element of exploration right now, says Jake Witzenfeld, cofounder of Phyzify. The platform will be the accumulation of the tools that come out of what we’re doing at the lab.
[Photo: Fast Company]
Phyzify is implementing an array of creative tools from across the advanced technology landscape, but it’s also building its own tools and systems with the goal of launching a consumer facing product in a year. Eventually, the company hopes to create mass market products, limited edition drops, art pieces, and more.
But outside of pushing products, Reben wants Phyzify to push against synthetic capitalism, an economy where the products and the means through which theyre produced are handled entirely by AI without any human involvement. To Reben, machines and AI have mastered how to make things. And humans should decide what’s worth being in the world and why.
If we retain control of that, Reben says, and we can help move that forward, I think that’s an important mission to have.
Grammarly, the tool meant to assist with spelling, grammar, and in identifying plagiarism, is being sued for a new AI tool called Expert Review. The tool offers editing suggestions from established authors and writersostensibly not a bad ideaexcept that none of those people consented to being involved in the first place.
The tool offers real-time writing tips from celebrities like Stephen King and Neil deGrasse Tyson, as well as journalists, like The Markup founder Julia Angwin, who filed the class action lawsuit against Grammarlys parent company Superhuman, after she alleged the tool used her likeness without her permission: have worked for decades honing my skills as a writer and editor, and I am distressed to discover that a tech company is selling an imposter version of my hard-earned expertise, Angwin said in a statement.
From photorealistic deepfakes on Sora to scammers using chatbots to swindle users out of money, AI has already been bending reality and using peoples likenesses at worrying speeds. The Grammarly lawsuit shows how professional writers likenesses are also up for grabsin addition to having that same technology threaten their very careers and livelihoods. This is the latest battle in the war over what legal and ethical boundaries AI should not cross.
Sorry, not sorry
The federal lawsuit, which was filed in the Southern District of New York Wednesday, challenges Grammarlys misappropriation of the names and identities of hundreds of journalists, authors, writers, and editors to earn profits for Grammarly and its owner, Superhuman, per court documents reviewed by Fast Company.
Angwins lawsuit comes as Superhuman has recently announced plans to phase out Expert Review. Shishir Mehrotra, Superhumans CEO, addressed the decision to remove the tool in a post on LinkedIn on Wednesday: This kind of scrutiny improves our products, and we take it seriously.
He continued: As context, the agent was designed to help users discover influential perspectives and scholarship relevant to their work, while also providing meaningful ways for experts to build deeper relationships with their fans.
But commenters on the public post, which include a linguistics professor, a New York Times editor, a public library clerk and others in the writing and editing industry, pushed back, arguing the CEOs words dont take real accountability or capture the gravity of the situation.
In a statement shared with Fast Company, Mehrotra followed up on his apology, but was dismissive of the lawsuit. We have reviewed the lawsuit, and we believe the legal claims are without merit and will strongly defend against them, he said in the statement.
The new identity wars
As AI continues to develop at breakneck pace, many workersespecially ones in fields at high risk for automation, like writing and editingthis Grammarly lawsuit brings fresh fears around how workers can protect not just their work, but their identities.
And many professionals are taking action. Actor Matthew McConaughey, for example, filed eight trademark applications earlier this year to protect his likeness and voice as AI deepfakes being scarily realistic and accurate.
Angwins attorney Peter Romer-Friedman calls the situation a very straightforward legal case, telling Fast Company that various state laws for a long time have provided that it’s unlawful to use a person’s name, whether they’re famous or not, for commercial purposes or gained without their consent. He says that’s exactly what Superhuman did through the Grammarly expert review tool.
Regardless of how it plays out, legal and AI experts worry about what the incident means for the future of many industriesand that some workplaces may not be ready.
The lawsuit points to a troubling trend, says Vered Zlaikha, partner and Head of Cyber & AI practice at Lipa Meir & Co. In the race to attract users and market share, some AI developers and vendors may be tempted to push legal and ethical boundaries. She also thinks this could be the first of many such legal battles between companies using AI tools, and the workers they affect.
We may well see additional lawsuits and class actions brought by various affected parties, including users and individuals referenced or implicated by AI, she notes.
Dalit Heldenberg, an AI adoption strategist and advisor, agreed, saying were already seeing it.
