Comment on Silicon Valley company pushes online forms to prevent immigration ‘backlog’

Here’s what you can do if you find yourself on the receiving end of a negative performance review that you disagree with. Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Company’s work-life advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions.

Amid growing anti-DEI efforts, a new Pew Research Center survey indicates that employees also feel less positively about diversity efforts at work. Even as the political attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts ramped up last year, many people still seemed to value the importance of DEI at work. The Pew Research Center found that in early 2023, about 56% of workers believed DEI was “a good thing” for companies to embrace, though the sentiment was more prevalent among women and people of color.

Test out AI technologies before they hit the mainstream: research help, music and image generation, and even synthetic podcasts. Google gives us access to a variety of experimental tools that aren’t quite full-fledged products quite yet. Whether you’re a creator, student, or just curious about AI, there’s something for everyone to explore.

Healthcare for the unhoused is a mess. Akido Labs believes it can be part of the solution. One October afternoon on a graffiti-strewn stretch of downtown Los Angeles, Dr. Steven Hochman was checking up on his patients. A street medicine specialist who has spent the last year working with Akido Labs, a tech-focused healthcare group, Hochman makes weekly visits to this makeshift neighborhood of plywood encampments and busted-up campers.

As part of New York City’s waterfront master plan, industrial-damaged waterways are being transformed into leisure space. At Malt Drive Park, a new waterfront public space on the southern edge of the NYC neighborhood Long Island City, visitors can walk along a meandering pathway with a mostly unobstructed view of the mouth of Newtown Creek.

At COP29, there are more than 1,700 oil and gas lobbyists pushing for a seat at the negotiating table. The fossil fuel industry’s presence at this year’s UN climate negotiations in Baku, Azerbaijan has been simultaneously heavy-handed and covert. More than 1,770 lobbyists—including the heads of some major oil and gas corporations—have been granted access to the talks, many as guests of the host country.