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• Trump signed an executive order that will reclassify marijuana as a less harmful drug.
• The order is aimed at making it easier to research the drug.
• Flanked by a group of doctors, Trump touted the drug’s use as a potential treatment for pain.

President Donald Trump is easing some federal restrictions on marijuana.

Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that will reclassify marijuana to a Schedule III drug, putting it on par with drugs like ketamine and anabolic steroids.

“We have people begging for me to do this, people that are in great pain,” Trump said during an event in the Oval Office, flanked by several doctors.

The order falls short of fully legalizing marijuana, but it will make it easier for researchers to study the drug.

Trump said that he had been lobbied to make the change by people with extreme pain, incurable diseases, and seizure disorders, among others. The president noted the substance’s medical uses, including as a “substitute for addictive and potentially lethal opioid painkillers.”

The move could also bring tax relief to marijuana businesses operating in states that have already legalized the substance.

Marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug, a category for substances with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse,” according to the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Schedule III drugs, on the other hand, have a “moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.”

Marijuana stocks surged last week amid widespread rumors of Trump’s impending order. Most of the sector’s most prominent names continued trending upward with this week on mounting speculation for the pro-cannabis policy decision.

News of Trump signing the executive order continued to boost the industry’s biggest players. Tilray Brands, typically seen as a leader among cannabis stocks, jumped 6% today while Aurora Cannabis rose 9% and Canopy Growth Corporation spiked 11%.

These cannabis stocks are all relatively small cap and are prone to price swings, but the signing of an executive order is a highly bullish catalyst for the industry.

As he campaigned for a third time in 2024, Trump signaled that he would take a friendlier approach toward marijuana than he did during his first term.

“I promised to be the president of common sense, and that is exactly what we’re doing,” Trump said on Thursday.

He said that he would vote for a ballot measure in Florida aimed at legalizing marijuana for recreational use in the state. That measure garnered 56% of the vote but ultimately fell short of the 60% required for passage.

Trump also said in 2024 that he supported enacting laws to make it easier for marijuana businesses to operate.

• The Society for Human Resource Management was recently hit with an $11.5 million verdict in a lawsuit.
• A new lawsuit claims SHRM revoked a woman’s job offer over a service dog, in violation of the ADA.
• The HR org says it “fully complied” with the ADA and is reviewing the case.

The nation’s largest HR trade group has been sued by a woman who alleges it revoked a job offer because it didn’t want her medical service dog in the office.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday by Fiona Torres against the Society for Human Resource Management says she is diabetic, and the dog can detect changes in her blood-sugar levels faster and more reliably than a top-tier glucose monitor.

SHRM says it “fully complied” with the Americans with Disabilities Act in offering Torres an alternative “reasonable accommodation” for her health condition.

Torres’ lawsuit was filed less than two weeks after SHRM was ordered to pay $11.5 million in an unrelated race discrimination and retaliation case.

The new complaint alleges that in June 2024, SHRM offered Torres a role as a senior specialist in its product management department at its office in Alexandria, Virginia, then revoked the offer in July because she wanted to bring her dog to work.

Torres said SHRM’s offer to accommodate her medical needs was to allow her to keep food, water, and an insulin pump at her desk, which she felt was insufficient.

“I was ready and able to work,” Torres said in an email to Business Insider through her attorney. “They said they were eager to have me until they found out I had a disability and a service dog.”

The complaint quotes an email from SHRM to Torres denying her accommodation request.

“[I]t does not appear there are any reasonable accommodations that would allow you to perform the essential functions of the role,” SHRM wrote, according to the complaint.

SHRM spokesman Eddie Burke declined to comment on the specifics of the suit, saying the organization was still reviewing the legal papers.

“We support the ADA and are actively committed to supporting employees through fair, respectful, and legally compliant accommodation processes,” he said. “We fully complied with the ADA in this matter and, in consultation with outside legal counsel, met all of our obligations to provide reasonable accommodations to Fiona Torres.”

Lori Kisch, a lawyer for Torres, told Business Insider that SHRM’s alleged conduct was “ironic” given its mission is to provide information and resources to help HR professionals follow laws such as the ADA.

“They can’t argue that they don’t understand the law, and their actions are a reckless indifference to the law,” she said.

Torres’ case, filed in federal court in Virginia, follows a lawsuit brought by a former SHRM employee that alleged race discrimination and retaliation. Rehab Mohamed, a Black and Egyptian instructional designer, claimed her SHRM manager held her to higher standards than white employees. A jury found SHRM liable for $11.5 million in damages.

SHRM has said it plans to file an appeal and that the verdict “does not reflect the facts, the law, or the truth of how” it operates.

Mining and heavy equipment operations are undergoing a profound transformation as OEMs, fleet operators, and system integrators embrace connected machinery at scale. The sector—traditionally constrained by harsh environmental conditions, safety risks, and limited real-time visibility—is increasingly adopting ruggedized IoT technologies, AI-driven analytics, and predictive safety systems to reduce downtime and protect workers. This shift mirrors the wider industrial trend toward sensor-rich assets and cloud–edge architectures already visible in manufacturing and utilities, but with unique constraints linked to vibration, dust, corrosion, and extreme temperatures.