Disney recently sent a cease-and-desist to Google over AI tools generating its characters, which led Gemini to start blocking those prompts, Heldenberg told Fast Company. It’s a sign that companies are beginning to draw clear boundaries around how AI products can use their intellectual property.
In other words, even people or companies who use an AI tool without being aware of its legality may open themselves up to being sued. Fast Company asked Angwins lawyer point blank if the people and organizations who used Expert Review were legally exposed and if the firm planned to pursue legal action against them. I cant speak to that at this time, he replied.
Look before you leap into AI
Zlaikha advises companies using AI tools to ask questions before jumping in and rolling them out.
What contractual protections are in place? she asks, and who bears responsibility in the face of legal action? How does the organization retain control and oversight over how the tool is created and deployed?
While larger companies will likely have the resources to adapt to the shifting AI litigation landscape, theyre also more likely to be targets. As Heldenberg put it, When you have millions of users and hundreds of millions in revenue, you’re the first call a plaintiff’s lawyer makes. Smaller companies face a different risk: they often adopt AI tools without fully understanding the legal exposure they might create.
As for Angwin, as the lawsuit states, she hopes to stop Grammarly and its owner, Superhuman, from trading on her name and those of hundreds of other journalists, authors, editors, and even lawyers and to stop the companies from attributing words to them that they never uttered. Meanwhile, Superhuman CEO Mehrotra, says there is a better approach to bringing experts onto our platform and we are working on a version that will provide significantly more benefit to both users and experts, he said in the statement to Fast Company.
Every day in America, over 100 people are involved in a life-altering crash that severely injures them or kills them. And that 100-per-day doesnt even include all the people whose lives are impacted indirectly by severe crashes.
Vision Zero is a road safety philosophy that originated in Sweden in the 1990s and has since been adopted by cities across the United States and Europe. Its premise is straightforward: traffic deaths and serious injuries are preventable and can therefore be eliminated. With the right street design, traffic enforcement, and public awareness, everyone can get around safely.
The problem is that severe crashes are a catastrophe so routine that it barely registers in the news cycle. Americans have been conditioned to think traffic violence is inevitable. One outcome of that conditioning is that people will campaign against transportation projects that improve safety. Thats rightagainst safety.
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Heres a social media comment someone made to me in response to redesigning a street to improve safety: Members of the public communicate their risk tolerance through voting. It is the job of engineers to comply with that, not to second guess democratic choices.
I get comments like that all the time, and its not just anonymous bots. Putting transportation safety projects up for a Yes/No vote reminds me of this quote thats often attributed to Ben Franklin: Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Democracy is a trap
We dont vote on airplane safety. Imagine being handed a survey when you board a plane: Should the airline prioritize your arrival time or the structural integrity of the landing gear? That would be absurd. We trust aviation engineers to design safe aircraft. Passengers vote with their wallets, but no one gets a veto over whether safety is a priority in the first place.
Surface transportation doesn’t work this way. When a city proposes narrowing a street to reduce speeding, neighbors show up to meetings and call it an “attack on drivers.” When a protected bike lane is added to a corridor with a history of fatal crashes, it gets removed after community complaints. When a signal timing change is proposed to give pedestrians more crossing time, it gets killed because drivers worry about congestion. When illegal parking that blocks sightlines at intersections is enforced by police, the cries of over-reach flood city hall.
Safety improvements frequently die by popular vote and public pressure. Americans, given the choice between their personal convenience and other people’s safety, have repeatedly chosen convenience. This is the democracy trap: the idea that every engineering decision must survive a public referendum, including decisions that exist specifically to protect human life.
There’s a reflexive response to this argument that goes: “So you want to just override what people want by taking out a lane? That’s anti-democratic.” That framing means your life, your childs life, your neighbors life, my life, are all subject to negotiation. It means a neighborhood miles away gets to weigh in on whether a dangerous intersection near your home gets fixed. It means the people who are most likely to be harmedpedestrians, cyclists, children walking to school, elderly residents are outvoted by people who are primarily concerned about shaving seconds off their drive no matter the cost to others.
We don’t hold referendums on building codes. We don’t ask neighborhoods to vote on whether restaurants should have to refrigerate meat. Some protections exist precisely because they shouldn’t be contingent on majority sentiment.
The same logic should apply to street design.
Get out the vote
The binary Yes/No vote to allow or forbid safety improvements needs to be tossed out. That doesnt mean the public should be shut out of transportation decisions, it means the kind of community engagement needs to change.
