The share of US homes without a mortgage jumped five percentage points from 2012 to 2022 to a record near 40%, Bloomberg reported.
More than half of those homeowners are at retirement age.
Historically high mortgage rates and home prices have kept many Americans sidelined from the market.
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The current US housing landscape is sidelining potential homebuyers, who are scared off by 8% mortgages and stubbornly high prices — but climbing interest rates aren’t a problem for the record number of Americans who own their homes without a mortgage.
The share of homeowners that are mortgage-free surged 5% between 2012 and 2022, Bloomberg reported Friday, citing data from the Census Bureau, hitting a new record just below 40%. In 2012, there were 7.9 million mortgage-free single-family homes and condos. Census data analyzed by Bloomberg show that the figure increased to 33.3 million over the subsequent decade.
Millions of Americans refinanced their mortgages before the recent rate spike, and some have done it multiple times over several decades. Lower rates of the past allowed many borrowers to enter shorter-term loans without radically increasing their monthly payments.
Then, many benefitted further when property values surged after the 2008 crisis.
More than half of mortgage-free homeowners are at retirement age. Without the burdens of a mortgage, some can move as they please. They’re moving from more expensive regions to the Sun Belt, where they are able to buy homes outright. Construction is booming in these states, and the share of mortgage-free homes is high. From the start of the pandemic in 2020 up to 2022, 29% of new homes built in the US were in Florida and Texas, two places that together saw 43% of homes owned outright, per Bloomberg.
As Business Insider reported, about 730,000 people moved to Florida between 2021 and 2022. It’s part of the “biggest migration” in a generation, said Holly Meyer Lucas, a real-estate agent in South Florida. Texas and Arizona, she added, have also seen an uptick, among other lower-tax states.
West Virginia, meanwhile, has the largest share of mortgage-free homes, at about 53%, Bloomberg reported. Zillow data cited by Bloomberg shows the median price there hit $157,498 in October, the lowest in the country.
This week, rates on the 30-year fixed mortgage hovered at 7.77%, the lowest level in roughly two months, tumbling as Treasury yields pull back from multi-year highs in November.
“Gridlock” in Congress is in part to blame for safety risks in the skies, aviation experts said.
The group, formed by the FAA, said insufficient funding is hampering the FAA.
“The FAA has insufficient resources to carry out its portfolio of responsibilities,” the report says.
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An independent team of experts formed by the Federal Aviation Administration has blamed “recurring gridlock” in Congress and insufficient industry funding for the growing safety risks in the skies.
The National Airspace System Safety Review Team sounded the alarm about aging FAA infrastructure and technology, air traffic controller staff shortages, and funding issues in a 52-page report released on Wednesday.
“These challenges, in the areas of process integrity, staffing, and facilities, equipment, and technology, all have ties to inadequate, inconsistent funding,” the report says. “Together, these challenges contribute to increased safety risk and should be regarded as incident precursors.”
The “current erosion in the margin of safety” in the United States’ aviation system “caused by the confluence of these challenges is rendering the current level of safety unsustainable,” the report said.
The six-member outside panel of aviation experts said in the report that years of disorder in Congress has posed significant challenges for the FAA, heightening safety risks.
“Recent Congresses have been plagued by recurring gridlock, which undermines the FAA’s ability to effectively perform its mission,” the report said.
The report continued, “This stop-and-start process in Congress has resulted in the disruption of critical activities, notably including the hiring and training of air traffic controllers.”
“It has also slowed down the implementation of key technology modernization programs, delayed thousands of flights, and held up billions of dollars of airport infrastructure investments. This situation makes it extremely difficult for the FAA to effectively conduct long-term business planning and execution,” the report said.
The expert team called for “urgent action” to be taken to address the risk in the nation’s aviation system and made a series of recommendations in the report, which focus on hiring, modernizing infrastructure, and “adequately and consistently funding” the FAA.
“At current funding levels, the FAA has insufficient resources to carry out its portfolio of responsibilities,” the report says.
FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker told Business Insider in a statement on Thursday that the agency “welcomes” the group’s report and that it “will thoroughly review the recommendations.”
