For years, the prevailing theory amongst workers about “unlimited vacation” is that it actually encourages workers to take less time off. Without the entitlement to a set number of days, employees can feel awkward requesting days off, or worried that doing so will make them look less committed to work.
But a new study from payroll and HR platform Deel finds it’s less about specific PTO policies than about culture. It all depends on where you live, says Lauren Thomas, the startup’s economist.
On average, European employees with unlimited vacation policies took four more days off than their counterparts with fixed time off this year—27 vs. 23. But in North America, there was hardly a difference, as both those with unlimited and fixed vacation policies averaged about 17.
“Americans and Canadians are definitely getting less time off, even when you only look at fixed time, than Europeans are,” Thomas said. “That is a combination of policy and culture.”
In fact, Canadian workers are taking less time off than those in the U.S. Thomas said this is because 77% of U.S. workers have access to paid vacation, while just 73% of Canadians do, based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Statistics Canada data.
But Americans and Canadians who work for companies that span the Atlantic do take more time off than their counterparts working for companies that do not have hires in Europe, Thomas said.
“I think companies need to think really carefully about how much productivity they’re really getting when they’re requiring so much [working] time from their employees,” she said. “At the end of the day, we know that time off is important for productivity, it’s important for making a good company, it’s also really important for attracting talent.”
Which cities are best at encouraging workers to take time off to rest and recharge? Stockholm, Berlin or Paris, where Thomas found employees took 25 or more days off this year.
The Society for Human Resource Management, or SHRM, was hit with a $11.5 million verdict after a former employee accused the trade group of racial discrimination and retaliation. Business Insider
As jobs get more niche, it has become harder for workers to explain exactly what they do to family and friends. Wall Street Journal
OpenAI says its tools save workers roughly 40 to 60 minutes per day, and has helped improve either the speed or quality of their work. Bloomberg
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Everything you need to know from Fortune.
Leaning out. For the first time in a decade, fewer women than men are interested in getting a promotion at work. —Sasha Rogelberg
Interview test. Gagan Biyani, CEO of the education platform Maven, says he gives candidates live feedback during job interviews to see how they react. —Orianna Rosa Royle
Manager shake-up. As AI agents are automating busy work, some managerial drudgery can be avoided—but human interaction is still essential. —Beatrice Nolan
new video loaded: Jimmy Lai Found Guilty by Hong Kong Court
The Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai was found guilty on Monday in a landmark national security trial. The 78-year-old founder of a popular pro-democracy paper could face life in prison.
The 2025 Swim England National Winter Championships concluded last night at the storied Ponds Forge International Sports Centre in Sheffield.
The final night of action brought about two British national records, both on the men’s side.
We reported how Tyler Melbourne-Smith cranked out a new benchmark on the 800m free while Ed Mildred busted out a lifetime best in the 200m fly. You can read more about each below.
There were multiple additional swims worth mentioning, including 21-year-old Olympian Jacob Whittle‘s victory in the men’s 100m freestyle.
The Repton athlete produced a time of 46.98 to top the podium in a super close battle with newly minted 200m backstroke national record holder Cameron Brooker and 50m freestyle winner Gabriel Shepherd.
Whittle marked the sole swimmer to delve under the 47-second barrier, although Brooker was only a hair behind in 47.01 and Shepherd immediately next to the wall in 47.02.
Whittle’s effort represented the 4th sub-47-second time of his career, one which boasts a lifetime best of 46.38 from the 2023 European Short Course Championships.
Brooker’s time, however, blew his former career-best time of 48.13 from November of 2024 to bits, as did 17-year-old Shepherd’s performance.
Entering these championships, Shepherd’s PB rested at the 48.08 produced at last year’s version of this competition.
The men’s 200m final saw 21-year-old Evan Jones picking up the win, unleashing a lifetime best of 1:53.35 in the process.
Jones split 24.34/52.28/1:26.10/1:53.35 to beat the pack by over two seconds, one which included newly minted 200m breaststroke European Junior record holder Filip Nowacki.
18-year-old Nowacki settled for silver in 1:55.44 followed by 17-year-old Aran Bissett who rounded out the podium in 1:55.84.
Prior to last night’s performance, Manchester Performance Centre’s Jones had never been under the 1:55 barrier, owning a PB of 1:55.97 from three years ago.
Flash forward to these championships and Jones now checks in as the #5 British man in history.
