Cowboy Who?

CAMBRIDGE, MA—Suggesting the reversal of a longstanding historical trend towards urbanization, a report published Tuesday by researchers at Harvard University revealed that more Americans were moving away from cities to pursue a rural life where they have an escalating feud with a beaver. “Our findings indicate there has been a 15% increase in Americans who trade the hustle and bustle of metropolitan life for an agrestic existence in which they dismantle a small beaver dam on their property, leading the determined rodent to seek retribution,” said the report’s lead author, Keith Rawlings, noting that rising rents and concerns about crime had driven even long-term city dwellers to purchase a secluded woodland home whose walls, cabinets, and tables would ultimately be gnawed into a series of elaborate booby traps by the vengeful beaver and his family. “More U.S. citizens are leaving behind the nightlife and cultural events of large urban centers, preferring to spend their disposable income on a faulty beaver-trapping kit, an eccentric exterminator who will end up poisoning himself, and a two-barrel shotgun they will use to destroy their remaining possessions in a desperate pursuit of the elusive semiaquatic mammal. While many say they miss the convenience and variety of cities, they nonetheless prefer a country life in which they realize the beaver would make the perfect mascot for the big ad campaign they’ve been working on and ultimately learn to live in peace with the creature.” Rawlings added that, by contrast, a relatively negligible number of Americans were choosing to leave rural areas in pursuit of an urban life in which they befriend a wise-cracking pigeon.

The post Report: More Americans Moving Away From Urban Areas For Rural Life Where They Have Escalating Feud With Beaver appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—Slumping back in their chairs and whining at the sight of intravenous lines in their bruised arms, a pale Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. reportedly asked their Uncle Elon on Friday when they could stop giving him blood. “We’re tired, Uncle Elon—tired and hungry,” said Eric, the younger of the Trump boys, who began to pick at the medical tape adhering the needle to his skin, only to have a DOGE aide to slap at his hand. “You said we could drink Gatorade and watch Harley Quinn on the iPad, but now we’re too dizzy to pay attention. When is the blood harvesting going to be over? Uncle Elon, we don’t even have any more bloods [sic] left to give.” At press time, reports confirmed the Trump boys were left covered in blood after their Uncle Elon popped.

The post Pale Trump Boys Ask When They Can Stop Giving Uncle Elon Blood appeared first on The Onion.

As the trade war heats up, Canada has imposed 25% retaliatory tariffs on billions of dollars of U.S. goods. Here are all the other ways Canada is fighting back:

Dramatically paring back supply of fictional girlfriends

Going shelf to shelf to boo imported American groceries

Selling us syrup from their worst-tasting maple trees

Aiming all snowblowers in direction of U.S. border

Raising legal drinking age to 37 for American tourists

Whittling their own Big Macs

Boycotting Canadian vacation hubs like Oshkosh and Duluth

Activating Dan Aykroyd

Not letting in any draft dodgers next year

The post How Canadians Are Fighting Back Against U.S. Tariffs appeared first on The Onion.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s four answers to four questions. Here we go…

1. Should people be fired for big, public mistakes?

I’m curious about your thoughts on Major League Baseball’s recent blunder. They released a new series of hats that have the logo imposed on top of the team location. For the Texas Rangers, they did not think through the word they would create.

Tetas is a slang word for breasts in Spanish. If you were managing a team that let this slip through, how would you handle it? Would people be fired for something like this?

I’m not a fan of firing people for single mistakes in their work (conduct is in a different category), unless there’s something about the mistake that goes to their fundamental fitness for the job. If someone was already struggling, sure, this could easily be the final straw — but if the person responsible was otherwise doing a good job and you were happy with their work previously, there’s no point in firing someone for one blunder (even a big one). In fact, if the person is generally conscientious, there’s a good chance that they’re now more valuable to you than they were a month ago because they just learned a massive lesson that’s likely to stick with them and be incorporated into their work going forward.

Also, with this kind of mistake, there were presumably many people who signed off on the design and should have caught it before it was finalized. It points to a need to change their processes so it can’t happen again, not to firing a dozen people for missing it.

2. Managing a former friend

I am struggling in my current toxic workplace and I’m keen to get a new job, but opportunities in my niche technical field and local area are rare. One such job has come up this week and whilst it’s not directly what I do now, I think I would be a viable candidate and would be happy working at this new organization. However, I met with the hiring manager who outlined the current team, which includes a friend who I have not spoken to in a year due to her professional behavior (breaking confidentiality and getting former colleagues into trouble, basically acting like she is in Mean Girls). It’s so awkward! I can’t imagine being her manager and supporting her when I feel like she is lacking in values that are core to professional conduct.

Should I still apply for the job and hope I can skate past the awkwardness? Or save myself the trouble? The hiring manager mentioned that line management could be discussed; I have wondered if confiding in him would make me look dramatic. This may all be moot if I don’t even get an interview but I’d rather make an informed decision.

Can you get yourself to a place where you can manage her fairly and objectively? If not, you should pass up the job; it’s not fair to anyone (definitely the ex-friend, but also the rest of the team and the organization hiring you to manage her) to come in already knowing that you’d be hindered by the history in a pretty significant way. But I don’t think it’s impossible to walk into a situation like that and manage fairly! You’d need to keep in mind that people can change and she may have learned some lessons in the last year and be willing to give her a fair shot at showing that she has. If you see that she hasn’t, you’d need to address that the way any good manager would (and you would benefit from knowing what to be looking out for, just like with the letter about the chaos employee earlier this week), but you’d need to come in with an open mind. You’d also likely need to have an air-clearing conversation with her when you start, along the lines of “I know we have history but as far as I’m concerned, we’re starting fresh.”