“We appreciate the team’s time and expertise to help us pursue our goal of zero serious close calls,” Whitaker said.
The FAA established the independent safety review team, which includes former FAA administrator Michael Huerta, in April to “examine ways to enhance safety and reliability in the nation’s air traffic system” after several near-miss incidents between planes.
Two years ago, a farmer found three cattle dead and covered in a massive number of ticks.
The ticks turned out to be an invasive species, the Asian longhorned tick, newly established in Ohio.
The ticks reproduce asexually, so thousands can spring up quickly in new regions.
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In the summer of 2021, Risa Pesapane, an assistant professor of veterinary preventive medicine at Ohio State, got a call about three dead cattle on a farm in eastern Ohio, near the border of West Virginia. The farmer had never seen animals so infested with ticks, Pesapane told Insider.
In a recent paper, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Entomology, Pesapane and her colleagues documented the case, stating it was the first established population of Asian longhorned ticks in Ohio. But Ohio isn’t the first place these ticks have turned up.
ALTs are an invasive species native to East Asia. It’s been in the US since at least 2010 and found in at least 19 states, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
The 19 states where Asian longhorned ticks have been found, per the USDA. Note that the placement of the red star doesn’t indicate anything about where the ticks were found in the state.
Oleksandr Melnyk/iStock via Getty Images; Insider
“The tick will be a nuisance and it is spreading,” Kevin Lahmers, a clinical associate professor at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine, told Insider. “It will cover most of the eastern half of the US — that’s most likely.”
That’s a concern since these ticks not only pose a threat to livestock but, to a lesser extent, people too. “The reason that people are following the ticks so aggressively is because of concern for public health, not just animal health,” Lahmers said.
Thousands of Asian longhorned tick clones
When Pesapane and her colleagues showed up at the farm in Ohio, they used a drop cloth and lint roller to collect over 9,000 ticks from around the property in about an hour and a half.
“There were just thousands of ticks present,” she said. “I knew immediately that we were not dealing with a tick that we know to be native to the United States.”
“They just show up in such incredibly large numbers,” Joellen Lampman said. She’s an Extension Support Specialist in integrated pest management with Cornell University.
These ticks show up in such large numbers because they can reproduce asexually. None of the experts knew of any other tick species in the US that reproduces this way. On top of that, the ALT can “complete its life cycle in a shorter period of time than the ticks previously native to the United States,” Pesapane said.
So, if a female ALT gets transferred all by itself to a new location, it can still establish a new population. “She’s basically cloning herself,” Lampman said. All her offspring can then go on to lay between 1,000 and 2,000 eggs.
The curious case of the dead cattle
Asian longhorned ticks are tiny and can be difficult to distinguish between other species.
Risa Pesapane/Ohio State University
Pesapane and her colleagues suggest the Ohio cattle died from blood loss. However, Lahmers is more skeptical that blood loss, alone, was the culprit.
“It would take an awful lot of ticks in order to take enough blood from that animal to” kill it, Lahmers said, adding that because the cattle were buried before Pesapane arrived, it’s difficult to know for sure what killed them.
While Pesapane understands Lahmers’ concern, she said that USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service and studies in New Zealand also support the hypothesis that these ticks can cause death in livestock due to severe blood loss.
She added that it’s essential to understand the mechanism that kills livestock as the tick spreads. However, it’s been difficult to find carcasses to study because cattle owners typically bury them too quickly.
“Some [pathologists] have hypothesized that there may be an interaction between severe anemia and some sort of toxicosis from compounds in tick saliva, but this is just speculation until a study is conducted,” Pesapane said.
That said, the cattle’s death from another common tick-borne disease, Theileria orientalis, is unlikely since the farm’s remaining live cattle tested negative for it, per Pesapane’s study.
Lampman noted that similar cattle deaths have happened in North Carolina. “This is not an event that is unique and we’re going to see more of it, unfortunately.”
Asian longhorned ticks are hard to spot, contain, and kill
Tiny and brown, the ALT is hard to distinguish from other types of ticks, making it difficult to spot.
The ALT seems to thrive in tall grass and wooded areas. While existing pesticides will kill them, they need to come in direct contact with the ticks. “If the ticks are hiding deep down in leaf litter or in dense grass, the pesticides just aren’t going to reach,” Lampman said.
Controlling an ALT population would take re-application of a pesticide every five weeks, Pesapane said. That’s not feasible because the chemicals would affect the grass the cattle eat as well as any pollinators in the area.
Cattle are the preferred meal of Asian longhorned ticks.
Getty Images
Another challenge is that the ticks feed on a slew of different animals. All the experts agreed that animals like cattle and horses seem to be their favorite, but ALTs have been found on dozens of animals.
“It’s sort of tasting the buffet of all the new possible hosts in the United States, but it has some sort of tried and true favorites,” Pesapane said.
“We’re finding them on raccoons, skunks, possums,” in addition to deer, dogs, and birds, Lampman said.
Birds and other wildlife may help spread the ticks, especially locally, but Pesapane said moving livestock between states could also be a culprit. “There’s probably some combination of wild and domestic animals that are responsible for this” spread, she said.
Asian longhorned tick-borne diseases
In other countries, these invasive ticks spread several pathogens in humans and animals. Right now, they mainly seem to be a threat to animals, but they could potentially transmit diseases to humans, too, Pesapane said.
For example, Pesapane has seen several cases of the disease Theileria orientalis Ikeda in livestock. It causes jaundice and anemia and lowers milk production. Pregnant, infected cows can also lose their fetuses.
“Theileria orientalis Ikeda was not known or not widespread in the United States before this tick,” Pesapane said.
This type of Theileria isn’t a risk to humans or most other species, Lahmers said. However, the ticks can pass on other pathogens.
While it doesn’t seem effective for passing on Lyme disease, the tick has been shown to transmit other human diseases in lab settings. They include Rocky Mountain spotted fever, Heartland virus, and Powassan virus.
Powassan is currently rare but is increasing. With Lyme disease, transmission takes hours. Ticks can pass Powassan on in just 15 minutes, according to the Yale School of Public Health.
“I’m very, very concerned about Powassan virus,” Lampman said. “Here’s a potentially fatal disease that can get transmitted within minutes. We just don’t want to get bit by ticks.”
When it comes to staying safe from the ALT, the advice is the same as with other ticks, like covering up bare skin and wearing permethrin-treated clothing. Lampman cites the Swiss cheese method: “The more things that you do, the less likely you are to be bit by a tick.”
Pesapane also notes that the ticks seem to love biting dogs, so it’s important to protect pets, too.
For livestock, the approach is also similar to dealing with other types of ticks. Pesapane recommends checking animals for ticks, treating infected animals, and maintaining pastures.
All three experts urged people to reach out to their state universities or local agriculture departments if they see an unusual tick.
Bank of America changed its Fed outlook on Tuesday after a softer-than-expected CPI report.
Strategists wrote that they believe the rate-hiking cycle is now over.
October CPI came in at 3.2% year-over-year, down from 3.7% in September.
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October’s softer-than-expected inflation reading prompted Bank of America on Tuesday to change its outlook on further interest rate increases, with strategists declaring that the Federal Reserve’s rate hiking cycle is over.
Inflation in October came in at 3.2% year-over-year, down from 3.7% in September and the lowest reading since June. Core inflation, meanwhile, accelerated 4% year-over-year, also below the consensus forecast.
In its note on Tuesday, the bank called the report “the straw that broke the hiking cycle’s back.” Before this week, the bank had argued that Fed officials were leaning toward a no-hike move in December, though it still adopted a “wait and see” approach with incoming data. Tuesday’s benign reading affirmed that forecast, in the bank’s view.
“Therefore, we have changed our Fed call,” the strategists said. “We now think that the hiking cycle is over. Markets agree: at the time of this writing, they are pricing less than a 10% probability of another hike.”
Bank of America said that it would take a significant re-acceleration in inflation for the Fed to resume hiking its benchmark rate in 2024, a scenario that does not fall within the firm’s base case.
The strategists expect cuts to begin in June 2024, and move at a pace of one cut per quarter.
“The October CPI report is undeniably good news,” strategists maintained. “However, we must remember that September was bad news and that monthly inflation data can be very choppy. That said, we have seen significant disinflation to date, which is good news for the Fed. The path forward is likely to remain bumpy, but we do think that further disinflation is likely over the coming years.
The stock market, meanwhile, reflected BofA’s optimism.
By midday in New York, the S&P 500 had climbed 1.8%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 1.46%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq was up more than 2%.
Fairlead Strategies’ Katie Stockton on Tuesday said the S&P 500’s strong gains over the last several days point to bullish seasonality, and that the index should push higher as the year winds down.
“The S&P 500 confirmed its breakout above minor resistance from the daily cloud model yesterday in a positive short-term technical catalyst,” Stockton said. “The breakout increases the likelihood of a test of more important resistance near 4,600 between now and year-end.”
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Black Friday, the biggest deals event of the year, is set for November 24. But Amazon is getting in on the festivities early. The online retailer will officially launch its Black Friday sale on November 17, and you can already snag some early Amazon Black Friday deals right now.
Last year’s top Amazon Black Friday deals included all-time low prices on tech, gaming, furniture, kitchen, apparel, beauty, and more. We expect to see much of the same once November 17 rolls around, but if you want to get some shopping in now, Amazon is offering some sweet discounts ahead of its official sale. From getting 50% off the new Fire TV Stick 4K to an excellent discount on a Spiralizer vegetable slicer, there’s plenty of savings to score ahead of Black Friday. You can even get $60 off a bundle with the brand-new slim version of the PS5.
Below, we’re rounding up the best early Amazon Black Friday deals to help you find great discounts right now. Keep scrolling to learn more about what to expect from Amazon’s Black Friday sale, along with other helpful advice to get you ready for November 17. And for more holiday shopping coverage, check out our full roundup of all the best Black Friday deals.
Apple’s 2021 9th-gen 10.2-inch iPad is an absolute steal at $249 for the 64GB model. With a gorgeous screen, high-end design, and support for Apple Pencil, most people will be happy to own this tablet, especially at this lowered price.
Amazon’s latest Fire TV Stick 4K has an upgraded processor, Wi-FI 6 support, and more storage space. This is the best deal we’ve seen on the new 2023 model.
Amazon’s latest Fire TV Cube offers 4K streaming support, hands-free Alexa, an HDMI input, and video upscaling. This deal price matches what we saw on Prime Day.
The brand-new slim version of the PS5 is already available in a discounted bundle with Spider-Man 2. At this deal price, you’re basically getting the game for free. And in a addition to a smaller design, this redesign of the PS5 includes a larger 1TB hard drive so you can store more games.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 is still brand new, much like the PS5 Slim, and yet here we are, looking at a $60 discount at launch. Actually, you’re saving ten bucks on top of that given the new COD is $70 at retail.
As one of Sony’s best controllers to date, the DualSense for PS5 feels great in the hands and features next-gen haptic feedback. It’s rare to find one on sale, and this deal matches the best price we’ve seen.
This simple Keurig coffee maker supports six, eight, and 10 ounce K-Cups, and comes with a removable 36 ounce water reservoir. If you’re a K-Cup fanatic, this is the perfect single-serve machine. Every color option except gray is back down to the lowest price we’ve ever seen.
The Ninja Foodi DualZone Air Fryer is the 8-quart version of our favorite large-capacity air fryer. It features two baskets, so you can cook an entree and sides simultaneously. At nearly $70 off, this is the best price we’ve seen since last year at this time.
The 8-quart model from Chefman can feed a medium-sized household with crispy fries, juicy wings, and anything else you dream of air frying. This deal price matches what we saw during last year’s Black Friday sales, and you can get an additional $15 off by clicking the coupon on Amazon’s listing page.
Hisense’s U6K is one of the best budget TVs you can buy. The 4K display boasts quantum dots, local dimming, and a Mini LED backlight to deliver better contrast and color performance than most competitors in its price range. This is the lowest price yet and an absolute steal for a TV like this.
The Omni Series isn’t the best when it comes to picture quality but boasts handy smart TV features like hands-free Alexa support and video calling (camera sold separately), along with the latest Fire TV software. The 43-inch model is $120 off right now, which is the lowest price we’ve seen since Prime Day over the summer.
Though people who sleep in various positions have positive things to say about it, the Leesa Mattress provides an exceptional balance of comfort and support for stomach-sleepers. This is the lowest we’ve seen it priced since last Cyber Monday.
The Tempur-Pedic body pillow is the best for back pain that our body pillow expert tested. It’s versatile and supportive, with a firmness ideal for heavier people. It’s currently $72 off on Amazon, not the lowest price we’ve seen but close.
Whether you’re recovering from an intense workout or just want to soothe your typical aches and pains, the Mebak 3 is a quiet and versatile massage gun to help you out. It comes with seven different attachments to help target your problem areas. Clip the on-page coupon to bring it down to $80, matching deals we’ve seen for it in the past.
Clip the on-page coupon
From squash to the ever-popular zucchini, the Spiralizer Seven-Blade Vegetable Slicer will make quick work of your produce with little waste. It typically sells for around $24, so this is an excellent deal price.
The 15-inch MacBook Air (2023) gives you more screen space without breaking the bank. This 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD base model is just $50 more than its an all-time low price.
With powerful hardware and a vibrantly bright screen, the Dell G15 is one of the best budget gaming laptops on the market. Right now the RTX 4050 model, which can play nearly any game at high settings, is down to an all-time low price. An already great deal gets even better.
Counting down the days to Christmas is always more fun with an advent calendar, and this one is perfect for little lovers of Lego. Down to a new all-time low, this is an excellent deal price to get one at before December.
For the adult in your life who loves Lego, this replica of the Pyramid of Giza is a beautifully designed set that will be fun to put together and an excellent display piece afterward. This deal price is the best we’ve seen on it so far.
These Soundcore earbuds already offered great sound quality and water-resistance for a low price, but this deal will fit into even the tightest budgets.
This Anker power bank can charge nearly any device quickly, and holds enough power to fully recharge a MacBook Pro. This sale price matches the best deal we’ve ever seen for this model. Note: You need to be an Amazon Prime member in order to access this discount.
Most hand mixers have motors in the 100- to 150-watt range, but the Cuisinart Power Advantage Plus 9-Speed Handheld Mixer packs 220 watts of power. It’s not uncommon to find on sale, but this is an especially good deal for it.
Amazon Black Friday 2023: What to expect
Amazon has left us no time to breathe between sales this year; with Prime Day in July and Prime Big Deal Days in October, Black Friday will be its third major deal event of 2023. However, that doesn’t mean you should expect any less from the massive retailer — in fact, we expect this will be its best sale so far.
Amazon’s Black Friday event will be a huge affair, with discounts across the board. That includes home goods, furniture, tech, gaming, smart home, kitchen, fashion, beauty, and much more. It’s the perfect time to shop for yourself, your family, and friends.
Ahead of the event, the retailer has already announced some key Amazon Black Friday deals to look out for this year, including up to 70% off Echo device bundles, up to 44% off Ninja kitchen appliances, up to 30% off Lancome beauty products, and up to 30% off Dyson vacuums.
When is Amazon’s Black Friday sale?
Black Friday lands on November 24 this year. However, Amazon has announced that it will launch its Black Friday sale early on November 17. And though that’s when we expect to find the best deals, you can already snag some great discounts on popular products right now.
Is Black Friday better than Prime Day?
Black Friday is better than Prime Day in just about every way. Because it’s a multi-retailer event and not just an Amazon-specific one, brands big and small jump on participating. That means incredible low prices not only from Amazon, but from competing stores and its small business sellers too.
So, as great as Prime Day was this year, you can expect to see even more fanfare for Black Friday.
Do you need to be a Prime member to shop Black Friday at Amazon?
Unlike Prime Day, Black Friday is not a sale locked only to Prime members. However, we highly recommend considering at least a trial of the subscription service. Members get tons of Amazon Prime benefits, including free two-day shipping. And Prime members can now register early for invite-only deals on popular items like Blink security cameras. It’s a way to sweeten the Black Friday shopping experience, especially with holiday stock shortages and shipping delays sure to come.
Luckily, first-timers can get a month of Prime for free. If you don’t plan on signing up for the service in full, hopping on the trial when it will overlap with Black Friday is a handy way to lock in free shipping for all of your deal shopping.
As a Tech Deals and Streaming Reporter for Insider’s Reviews team, Sarah covers the latest movie and series releases along with the best sales on products we recommend. Prior to joining Insider Inc., she was a Deals Writer at Wirecutter, a New York Times company. After graduating from California State University, Fullerton with a degree in Marketing, Sarah started out as a Freelance Deals Writer at Wirecutter; there she focused on newsletter creation, social media promotion, and syndication in addition to deals writing before stepping into a full-time role. Her accomplishments from this position, in addition to the countless deals she’s written, include implementing multiple social media marketing campaigns and launching a Deals Facebook group for the company. Say hi (or send a picture of your pet) to Sarah at ssaril@insider.com, or reach her on Twitter at @sarahhahr or on Instagram at @lord_ponty. Learn more about how our team of experts tests and reviews products at Insider here. Learn more about how we research deals.
A lion escaped from a circus in Italy on Saturday and spent several hours on the loose.
Residents were warned to stay at home until the lion was captured.
The town’s mayor used the incident to call for an end to the use of animals in circuses.
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A lion spent more than five hours roaming the streets of an Italian town on Saturday after escaping from a circus.
Residents of Ladispoli, a seaside town near Rome, were warned by the local mayor, Alessandro Grando, to stay at home as police and circus workers attempted to catch the lion.
Videos seemingly shot by locals show the eight-year-old lion prowling along dark streets.
🦁Oggi un leone è scappato da un circo a Ladispoli!
Quinta fuga di un animale detenuto in un circo in un anno.
È ora di dire basta agli “spettacoli” con animali e che nessuno faccia male al leone! @g_sangiuliano altrui legge delega sul riordino dello spettacolo in tempi brevi! pic.twitter.com/BVGJvh9c5O
A police helicopter eventually tracked the lion to a field using an infrared camera, La Repubblica reported. Authorities continued to monitor the animal until vets were able to sedate it.
In a second Facebook post, Grando confirmed that the lion had been “sedated and captured” and would be returned to circus staff.
He also used the incident to call for an end to the use of animals in circuses.
“I hope that this episode can stir some consciences and that we can finally put an end to the exploitation of animals in circuses,” he wrote.
Local media said investigations into what happened would be carried out, but the circus operators suggested that the lion may have been released intentionally.
“We are victims of sabotage. We found the cage open and someone saw three people fleeing on foot,” they said, per La Repubblica.
Eight US states had “banned or restricted the use of wild animals” in travelling circuses as of 2022, according to the Animal Legal Defense Fund.
China’s bid to provide stimulus through increased bond issuance has led to a cash crunch, Bloomberg reported.
This week, banks issued a form of short-term debt at the highest volume on record.
Last week, some smaller lenders had to borrow short-term cash at a 50% rate.
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China’s latest effort to support economic growth has unintentionally fueled a massive cash crunch, creating chaos in its financial markets, Bloomberg reported.
In a rare move, Beijing approved a mid-year budget adjustment last month that enabled the sale of $137 billion in sovereign bonds. The measure was meant to ease debt burdens on the country’s local governments and offer stimulus amid economic turmoil.
But the flood of bond sales, including those by local governments, soaked up a huge amount of liquidity, and onshore lenders have since rushed to counteract the crunch by scrambling to raise cash.
This week, banks issued a form of short-term debt at a record pace. Lenders have doubled the sale of these so-called negotiable certificates of deposit to more than 1 trillion yuan, or about $137 billion, according to Bloomberg.
Even state-backed lender Industrial & Commercial Bank of China sold a six-month note at the highest yield this year.