Right now, transportation agencies and local governments often ask the wrong question: Do you want this safety improvement? That question is almost designed to fail, because most people don’t understand how street design contributes to crashes. They don’t know that wider lanes encourage faster driving. They don’t know that a 20 mph impact is survivable for a pedestrian while a 40 mph impact usually isn’t. They dont know that on-street parking sometimes makes a street safer and sometimes makes a street more dangerous.
City transportation systems are complicated. When you ask people an uninformed question, you get an uninformed answer.
The better approach is education first, options second. Explain what Vision Zero is. Show people the data on speed and crash severity. Help them understand what road diets, raised crosswalks, curb extensions, signal changes, and what each one accomplishes. Ask for input about the problems theyre experiencing:
People drive too fast on this street.
I wish my neighborhood was quieter.
I cant see around the corner when I turn.
Nobody stops their car for me at the crosswalk.
The light turns red before I can walk across the street.
Theres no easy way for my kids to ride bikes to school.
I have to walk 15 minutes to the nearest bus stop.
If I miss the bus, I have to wait an hour for the next one.
That’s meaningful public engagement. It respects people’s intelligence while also respecting the reality that prioritizing human life is not up for debate.
Culture shift is necessary
In the US alone, tens of thousands are killed in traffic crashes every year. Hundreds of thousands more experience life-altering injuries. The idea that driving fast and without friction is a kind of birthright is woven into our infrastructure, our zoning, our politics, and our sense of personal freedom. Changng safety culture is hard, but it has changed before, in other places, and it can change here.
We don’t ask voters to approve seatbelt laws every few years. We don’t hold referendums on speed limits every time someone complains. Engineers, pilots, air traffic controllers, and ground crews made aviation extraordinarily safe not by polling passengers, but by treating safety as a non-negotiable foundation, and then inviting the public to make choices within that foundation.
That’s the model for reaching Vision Zero. Not a top-down dismissal of community voices, but a reordering of the conversation: safety first, preferences second. Engage people early and help them visualize what’s possible, and for crying out loud, build safer transportation systems.
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Cambodia said Friday it has drafted its first law targeting online scam centers, after vowing to shut them down by the end of April.Cambodia is a major hub for scam operations, which extort money from victims online through bogus investment schemes and feigned romances. Victims around the world are estimated to have been cheated out of tens of billions of dollars annually.At the same time, thousands of people, especially from other Asian nations, have been recruited with false job offers and then forced to work in scam centers in conditions of near-slavery.“This law is the most important legal instrument for Cambodia in combating scams online, fighting money laundering and demonstrating that Cambodia is not a paradise or a safe haven for criminals,” Information Minister Neth Pheaktra said in a statement.The new legislation approved by the Cabinet sets five to 10 years in prison and a fine of 500 million to 1 billion riels ($125,000-250,000) for organizing or directing a technology fraud site. In case of human trafficking or violence, detention or confinement, the penalties rage from 10 to 20 years plus a fine of up to 2 billion riels ($500,000). In case of a death linked to a scam center, the offense is punishable by imprisonment from 15 to 30 years, or life. Workers have died when they tried to escape.The new legislation must be approved by Parliament.Senior Minister Chhay Sinarith, in charge of the Commission for Combating Online Scams, told The Associated Press in an interview on Wednesday that the government since July had targeted 250 locations believed to be carrying out online scams, and has shut down about 200.Since last July, the government has filed 79 cases involving 697 alleged scam ringleaders and their associates, according to Chhay Sinarith.Cambodia has repatriated almost 10,000 scam center workers from 23 countries, with fewer than 1,000 waiting to return home. Others who have escaped or been released from raided centers have returned on their own.Neth Pheaktra said that the government “has made strong efforts to combat this crime in order to protect Cambodia’s reputation and economy, which have previously been damaged by online scams, and the government does not receive any revenue from these activities.”Cambodia has launched previous crackdowns but without major effect on scam centers, and some experts are skeptical it can eliminate the criminal industry.“The real question is whether this effort targets the system that enables the industry, not just the buildings where scams happen,” said Jacob Sims, an expert on transnational crime and a visiting fellow at Harvard University’s Asia Center. “Past crackdowns in Cambodia have often left the financial and protection networks intact, allowing operations to quickly reconstitute.”Associated Press writer Grant Peck in Bangkok contributed to this report.
