It’s Free for ALL Friday! Each week I keep track of some of the off-the-path things I've found, and work extra-hard to make sure you never hit a paywall, using my own subscriptions, gift links, and other (legal) hocus-pocus.
ICE’s ‘Athletically Allergic’ Recruits
Push-ups, sit-ups, and a brisk jog pose a threat to Trump’s deportation campaign.
President Donald Trump’s plan to double the size of the ICE workforce has met a foe more powerful than any activist group. It is decimating new recruits at the agency’s training academy in Georgia. It is the ICE personal-fitness test.
More than a third have failed so far, four officials told me, impeding the agency’s plan to hire, train, and deploy 10,000 deportation officers by January. To pass, recruits must do 15 push-ups and 32 sit-ups, and run 1.5 miles in 14 minutes.
“It’s pathetic,” one career ICE official told me, adding that before now, a typical class of 40 recruits had only a couple of candidates fail, because the screening process was more rigorous.
The academy’s standards have already been eased to boost recruitment, he said, and the new parameters “should be the minimum for any officer.” He and others, none of whom were authorized to speak with reporters, told me that agency veterans are concerned about the quality of the new recruits being fast-tracked onto the street to meet Trump’s hiring goals.
An email from ICE headquarters to the agency’s top officials on October 5 lamented that “a considerable amount of athletically allergic candidates” had been showing up to the academy.
‘Girl, Take Your Crazy Pills!’ Antidepressants Recast as a Hot Lifestyle Accessory
Influencers tout the drugs, but many unsuspecting followers find the side effects take the fun out of life.
Corinne Byerley, a stay-at-home mom, recalled days when she felt lonely, overwhelmed and, at times, paralyzed with anxiety and self-doubt.
She posted a video asking for help, and someone recommended Hers, a telehealth company. Byerley answered a questionnaire, and an online nurse practitioner prescribed a generic version of Lexapro. A bottle arrived days later.
Byerley, of Canton, Texas, posted TikTok videos of herself running to the mailbox for a pill package and taking a dose, using such hashtags as #lexaprobaddies and #gethelpmama. In the months that followed, she gushed over the pills to her thousands of followers.
For a time, Byerley belonged to a social-media movement that has given antidepressants a makeover—from a stigmatized medicine to a healthy lifestyle accessory for enlightened and empowered young women.
Millennial and GenZ influencers, some paid by telehealth companies, evangelize antidepressants on TikTok and Instagram using such hashtags as #livelaughlexapro, #lexaprogirly, #lexaho and #zoloftgang, recasting the medications as pop-culture touchstones.
Gen X is Entering Its Grandparent Era – and It’s Hitting Different
It seems being a grandparent isn’t what it used to be. There’s a new vibe in town – and it’s cool, chaotic, and possibly more selfish.
There’s a new generation of grandparents in town. And they are clearly not going to be like the beige-clad nanas and pipe-smoking grandpas of old.
As a late baby boomer, I was born at least a decade before Generation X, but consider myself one of the new wave of oldies. My first grandchild was born when I was 63, which is the average age of a new grandparent in the UK, and I haven’t for a minute worried that becoming a grandmother has “aged” me.
The seas part when I go out with my actual grandchildren. Edie, five and a half, and Mina, eight months, are delightful creatures, with big smiles and pealing laughs. It’s important to acknowledge that grandmothering is such a different job from being the mother of small children. Parents are consumed with anxiety about safety, schedules, hygiene, almost everything.
As a grandmother, I feel free to relish in the children’s newness; to get down to their level and scrawl all over a colouring book. But I still work, and – as everyone loves to remind you – you just give them back when you want a rest.
Amazon Plans to Replace More Than Half a Million Jobs With Robots
Internal documents show the company that changed how people shop has a far-reaching plan to automate 75 percent of its operations.
Over the past two decades, no company has done more to shape the American workplace than Amazon. In its ascent to become the nation’s second-largest employer, it has hired hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers, built an army of contract drivers and pioneered using technology to hire, monitor and manage employees.
Now, interviews and a cache of internal strategy documents viewed by The New York Times reveal that Amazon executives believe the company is on the cusp of its next big workplace shift: replacing more than half a million jobs with robots.
Amazon’s U.S. work force has more than tripled since 2018 to almost 1.2 million. But Amazon’s automation team expects the company can avoid hiring more than 160,000 people in the United States it would otherwise need by 2027. That would save about 30 cents on each item that Amazon picks, packs and delivers to customers.