How Connectivity Is Reshaping Heavy Equipment Operations

Digitalization in mining has historically been slowed by the absence of stable connectivity in remote sites and the reliability limits of electronics exposed to heavy mechanical stress. That picture is now changing with more resilient IoT modules, advanced LPWAN and private LTE/5G deployments, and purpose-built telematics platforms. These technologies allow operators to monitor engine health, hydraulic systems, tire pressure, load cycles, and environmental conditions with a granularity that was impossible a decade ago.

Sensor fusion at the edge is also becoming standard: accelerometers, gyroscopes, pressure sensors, GNSS modules, thermal probes, and proximity detection systems are combined in compact units that meet IP67/IP69K ratings and MIL-STD vibration thresholds. This rugged design push is central to enabling uninterrupted data acquisition in high-impact environments.

When connectivity is available, OEMs can further integrate over-the-air (OTA) firmware updates and remote equipment diagnostics—features that have become common in connected vehicles and industrial machinery. These capabilities also support more proactive maintenance models, helping reduce unscheduled downtime and improving asset utilization. IoT Business News has previously examined the role of resilient connectivity in industrial automation, including the emergence of zero-touch eSIM provisioning for multi-carrier continuity, a trend increasingly relevant for mining sites requiring backup networks.

Ruggedization: Mechanical, Thermal, and Environmental Advances

The latest generation of connected mining equipment leverages several innovations in rugged design:

• Electronics enclosures now use reinforced composites or sealed aluminum with vibration-damping mounts to protect sensing elements and communication modules from repeated shock loads. Components are tested beyond standard automotive-grade tolerances, reflecting the unique rotational and impact patterns of excavators, drilling rigs, and haul trucks.
• Thermal resilience is being enhanced through integrated heat spreaders, conformal coatings, and low-power chip architectures that maintain performance in both arctic and desert environments.

These trends mirror broader IoT hardware developments, where semiconductor localization and new packaging techniques—covered in recent analyses on IoT Business News—play a growing role in supply chain resilience.

Such advances are narrowing the gap between industrial IoT systems used in controlled factory environments and those deployed in open-pit mines or underground tunnels.

Predictive Safety Systems: From Monitoring to Real-Time Intervention

Beyond operational insight, connectivity is enabling a new generation of predictive safety systems designed to reduce collisions, fatigue-related incidents, and mechanical failures. Machine-learning models are increasingly trained on vibration signatures, engine sound patterns, and operator behavior metrics to identify anomalies before they escalate.

Edge-based AI is particularly valuable in remote mines where backhaul bandwidth is limited. Processing data on the machine allows for microsecond-level responses—automatic brake assistance, hazardous proximity alerts, or load imbalance warnings—without relying on cloud latency. As these features evolve, OEMs are integrating advanced Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI) that consolidate alerts into intuitive dashboards, reducing cognitive load for operators.

Wearables and smart PPE are also entering mining sites, feeding contextual data into fleet management systems. Combined with vehicle telemetry, they create a richer picture of situational risk, allowing supervisors to implement dynamic safety protocols based on real-time exposure.

The Convergence of Cloud, Edge, and OT Systems

Modern mining operations increasingly resemble distributed digital ecosystems. Connectivity links mobile assets, fixed processing facilities, and autonomous systems such as robotic drills or drones for site inspection. Achieving this integration requires secure, bidirectional interfaces between Operational Technology (OT) and cloud-based analytics platforms.

Vendors are strengthening cybersecurity measures at the hardware level—secure boot processes, TPM modules, encrypted data pipelines—to counter growing concerns around ransomware and equipment sabotage. Mining has become a prime target due to its high-value operations and reliance on continuous uptime.

The convergence of IT and OT architectures also supports regulatory compliance and environmental monitoring. With global pressure on sustainability, connected equipment can document fuel consumption, emissions, and idle time with greater accuracy, enabling more transparent reporting and targeted efficiency gains.

Outlook: Toward Autonomous and Self-Maintaining Heavy Equipment

As ruggedized IoT hardware continues to mature, predictive systems are expected to shift from advisory functions to full automation. Autonomous haulage systems are already deployed in several large mines, and the integration of reliable on-board sensing with private 5G networks will accelerate this trajectory.

The future of connected mining will be defined by equipment capable of self-diagnosing failures, optimizing performance based on operating conditions, and interacting safely with human workers. Achieving this vision requires sustained innovation in rugged design, secure connectivity, and scalable data architectures—but the foundations are already in place.

In an industry where downtime and safety incidents carry enormous costs, connected heavy equipment is no longer an optional upgrade. It is becoming the operational backbone of modern mining.

The post Connected Mining and Heavy Equipment: Rugged Design Trends and Predictive Safety Systems appeared first on IoT Business News.

