Comment on Planned Kroger-Albertsons merger brings worry over prices, jobs, closures. How it might play out is unclear

Barbiecore was a heavy hit both on Instagram and TikTok, where more than 72,000 videos have been posted with the trend’s name as a hashtag. Anyone who shops or uses the internet probably has encountered a TikTok trend – whether they know it or not.

If you’ve reached a career inflection point or you’re unhappy with your job or frustrated by managing a team, take a beat and ask yourself these questions. Welcome to Work Smarter, Fast Company‘s newsletter on career, leadership, and productivity advice. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here. It’s easy to take something for granted when it’s a daily (if not hourly) part of your job.

As labels look for new ways to court high-spending superfans, it’s starting to embrace K-pop’s favorite fan-engagement app. When Jungkook—a member of Korean pop group BTS—went to an Ariana Grande concert in 2019, he said it was partially to learn from her performance. Five years later, Grande has become the pupil of BTS by joining Weverse, the fan-engagement platform that’s helped the K-pop group grow the ranks of its global fandom, known as ARMY.

Half of Afghanistan’s population now finds itself locked out of the freedom to work at a time when the country’s economy is worse than ever. Frozan Ahmadzai is one of 200,000 Afghan women who have the Taliban’s permission to work. She should have graduated from university this year in pursuit of her dream of becoming a doctor, but the Taliban have barred women from higher education and excluded them from many jobs.

Colorado’s goal is to get to 100% renewable energy by 2040 and state officials are looking to geothermal and hydrogen power as important pieces of making the transition. New state reports say geothermal and hydrogen offer significant opportunities to build on the energy provided by wind, solar and batteries as the state, utilities and communities strive to reduce the effects of climate change.

Since the beginning of June, 50 people have been hospitalized with such burns, and four have died at Valleywise Health Medical Center in Phoenix. Ron Falk lost his right leg, had extensive skin grafting on the left one and is still recovering a year after collapsing on the searing asphalt outside a Phoenix convenience store where he stopped for a cold soda during a heat wave.