Sopheng Cheang, Associated Press
President Donald Trump is scrambling to replace the revenue the federal government lost when the Supreme Court struck down his biggest and boldest tariffs last month.If the effort succeeds, congressional Democrats warn in a study out Friday, the administration’s import taxes will cost American households an average of $2,512 in 2026, up 44% from $1,745 in tariff costs last year. And this at a time when U.S. consumers are already angry over the high cost of living and the war with Iran is pushing up energy prices.“Despite a Supreme Court ruling that much of Trump’s tariff agenda is illegal, the Trump administration refuses to provide relief for families,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, the top Democrat on the Joint Economic Committee. “As American families continue to struggle with high costs, the President keeps choosing to institute new tariffs that will push prices even higher.”Calling the study “phony,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said “President Trump will continue using tariffs to renegotiate broken trade deals, lower drug prices, and secure trillions in investments for the American people.”Trump last year invoked the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose double-digit tariffs on almost every country on Earth.But the Supreme Court ruled Feb. 20 that the law did not give the president the authority to levy tariffs. The government now must provide refunds expected to come to around $175 billion to the importers who paid the IEEPA tariffs now declared illegal.The administration has moved quickly to impose new tariffs, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that that new levies “will result in virtually unchanged tariff revenue in 2026.”Trump has already announced a 10% tariff, invoking Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, and may raise it to 15%. But those levies can only last 150 days unless Congress agrees to extend them. And the Section 122 tariffs are also being challenged in court.A sturdier option is Section 301 of the same 1974 trade law, which authorizes the president to impose tariffs and other sanctions on countries engaged in “unjustifiable,” “unreasonable” or “discriminatory” trade practices. Trump, accusing China of using unfair tactics to gain an advantage in high tech industries, used Section 301 to impose tariffs on Chinese imports in his first term, and they withstood legal challenges.On Wednesday, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, announced a sweeping Section 301 investigation into whether 16 U.S. trading partners, including China and the European Union, are overproducing goods, flooding the world with their products and hurting American manufacturers.“The United States will no longer sacrifice its industrial base to other countries that may be exporting their problems with excess capacity and production to us,” Greer said in a statement. The probe is widely expected to end in a new round of hefty tariffs.“The fact that they launched 301 investigations is not surprising,” said trade lawyer Ryan Majerus, a partner at King & Spalding and a former U.S. trade official. “We all knew that’s what they were going to pivot to. The challenge is that this is way more sprawling than anyone expected.” That is because so many countries were targeted and because the inquiry whether countries have excess industrial capacity and are overproducing goods “can be framed pretty broadly.”The administration is rolling out another Section 301 investigation into banning imported goods made by forced labor. Greer told reporters Wednesday that additional Section 301 investigations could cover issues such as digital services taxes, pharmaceutical drug pricing and ocean pollution.The administration is also expected to make more use of Section 232 of Trade Expansion Act of 1962, which allows the president to impose tariffs on goods deemed to be threats to national security after an investigation by the Commerce Department. The U.S. already has Section 232 tariffs on steel, aluminum, autos and auto parts and other products.The report from Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee finds that the new tariffs will increase the burden on American households this year. That is partly because the tariff revenue would be collected for the full year; Trump needed time to impose tariffs in 2025 and occasionally suspended them.The Democrats also assume that American households will absorb 100% of the tariff cost. They cite a Congressional Budget Office report concluding that importers can pass along 70% of the tariff costs to consumers. But the tariffs also allow domestic producers to raise prices because of less competition from imports and increased demand for their tariff-free products. Combined, passed-along costs from importers and higher prices from domestic companies effectively mean that consumers end up footing the entire U.S. tariff bill, according to CBO.The Trump administration’s new tariff push comes as the war in Iran pushes up the price of gasoline and other commodities in the runup to November’s midterm elections. Voters are already disgruntled by high prices.“If the affordability and other political issues really start to become cumbersome, that certainly can impact all this,” Majerus said. “What the world’s going to look like two months from now is going to be very different from what it is now.”