Top 5 British Men’s SCM 200 IM Performers All-Time
Winners on the women’s side included Betsy Wizard of Northampton hitting a mark of 57.38 to top the 100m fly podium and Honey Osrin clocking 2:05.94 to capture 200m backstroke gold.
Amra, a global digital music collection society, rolled out an upgraded client portal that gives songwriters and publishers more frequent access to their catalog, royalty and distribution performance.
The changes affect both the Revenue Dashboard and Copyright Dashboard that clients use to track their digital royalty collections worldwide, amra said on Monday (December 15).
The revamped Revenue Dashboard has shifted revenue updates to weekly refreshes from the previous quarterly schedule. This allows clients to monitor incoming credits in real time rather than waiting months for distribution reports.
New visualization features separate repertoire earnings and show quarter-over-quarter growth alongside data on which songs generate the most revenue.
Clients can filter their earnings by multiple variables and track the time gap between when music is played on digital platforms and when royalties are paid out.
Changes to the Copyright Dashboard expand how clients can sort and view their catalog metadata. The interface now allows filtering by product, artist, genre, release date, ISRC/ISWC, shares, PRO affiliation, and platform usage, and see writer-artist links.
The system also highlights usage matches across platforms, showing the earliest and most recent matches along with total match counts. This data helps clients confirm their music is being tracked globally and estimate when new releases will start generating revenue.
Robin Davies, Chief Operating Officer of amra, said: “Transparency is at the core of everything we do.
“These updates to our best-in-class portal gives clients completely unique access into their catalogue, royalty and distribution performance over time. We’ve always maintained that this is not our data, it is our clients, and our portal gives clients the richest digital consumption view of their data, globally.”
“We’ve always maintained that this is not our data, it is our clients, and our portal gives clients the richest digital consumption view of their data, globally.”
Robin Davies, Amra
Amra says it has invested over $50 million in its tech platform over the past four years. Last year, amra said the lion’s share of that figure had been spent in the previous three years.
The company’s operations now span regions outside the US, including direct digital collections in Southeast Asia, India, Australia, Brazil and Japan.
The updated client portal comes four months after amra inked a licensing agreement with Spotify. The multi-territory, multi-year renewal deal covers digital mechanical and performing rights across amra’s global footprint.
Just one hour of heavy rain left houses and shops flooded in old city; more heavy rain predicted for Tuesday.
Published On 15 Dec 202515 Dec 2025
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At least 37 have been killed in flash floods triggered by torrential rains in Morocco’s Atlantic coastal province of Safi, according to authorities.
State-owned broadcaster SNRT News on Monday quoted local authorities as saying at least 14 people had received hospital treatment, including two in the intensive care unit, after the sudden bout of heavy rain on Sunday.
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Images on social media showed a torrent of muddy water sweeping cars and rubbish bins from the streets in the town of Safi, located some 300km (186 miles) south of the capital, Rabat. At least 70 homes and businesses in the historic old city were flooded after just one hour of heavy rain, according to the authorities.
In a statement, the Safi governorate said search and rescue operations were ongoing and necessary measures had been taken to secure the affected areas and provide support to residents.
Resident Marouane Tamer, quoted by the AFP news agency, questioned why government trucks had not been dispatched to pump out the water.
Damage to roads cut off traffic along several routes to and from the port city on the Atlantic coast.
Casablanca-based newspaper Le Matin said provincial road 2300 linking Safi to Hrara, a town located 20.5km (12.7 miles) to the northeast, had been particularly affected.
The newspaper said the provincial directorate of national education in Safi had suspended classes in all schools on Monday.
By Sunday evening, the water level had receded, leaving people to pick through a mud-sodden landscape to salvage belongings.
As teams searched for other possible casualties, the weather service forecast more heavy rain on Tuesday across the country.
Morocco is experiencing heavy rain and snowfall in the Atlas Mountains, following seven years of drought that emptied some of its main reservoirs.
The country’s General Directorate of Meteorology said 2024 was Morocco’s hottest year on record.
Heavy rain in 2021 caused the death of 24 people, after there was a flood in an illegal underground textile workshop in a private house in Tangier, the state news agency reported at the time.
In 2014 and 2015, torrential rains also caused widespread flooding in Morocco.
Sunday’s floods came shortly after a separate disaster last week, which saw 19 people killed and 16 injured by the collapse of two buildings in Morocco’s historic city of Fes.
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Watch: What does the Jimmy Lai verdict mean for democracy in Hong Kong?
Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigner and media tycoon Jimmy Lai has been found guilty of colluding with foreign forces under the city’s controversial national security law (NSL).
The 78-year-old, who has been in jail since December 2020, pleaded not guilty. He faces life in prison and is expected to be sentenced early next year.
Lai used his now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper as part of a wider effortto lobby foreign governments to impose sanctions on Hong Kong and China, the court found.
Hong Kong’s chief executive John Lee welcomed the verdict, noting that Lai’s actions “damaged the country’s interests and the welfare of Hong Kongers”, but rights groups called it “a cruel judicial farce”.
They say the NSL, which Beijing defends as essential for the city’s stability, has been used to crush dissent.
Delivering the verdict on Monday, Judge Esther Toh said there is “no doubt” that Jimmy Lai “harboured hatred” for the People’s Republic of China (PRC), citing his “constant invitation to the US to help bring down the government of the PRC with the excuse of helping the people of Hong Kong”.
When Lai testified in November, he denied all the charges against him, saying he had “never” used his foreign contacts to influence foreign policy on Hong Kong.
Getty Images
Lai at a protest in 2019 when huge pro-democracy demonstrations rocked Hong Kong
Asked about his meeting with then US Vice President Mike Pence, Lai said he did not ask anything of him: “I would just relay to him what happened in Hong Kong when he asked me.”
He was also asked about his meeting with then secretary of state Mike Pompeo, to which he said he had asked Pompeo, “not to do something but to say something, to voice support for Hong Kong”.
Lai, a UK citizen and one of the fiercest critics of the Chinese state, was a key figure in the pro-democracy protests that engulfed Hong Kong in 2019. Beijing responded to the months-long demonstrations, which sometimes erupted into violent clashes with police, by introducing the NSL.
The law was enacted without consulting the Hong Kong legislature and gave authorities broad powers to charge and jail people they deemed a threat to the city’s law and order, or the government’s stability.
Lai was accused of violating the NSL for his role in the protests and also through his tabloid Apple Daily, which became a standard bearer for the pro-democracy movement.
Monday’s ruling also found Lai guilty of publishing seditious material on Apple Daily under a separate colonial-era law.
Lai appeared calm as the verdict was read out and waved goodbye to his family as he was escorted out of the courtroom. Lai’s wife Teresa and one of his sons were in court, along with Cardinal Joseph Zen, a long-time friend who baptised Lai in 1997.
Getty Images
Jimmy Lai’s wife, Teresa, their son Shun Yan and Cardinal Joseph Zen arrive at court
“Mr Lai’s spirit is okay,” his lawyer Robert Pang said after the verdict. “The judgement is so long that we’ll need some time to study it first. I don’t have anything to add at the moment.” He did not say whether they would appeal.
The UK condemned what it described as “politically motivated persecution” of Lai, saying he had been “targeted… for peacefully exercising his right to freedom of expression”.
“The UK has repeatedly called for the National Security Law to be repealed and for an end to the prosecution of all individuals charged under it,” the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said in a statement on Monday.
“The Chinese government abused Jimmy Lai with the aim of silencing all those who dare to criticise the CCP [Chinese Communist Party],” said Elaine Pearson, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch, following the verdict.
“In the face of the farce of Jimmy Lai’s case, governments should pressure the authorities to withdraw the case and release him immediately.”
Western governments, including the UK and US, have for years called for Lai’s release, which Beijing and Hong Kong have rejected.
US President Donald Trump had earlier vowed to “do everything to save” Lai while UK PM Keir Starmer had said securing his release was a “priority”.
A test of judicial independence
Lai’s trial came to be widely seen as yet another test of judicial independence for Hong Kong’s courts, which have been accused of toeing Beijing’s line since 2019, when it tightened its control over the city.
Hong Kong authorities insist the rule of law is intact but critics point to the hundreds of protesters and activists who have been jailed under the NSL – and its nearly 100% conviction rate as of May this year.
Bail is also often denied in NSL cases and that was the case with Lai too, despite rights groups and Lai’s children raising concerns about his deteriorating health. He has reportedly been held in solitary confinement.
Lai’s son Sebastien told the BBC earlier this year that his father’s “body is breaking down” – “Given his age, given his health… he will die in prison.”
The Hong Kong government has also been criticised for barring foreign lawyers from working on NSL cases without prior permission. They said it was a national security risk, although foreign lawyers had operated in the city’s courts for decades. Subsequently Lai was denied his choice of lawyer, who was based in the UK.
Watch: Jimmy Lai’s son speaks to the BBC about China-UK relations
Lai now joins dozens of figures of the city’s pro-democracy movement who have been sentenced to prison under the NSL.
The chief of Hong Kong’s national security police addressed the media after the verdict, saying Lai had “fabricated news” in pursuit of “political goals”.
On the mainland, state-run Global Times quoted a Hong Kong election committee member as saying that the case sends a “clear message”: “Any attempt to split the country or undermine Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability will be met with severe punishment under the law.”
From tycoon to activist
Lai, who was born in mainland China, fled to Hong Kong when he was 12 years old and got his footing as a businessman after founding the international clothing brand Giordano.
His journey as a democracy activist began after China brutally crushed pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989.
Lai started writing columns criticising the massacre and went on to launch a string of popular pro-democracy publications, including Apple Daily and Next.
Even now, many Hong Kongers see him as a leading voice for democracy – about 80 people had queued to enter the court ahead of the verdict on Monday.
One of them was Ms Lam who didn’t want to share her full name. An apple in hand, she said she started queuing around 11:00 local time on Sunday – nearly a full day before the session – because dozens of people had come before her. It was a cold night, she said, but she did it because she had wanted to wish Lai good luck.
“We all feel frustrated and powerless. Yet, there must be an ending to the whole issue and time comes when it comes,” a former Apple Daily journalist, who was also in court, told the BBC.
“Jimmy always said that he was indebted to Hong Kong… but I think Hong Kong and most Hong Kongers are so grateful to have him upholding the core values, good faith and integrity for the community at the expense of his well being and personal freedom.”
In his testimony, Lai had said that he had “never allowed” his newspaper’s staff to advocate for Hong Kong independence, which he described as a “conspiracy” and “too crazy to think about”.
“The core values of Apple Daily are actually the core values of the people of Hong Kong,” he had said. These values, he added, include the “rule of law, freedom, pursuit of democracy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly”.
new video loaded: Australia Mourns After Bondi Beach Shooting
transcript
transcript
Australia Mourns After Bondi Beach Shooting
The belongings of people at Bondi Beach during a deadly shooting were lined up on the sand on Monday. People brought flowers and flags were lowered for the victims of the attack on a Jewish festival.
What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil: an act of terror, an act of antisemitism, an attack on the first day of Hanukkah targeted at the Jewish community, a dark day in Australia’s history on what should have been a day of light.
The belongings of people at Bondi Beach during a deadly shooting were lined up on the sand on Monday. People brought flowers and flags were lowered for the victims of the attack on a Jewish festival.
A bystander who rushed and disarmed one of the Bondi Beach attackers has won praise from leaders around the world, including US President Donald Trump and hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, who announced a reward program for community heroes.
Extraordinary footage of the civilian’s actions began circulating on social media on Sunday, shortly after two men, later identified as a father and son, started shooting into a crowd gathered to celebrate the first day of Hanukkah. The massacre has left at least 16 people dead in the worst terrorist attack in Australia’s history.
In the mobile-phone video, which has not been verified by Bloomberg News, one of the attackers is standing near a tree and firing. A few meters away, a crouched man emerges from behind a parked car. He grabs the shooter from behind and wrestles the weapon from his hands. Local media named the bystander as Ahmed el Ahmed, a 43-year-old father-of-two from south Sydney. He was shot twice and is being treated in the hospital, according to reports.
He was also soon lauded for his feat. Trump said at the White House that Ahmed had saved many lives and expressed “great respect” for him. In Sydney, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns went further, describing Ahmed’s wrestle with the shooter as “the most unbelievable scene I’ve ever seen.”
“That man is a genuine hero and I’ve got no doubt there are many, many people alive tonight as a result of his bravery,” Minns said at a press conference late Sunday.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also praised Ahmed, and other bystanders who helped treat victims in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
“People rushing towards danger to show the best of the Australian character,” Albanese told reporters Monday. “That’s who we are, people who stand up for our values.”
Pershing Square Capital Management’s founder Ackman called Ahmed “a brave hero” and said his hedge fund firm would establish a reward program for people who had carried out similar acts.
The top donor to a gofundme page set up for the “hero” who tackled the shooter is listed as William Ackman, who gave $99,999. More than $170,000 has been raised so far.
Salesforce Inc. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff also expressed his gratitude for Ahmed in a post on X.