If that feels impossible, pass this one by.

If you do apply, I think you’d need to disclose to the hiring manager that you know the team member but have fallen out of touch. I wouldn’t share much more than that because of the risk of it just seeming like capital-d Drama, but if you don’t disclose it at all, it’s likely to come out at some point anyway and will seem very weird that you didn’t. (Be aware that if you do that, they’re likely to ask the employee about you … but from a minimizing-drama standpoint, if there’s anything to be aired out there, it’s better for it to be now rather than after you’re on the job.)

3. Executives winning company raffles

I work for a company with about 500 employees. Every year the company hosts a large professional conference and all employees are required to attend. On the final day of the conference, door prizes are awarded.

This year, the organizers had each attendee put their name tag in a box, and names were drawn at random to determine the recipients of the prizes. The prizes ranged from books by presenters to gift cards to one large prize that was worth close to $1,000. When the prizes were announced, four of them, including the large final prize, went to people who work in senior management. This rubbed me the wrong way and I want to know if I’m off-base to think that the most senior staff members shouldn’t be entering raffles like this. I was able to see the drawing from my seat and there didn’t appear to be any cheating. I just don’t feel like their names belonged in the drawing to begin with. I’d much rather see an administrative assistant or the entry-level recent college grad walking out with a prize than someone whose salary is ten times as large. What are your thoughts?

You are not off-base. Senior level managers should not enter raffles where they’ll be competing for desirable prizes with lower-paid employees, and the optics if they win a big-ticket item are really bad. The gracious move would have been for them either not to enter or, when they won, to decline and ask for a new pick to be drawn.

4. Is it weird to suddenly start going by a nickname a year into my job?

I’ve been working in a remote job, my first full-time job in my industry, for a little over a year now. The entire time I’ve worked there, I’ve gone by my legal name, Anne. I use it in my email signature, and pretty much everyone I am in contact with addresses me as such.

However, in my personal life, I go by Annie pretty much all the time. I put Anne in my email signature when I first started because I’m pretty new to the professional world and it seemed like the savvy thing to do, but now seeing how many people I am in contact with use their nicknames in the professional world, I’m more inclined to use my nickname.

Since I’ve worked at this job for over a year and have gone by Anne the whole time, would it be weird to suddenly switch my email signature to Annie? I’m mainly concerned with it seeming weird to my boss, who is the primary person I’m in contact with at my job. Especially since it’s remote, it feels so much more awkward to slyly switch my name in my email signature and hope everyone catches on.

It will not be weird! Switch your email signature to Annie. You can either leave at that, or you can say to your boss, “By the way, I should have said this when I started but I actually prefer Annie so I’ve changed it in my email signature and didn’t want you to be confused.”

And yes, it’s totally fine to go by nicknames at work. Not, like, Keg Master or Big Balls, but a normal name that’s just a diminutive? Yes.

Footage shows passengers huddled on the wing of the commercial airliner, which was on the tarmac, as flames burn under the aircraft.

I became very fond of Bea while writing and drawing this chapter. She’s a perfect mystery friend. Well, almost perfect.

The post Ski mouse appeared first on Bad Machinery.

EDMONTON – As her five-year-old Yorkshire Terrier disembowelled his latest victim, owner Krissie Powell has assured horrified onlookers that Buster never behaves like this. “Oh my gosh, I don’t know what’s gotten into my little guy today,” Powell said, as Buster chomped on the man’s throat to finish the kill. “Maybe mommy didn’t give him […]

The post “Oh, he’s never done that before,” says owner as dog kills seventh victim appeared first on The Beaverton.

“Mr. Trump has acknowledged, despite all his confident campaign predictions that ‘we are going to boom like we have never boomed before,’ that the United States may be headed into a recession, fueled by his economic agenda.” — New York Times. March 13, 2025

Listen, I’d love it if we could create a society that worked perfectly for everyone, but that’s not the reality we live in. In real life, you have to make choices—choices that lead to terrible outcomes for everyone.

I’m not anti-immigration. You think I relish the sight of families torn apart, my neighbors terrified to show up for work or send their kids to school for fear of an ICE raid? If I could wave a magic wand and no one would be deported, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But when I see the precipitous downward dive the stock market is taking, I know all that pain and suffering was worth it.

I don’t want trans people to have their dignity assaulted and their very existence called into question. Furthermore, it’s horrible to imply that people of color and women are the incompetent causes of every social problem. But when I go to the grocery store and pay just as much—often more!—than I did before the intensification of these attacks, by golly, I see the purpose of it all.

It’s heartbreaking to see the elimination of funding that was being used to feed hungry kids. And the disease-curing medical research we used to do! We can all agree: It would be way better if we funded such initiatives. But when I consider how much more quickly the prospect of affording a home during my lifetime has been vanishing, I feel a lot better about the uncured diseases and the dying children.

And sure, we’d all like common-sense limits put on corporations that harm the environment. I mean, drinking water that doesn’t poison me and breathing air that doesn’t launch me immediately into a fit of asthmatic coughs are two of my favorite things. But when I log in to my sinking 401(k) and realize I’ll have to delay my retirement an additional decade or so, it reminds me not to bother worrying about a future that might not even happen.

Look, it doesn’t feel great to abandon reasonable diplomacy and instead maximize our national embarrassment with each new short-sighted foreign-policy move. No one wants to cozy up to dictators, blame invaded countries for having been invaded, or launch trade wars on previously mutually beneficial allies. But when I consider that I’ll also be paying higher taxes next year, I stuff my shame deep down into a little box and forget about it. (It’s an empty box that used to hold my money.)

