Over the last two years, we’ve presented our picks of the best “work-life” bags that are versatile enough to take a woman from work to cocktail hour to hanging out with friends on the weekend. While our annual list is popular, shelling out $200 or more when you’re on an entry-level salary or when you are trying to save money can be tough.

After several weeks of rigorous testing, here are our picks of versatile work-life bags that are all under $100.

We tested a wide range of bags to suit different lifestyles. Some are equipped for a laptop, but others aren’t, since many women no longer need to lug a computer or a tablet around with them anymore. Some have compartments for sneakers, for women who like to spontaneously pop into a fitness class. Others can be converted from satchels to totes to backpacks to go from one activity to another. We tested many bags and these were the ones that made the cut.

Related: Found: The Perfect Work-Life Bags For Women

Convertible: Modcloth’s Stop, Rock, And Roll ($69.99)

If you’re looking for an everyday work bag that looks professional, Modcloth’s Stop, Rock, and Roll is a good choice. It is a satchel that comes in black or brown that packs everything you might need to get through a workday. I packed it with my 13-inch laptop, plus a few magazines, notebooks, and a pocket umbrella, and it managed to retain its shape. It has two pockets on the inside, which I used to store my keys and wallet for easy access, plus a divider to separate your laptop. The best part about it is that it goes from a satchel to a cross-body to a backpack just by changing the straps.

It is made of a thick suede and leather, which made it durable through the daily wear and tear of carrying a heavy bag around. It looks perfect for work, but in the backpack or cross-body modes it manages to look slightly more casual, allowing you to wear it when hanging out casually over the weekend.

From Work To Weekend: Everlane’s Dipped Zipped Tote ($60)

If you’re looking for a tote bag that you can take everywhere, Everlane’s Twill Zip Tote is a good bet. It is perfectly sized for you to carry several devices including a 15-inch laptop. But the bag keeps its shape if you decide you want to travel light: The wide base sits flat on the ground and the stiff twill is firm.

Everlane has spent a lot of time designing the bag to last a long time. It is made from a combination of leather and cotton, which makes it very light even when it is full of stuff. The leather strap can bear a lot of weight, while also staying firmly in place, which is an improvement over cotton stops that wear out and get misshapen over time. The twill is water resistant and the base of the bag is screen printed 11 times for extra durability, so that it doesn’t get wet or dirty as you go about your life. It has one pocket on the inside, so you don’t lose your wallet or sunglasses, and the entire bag can be zipped up.

I found the bag very useful. As a mother of a toddler, I packed the tote with baby stuff on the weekend (sippy cups, snack boxes, Elmo) and the bag looked perfectly casual. But when I needed to bring it to work, it also looked structured and prim, even when it was packed with my computer and a packed lunch. It comes in a wide array of colors: Tthe black is great for more formal workplaces, while the yellow or green are great if you’re in a more casual environment.

For The Traveler: Herschel Novel Duffle ($84.99)

If you travel a lot for work and pleasure, it can be hard to find a functional, affordable but also attractive bag to tote around. The Herschel Novel Duffle does the job very nicely. It’s a spacious, lightweight bag that you can carry over the shoulder or with reinforced handles. I packed three days’ worth of clothes, an extra pair of sandals, and a couple of paperback books for a short trip and there was still room to spare, while not feeling too heavy.

Related: These 6 Women’s “Work Uniforms” Will Make Your Mornings Easier

The bag comes with several thoughtful pockets. It has a special shoe compartment, which means it can function as a gym bag, plus a mesh sleeve on the inside to stash sweaty clothes.

It comes in a wide range of colors and designs, but if you opt for a muted color combo, like apricot blush, or black (both of which come with a contrasting brown handle), the bag can work well in a professional context. The great thing about it is that it works equally well if you’re going away for a casual weekend, eliminating the need for two travel bags.

Fun But Practical: Ban.do Amigo Circle Bag ($95)

Sometimes, you want a bag with a bit of personality to carry to the office that still looks professional and does the job of carrying all your stuff. If this describes your particular predicament, Ban.do’s Amigo bag might be a good fit. It’s a circle bag that is on trend and comes in black, cream, and a playful pink. But it still manages to look appropriate with formal workwear, if somewhat ’80s inspired.

This bag is large enough to carry everything you need to get through an entire week. I stuffed it with my everyday items–wallet, keys, sunglasses, business card case–plus notebooks and other documents. On a weekend to the beach, I was able to add a swimsuit, small toiletries kit, and even a pair of flip-flops wrapped in a bag. The two shoulder straps are sturdy and the leather exterior is durable. The bag manages to keep its shape no matter what you put inside.

Small But Mighty: Timbuk2 Adapt Cross Body ($89)

If you’re in the market for a small purse that can do everything, you should consider Timbuk2’s cross-body option. It’s small and lightweight, but it can pack a lot. I was able to fill it up with my phone, charger, wallet, hardshell sunglasses case, a small notebook and pen, and a small pouch for headache medication. There was still room to spare for the odds and ends you pick up as you’re out and about.

The bag is made from the durable neoprene material that Timbuk2 is known for in its iconic messenger bags. I found this very useful when I was out in the rain, or when my toddler decided to drool or color on the bag. The flexible straps were also handy: It worked well as a cross-body, but looked nice as a regular handbag as well.

In my research, I’ve found that many women no longer need to carry many devices with them as their going to work. This is the ideal bag for the woman who just needs to have her cellphone handy and doesn’t need to be too formal at work. It’s the perfect bag to carry into the weekend to avoid the awkward bag-swapping hustle.