Executives told Amazon’s board last year that they hoped robotic automation would allow the company to continue to avoid adding to its U.S. work force in the coming years, even though they expect to sell twice as many products by 2033. That would translate to more than 600,000 people whom Amazon didn’t need to hire.
The Hidden Way Using a Rewards Card Can Cost You More
Starbucks tracked my every purchase --- then gave me fewer deals. It’s called surveillance pricing.
Scanning a loyalty card might be costing you money.
Companies say they’re rewarding your devotion with points, discounts and perks. But behind the scenes, many are using these programs to monitor your behavior and build a profile — then charge you what they think you’ll pay.
I discovered evidence of this in my Starbucks app. Using California’s privacy law, I asked the company to send me the data its rewards program had collected about me.
Then I shared that data with two former Federal Trade Commission officials who spent careers defending consumers. They spotted a startling pattern in the numbers: During months when I bought more coffee, the app offered me fewer promotions. Sure, I was still collecting “stars” I could use for freebies. But the more loyal I was, the fewer discounts I got.
“Are Starbucks’ most loyal customers … actually getting the fewest coupons?” asked Samuel Levine, who until January served as director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “That’s certainly what this report suggests.”
My loyalty was working against me.
100 Years of the Motel: Neon Signs, Swimming Pools and American Dreams
The motel might seem like an ageless fixture of the American landscape, but in fact, this roadside mainstay didn’t exist before Dec. 12, 1925.
That’s when Arthur and Alfred Heineman, two brothers with a successful Southern California architecture practice, opened the Milestone Mo-Tel, the first “motor hotel,” in San Luis Obispo, roughly halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
More of the history (more interesting than you might think):
1925: The Milestone Mo-Tel, the first official motel, opens on Dec. 12. The property, later called the Motel Inn, got its name, according to local lore, because the sign painter determined that the words “Motor Hotel” would not fit in letters of the desired size.
1942: Gas rationing is imposed, first in 17 states, then nationwide, temporarily discouraging long recreational road trips and stoking a desire for travel that explodes when rationing ends in 1945.
1954: The Howard Johnson’s Motor Lodge opens in Savannah, Ga., expanding on a chain of restaurants known for their many flavors of ice cream.
1970: The United States now has about 30,000 miles of Interstate highways, which often bypass small routes and the locally owned motels along them. Chains like Motel 6, Super 8, Days Inn and Rodeway Inn will come to dominate the roadsides.
2012: Only about 16,000 motels remain in the United States. The move to rehab and reopen old properties gains momentum.
2025: Renovated motels become hot destinations, commanding prices that would make the Milestone Mo-Tel’s founders blush.
Need a Laptop? This Retiree Refurbishes Laptops, Gives Them Away to Those in Need
Craig Clark is a good neighbor to have.
After he retired from managing a chain of convenience stores, he became a computer technician. That’s when he got the idea to provide laptops for those who couldn’t afford them.
Clark, who is from Sarasota, Florida, became the “Tech Fairy.”
“I have no memory as to why or how I branded myself as [that],” he told NPR. “People would give me their old computers when they bought a new one and I would fix them up and find someone to give them to.”
He started eight years ago and has helped hundreds of people – with photos to prove it.
“In the 700 pictures, there’s a lot of convenience store workers, there’s a lot of fast food workers, people that I know are working for a minimum wage and probably cannot afford a $1,200 laptop.”
My kids spent lots of time with my parents, out on the farm. Gave them lots of good memories, like if you went into town with Grampa, he could be convinced to go to 7-Eleven for slurpees. Now I have not seen my grandkids in three years, likely won’t see them for another three and to doesn’t bother me.
The need for anti depressants just confirms my belief that parents are not teaching their kids how to deal with life. Taking a pill doesn’t make the problems go away.
And good on Craig Clark! We have a Repair Shop in our community where you can take token things and a bunch of mechanically minded people will do their best to fix it. Keeps things out of the landfill.
Good for Craig! Do what you love and help people at the same time…that is cool! While Craig does big stuff we can all do little things for our neighbors, especially if you walk your dog. Close a mailbox, pick up some trash, move the trash bin to the street if someone is ill. There are many opportunities if you pay attention.
15 push-ups and 32 sit-ups, and run 1.5 miles in 14 minutes? I am 69 and can easily do 30 pushups. Never do sit-ups but my core is strong from yoga and riding my bike up and down the foothills of upstate SC 100 miles a week. More than a third of guys can’t do 15 pushups? And these are guys that want law enforcement jobs? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!!!