In an ideal world, citizens would enjoy freedom of speech. I don’t love it when people are fired or imprisoned for expressing opinions contrary to the administration’s. But then I remind myself: Global markets are also in freefall, so it’s, like, okay. Deep breath. This wasn’t all for nothing.

The last few months have been a moral catastrophe. At least there’s no economic upside.

Australia's PM Anthony Albanese suggests she tries it with a crocodile: "See how you go there".

There are over 250 cases of measles in at least a dozen states across the US.

The 10-year-old girl along with her siblings and parents, who are from Mexico and had been living in Texas without legal status for more than a decade, were detained in early February at an immigration checkpoint in South Texas, according to the Texas Civil Rights Project.

The planned burn comes months after an infestation of "drug-addicted rats" in evidence rooms prompted the Houston Police Department's plan to destroy hundreds of thousands of pounds of unneeded narcotics evidence.

Griff's, which has not announced a reopening date, has St. Patrick's Day events planned for Saturday and Monday.

Turner, who spent nearly three decades in the Texas House and died last week, was remembered as a passionate Democrat committed to working across the aisle.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

Most of the time when you leave a job you hated, you do it professionally — you give notice, you transition your work, you move on, even when there’s malice deep in your heart. But sometimes you get the opportunity to go out with a bit more verve — for example, the person who quit with two hours of notice the week before a big project was due … exactly the same way they treated him when he’d been demoted four months prior. And obviously we must never forget the person who spelled out “I quit” in cod.

Not all final F-you’s are so visible. Some are more discreet, perhaps known only to you. But all are satisfying.

Have you ever left with an F-you to a job or a boss, subtle or not-so-subtle? Or seen it done? We want to hear about it in the comment section.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

Here are three updates from past letter-writers.

1. Does using humor risk undermining me as a manager?

Thank you so much for responding to my question! In truth, I didn’t even consider the possibility that using too many self-deprecating jokes would alter my employee’s perception of me, I was mainly focused on the quantity of my jokes. After I submitted my question, I thought over my interactions with them, and came to the conclusion that I was being way too silly, that my nervousness was manifesting as non-stop joke after joke, which had a strong possibility to detract from maintaining a professional manager/employee relationship. Some of your commenters also noted that as my report they were a captive audience, in that even if they don’t find my humor funny they may feel compelled to laugh along, even if they feel uncomfortable.

Armed with this realization, I cut way back on the jokes I made, and with your advice in mind also limited the self-deprecating humor as well. This seemed to work well over time, as I was able to build a friendly yet professional relationship with my employee, while also occasionally poking fun at our system software or the weather.

Unfortunately it ultimately didn’t last; I had to terminate them for egregious misconduct towards another employee at a company event, which was fueled by alcohol. When I hire my next employee, I’ll be sure to use the lessons you and your readers shared to use humor moderately and with mindfulness towards how I may be perceived.

2. I want to apologize for snapping at my coworker, but my manager said not to (#2 at the link)

I really appreciated your advice. I struggle with anxiety, and the idea that I’d upset someone was eating at me. Despite the consensus in the comments that my outburst wasn’t all that bad, I still felt an apology to my coworker was warranted, so I practiced what I was going to say based on your suggestions. When the time came, I was on high alert for signs of chilliness, but nothing in her behavior indicated that she was still upset. A few days later, she announced that she was leaving for a different job, and that’s the last time I saw her.

Although anticlimactic, this event was illuminating for me. There was a lot of gossip in the weeks following my former coworker’s departure, through which I learned she quit in a huff after the manager tried to have a conversation with her about her chronic tardiness. Unbeknownst to me, she had a history of showing up late, disappearing for long stretches without explanation, and (oh, the horror!) taking other people’s food from the break room without asking. Several people expressed relief at not having to deal with her anymore, including the manager.

Speaking of managers … you were spot on to call his response into question. I think he was right that texting an apology wouldn’t have had the outcome I wanted, but it’s become clear to me through this incident and others that the promises he makes and advice he gives should be taken with a grain of salt. It’s a bummer, because I like him as a person, but the more I learn about good management, the more aware I am of where he falls short (for example, his refusal to address years of complaints about my former coworker).

On the bright side, I got a promotion and a raise, and am being encouraged to find projects that interest me. I know I don’t want to stay at this job longterm (aside from the management issues, there’s too much drama and a big nepo baby problem – a whole letter unto itself), but I’m learning a lot and building new skills, so I’m sticking around for now.

Thank you again, both for your wisdom, and for the wonderful community you’ve brought together.

3. After I had to fire someone, my boss asked if I still want to be a manager (#2 at the link)

As it turns out, the question from my boss was testing my desire to move up to a director role — a position that he knew was going to be vacant soon, but he wasn’t able to share that info with me at the time. (For various reasons, including a required relocation, it was not a role that interested me.)

As I predicted, it took many months for a replacement for my employee to be hired, but the new employee is a terrific skills match and much more professional. Our team has been running very well since the new year and the lack of drama has been a relief to everyone. That said, I did recently accept a role that is a lateral move within the organization. I will have only one direct report in this new role, but it is a growth area and I expect my team will have more members in the next 12 months or so. I am very grateful to you and to the commenters who assured me that firing someone never feels good in the short term, but will help the team in the long term, and that was certainly true in this case. I also dug out my old books and training materials on management skills and gave myself a refresher course, which has been quite helpful.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I am a mother of three young children. Several years ago I took a step back in my career to work in a less high-pressure environment. The shift was incredible for my work life balance — I am much more present with my children, rarely bring home work stress, and am able to regularly take time away to volunteer at school events. We are financially secure and the money is decent.

However, this organization frequently is a mess. I regularly find myself flabbergasted at how things that wouldn’t be an issue at other jobs become Big Things at this organization, requiring multiple meetings at various senior levels to remediate. Good news and progress is met with administrative drama, and frequently thwarted altogether by red tape and incompetence. It was kind of a fun challenge at first, but now it is absolutely maddening. At the same time, no one really cares, so there is no pressure, and I am very free to live my personal life

How do I … stop caring? In my time here, I’ve changed what I can at this organization and am now trying to accept what I can’t, but I’m just. so. tired. of feeling like there is no point to any of it.

Any words of advice from folks that have been there? Is it time to run before my discontent at work seeps into my personal bliss? Or is there a way to put up a mental wall? I’ve got about another five years before my youngest doesn’t need me as much. Help!

Sometimes it can help to get really, really clear in your own head about exactly what you’re getting from the job, and exactly what you are trading in exchange for income.

In this case, that might mean getting really clear on the fact that you are trading your time for money, period. You are not there to fix the organization, or to care more about the problems than people above you do. You are there to do Job X and nothing more.

Sometimes that’s impossible. Maybe you find the way they operate so maddening that you simply can’t be there five days a week without it destroying your morale or your mental health. If that’s the case, then it’s time to move on.

But sometimes, with a concerted effort you can decide that it’s Not Your Problem. If they want to run their organization this way, so be it — you figure it’s their prerogative and you’ll continue doing Job X (and only Job X) and they will continue putting money in your bank account every two weeks, and the trade will be complete.

Alternately, sometimes you can look at it as an educational experience: think of yourself as a sociologist who’s learning interesting lessons about certain types of group dynamics. You don’t need to care that much because you’re just there to observe, not engage in any deep way. (The trick there is to not let it make you so cynical that you bring bad habits to the next job.)

Or maybe every time something maddening happens, you can remind yourself, “Not caring about this is why I have great work-life balance, and right now in this period of my life that’s the most important thing to me.”

But maybe none of the advice above will work for you. For some people, it’s incredibly important to work for an organization that they feel good about. Without that, some people will lose all sense of connection to their work, and any interest in continuing on with it. If that’s you, that’s useful to know about yourself; it would mean you need to start working on getting out of there.

But try getting really clear on what you are being paid for — which is not to solve this organization’s big problems — and see if that can be enough.

Well, I’ve done it. I’ve climbed the media ladder and joined a cadre of independent pundits like Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, and Tucker Carlson. And I did it with just an insatiable appetite for trolling liberals.

Of course, I’ve made a lot of enemies along the way—the socialist Democrats, the thought police, and all the blue-haired feminists who are too high on their own supply of DEI to keep a rational, emotionally uninvested, bird’s-eye, macro view of political issues like I do. They’re all just snowflakes who hate how a straight, white, cisgender guy like me can amass a huge following online by mocking their civic rights, socioeconomic grievances, and pathetic obsession with democracy.

But remember, I’m not actually committed to anything I say or do that provokes them into wokesplaining conniptions. I’m just asking questions. Or playing devil’s advocate. Or trolling for the lolz.

Life would be much easier for the woke if they remembered that, at the end of the day, virtually no contentious pieces of legislation or civil rights issues ever affect me personally. Politics, government, and public policy are just games for me, and I play to win. So, when I throw out a whataboutism here and a “both sides” there, I’m just tossing curve balls to strike out the libs who get so mad they start yelling. When they quit the debate and block me online, I win.

Although, sometimes, when I’m in danger of losing an argument, I say I used to be a Democrat myself years ago, before Democrats took a hard left to Commie Town. I even voted for Obama in 2008. There’s no way I can verify that for my haters on social media who point out that my earliest posts regularly hashtagged the Tea Party and featured the anti-Obama “NOPE” poster as a profile picture, but that just proves how much of an open mind I keep. I’m a classical liberal. It’s the liberals who have abandoned liberalism, not me.

I also sometimes claim I’m a demisexual or aromantic so I can demand liberals to support me and accept my opinions as facts because I have LGBTQ+ membership, and am therefore just as much an oppressed victim of the capitalistic, white, cisgender, heterosexual patriarchy as any of them.

Isn’t pedantic trolling fun?

That is why I laugh so hard when the woke mobs try to cancel me. Making liberals upset is why my fans love me, so I can’t be canceled. And I tally up all the times I get called a “Nazi” online because I’m a neo-Nazi at best on my most fascist days. Do I think the Nazis may have had a few good ideas? Sure. Not every single idea they ever had was about genocide and race wars, you know?

There is one downside to being an anti-woke internet troll, and it’s that the liberal elites happen to be involved in almost all this country’s good art, cultural innovations, and social fun.

I’ll admit it’s ironic that I spend ten hours a day calling the cosmopolitan, globalist, coastal metropolises “baby-eating communist shitholes where everyone is mugged and murdered by marauding gangs of thugs every day” when there’s no way in hell I’ll ever leave my big city and move to some flyover mining ghost town or farming county that I spend all day on my podcast celebrating as “Real America.” I’m not happy saying this, but elitist liberals shitholes are somehow where all the cool celebrities and parties are, where all the artists and tech geniuses live, where all the skinny and pretty people live, and where all the money, economic growth, and GDP come from despite how deranged the liberals are.

But because I get unfairly tarred as a Republican—remember, I’m an independent centrist—I don’t get invited to any of the good parties or media events. I may defend everything Trump does and excuse everything he says, but I’m barely on the political right at all. No matter how high I am at the top of the y-axis into the “authoritarian” end of the four-way political compass, I’m very much in the middle.

I just want to stop the libs from ruining America, and that might mean Trump will have to become a dictator and settle on a Final Solution to rid America of all liberals.

Just kidding!

WASHINGTON D.C. – With Ontario Premier Doug Ford currently visiting White House officials, some analysts are concerned US President Donald Trump might try to corrupt the earnest. “Up here in Queens Park, Premier Ford’s conduct is famously above reproach, but I hear rumours that Americans down there treat politics like some kind of business,” said […]

The post Experts fear Trump administration will corrupt beacon of integrity Doug Ford appeared first on The Beaverton.

Rain showers following a massive Texas dust storm left buildings and vehicles from Missouri to West Virginia covered in a grimy film, a rare weather event known as “dirty rain.” What do you think?

The post ‘Dirty Rain’ Falls Over Multiple States appeared first on The Onion.

The 2025 NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments kick off next week. In honor of the season, The Onion examines the key facts and figures behind March Madness.

7: Opportunities for Cooper Flagg’s mom to embarrass him

15: Times per week your coworker who won the office pool last year says he doesn’t even follow basketball

68: Exotic birds killed to make Kim Mulkey’s outfits

1,000: Number of dollars that it couldn’t hurt to have some fun with

3: Suitemates pissed that Eric Dixon never washes his dishes 

10,000,000: Google searches for “Where is Gonzaga?”

738,000: Basketballs worn through during the tournament 

3: Steps that Duke player just took! You saw it!

1-800-522-4700: The National Problem Gambling Helpline

The post March Madness By The Numbers appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—Following a daring operation that saw authorities seize the man’s property and detain him in an undisclosed location, FBI director Kash Patel announced Thursday that federal agents had uncovered 43 terabytes of free speech from local protestor Andrew Wyman’s residence. “Every American should be chilled to the core by the overwhelming display of constitutionally protected speech we found on this deviant’s computer and phone,” Patel said as he stood before a table covered in countless hard drives, folders, and documents that he described as “disturbing evidence” of America’s most inalienable and foundational right being put into practice. “What’s incredible is that this creep got away with it for so long: Every day, he was out there in public, expressing his own convictions, as every U.S. resident—citizen or noncitizen—has done since our nation’s founding. Thankfully, we got a tip about posts he had made on social media suggesting he might be the sort of freak who spends time conveying his beliefs to others without fear of retribution from a tyrannical government, possibly because that practice is expressly enshrined in the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. This guy was sick, really sick. Make no mistake, our team is pursuing every legal remedy to ensure something like this never happens again.” Patel then praised those involved in the raid for intervening before the suspect went on to use his legally guaranteed right to peaceably assemble.

The post Feds Uncover Terabytes Of Free Speech During Raid Of Protestor’s Residence appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—Extending an offer to immigrants hoping to relocate to the United States, President Donald Trump unveiled a new type of visa Thursday for any foreign citizen willing to move to America to be friends with his son Barron. “Any immigrant roughly Barron’s age with similar interests may apply, with very little waiting time to get them over here to start having fun,” a statement from the White House read in part, noting that there would be no restrictions on countries of origin so long as the applicant could name three ideas for hangout activities that the youngest Trump child might find appealing. “They’ll need to provide evidence that they have good social skills and strong, healthy hobbies in their home countries that they can bring to America to help Barron grow. The Barron Buddy visa will also offer a path to permanent residency for any cardholder who remains an active member of Barron’s social circle. Buddies here on visa should not expect a free ride, however—they will need to demonstrate that they can carry their own weight in Fortnite to stay in good standing with the U.S. government.” At press time, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced raids on tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who were casual acquaintances of Barron at best.

The post Trump Announces New Visa Tier For Immigrants Who Will Be Friends With Barron appeared first on The Onion.

In brief: It has been 136 days since the city of Houston officially recorded a 90-degree day, back on October 27. Today, that may change. Parts of the region will hit likely hit 90 degrees. But that does not mean spring is over. Most of the next 10 days, including this weekend, should continue to bring beautiful, spring-like weather.

Thursday

After patchy fog clears this morning we should be left with sunny skies. The combination of a warm southwesterly flow and a bit of drier air will allow high temperatures to pop up today, with much of the Houston area in the upper 80s, and locations to the west and southwest of the city likely reaching 90 degrees. Only the coast will remain at about 80 degrees. Winds at the surface will, generally, be light at 5 to 10 mph from the southwest.

If you’re heading out to the rodeo this evening be sure to get there early, because a good friend of our family will be singing the national anthem to kick things off. It will be warm this evening, in the mid- to upper-80s. Temperatures will have fallen into the 70s after the show is over. Low temperatures tonight will only fall into the upper 60s for most of the metro area.

Another consideration for tonight’s weather is the lunar eclipse. Totality, at which point the Moon is tinted a coppery red, lasts from 1:26 am CT to 2:31 am CT. Unfortunately skies will likely be partly to mostly cloudy. However, there should be some breaks in the clouds that will allow for visibility of the celestial phenomenon.

Friday

With partly cloudy skies on Friday, and more pronounced southerly winds, high temperatures should be a few degrees cooler, probably in the mid- to upper-80s for most of the region. Given that a cold front is unlikely to push through Houston before Saturday morning, I expect another warm night on Friday, in the mid-60s.

Saturday

The frontal passage looks to be a dry one, but we cannot rule out a few showers on Saturday morning. However skies will quickly be turning sunny, and northerly winds at about 15 mph, with higher gusts, will be usher in lower humidity. Look for high temperatures around 80 degrees, with lows on Saturday night dropping into the mid-50s in Houston, with cooler conditions for inland areas.

Sunday

Expect a truly splendid day, with highs in the mid-70s, sunshine, low humidity, and light winds. This will be a top-10 day in Houston this year, weather-wise. Lows on Sunday night may push down near 50 degrees.

Next week

Monday should be in the 70s again before we push up near 80 degrees on Tuesday and Wednesday. Skies should remain mostly sunny throughout. A front on Wednesday will probably knock us back into the 70s for the second half of the week. If you’re wondering about precipitation, we could see a decent shot of rain about 10 days from now. We’ll see.

JACKSON, MS—Seeking to assuage consumer concerns about dwindling supplies, the nation’s egg companies reportedly assured shoppers this week that a dozen has always meant nine. “While we have seen some temporary shortfalls due to the avian flu, I want to let all our loyal customers know that we will continue to sell delicious, farm-fresh eggs by the dozen, which is a colloquial way to refer to the number nine,” said Cal-Maine Foods CEO Sherman Miller, joining egg producers across the country to tout the product as still readily available in the same paper-pulp or plastic containers that hold a dozen eggs plus “three empty, bonus chambers.” “Eggs are a crucial staple of the American diet, and they’re not going anywhere. So come by your local grocery store today and pick out whatever size suits you best—our smaller half dozen, which is to say four eggs, all the way up to our 18-pack, which can hold anywhere from 12 to 15.” Miller added that his company was proud to continue their longstanding tradition of making one out of every five eggs a decoy made of styrofoam.

The post Egg Companies Assure Customers Dozen Has Always Meant 9 appeared first on The Onion.

JOPLIN, MO—In an effort to ensure the sustained growth of the white race and prevent the decline of Western civilization, a local school district launched a new pronatalist sex education class Thursday that requires students to care for 14 sacks of flour. “For the next week, each of our seventh-graders will be in charge of 14 sacks of flour in order to learn about responsibility and propagating the next generation of true Americans,” said school superintendent Ray Schuett, adding that minority students would be excused from the program. “One day these kids will be adults, and it’s imperative they understand how having only one or two kids negatively impacts the economy. This project will teach our students what’s required to restore our nation’s fertility rate to a level that guarantees future GDP growth. Obviously this is just a fun demonstration, but we hope it gives students a taste of how to support their country by having as many children as possible.” Schuett added that seventh-grade girls could earn one extra credit point for each additional sack of flour they supervised.

The post Pronatalist Sex Ed Class Requires Students To Care For 14 Sacks Of Flour appeared first on The Onion.

The post Pills: Can We Get Some? We’re Really Hurting Right Now appeared first on The Onion.

by Alec MacGillis

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In 2008, as the Great Recession was starting to take hold, my travels reporting on Barack Obama’s presidential campaign took me to one American city after another that was reeling from major layoffs. I visited places such as Kokomo, Indiana, which was losing so many jobs at its Chrysler and Delphi plants that by year’s end it was labeled one of America’s fastest-dying towns, and Lorain, Ohio, where Obama visited a National Gypsum plant that closed four months later.

After each trip, I would return to my home in Alexandria, Virginia, in the metro Washington, D.C., area, and be struck by how removed the nation’s capital seemed from the pain being felt in so much of the country. Not only was it insulated because of its high proportion of government employment, it actually prospered as a result of the recession, since so much of the federal economic stimulus ended up staying with the Beltway contractors who administered the spending.

When my growing family started looking for a larger home in 2009, we left our corner of Alexandria. As prices in every other metro area in the country were declining, they were still rising in the inner suburbs of Northern Virginia.

The situation now is sharply reversed. As a result of Elon Musk’s relentless scythe, the Department of Government Efficiency, the big layoffs are in and around Washington. In the week ending Feb. 22, unemployment claims in the District of Columbia rose 25% from the week prior and were four times as high as one year earlier — and that’s only the beginning. The district’s chief financial officer has predicted that the city, where the federal government accounts for roughly a quarter of all wages, could lose as many as 40,000 jobs over the next few years, more than a fifth of its total, which he estimates would cost the city more than $1 billion in revenue.

The fallout is spreading through the DMV — D.C., Maryland and Virginia — a region where nearly a tenth of all jobs are with the federal government, not to mention the tens of thousands of people working for contractors dependent on federal spending.

The losses are already manifest beyond the numbers: in the resumes from highly educated professionals flooding LinkedIn, in pleas from laid-off young people seeking others to take over their apartment leases, in hushed discussions about this or that family pulling up stakes and leaving town.

It is also manifest in the very landscape of the city. The Trump administration briefly placed the headquarters of many government departments on a list of “non-core” properties that are slated for offloading because they are vacant or underused — among them the departments of Justice, Labor, Agriculture, Health and Human Services, Energy and Housing and Urban Development. This conjures the prospect that those hulking Brutalist and Classic Revival buildings constructed in the 20th century could one day stand vacant, just like the abandoned 19th-century factories looming over so many of the country’s postindustrial cities.

All of this raises a question that was unfathomable until recently: Is the nation’s capital, so long blessed by being the government’s company town, at risk of a fate resembling that of so many other company towns through the years? And if it is, why aren’t people beyond metro Washington more concerned about it? When Detroit was in free fall, Obama intervened to bail out the auto industry, deciding a great American city needed help. But now, the administration in power is itself delivering the fateful blow to a major city.

It is hard not to detect in this turnabout some resentment on the part of Trump allies and supporters from regions that have not been faring well in recent times. By 2012, when the country was finally emerging from the recession, seven of the 10 wealthiest counties were in metro Washington; the area’s number of high-net-worth households, with investable assets of more than $1 million, had risen by 30% since 2008. While Midwestern communities such as Vice President JD Vance’s hometown, Middletown, Ohio, were being crushed by the opioid epidemic, the Aston Martin dealership in Tysons Corner, Virginia, was selling hundreds of the bespoke James Bond car for about $280,000, and home prices in the District were approaching a 400% increase from the early 1990s.

There is also more recent fuel for schadenfreude over Washington’s pain: Federal workers were much slower than those in other industries to return to the office after the pandemic, making it easier for the Trump administration to cast the entire lot of them as cosseted and unproductive. The persistence of remote work in the federal government had in recent years given downtown Washington a desolate feel, as it contributed to the closure of countless fast-casual lunch locales, retail shops and a major movie theater. There is no small irony in the fact that Trump’s return-to-office order has brought more life to downtown streets at the very moment that the city is so imperiled by impending layoffs.

The DOGE cuts will not do all that much harm to the region’s true economic elite. There will still be lobbyists raking in six-figure contracts. Trump has done precious little to threaten that aspect of the so-called swamp; if anything, the DOGE assault has led many sectors, such as higher education, to spend more on lobbyists. There will still be Beltway-bandit consulting firms soaking up some of the work previously done by government workers and national security contractors lining the soulless highway approach to Dulles airport.

The actual target of the cuts will be a more modest sort: career civil servants who, in many cases, could have been making more money in the private sector, or security guards and office cleaners returning every evening to working-class neighborhoods in Anacostia or Prince George’s County. It’s these people — from housing finance analysts to food-safety researchers and administrative assistants — who are now frantically looking for other work or considering leaving the region altogether.

The cuts will fall especially hard on the region’s Black residents, who have long relied on federal employment as a ladder to the middle class. (Black people make up a disproportionately large share of the national federal workforce.)

Watching all of this unfold, I can’t help but be put in mind of another company town: my own hometown, Pittsfield, Massachusetts. It once held three major divisions of General Electric, which at its mid-20th-century peak employed more than 13,000 people in a county of about 130,000, sustaining broadly shared prosperity in a city with stellar public schools and a bustling main street.

But by the time I reached high school in the late 1980s, the company was scaling back operations at a rapid clip under the leadership of Jack Welch, who had himself come up through the ranks in Pittsfield. My classmates and I watched as, one by one, the families of engineers and managers moved away and empty storefronts proliferated downtown. Ultimately, many of us decided to build our careers elsewhere. Pittsfield’s population has fallen a quarter since 1970, and only 1,000-odd people remain employed at the company that took over one of the rump G.E. units, General Dynamics.

Washington is unlikely to suffer so stark a fate, given the many barnacles that have attached themselves to its economy beyond the bureaucracy. Tourists will still come by the thousands to admire the monuments, even if some of the big stone buildings turn vacant, like the ruins of the Roman Forum. But the experience of Pittsfield and so many larger company towns is a reminder of how wrenching the disruption is when the biggest employer in town takes a big hit and the ladder rungs toward upward mobility start to crumble. The echo of all those other cities’ plights is reason to offer some sympathy, or at least recognition, as the Beltway now absorbs its blows.

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. Employee can’t figure out what accommodations would help her do her job

I work at a small organization where I wear many hats, including HR-related items. We have an employee, Nicole, who shared with us about a year ago that she was diagnosed with some conditions that make executive functioning difficult. We immediately approved her requests for an ADHD coach, project management software, and additional weekly meetings with her manager. In this last year, Nicole continues to not meet expectations in areas such as meeting deadlines, communicating effectively, and decision-making/prioritizing. When her manager discussed this with her, she frames the issue as “my work isn’t organized for me, therefore I find it difficult” and when asked to identify additional accommodations, she says she doesn’t know what she needs because it’s still a new diagnosis for her — and has implied that because of her disability, we need to accept that she may not meet expectations in these areas.

My concern is that this is not an entry-level position, so it is not feasible for Nicole’s manager to organize every task on her behalf or to identify what other accommodations or resources may be helpful. I think we are at the point where Nicole may need a more formal PIP or PIP-like intervention and a discussion about her responsibilities with identifying tools, resources, and accommodations needed for her to organize and execute her duties. Am I off-base? If not, do you have any suggestions of how we can talk with her to help her re-frame her accountability?

You are not off-base. You’ve provided the accommodations she asked for, you’re willing to provide more if she can identify something that would help, and she’s still not meeting the requirements of the job. The Americans with Disabilities Act does not exempt employees from meeting core job requirements; it requires employers to work with the employee to attempt to find accommodations if they exist, but doesn’t protect the person’s job if they can’t perform its essential functions with accommodations.

It does sound like it’s time to move to something more formal like a PIP. But before you do that, have a conversation with Nicole where you explain that the problems are significant enough that that will be the next step unless she can suggest additional, specific accommodations to try, and ask her to work with the coach to figure out what might help.

2. My boss wants my employee to report to him

I’ve been employed for 12 years at the same company in product development. I have been a manager of product developers for seven of those years, with four people under me. Over time, people have left and we’ve not rehired, so I only have one direct report remaining, Sarah, who I’ve supervised officially for seven years.

My boss is proposing that we change Sarah’s supervisory structure — I would handle the “day to day” of her work but my boss would be her supervisor of record and meet with her periodically, and we would jointly handle performance reviews. The reason to make this change would be that we’re a small team, and I’m the only person who reports to my boss who supervises someone.

I’m feeling angered by this as things are going very well with Sarah. She is sensitive to hierarchy and I feel like she may look at this as a promotion and that I’m no longer her boss. The other thing is that my supervisor doesn’t know anything about product development, and Sarah is a product developer. My supervisor is an operations specialist. That’s why he would still need me to do the day-to-day. This bothers me especially because in the beginning of my employment, there was a lack of structure and direction for newcomers, with official supervisors not providing direction. I often would end up mentoring and even serving as a direct supervisor to new people, including Sarah, even though I did not have a place in the official management structure nor any compensation and I was doing it on top of my own job. I was young and eager to prove myself, and I didn’t realize I was letting the manager slide by and walk all over me. Seven years ago, the manager left and I was given the formal manager role. This worked well for me because everything finally aligned — my role, my title, and my compensation. I feel this change would be a step backward functionally instead of forward. What advice would you give me?

You have a lot of good reasons to push back on the change. Talk to your manager and share them, as calmly and objectively as you can. In particular, emphasize that you’re concerned that you’ll still be responsible for a significant portion of Sarah’s management but without the title, and that the change feels like a demotion even though you’ll still be doing much of the same work.

It would be one thing if your actual function were changing, but it sounds like your responsibilities aren’t significantly changing, and it’s fair to ask that your title continue to reflect the work you’re doing.

3. Men are gross in our non-gendered bathrooms

My organization has slowly been moving towards non-gendered toilets. When building or upgrading facilities, toilets are now individual rooms and marked as all-gender. This is great! It’s progressive, inclusive, and by and large we’re all here for it.

Except … the men are gross! The biggest change my female colleagues and I have noticed is that non-gendered toilets are far more likely to be dirty, broken, and seats are constantly left up. We want the toilets to be welcoming to everyone, not just yet another place where we have to put up with how feral men can be.

One of our admin staff tried to combat this in a recently refurbished block of half a dozen toilets by attempting to label two of them as “women only.” This was swiftly shut down since it comes across as exclusionary and not what we’re about, although her intent was just for women to not have to visit somewhere a dude has just liberally shaken himself around like a sprinkler.

I don’t know who raised these grommets, but do you have any advice for combatting this? I don’t like the idea of attempting to remind everyone of what amounts to basic bathroom etiquette (and embedding mothering stereotypes in the process).

Consider a mix of single-sex and non-gendered bathrooms. That’s all I’ve got, given this particular set of facts, although it still leaves the non-gross men stuck with gross bathrooms.

If only it were practical to have full-time bathroom attendants like at a fancy restaurant.

4. How do I tell interviewers I was fired from my last job but it was because my dad was sick?

I was at a job I truly loved for about 18 months and was ultimately fired for “performance issues: not meeting job standards.” This was because six months prior to my termination, I had found out my father was dying and only had a few months to live. I thought I could handle working full-time and handling my dad three hours away, but ultimately, he died and my job performance did suffer and 30 days after he died, I was fired. (Hindsight being 20/20 here, I wish I had just taken FMLA but let’s not debate that now. I also really don’t want to get into whether my company should have fired someone 30 days after their dad died. I think what they did was total crap, but I also admit I wasn’t performing at 100% either. I’ve accepted the termination and have moved on.)

I am now searching for a job. I actually got an amazing offer, but when I filled out the initial application, I selected “no” for the “Have you ever been terminated from a job before?” question. Once the company found out that wasn’t true, the offer was rescinded. So now I am being honest and telling people the truth. But here is the issue — I’ll be in the middle of a phone interview and will be asked if I’ve ever been terminated from a job. I’ll say yes and explain it was performance-related (because I don’t want them to think I did something illegal) and it was because I had a dying parent I was struggling to take care of, who ultimately passed away. Inevitably, there is an awkward silence, an apology for the loss of my dad, and then a few days later I’ll get a “thanks but we’re moving in another direction” email.

How do I stay honest about my job history without making it awkward but also ensuring hiring managers understand that had there not been this horrible life event happening, I probably wouldn’t have lost my job?

I think where you’re going wrong is saying that the firing was performance-related. It was performance-related, but it’s not that you couldn’t do the job — it’s that you were juggling a horrible situation outside of work. The performance framing is making it sound like you couldn’t cut it, when that’s not really what happened. You said you’re worried that they’d otherwise think you did something illegal — but that wouldn’t be a typical leap for them to make!

Instead, you should say, “In my last job, I was doing well until there was a very serious health situation in my family. It was very difficult to juggle that at the same time as my job, and ultimately I couldn’t do both and they let me go. That situation has since been resolved, and I don’t expect it to come up as an issue again.” (I want to be clear that I’m not referring to your dad’s death as a “situation being resolved” but rather to your focus at work being so divided.) If your old manager would be willing to attest that you were doing well until your dad got sick, you could add, “My manager at that job would confirm I was performing well until that happened.”

I’m sorry about your dad.

5. Cold-calling for internships

Someone cold-called me today and asked if we do internships. I said yes, but you have to be a student of a particular college that we have a relationship with. They then asked, “So what do I do to apply?” Um … be a student at the college I mentioned? I am not management so can’t interview potential interns, so I told them to please email my boss. They proceeded to push for his email and I calmly said, “It’s on our website.”

When I was looking for jobs in my field (media), I was told Absolutely Do Not Cold Call. “No phone calls” was included in every job listing. You sent your application in and crossed your fingers. Have things changed or are the rules for internships different? In 2025, it seems weird and pushy that a young person would call rather than emailing. I’d love to read your thoughts on this.

Things haven’t changed. Some people have always called even when they shouldn’t — because they see it as attractive gumption, or they think it’s the only way to stand out, or they figure the rules don’t apply to them, or they just got bad advice somewhere along the line. It has always been so, and so it shall remain.