Compact Backpack:  State Bags Slim Larimer ($90)

I’ve found that many women, particularly in casual office environments, are looking for a backpack, but don’t want one that looks to large or masculine. State’s Slim Lorimer is a good bet. It is designed for a woman’s back, since it has a smaller silhouette.

It is also not too bulky, but has a special compartment designed for a 13-inch laptop. I found that it could pack my computer and several notebooks, plus all my other daily items, like my wallet and sunglasses, without losing its slim shape. This backpack will be particularly handy for women who commute long distances with their laptop or those who commute by bike. It is made of a lightweight, waterproof material, for those days when you’re traveling in the rain.

The bag comes in a range of fashion-forward colors, ranging from feminine purples to neutral blacks.

Casual And Convenient: Sakroots Campus Tote ($48)

If you’re in a more casual industry, or spend a lot of time working in a coffee shop, you might opt for the Sakroots campus tote. It’s small and light, but holds a 13-inch laptop. It’s designed to be worn over the shoulder, but also as a cross-body or as a messenger. It is made from denim and canvas that comes in a range of boho- and hippie-inspired prints, giving it a far more relaxed look than some of the other bags we’ve included on the list.

It’s a great everyday bag. I stuffed it with my computer, several magazines, and books: It bears a lot of weight. But I found that I didn’t have to change bags when I took my daughter to a playdate over the weekend. It’s perfect for the woman who spends a lot of time out of the office and needs to tote around a lot of stuff to get through the day.

As the volumes of social media-related court opinions keep piling up, a Florida appeals court yesterday decided something most of us already know: Facebook friends are not necessarily actual friends. In a 10-page opinion, Judge Thomas Logue, of Florida’s third district court of appeals, said a Miami judge didn’t need to recuse herself from a case just because one of the attorneys is her Facebook “friend.” Apparently, a law firm petitioned the court to have the judge disqualified on that basis, but Logue noted that social networks have evolved far beyond the point where we only use them to maintain connections with close friends. In other words, all those Facebook “friends” aren’t necessarily your friends in the legal sense:

“Acceptance as a Facebook ‘friend’ may well once have given the impression of close friendship and affiliation. Currently, however, the degree of intimacy among Facebook ‘friends’ varies greatly. The designation of a person as a ‘friend’ on Facebook does not differentiate between a close friend and a distant acquaintance. Because a ‘friend’ on a social networking website is not necessarily a friend in the traditional sense of the word, we hold that the mere fact that a judge is a Facebook ‘friend’ with a lawyer for a potential party or witness, without more, does not provide a basis for a well-grounded fear that the judge cannot be impartial or that the judge is under the influence of the Facebook ‘friend.'”

The Miami Herald has more analysis on the ruling here. Check out the full court opinion here.

It’s about to get a little easier to reenact the ice lake scenes from Game of Thrones thanks to more cheap flights to Iceland. WOW air is expanding to four new cities in the United States, and while their flights won’t be faster than one of Daenerys Targaryen’s dragons, they will offer direct service to Reykjavik from Detroit, St. Louis, Cleveland, and Cincinnati—an expansion that will give it a total of 12 U.S. destinations, USA Today reports.

WOW’s new routes will launch this spring, with one-way fares to Iceland starting at $99.99 from all four cities. With fares that cheap, you’ll have plenty of money left over to spend at IKEA on your Jon Snow cosplay. If you want to continue your Game of Thrones tour, for $149, WOW will let you stop over in Iceland on your way to, say, Dorne (that’s Seville, Spain) or even King’s Landing (aka Croatia).

As this summer’s news cycle has shown, one reason why female founders receive so little funding is because there aren’t enough women on the other side of the table. A Toronto-based organization called SheEO is trying to change that dynamic by, well, setting up its own table. Following a successful pilot, it’s now opening up its funding model to women in the United States.

“The reality is, the vast majority of women don’t need venture financing,” SheEO founder Vicki Saunders wrote in a letter announcing the expansion. “We need a different model of support and funding. ”

Launched in 2015, SheEO does exactly that, bringing together 500 women—dubbed Activators—who each put $1,100 toward the fund. (Saunders describes this as “radical generosity.”) The group then chooses five women-led “Ventures” to invest in, each of which must generate revenue and have social impact.

The goal, Saunders says, is to build a $1 billion fund pooled from 1 million Activators—which she claims SheEO is on track to reach by 2025.

In 2013, Randy Dillard was living with his four sons and a daughter in an apartment at 198th Street and Bainbridge in the Bronx. The windows were broken; mold and mildew streaked the walls. In the winter, Dillard’s family had to boil water on the stove to bathe; there was no heat or hot water. When the New York City Housing Authority conducted an inspection of the apartment on behalf of Section 8, the federal rent assistance program that financed Dillard’s rental, the unit failed the test, and Section 8 stopped paying Dillard’s landlord, demanding that he make repairs. That winter, Dillard was hospitalized for two months with a bout of emphysema; when he came out, he was served with eviction papers for nonpayment of rent.

“I stood in the middle of my hallway looking around my apartment thinking: What am I going to do with my stuff?” Dillard tells Fast Company. “I told myself: I’m going to end up homeless. I’m going to wind up in a shelter.”

Dillard got word of a Bronx organization called Part of the Solution (POTS), which connects people in crisis with resources to help. Those in need of food can eat in the community dining hall, and for people like Dillard, facing housing court, there’s a legal clinic. Through the clinic, Dillard met an attorney who successfully battled his landlord’s claims on the grounds that he’d neglected his duties to provide repairs and humane living standards for Dillard and his family. The attorney also got Dillard’s Section 8 status, which was taken away while he was in the hospital, reinstated.

But over the past year, a handful of cities have introduced efforts to rectify this imbalance by expanding the right to counsel, usually just applicable to criminal court, to also include eviction cases. In criminal cases, a defendant’s right to counsel is guaranteed under the Sixth Amendment; in civil cases, that mandate does not apply, even though, as Beth Harrison, supervising attorney for the Housing Law unit of the Legal Aid Society for the District of Columbia tells Fast Company, “civil cases can have such dire consequences for individuals–the effect that eviction can have on employment, stability, educational outcomes, and health outcomes is devastating.” Dillard saw, during his eviction proceeding, his daughter’s high school grade average fall from a B to a D, and one of his sons get arrested. Though he held himself together for his children’s sake, he recalls the two and a half years of uncertainty one of the most stressful times of his life.

Through POTS, which secured him an attorney, Dillard became involved with Community Action for Safe Apartments (CASA) as a tenants’ rights activist. CASA is part of the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition, which, since its founding in 2014, has been advocating for guaranteed representation for all defendants in eviction cases across the city. Dillard recalls securing support from 42 community boards, and hosting forums for hundreds of people to advance their policy recommendations. City Hall listened: On August 11, mayor Bill de Blasio signed the country’s first civil right to counsel bill into law, committing $155 million over the course of five years toward expanding legal representation by paying lawyers to take up low-income eviction cases.

New York City’s law guarantees counsel to any low-income tenant earning 200% of the federal poverty level or less. Previously, the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition had successfully lobbied the city to increase public funding available to low-income tenants facing eviction; their efforts have reduced evictions by 24% since 2014. But the new law codifies and guarantees representation for all low-income tenants facing eviction–the housing-court equivalent of the Gideon v. Wainwright ruling that mandates right to counsel in criminal cases at the federal level–and aims to prove that civil right to counsel legislation is a viable path for other cities to follow. The Right to Counsel NYC Coalition estimates that expanded representation will save the city and taxpayers a collective $320 million per year in costs ranging from the price of sheltering people rendered temporarily homeless, to welfare coverage for jobs lost due to evictions, and act as a defense against rampant gentrification and displacement in rapidly evolving cities.

Until recently, Pollock says, the issue of right to counsel in civil cases has been something handled at the state level. But with New York City, and others like Boston,Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. following quickly behind in enacting or proposing similar bills, “cities are taking the lead on this issue,” he adds.

Without an attorney, Harrison says, tenants show up to court and have to negotiate with the landlord and his or her attorney on their own, in a process that looks less like a negotiation and more like coercion. “They sign a form agreeing to certain terms, and are at immediate risk of eviction if they don’t comply with the letter with those terms,” Harrison says. But legal representation for the tenant, she adds, “slows down the process” and multiplies the time spent on a case by around six, allowing the tenant to formulate and articulate an argument against the landlord’s claims.

In Dillard’s case, for example, his attorney was able to argue against his eviction for nonpayment of rent by showing that it was, in fact, Section 8, not Dillard, who ceased paying the landlord, and for the legitimate reason that the landlord had not kept his property up to acceptable living standards. Even if an attorney is not able to craft a compelling case against eviction, they are often able to negotiate on behalf of the tenant for a longer time frame before the eviction takes effect, to allow the tenant time to find a new home and avoid temporary homelessness, which is rampant in quickly developing cities.

By failing to provide counsel in eviction hearings, cities are reinforcing the socioeconomic forces that are driving displacement. “This really comes down to a matter of income,” Harrison says. In D.C., where Harrison works, attorneys will charge anywhere from $150 dollars an hour to well over $1,000. Even at the lowest end of that spectrum, just five hours of counsel will surpass monthly rent for a low-income tenant. The D.C. Right to Counsel Initiative, launched in 2013 in partnership with Legal Aid, the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center and the D.C. Access to Justice Commission, monitors low-income eviction cases as they come in, randomly selects a number of them that they can take on, and assigns a lawyer to the tenant to litigate the case. Those tenants who were assigned lawyers were six times less likely to be evicted. In The Washington Post, D.C. council members Charles Allen, Kenyan R. McDuffie, and Mary M. Cheh, who have this year introduced legislation to expand that program, write: “For a city struggling to fight serious housing challenges, that’s an outcome we desperately need.”

In cities like San Francisco, D.C., and New York, where displacement and homelessness have reached crisis levels, right to counsel, Pollock says, “is essential to stop the bleeding” that results from gentrification, but it’s not enough to solve the whole issue. “To some degree, the problem of gentrification as a whole is far less under control than the problem of right to counsel,” Pollock says. Expanding representation for tenants in eviction hearings is away to level the legal playing field in one corner of the massive, changing urban landscape. “That’s why you see efforts like New York City’s being driven by tenants,” Pollock says. “They recognize that there are multiple problems to address, and this is a way to tackle one aspect.”

Goop is under attack, yet again.

Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle website is now the target of the advertising watchdog group Truth in Advertising (TINA), which filed a complaint to two California district attorneys who are part of the California Food, Drug and Medical Device Task Force. In the letter, the nonprofit claims it conducted its own investigation into Goop for using “unsubstantiated, and therefore deceptive, health and disease-treatment claims to market many of its products.”

TINA says it found more than 50 instances in which Goop “claims, either expressly or implicitly, that its products–or third-party products that it promotes–can treat, cure, prevent, alleviate the symptoms of, or reduce the risk of developing a number of ailments.” This includes crystals to “treat infertility,” that walking barefoot “cures insomnia,” and that Goop’s signature perfume “improves memory” and can “work as antibiotics.” Of course, Goop’s controversial vaginal jade eggs got a shoutout for claims that they can “prevent uterine prolapse.”

“Marketing products as having the ability to treat diseases and disorders not only violates established law but is a terribly deceptive marketing ploy that is being used by Goop to exploit women for its own financial gain,” Bonnie Patten, TINA’s executive director, said in a statement.

TINA officials say they contacted Goop on Aug. 11 to “remedy the deceptive marketing” in numerous stories, and that the company has since made “limited changes.” As such, TINA now calls on the district attorneys to conduct a further investigation.

Last month, Goop responded to critics within the medical community with an open letter defending its practices. The site said it welcomed questions surrounding their content, but took issue with attacks on their doctors and professionals.

“That’s at the core of what we’re trying to do,” read the letter. “Being dismissive–of discourse, of questions from patients, of practices that women might find empowering or healing, of daring to poke at a long-held belief–seems like the most dangerous practice of all.”

What: A new ad from Hungry Jack’s (what Burger King calls itself Down Under) that shows one man’s escape from the hipster matrix.

Who: Hungry Jack’s, Clemenger BBDO Sydney

Why we care: Remember the part in The Matrix, where Morpheus explains to Neo just what the matrix is, and how all humanity is trapped within it? This is like the burger version of that.

Hungry Jack’s taps into our foodie insecurity, that the Instagrammable eating experience we’ve so carefully constructed is but a sham. Do we want art or do we want a baconator? Is that my phone ringing?

What: British fashion designer Julien Macdonald created a limited-edition burger box for the McDonald’s new signature collection gourmet burger range.

Who: McDonald’s UK, Julien Macdonald

Today, Couturier @JulienMacdonald will unveil his bespoke box for #TheSignatureCollection from McDonald's pic.twitter.com/8dyPpN037N

— McDonald's UK (@McDonaldsUK) August 23, 2017

Why we care: On one hand, this could be the 867th sign of the apocalypse. But on the other, it’s a fun hi-lo collaboration that will at least get people talking. Who wouldn’t want to eat a burger out of a box that belongs in Donald Trump’s apartment?

“I drew inspiration from my fashion creations and iconic embellished red-carpet dresses. This was translated into a gold, baroque, crystal-encrusted box, which is the perfect packaging for the luxury McDonald’s collection,” Macdonald told WWD, presumably with a straight face.

On some weeks, you have a long to-do list, and on top of that, an even longer list of meetings you’re “required” to attend. Those meetings aren’t going anywhere, but neither are the tasks you’ve committed to completing. So naturally, when you find an opportunity to skip one of the meetings, you should take it, right?

In some cases, yes. For example, when you’ve been invited “just in case.” Or when you know it’s just a status update meeting and you don’t need the updates.

But there are some pretty bad reasons for backing out of a meeting, too. And by bad, I mean you’re going to lose your team’s respect, and possibly, even opportunities if you use one of these excuses.

1. You “Need” To Grab Food

There are few things on the face of the earth that motivate me as much as a meal. I get how real hunger pains are, especially in the middle of a long stretch of meetings. But as empathetic as I am to you when you’re desperate for a snack break, it’s a terrible excuse to pump the brakes on an important meeting.

And I know you know this–yet I also know that there are people who use this excuse when they’re backing out.

Related:Three Simple Steps That Helped Me Finally Beat Meeting Overload 

Instead

Pack one of your desk drawers with easy-to-grab snacks–preferably ones that won’t be grating for everyone else to listen to as you eat them.

2. You Have An “Urgent” Errand To Run

I have a handful of weddings to go to this summer, which means I have a handful of errands to run every week. And of course, all those errands usually involve stores with very specific hours. While you hate to cancel so last-minute, you just don’t know when you’ll pick up your suit from the tailor if not right now.

Instead

Do a quick assessment of your day and put all your assignments in priority order. Is there something else besides this meeting that you can put off? Could you stay later in order to get everything done? What about coming in earlier?

It might be inconvenient for you, but it’s better to stay an hour later than annoy or delay all your coworkers because you can’t attend a meeting.

3. You Have Too Much Work to Get Done

There are days when you feel like you simply have too much to do–and I get that. And on those days, attending meetings can feel like a waste of your time. But at the same time, skipping this meeting can create more work for the people involved in it–and that’s not necessarily fair.

Related:Why You Should Create A Music Playlist For Your Next Meeting

Instead

Ask your manager for help deciding what’s most important for you to do–the tasks on your to-do list or this meeting. If it’s truly impossible to get it all done and the meeting is more important, ask for a deadline extension on your other work.

You might be thinking, “This is great, but what if I’m the exception to what’s above?”

Alright, I’ll work with you here. If you absolutely need to cancel, here’s the email you need to send to attendees. Of course, customize based on what the meeting’s about and what your role is in it.

Hi

I can’t attend today’s/tomorrow’s meeting. I know this is last minute and I apologize/I know this will delay our progress and I apologize.

[Note: These are optional lines]

Is there any [data/reports/insights] I can send in advance to help move the conversation forward?

If any decisions need my input, I’ll answer them ASAP on [email/Slack/text message].

Could we get this conversation started on email—happy to lead the charge on that.

Sorry again,

[Your Name]

Meetings get a bad reputation, and in a lot of cases, it’s warranted. Nobody likes to have their time wasted on something that could be easily resolved over email or quickly at your desk. But the fact that you dislike them isn’t a good reason to start backing out at the last minute–especially if they fall into the “important” category.

Instead, make a bigger effort to both remove meetings from your schedule that truly aren’t needed (this article can help with that) and organize your weekly schedule in a way that allows for lunch breaks and pockets of time to deal with personal issues.

Getting organized isn’t always easy–but it’s definitely worth it.

This article originally appeared in The Daily Muse and is reprinted with permission.

More From The Muse:

• How To Take Any Meeting Out Of The Office 
• How To Turn Down A Last Minute Meeting Request
• A New Method To Reduce The Number Of Meetings You Attend 

While Cicero said “the life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living,” it turns out, robots will suffice. A funeral-overseeing robot made an appearance this week at Tokyo’s premier funeral industry fair, the aptly named Life Ending Industry Expo, according to The Guardian. The robot was a Pepper model from SoftBank, programmed with all the rites of a traditional Buddhist funeral. In theory, it will help a family cut costs associated with traditional funerals.

SoftBank created the robot, but its plastic molding maker, Nissei Eco, apparently envisions a future where we are all ushered into the afterlife by robots, and it’s making Pepper’s services available for just $448. Considering that Japanese funerals tend to run about $25,000, according to The Guardian, that’s a bargain. Plus, she can probably play your 16-hour funeral playlist of “Forever Young” and “So Alive” on a loop.

Read more about it here, and then watch Pepper in action in the video from SoftBank, which looks like B-Roll from an episode of Doctor Who.

Intel has big plans for self-driving cars, but public opinion stands in the way. The company, which has announced a slew of partnerships–including a collaboration with BMW–believes the technology is advancing by leaps and bounds. In fact, it’s almost ready to go to market. The next huge hurdle is getting people to feel safe in autonomous vehicles.

Today, its chief systems architect, Jack Weast, released the results of some internal research, which detailed consumers’ reservations with self-driving technology. Specifically it delved into the trust issues that are causing people to pause before riding in a self-driving car.

The research, which Intel described as a “limited, qualitative study,” surveyed people who had no experience with autonomous vehicles. “They were invited to take a ride in a driverless test car in exchange for their feedback about the experience,” writes Weast, and the company evaluated their responses around different situations where trust is needed.

Many participants in the research indicated they are apprehensive about trusting computers over human judgment during very specific driving situations–such as when a jaywalker appears. They also showed anxiety about riding in a vehicle that had traditional control designs being led by a computer (for example, a steering wheel moving on its own). Which means that these cars will likely have new designs and controls to better ease passengers.

Last month, Weast spoke with Fast Company‘s Sean Captain about the road ahead for autonomous vehicles. “It comes to human psychology, really,” he said. “One of the things that’s really crucial is bi-directional, open communication of what somebody’s doing and why.”

These results elucidate a bit on how Intel is framing and hoping to overcome these human-trust issues. You can read the entire post here.

Narwhals are not just unicorn-tusked marvels frolicking in the ocean waves and inspiring some of the internet’s greatest hits. They are also NASA’s secret agents in studying climate change.

Narwhals are some of the few animals who are happy that the glaciers are melting, so scientists from NASA’s Oceans Melting Greenland (also known by the not-at-all subtle acronym OMG) have conscripted them into their climate change studies. OMG is trying to figure out how quickly Greenland’s ice will disappear, and the feeding habits of narwhals are proving helpful. According to Bloomberg, “The whales tend to feed at the bottom of melting glaciers and can dive to depths of 1,800 meters, precisely the areas that OMG needs to survey.” In short, follow the narwhals, and they’ll show you the seasonal ebb and flow of glaciers, which could reveal how much ice is left.

Read more at Bloomberg while trying to get this song out of your head:

Susan Fowler, the former Uber engineer who wrote a blog post about sexual harassment at the company that set off at least two internal investigations, has decided to fight for employment rights at the national level. No, she’s not suing Uber. Instead she’s filed a petition with the Supreme Court calling into question the practice of forced arbitration.

In an amicus brief, Fowler draws on her experience at Uber to explain why contract clauses asking employees to give up their right to jury trials and class action suits aren’t just a cost saving tactic, they’re a way of enabling corporate abuse. “Companies require class action waivers to limit or eliminate the legal risk associated with systemic—and potentially or certainly illegal—employment practices,” the brief notes. When cases are handled in arbitration, employee complaints are handled privately, making it easier for a company to hide recurring problems. In Uber’s case, an investigation into its corporate culture turned up 215 instances of sexual harassment and lead to 20 firings.

Fowler’s petition is in relation to three court cases already before the Supreme Court.

Related: Workers Win Only 1% Of Federal Civil Rights Lawsuits At Trial

Transparency is a tricky thing. It’s easy to shine a light on what you’re proud of when things are going great, and a lot harder to put on display anything that isn’t–especially when it comes to diversity and inclusion. To its credit, Atlassian just released a diversity report that isn’t all As.

Like other tech companies, the Australian enterprise software company has made incremental gains by hiring more underrepresented minorities, but it’s still got work to do as its global workforce of over 2,200 continues to grow. Unlike other tech companies, Atlassian isn’t shy about acknowledging that. Some choose not to report at all, even though delivering regular demographic snapshots (good or bad) can bring business benefits all on its own–if only to learn what’s working and what isn’t.

Related:These Entrepreneurs Are Done Waiting For Silicon Valley To Close The Racial Wealth Gap

Aubrey Blanche, Atlassian’s global head of diversity and inclusion, tells Fast Company that the number of underrepresented minorities hired into its more than 700-person U.S. workforce (the only country that counts race when parsing the numbers) fell over the past 12 months, from 13% to 10.2%. Blanche says candidly that it’s largely because priority wasn’t placed on hiring those candidates as the company grew.

Underrepresented minorities in tech roles did increase to 13.1%. Over one-third (32%) of all new hires since last August were women, including 36% in leadership roles. And the share of staff over 40 years old went from 11% to 15.7%.

What’s different about Atlassian’s report is that it focuses on its team composition, not overall employee numbers. While that team-level data looks promising at first glance (100% of teams in customer support, finance, and IT have at least one woman), Blanche admits that simply having one person from an underrepresented minority group on a team of mostly white males doesn’t equal inclusion.

“We realized we need to develop a stronger signal of belonging, and that needs to happen at the team level,” she says. “Team-level reporting suggested the experience of belonging is a great predictor of success.”

To make staff feel like they belong, Blanche says Atlassian is focusing on teams’ “cognitive diversity”–not just gender, race, age, etc., but difference of experiences and ideas–which she admits is “really hard to measure because of the number of ways individuals can be different.”

But in order for all these cognitive and other differences to make a positive impact, she maintains that companies and individual employees need a shared set of values. That’s why Atlassian assesses candidates for “values fit” rather than culture fit, which Blanche notes can be riddled with unconscious bias. “Lots of research finds that behavioral interviewing is the most accurate prediction of fit,” she explains. So interviewers at the company ask specific questions like, “Would you be willing to reconsider your original point of view?” instead of relying on old standbys like, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

In the meantime, Atlassian plans to continue sharing snapshots of its progress on diversity and inclusion. Adds Blanche, “We need to create space for honest reporting of failures and learnings and constructive dialogue that respects the dignity and accomplishments of all of our teammates.” Without that degree of transparency–not just at Atlassian but throughout the tech sector–there isn’t much chance for real progress.

Your dream of coding and then launching an app that will then rake in billions of dollars is, well, probably not going to happen. Common sense and a general understanding of the mobile space would show you this, but comScore’s annual U.S. Mobile App Report also gets at it.

The new report, which looks at the behaviors of desktop and mobile users, featured a section that analyzed the most popular apps out there today. ComScore charted the top 10 most-used apps, and it really shouldn’t come as a shock who the winners are: Three of them are owned by Facebook, four of them are owned by Google, and the other two are Snapchat and Pandora.

There are a few important points to tease from this:

• Every single app on this top 10 list is owned by a publicly traded company.
• Facebook and Google–which are considered a growing duopoly when it comes to digital ad revenue–are unsurprisingly controlling the mobile app space, too.
• The once-burgeoning app space–where a sole entrepreneur who had a cool idea for a mobile product could quickly deploy a successful handheld business and profit–has evolved to being controlled by tech juggernauts.

ComScore goes a little deeper and looks at the fastest-growing apps, too, and finds that they generally offer marketplaces or services and are thriving because of “network effects.” In short, the fast-growing new apps are the ones that have been gaining momentum for years already.

Of course, it’s overly simplistic to say with broad strokes that all new apps are doomed to fail, but it’s important to see how the market has changed over the years and who the dominant players have become.

As stand-alone mobile products begin to face challenges of churn or changing consumer tastes, it seems the ones that survive have either been scooped up by a big gun or have built a platform beyond the app itself.

You can find the full comScore report here.

For a refugee trapped in an overcrowded camp on an island in Greece, it often isn’t clear how to prepare for an asylum interview–a step in the process of getting official refugee status in the EU–and for those who have started to lose faith in the system, it’s also sometimes hard to believe that an interview can change their fate.

A new chatbot called MarHub (the name is a play on the Arabic greeting marhaba) is designed to help. After an asylum-seeker answers a few questions, the tool walks them through what to expect and how to present their case. Over time, the tool will expand to become a hub of information relevant to refugees, using the crowd to help vet the reliability of that information and flag details that seem outdated or inaccurate.

Since the refugee crisis in Europe reached its peak in 2015, many apps and websites designed to help smooth the refugee process followed, such as Migration Aid, which was designed to help people traveling through Hungary, or Refugermany, which helps new arrivals in Berlin open a bank account or learn German, or Refugee.info, which attempts to provide comprehensive information. But even though most refugees have smartphones–and desperately need information–many of the new tech tools are underused. Sites and apps often provide information that is too general or out of date, as understaffed organizations struggle to respond to day-to-day crises and make providing information a lower priority.

If part of the asylum application process changes, for example, a humanitarian organization might not be immediately able to update its own website to reflect that. The UC law professor, Katerina Linos, found that rumors in a refugee camp tend to spike with a major change in policy or procedure.

“Misinformation is kind of being fueled by these changes,” says Nomanbhoy. “Asylum seekers are so desperate to get an answer that these rumors spread, and people start to build on them, and that’s when there’s often violence in the camps and conflict. People are dealing with a lot of stress in those situations.”

They also often get information from unreliable sources. “When you talk to asylum seekers, what they’ll say is it’s so easy to get on the phone with a smuggler,” she says. “They always answer the phone, and they always have an answer. Whether it’s the right answer or not is a completely different question.”

For most people, the process begins with an admissibility interview asking why someone left Turkey, the waypoint on many journeys, to determine whether it would be safe to send them back. A second interview asks why someone left their home country.

“A lot of people mix up these interviews,” says Nomanbhoy. “They prepare for the wrong one. They’re not sure why they’re being asked questions about Turkey, and they don’t really know their rights going into the interview.”

In many cases, refugees don’t know that they can ask for a different translator if they need one, or that they can review the transcript of an interview to make sure it’s correct. One man the students interviewed was from Balochistan, part of Pakistan; he couldn’t get a translator for his interview who spoke Balochi, and struggled to speak English, not realizing he had a right to a translator. Some applicants might omit important details–one man went through the entire process without mentioning that one of the reasons he fled was because of his sexual orientation. Others, particularly Syrian refugees, may assume that the reason they fled is obvious, and not realize that they’re required to make a case for why they personally felt threatened.

The chatbot–which will be offered first on Facebook, and later on WhatsApp and via text, recognizing that refugees with limited wireless data are reluctant to download new apps–talks refugees through these details, provides sample questions for practice, and an Arabic mnemonic to help them remember key points such as making sure their story is consistent, and sharing emotion. At the end of the process, it gives someone the option to connect with a legal volunteer (lawyers are only provided in the asylum process after someone’s application has been denied and they are appealing).

Over time, the bot will use AI to learn to respond to many more questions. It will also be available in more languages–it is currently only available in English and Arabic, targeting Syrian refugees. But even in its early form, it can help give refugees some clarity on the confusing and stressful process of interviews. “In many cases, a lot of people described it as kind of like an interrogation,” says Nomanbhoy. “After going through so much trauma and having to relive that trauma and talk about things that are super emotional, and then have someone interrupt you halfway through your story and ask very detailed questions can be quite frazzling for people. So knowing what to expect going into that can really help.”

While some organizations are unwilling to give refugees details about how long the process of applying for asylum can take–worrying that it might push people to take risks with smugglers–MarHub’s founders believe in full transparency so refugees can make the best-informed decisions. They plan to launch the first version of the chatbot in November, partnering with a trusted local organization called RefuComm, and after a core group of people begins to use it and give updates on their own experiences, the startup plans to use anonymized data to help give better estimates of wait times for someone from Afghanistan versus Syria or Libya.

“One of the challenges of being in a refugee camp is not knowing how long you’re going to be there, being so bored, and feeling like you’re wasting time,” she says. “So many people said this to us: ‘We’re just wasting our lives, we should move on, we have nothing to do and we don’t know how long this is going to take.’ I think that’s when people lose faith in the system.” Refugees told her that if they knew the process was likely to take six months, it would help–not knowing adds to a sense of loss of control.

That data is valuable for the organizations, who currently spend large sums of money trying to evaluate their impact; MarHub thinks that its system, if used by enough refugees, would be an efficient way to get that feedback. If NGOs or UN agencies pay for it, the service could be financially self-sustaining or even profitable. The students also see the opportunity to eventually add carefully-vetted advertising.

“When you think about, for example, 900,000 Syrian refugees in Germany, they are this completely new market,” says Nomanbhoy. “Many of them will have to buy things like diapers and they don’t have any brand association to many of the local brands. In many cases, this is a completely new audience for a brand.”

Softbank is investing $4.4 billion into coworking business WeWork. The majority of the money will go into the primary WeWork business with $1.4 billion going toward WeWork’s expansion in Asia. This new funding includes a $500 million investment from July, in which Honey Capital also participated.

WeWork has announced ambitious plans to get beyond its core coworking offering. The company, which has already launched a co-living service, also wants to find, design, and run office spaces for major corporations—essentially commodifying the WeWork experience for ordinary offices. It’s also pursuing a major expansion in China this year. Already the company operates 160 locations in 50 cities across the globe.

Still, the increased funding will beg yet more questions about how much WeWork is actually worth. The company was previously valued at $17 billion. While CEO Adam Neumann said earlier this year that the company was tracking toward billion dollar revenue, it has yet to hit profitability.

As for Softbank, the company’s vision fund has been making a number of headline-grabbing investments, including in Southeast Asia ride-hailing company Grab and chipmaker Nvidia.

Please join me for a very short play in four acts.

ACT I: Deliverance

This morning, the president retweeted a self-described “YouTube Actor and Political Junkie” named Jerry Travone, who had shared a tweet likening Trump succeeding Obama to the solar eclipse. For the proud Trump supporter, this had to be a unique thrill.

pic.twitter.com/6XJxEg1gSs

— Jerry Travone ???? (@JerryTravone) August 24, 2017

ACT II: Discovery

It didn’t take long, however, for journalists to uncover some unsavory tweets from Mr. Travone’s recent past. Say it isn’t so, Jerry!

The man Trump RTd this morning tweeted this four days ago. This is why elected officials don't retweet random people https://t.co/kfbXt5xkrMpic.twitter.com/wAjTgchHX1

— Yashar Ali ???? (@yashar) August 24, 2017

ACT III: Disturbance

As Mr. Travone’s follower count continued to increase, and he scrambled to delete his offending tweet, something mysterious happened to his online T-shirt store.

So I had my account hacked and messed with my @ProWrestlerTees link .

— Jerry Travone ???? (@JerryTravone) August 24, 2017

ACT IV: Denouement 

Travone’s only problem is that screenshots are almost terrifyingly easy to disseminate and the internet rarely misses a chance for a public shaming.

It wasn't hacked. We did that purposely since you hate Jews.

— OneHourTees (@OneHourTees) August 24, 2017

The lesson is that if you’re going to tweet a dank meme at the president, be prepared for him to retweet it and expose your account’s history to the rest of the world. Trump may be able to dodge consequences for anything he says–so far, at least–but there’s no guarantee you can.

Cincinnati chef Suzy DeYoung used to run a high-end catering company that served everyone from visiting presidents to Bruce Springsteen. In 2014, however, she became tired of the trade-offs, which included making too much food to ensure choosy diners always had options, and buying only the freshest and prettiest produce while lots of just plain edible stuff went overlooked. “That always kind of haunted me and I hated that,” she says.

Many restaurant chefs (and more than a few home cooks) follow the same ethos. As a result, America wastes roughly 40% of available food. That seems particularly egregious in Cincinnati, where the childhood poverty rate is nearly double the national average, leaving many kids food insecure.

DeYoung’s answer was to found La Soupe, a nonprofit that collects leftover produce from grocery stores and local organic farms to make an array of flavorful and inventive soups, which are then frozen and redistributed locally to stop child hunger.

Based on a general one-pound-per-person estimate, DeYoung figures that means she’ll be making the equivalent of 250,000 meals annually to those in need. The group earned a Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award for outstanding local public service from the Jefferson Awards Foundation earlier this year.

La Soupe operates out of a 900-square-foot outpost called the Soupe Shack that’s in a poor rural area about 30 minutes east of downtown. To gather ingredients, DeYoung enlists 200 volunteers who use a modified version of Food Rescue US a donation delivery app that allows grocers to itemize what needs to be picked up, food banks to claim it, and participating drivers to agree to shuttle specific loads in between them.

That works well for a lot of leftover staples, but not really things on the verge of spoiling. Plus, food banks have their own limitations; not everyone has the time or transportation to reach one, or the right ingredients or kitchen appliances at home to turn what they could pick up into a proper meal.

DeYoung says the next step resembles a less glamorous, industrial scale version of Chopped, the Food Network TV show where contestants must prepare a dish from random ingredients. An abundance of cauliflower might be transformed into vegan chili, while loads of tomatoes become gazpacho.

Some recipes have meat, which travels a slightly different path to reach the kitchen. Whereas the produce goes from stores to straight to La Soupe, many stores still direct leftover meat to food pantries, where less common offerings of lamb, bison, and veal tend go unused. DeYoung often salvages that, and accepts deliveries of more common cuts from Sugar Creek, a national meat packer.

Each soup is frozen before being redistributed by the app-enabled volunteer fleet, often with a homemade salad mix and salvaged baked goods, through local schools, libraries, recreation centers, or faith organizations.

The group focuses on soup because it’s economical. “You can stretch it, meaning if all you have are potatoes and onions you can make a lot by adding water versus just giving somebody a potato,” she says. After talking to recipients, she realized that this also solved the lack-of-appliances problem. Some families might not know how to cook; those that do, though, might also have only a microwave or hot plate—either of which works find for rewarming.

The nonprofit’s total budget is $250,000 this year, which covers the salaries of three full-time and eight part-time employees, and is funded by a combination of public donations, community foundation grants, and a “pay from your heart model” for shoppers who want to buy the same meals directly from Soupe Shack for whatever price they deem it worth. (Most end up intentionally overpaying by 20% or so, DeYoung says.)

Now the only limitation is their space. The group is currently looking for a larger location, which it may also build itself, and plans to expand a pilot cooking class that’s worked well at the local high school. That course, part of an emerging program called “Cincinnati Gives A Crock,” provides kids with their own crockpot and recipes, along with raw ingredients so they can learn to start stretching their meals at home when possible.

The end goal is the make each La Soupe offering “available for anybody and everybody”—and good enough to make folks want seconds.

That didn’t take very long: After quick regulatory approval of Amazon’s $13.4 billion Whole Foods acquisition, the grocery store said in a statement this morning that it will start slashing prices on Monday.

• Prices will drop on “Whole Trade bananas, organic avocados, organic large brown eggs, organic responsibly-farmed salmon and tilapia, organic baby kale and baby lettuce, animal-welfare-rated 85% lean ground beef, creamy and crunchy almond butter, organic Gala and Fuji apples, organic rotisserie chicken, 365 Everyday Value organic butter, and much more.”

To no one’s surprise, the deal will also help the commerce giant capitalize on Whole Foods’ precious real estate, and bring a closer tie-up between the two companies’ businesses—another sign of Amazon’s many-tentacled ambitions.

• After “certain technical integration work is complete,” Amazon Prime will become Whole Foods Market’s customer rewards program, “providing Prime members with special savings and other in-store benefits.”
• Additionally Whole Foods’s private label products will be available through Amazon.com, AmazonFresh, Prime Pantry and Prime Now.
• And Amazon Lockers will be placed in “select” Whole Foods stores. Customers can have products shipped from Amazon.com to their local Whole Foods Market store for pick up or send returns back to Amazon during a trip to the store.”

The quick approval by the feds was surprising to some, given, among other things, what the president has said about Amazon and that the FTC was just a month ago reported to be investigating worries that the merger would hurt competition in the grocery market and negatively impact access to grocery stores in poor neighborhoods where healthy choices are already harder to come by.

One immediate impact of today’s announcement: Shares of grocery store companies began to plunge:

Chart: Amazon’s Whole Foods news is killing grocery shares https://t.co/BvAtKY5Qngpic.twitter.com/ITLgppW5iF

— Dylan Byers (@DylanByers) August 24, 2017

Among the many changes the merger now seems certain to usher in: That old suburban joke, about Whole Foods being “more like Whole Paycheck,” just won’t have quite the same meaning anymore.

Related: Amazon’s Grocery Ambitions Are Far Bigger Than Whole Foods and Now That Whole Foods Belongs To Amazon, What Happens To Conscious Capitalism?