Paul Wiseman, AP Economics Writer
Nearly every part of the United States is getting walloped by wild weather or just about to be.Days of downpours have begun in Hawaii. The Southwest will soon bake with day after day of record 100-degree-plus (38 Celsius-plus) heat. Two storms will dump snow by the foot over northern Great Lakes states. And the dreaded polar vortex will again invade the Midwest and East with soul-crushing Arctic chill.This forecast of extremes comes as weather whiplash already hit much of the East. On Wednesday, Washington, D.C. residents walked around in shorts in record-breaking 86 degrees Fahrenheit (about 30 Celsius). On Thursday, it snowed.“All of the country, even if you’re not necessarily seeing extremes, are going to see generally changing from cold to warm, or warm to cold to warm,” said meteorologist Marc Chenard of the weather service’s Weather Prediction Center in Maryland.Former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief scientist Ryan Maue said he expects extreme weather in all 50 states.
Triple-digit heat persists in Southwest
A heat dome will form early next week and park over the Southwest, baking temperatures to triple digits that haven’t been seen this early in the year, Maue and Chenard said.Some forecasts see 98 (almost 37 Celsius) in Phoenix on Tuesday, followed by 103, 105 and two days of 107 (almost 42 C). In 137 years of record-keeping, Phoenix never hit 100 before March 26 and usually hit its first 100-degree day in early May, according to the weather service, which warned people: “Since we are not acclimated to this level of heat this early in the year, it will be more impactful than usual.”It has already started in Los Angeles with unusual 90-degree March weather that had people in shorts and tank tops seeking shade anywhere they could get it, even if it was as slender as a light post.Shane Dixon, 40, usually runs about 5 miles near his home in Culver City without much effort, he said, his face glistening with sweat and his T-shirt tucked into his shorts. But Thursday was hard because of the heat, and he had to cut it short.“The back of my neck was melting,” he said. But he preferred it to the cold and snow that will hit elsewhere.“I could go literally soak myself and walk out in the sun and I’ll make it home fine. If it was freezing cold I could not do this,” he said.
Single-digit cold invades North
Around the same time as the heat starts blasting Phoenix, the polar vortex a system that usually keeps frigid air penned up near the North Pole is forecast to send its chill deep into the Midwest and East, even bordering some of the Southeast, Maue saidMinneapolis will hover around zero for a low, and Chicago will be in the single digits Tuesday. The next day “temperatures in the teens and 20s in the northeast and 20s in the Mid-Atlantic,” Maue said. Even Atlanta could drop to the 20s.
One-two snowstorm punch
Two storm systems in a row one Friday, then another Sunday into Monday will chug along the country’s northern tier and Great Lakes and between them could dump 3 to 4 feet of snow in places, Maue said.That bigger second storm system will see its barometric pressure drop so quickly and sharply meaning it is intensifying and winds are strengthening that it will qualify as a bomb cyclone, which is quite unusual to develop over land. Normally bomb cyclones get their energy from warm ocean waters, but this one will draw power from the polar vortex.
Even Alaska and Hawaii aren’t quite right
Maue said Hawaii is getting an atmospheric river that will have such persistent heavy rain that flooding will be a major issue. Oahu is under a flash flood warning.And Alaska is normally frigid now, but it will be about 30 degrees colder than usual, he said.It is “the time of year where we can see stuff like this,” Chenard said. “But this does seem even anomalous from what you would typically see. I mean, some of these areas will be setting records. Record-high temperatures for March and maybe multiple times.”In the past week or so, tornadoes have killed at least eight people in Oklahoma, Michiganand Indiana. The forecast for severe storms doesn’t look as big or widespread for the next week, but dangerous thunderstorms could pop up “anywhere from the Mississippi Valley toward the East Coast” on Sunday or Monday, Chenard said.
The jet stream goes nuts
Underlying this is a jet stream gone wild, Maue and Chenard said.The jet stream is the river of air that moves weather from west to east on a roller-coaster-like path. Usually the plunges are as mild as a kiddie roller coaster. But now that jet stream is going on near-vertical, scream-inducing drops following by straight-up ascents.“Which means you get a lot of extremes next to each other,” Maue said. Storm fronts coming from the Pacific hit that high pressure heat dome in the Southwest and are pushed north to climb that mountainous jet stream peak, “grab access to that cold air reservoir up there” and bring it back down south down the other side of the hill, he said.Numerous studies have connected unusual jet stream and polar vortex activity to shrinking Arctic sea ice and human-caused climate change.But there is hope.“The first day of spring is 20th (of March), and then after that we get recovery,” Maue said.
Associated Press writer Dorany Pineda contributed.
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Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer
