Seyfarth Synopsis: The 2025 New York State budget includes a provision that reduces the potential damages available to plaintiffs for violation of the weekly pay requirement of the New York Labor Law. As discussed here, New York employers have been bedeviled in recent years by class action claims for violation of the Labor Law’s weekly-pay requirement for “manual workers.” This flood of litigation resulted from the decision in Vega v.…
John Chambers, founder and CEO of JC2 Ventures and the former CEO and chairman of Cisco Systems for more than 20 years, grew Cisco to nearly $50 billion in annual revenues, helping companies around the world transform by leveraging the internet. On this episode of the At the Edge podcast, he joins host and McKinsey Senior Partner Lareina Yee to discuss the urgent need for companies to adopt AI and what this…
Stanford Live has announced its 2025-26 season, Amplifying Voices, with more than 60 planned performances spanning music, dance, theater, spoken word, film, and comedy. It will be the first season led by Iris Nemani, the newly appointed McMurtry Family Director of Stanford Live. “These artists will not only entertain,” said Nemani, “but also challenge, teach, and strengthen our community with their stories, their perspectives, and their passion.” The performances, featuring…
May 8, 2025 – Seyfarth Shaw LLP represented programmatic joint venture comprised of Bain Capital Real Estate and Oliver Street Capital in the acquisition of a strategically located infill industrial portfolio in Northern New Jersey, further strengthening the joint venture’s presence in one of the most supply-constrained and high-demand warehouse markets in the United States. Bain Capital Real Estate and Oliver Street Capital acquired the portfolio for approximately $208 million.…
The fact is that the changing balance of power on a global scale and the inability of previous leaders to maintain their positions causes a fundamental restructuring of the international order. It has become a common opinion in recent years. It is difficult to argue with its validity: first of all, because the power base has really changed – there is no longer a group of countries in the world…
Russia is to hold a parade on Friday to celebrate the 80th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War. The main point of parades is not the parade itself, but to move on to the future world we want to build after the parade. This is what both Russia and China are doing, with their leaders, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, meeting in Moscow during the celebrations. Both…
About 1.8 billion people in the world don’t get enough exercise. Physical inactivity is a global problem—but there are solutions. That’s one of the big themes in Sporting Goods 2025, a report published by McKinsey in partnership with the World Federation of the Sporting Goods Industry (WFSGI). This fifth edition of the annual report is titled, “The new balancing act: Turning uncertainty into opportunity.” In a recent webinar, four of…
Introduction OSHA duty officers around the country routinely field complaints from employees and labor unions alleging workplaces are understaffed and unsafe. Unions often dispute staffing levels, complaining that employers have insufficient bargaining unit members and insufficient members with seniority. Individual complainants allege that they are left to work alone, have no backup in case of emergency, or are at enhanced risk of accident or workplace violence. OSHA duty officers normally…
Quick Hits Minnesota’s legislative session will conclude with an omnibus bill introducing significant proposed changes to labor and employment laws, with more developments expected by the end of the session on May 19, 2025. A provision in the omnibus bill would mandate that Minnesota employers provide a thirty-minute meal break for employees working six or more consecutive hours and a fifteen-minute rest break every four hours, with penalties for noncompliance.…
Excellent governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) is a common aspiration, but how often is it a reality? For most companies, GRC is a work in progress, according to McKinsey’s 2025 Global GRC Benchmarking Survey (see sidebar, “Our survey methodology”). Despite efforts to broaden expertise at senior levels, corporate leaders see a “need for improvement” across numerous aspects of all three GRC pillars. There are many reasons for GRC shortfalls, some…
In a time marked by anxiety, division and disconnection, the path forward lies not in fixing the past but in expanding our freedom to imagine what’s next. In this episode of Learning Through Experience, Dr. Heidi Brooks is joined by Suzi Tucker, a writer, teacher and pioneer of Family Constellations work. Together, they explore how our personal and ancestral stories shape the patterns we repeat—and how stepping into those patterns…
A nationwide collaboration led by Stanford’s Big Local News and Stanford University Libraries contributed to a 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, awarded to Alissa Zhu, Nick Thieme, and Jessica Gallagher of The Baltimore Banner, working in partnership with The New York Times Local Investigations Fellowship.Their investigative series examined the devastating toll of Baltimore’s fentanyl crisis, with a focus on older Black men. The Pulitzer committee praised the reporting as…
Since the Easter Weekend, Marks & Spencer (M&S), one the United Kingdom’s biggest high street retailers, has been managing the fallout of a cyber-attack on its business operations. This has forced the company to suspend online orders, led to shortages on shelves, increased working demands on staff, and wiped £750m off the share value. Left: Dr Patricia Esteve-Gonzalez. Right: Luna Rohland. Even three weeks later, there is still no indication…
Upstream oil and gas producers and oilfield service companies are facing new uncertainties from recently imposed federal tariffs. In early 2025, the US expanded tariffs on a broad range of imports, suddenly increasing costs for critical equipment and materials. These abrupt governmental actions raise a pivotal question for the industry: Can newly imposed tariffs qualify as force majeure events under Texas law, thereby excusing delays or non-performance in oil and…
For years, McKinsey has tracked the steady rise of female-controlled assets and analyzed its potential implications in the United States and in Europe. McKinsey recently surveyed more than 13,000 US and European investors, of whom almost half were female financial decision-makers. The team also interviewed wealth managers in the United States and Europe to better understand the challenges involved in attracting and retaining female clients. The survey and interview responses…
Today, the central commemorative event of Victory Day celebrations in Russia is the military parade. The main parade traditionally takes place on Red Square in Moscow, with additional military parades being held simultaneously in numerous other cities across the Russian Federation. Historically, the first Victory Parade took place on Red Square one and a half months after the end of the war in Europe – on June 24, 1945. It…
People are asked to update the operating systems on their phones all the time. What if leaders applied that same kind of polishing and bug fixing to themselves? McKinsey research shows that executives who periodically review and revise their priorities, roles, time, and energy tend to be more productive, work more consciously, and drive change more effectively. In this episode of The McKinsey Podcast, McKinsey Senior Partner Arne Gast joins McKinsey…
On April 16, 2025, the Government of Ontario announced that it was launching the $50M Ontario Together Trade Fund (OTTF) to support Ontario’s small and medium businesses with near-term investments to better serve interprovincial customers, develop new interprovincial markets and reshore critical supply chains in response to U.S. tariffs. On April 23, 2025, the Government of Ontario published guidelines (the Guidelines) to assist applicants with submitting their application to the…
The biopharmaceutical industry is experiencing a surge in demand for large molecules, driven by advances in biotechnology and the need for innovative treatments for complex diseases. With an annual growth rate of around 6 percent, the sector's role in global healthcare is more critical than ever. However, existing production capacities are struggling to keep up, even though the pharmaceutical industry is spending around $57 billion every year on new facilities.…
In this year’s Citizenship in the 21st Century course, students explored political differences by talking openly with each other.It sounds simple. But in a world where polarization is deep and emotions are high, finding spaces for meaningful conversations across divides can be difficult. What if it didn’t have to be?Providing students with the setting and the skills to engage in rigorous, intellectual discussions on topics that can be contentious –…
Today, we revisit one of our most thought-provoking conversations, this time with Dr. Megan Ma. Since she joined us on the podcast, Dr. Ma has co-founded and become the Executive Director of the Stanford Legal Innovation through Frontier Technology Lab—otherwise known as liftlab. With a rich background in political science, economics, health law, and economic law, Dr. Ma brings a truly interdisciplinary lens to the future of legal education and…
Quick Hits President Trump nominated Brittany Panuccio, an assistant U.S. attorney in Florida, to serve as an EEOC commissioner. The EEOC currently has only two commissioners, one less than needed for a quorum. Once the EEOC has a quorum, it will be able to engage in rulemaking, policymaking, and issuing (and, in some instances, rescinding) official guidance that advances the administration’s agenda. By statute, the EEOC is composed of five…
On April 29, 2025, The U.S. President signed a Proclamation and an Executive Order providing some relief from the 25 per cent tariffs on imported auto parts and automobiles, effective retroactively from April 3, 2025. These measures offer some temporary tariff relief in the form of an “import adjustment offset” for parts used in vehicles assembled in the United States. The new adjustments follow Canada's recent measures to aid Canadian…
As we approach a major anniversary, 80 years since the defeat of fascism, a strange silence hangs over my country, Macedonia, and the broader region we now call the “territory of former Yugoslavia.” National authorities have been under sustained external (Western) pressure for years: May 9 must no longer be associated with the victory over fascism. Year after year, in both public memory and the education system, May 9 has…
8 May 2025By Oscar Arce, Agostino Consolo, António Dias da Silva and Marco WeisslerForeign workers play an increasingly important role in the euro area labour markets. This ECB blog analyses the effects migrants had on growth across the largest countries in recent years. It also discusses changing labour market participation patterns among foreign workers.Sluggish productivity growth and weak capital accumulation have hampered post-pandemic recovery in the euro area.[1] Amid this…
May 1st is International Workers’ Day. Hooray! I don’t know about you, but I am so thankful and grateful for my overseas team members. They are the wheels that keep this company moving forward! Now that that’s out of my system, let’s talk about you. Whether you have remote international workers, or local workers who are remote or hybrid, this flexible work option can create some problems for your culture…
Latin America is consolidating as the world’s fastest-growing and most profitable region for insurance. Insights from McKinsey’s Global Insurance Report 2025 find that while it accounts for just 3 percent of the world’s insurance market, gross written premiums grew at 11 percent annually from 2019 to 2024, and the region retains significant room to grow. Penetration levels across Latin America remain lower than in other major markets (Exhibit 1). Claim levels have…
Resilience is critical in today’s organizations, given the state of uncertainty and permacrisis in which most teams and individuals operate. Yet McKinsey research suggests that many leaders and organizations aren’t spending enough time building that resilience. A full 84 percent of leaders report feeling underprepared for future disruptions, and 60 percent of board members say their companies are not ready for the next major event. Discussions with global CEOs reveal…
Women with certain variants of the genes BRCA1 and BRCA2 have a high risk of developing ovarian and breast cancer. These women are recommended to have their ovaries and fallopian tubes removed at a relatively early age – between the ages 35 and 40 years for BRCA1 carriers, and between the ages 40 and 45 for BRCA2 carriers.Previously, BSO has been shown to lead to an 80% reduction in the…
In June 2022, Health Canada introduced new nutrition labelling regulations for prepackaged foods. A key feature of these regulations is the mandatory use of a front-of-package (FOP) nutrition symbol on products high in saturated fat, sugars, or sodium. This symbol is intended to help Canadians quickly identify less healthy food options, encouraging informed choices and reducing health risks associated with overconsumption of these nutrients. Although the regulations came into effect…
If you’ve ever been denied a promotion or award you believed you earned, you know the sting can linger—as can the glow of unexpectedly receiving recognition. In fact, such instances of misrecognition may influence how you evaluate others in the future, according to new research from Yale SOM’s Tristan L. Botelho, with co-authors Mabel Abraham of Columbia and James T. Carter of Cornell. The researchers found that, whether positive…
A team of patients, clinicians, researchers and charity representatives, led by the University of Cambridge and the British Society of Audiology, surveyed over 550 people who are deaf or have hearing loss about their experiences with the NHS – making it the largest study of its kind. Their findings, reported in the journal PLOS One, highlight systemic failures and suggest changes and recommendations for improving deaf-aware communication in the NHS.“The…
Now that the second quarter of 2025 is fully underway, it is increasingly evident that China’s consumer market has settled into a “new reality” characterized by single-digit consumption growth. Citing Chinese consumers’ “lack of confidence” and “trading down” behavior, market analysts continue to raise a series of challenging questions: Have pockets of growth narrowed? Has lower sentiment dampened spending intent? Our latest research reveals that, while challenges do remain, the…
It appears that the Victory of May 8th and 9th in France is more and more viewed by the present generations as a US victory, as if memory and history had been defeated by another, more powerful, level of “consciousness”: fame, Olivier Roqueplo writes. May 9th is Victory Day in Russia and it should unite most Europeans. But unfortunately, even in victorious France, history, real memory and the public imagination…
In the “Research Matters” series, we visit labs across campus to hear directly from Stanford scientists about what they’re working on, how it could advance human health and well-being, and why universities are critical players in the nation’s innovation ecosystem. The following are Justin and Erica Sonnenberg’s own words, edited and condensed for clarity. Their responses have been combined into a unified voice, with their approval.When we first joined microbiome…
May 5, 2025 – Seyfarth Shaw LLP has appointed Giovanna (“Gina”) Ferrari as chair of the firm’s Litigation Department and Andrew Lucano as the next Corporate Department chair. “Gina and Andrew are outstanding leaders whose appointments reflect Seyfarth’s commitment to deepening client service, strengthening collaboration, and advancing our strategic growth,” said Lorie Almon, chair and managing partner of Seyfarth. “As we continue to expand the breadth and depth of the…
On May 1, 2025, the province expanded “strong mayor” powers and duties to a further 169 municipalities in Ontario, identified as those single and lower-tier municipalities with councils of six members or more. This means that out of the 444 municipalities in Ontario, almost half of them will be subject to strong mayor powers. Prior to the most recent amendments, a total of 46 municipalities in the province had permanently…
The popular yarns about “work from home” and “return to the office” tend to be absolutist. First, there’s the notion that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, everyone was in the office every day. Next, the idea is that during and after the pandemic, no one went in at all. Lately, the story goes that offices are packing up to the rafters yet again. The truth, underscored by the findings from…
On May 6, 2025, the Valdai Club presented a Valdai Paper titled “Immortal Letters of Victory” on the eve of the 80th anniversary of the Soviet people’s victory in the Second World War. It included previously unpublished handwritten materials from the war – fragments of the front-line diary of Guard Sergeant Petr Nosov, letters from partisan Tamara Avalyan, orphanage worker Nina Mayer, and senior lieutenant Vasily Lazarevsky. Oleg Barabanov, the moderator…
The telecommunications (telco) industry has become an indispensable driver of economic growth worldwide. Mobile phones have transcended their traditional role as communication devices and developed into powerful tools that drive social and economic progress. From facilitating remote education and healthcare to empowering small businesses and boosting agricultural productivity, the impact of mobile technology is far-reaching—and expanding—especially in Africa. While African operators face headwinds, including regulatory complexities and infrastructure gaps, the…