And last week, some smaller banks were forced to borrow cash at a short-term rate of 50% on October 31 due to the liquidity squeeze. The spike also came as banks had to square their books before the month ended, Reuters reported.
In response, the People’s Bank of China has signaled plans to support liquidity through a number of monetary approaches. Ideas include the reduction of in lender reserve requirements and adding cash through open market operations.
Cash concerns add to a lengthy list of issues plaguing China’s financial markets this year. Low growth, a real estate crash, immense debt, and an exodus of foreign investors’ capital have all been running themes since Beijing lifted pandemic restrictions a year ago.
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Across the globe, some office workers woke up this morning, look a big sip of coffee, fired up the laptop, and were hit with a horrible surprise.
Slack looks like a carnival of distraction and chaos — a hideous Grimace-purple rail on the left side that now tracks every “activity.” (Someone giving a thumbs up emoji to one of your posts, for example.)
Slack, of course, is a productivity and chat app owned by Salesforce and used by many workplaces, including at Insider. Today, it revealed a redesign that changes the layout of DMs and notifications for the desktop and mobile versions.
Here at Insider, some of the reactions range from “this ‘activity’ button is going to drive me bananas!” to “IT IS THE WORST UGH.” (Although I’m sure there are some people out there who like it, too.)
Personally, it feels dizzying — like my eyes don’t know where to go; like it’s designed for anti-productivity.
Slack’s website says a redesign debuted back in August, but that it’s been rolling out slowly across its users. Based on the reaction on social media, it seems a big crop of users got the new look over the last day.
“At first glance, Slack may look pretty different from what you’re used to seeing,” the company admits on its FAQ.
I’m sure we’ll all eventually get used to it. There was a big Slack redesign back in 2020 and we all seem to have come through OK.
In the meantime, please be kind to your local white-collar workers today. They’re suffering. Be gentle asking if they’ve hit their ROIs on their KPIs, and please, don’t “bump” them asking to “circle back.” We’re going through it.
A girl presumed killed in the Hamas terrorist attacks on October 7 is likely alive, her father says.
Thomas Hand previously said he was “relieved” the eight year old, was dead, rather than a Hamas hostage.
But it has now been suggested that she is could be one of more than 240 Hamas hostages in Gaza.
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A father who expressed relief his daughter was dead because being held hostage by Hamas was “worse than death” has discovered the eight-year-old is likely alive and has been abducted to Gaza.
In the aftermath of the attack on Kibbutz Be’eri in southern Israel, Irish-Israeli Thomas Hand told CNN he had been told his daughter Emily was dead and that he was relieved to hear the news.
“I went ‘yes!’ I went ‘yes!’ and smiled,” he said while fighting back tears. “Because that is the best news of the possibilities that I knew.”
“She was either dead or in Gaza. And if you know anything about what they do to people in Gaza, that is worse than death.”
Hand said that now that he knew she was alive, the focus was on getting her home safely.
“Our mindset changed immediately. We realized that we had to shift our approach. The mourning has ended, and now we must do everything to bring her back home,” Hand told Israeli outlet Ynet.
This is 8-year-old Emily Hand of Kibbutz Beeri. Her father Tom told CNN how he was relieved when he heard she was murdered, since the alternative is absolute hell.
This week his nightmare just got worse when he learned she was indeed kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza pic.twitter.com/Q8I39Mr43j
The outlet noted that the reports of her death did not come from official sources and that she was officially listed as missing as her body was never recovered.
Hand said: “We were told that in the house where she was, no blood of hers was found anywhere, nor was any found nearby. In fact, no sign was discovered that suggests she is not alive, so they assume that she was kidnapped alive to Gaza and is there now.”
Hamas is believed to have kidnapped over 240 people and taken them to Gaza during the surprise attack that killed around 1,400 people in southern Israel.
Israel has retaliated with a ground invasion of Gaza and bombarding the enclave with an intense campaign of air strikes, which has killed over 10,000 people, per the health ministry.
Israeli officials have said they will not agree to a cease-fire until all hostages are released. So far, Hamas has released four hostages.