• Coordinating holidays for four generations of divorce brings both chaos and connection.
• Family gatherings now span multiple households, reflecting changing traditions and expectations.
• Despite imperfections, the family’s ongoing effort to gather shows love’s resilience and adaptability.

I was on my knees in my November garden at 72, jeans soaked, wrestling bishopweed from the cold earth. Some things just keep coming back — bishopweed, old hurts, family patterns, and the stories we tell ourselves about how life was supposed to go.

I glanced at the bag of bulbs — tulips, crocuses, daffodils that I should have planted last month. I’m late, as usual. Best-laid plans. Four generations of my family have lived through divorce: my parents, mine, my son’s, and now my grandchildren’s experience of its aftermath. It’s not the story any of us planned, but it’s the one we live with tenderness and humor — mostly.

I am the matriarch of this sprawling, untidy bunch — nephews, nieces, their children, in-laws, exes, half-siblings, and step-grandparents. I once believed I could keep everyone together, as if some ancient Sicilian bargain required it: family stays together, no matter what. No matter the divisions — divorce, hurt feelings, politics, betrayal, religion.

Now, as the holidays approach, I’m trying to map out what they’ll look like this year. Is my first husband’s wife hosting? Or my ex-daughter-in-law? Who’s on the email chain, and who’s on the text thread? Which day? Who might not come at all? Making sure no one — accidentally or on purpose — gets left out.

I juggle competing plans and multiple households

When I was a child in the 1950s, the entire extended family gathered around a long holiday table that stretched from the dining room into the living room. We dragged in folding tables, scavenged mismatched chairs from the basement, and Uncle Tony had to shout from one end to talk to Aunt Lee at the other. My mother sighed in the kitchen, wondering aloud why she always had to host this huge gathering. I lifted the heavy velvet-lined box to take out the fancy silverware while my father raked leaves in the yard, chatting with neighbors over the fence. Divorce was rare.

Now, the picture looks very different. Our family tables have multiplied. During the holidays, we juggle multiple households, competing plans, and shifting versions of “together.” I’ve learned to hold my expectations loosely. It’s not the Norman Rockwell version, but it’s ours. Love looks different when every branch of the family tree is healing in its own messy, imperfect way. And though the coordination sometimes makes my head spin, I’m quite pleased that everyone still wants to gather — in some form, at some table, somewhere.

When everything gets too tangled, with the group texts, the expectations, and the quiet grief, I go outside. The garden never demands RSVP lists or follow-up emails. It asks only that I show up, hands in the dirt, and remember that what’s alive doesn’t always look orderly.

I struggle with change

I want traditions and people to stay the same — or at least familiar. As a child, I believed that if I could just figure out the right way to do things, I could have love that was always peaceful and adventures that weren’t risky. I didn’t know how ironic — how oxymoronic, really — that was. Even as I aged, I believed that once I got old, life would finally be easy and that all the negative feelings would be behind me. Denial is powerful.

Maybe it’s the therapist in me that still wants to make sense out of every rupture and eliminate the chaos. But healing isn’t tidy, and most families can do is clean up after the storm and rake up the leaves.

The kids are watching

Grief takes up a lot of room at the table. I want to wrap a warm blanket of comfort around the whole family. I want to change all negative feelings into safety and coziness, and have everyone be OK. But the only way I’ve ever reached “it’s OK” is by admitting when it isn’t, and by asking for help when I need it, and by letting the people who love me see that I’m not always fine. No matter who’s coming where or who might not come at all, my challenge now is to stand beside my family rather than try to manage or fix them — to let go without withdrawing.

My grandchildren are watching all of us, trying to figure out how love works after endings. Sometimes, I think they handle emotional complexity with more grace than we adults do. Still, I worry. Is that grace — or just what powerlessness looks like when you’re young? What will they remember?

What I do know is that they continue to love. Their instinct to connect shows me that love doesn’t depend on tidiness. It depends on presence, on trusting that it can stretch. They make room for everyone without overthinking it. Maybe that’s what they’ve learned growing up in families like ours: by not expecting perfection, they’re free to keep loving.

What surprises me most isn’t the breaking — it’s that we keep trying. The family I have now is wide and imperfect, with exes who sometimes bring pies to dinner, step-grandparents who’ve reached inclusion, holidays that span multiple homes and don’t always hold everyone.

I look at my garden, knowing the bishopweed will return no matter how deep I dig. The roses never bloom exactly when I expect them to. The bulbs I planted late will still find their way up through the cold ground come spring. There’s something comforting in that — a reminder that life, and love, don’t follow our timelines.

Virginia DeLuca is a therapist and the author of “If You Must Go, I Wish You Triplets.” She writes about family, aging, and the ways love changes shape over time.

• $55 billion hedge fund Viking Global has returned just 5.8% through November.
• The firm is lagging its rivals and the overall stock market this year.
• 2025 marks the first full year the firm has traded since the exit of former investment boss Ning Jin.

Eleven months into 2025, $55 billion hedge fund Viking Global sits in an underwhelming position.

The long-running Tiger Cub — a nickname for the group of firms connected to the late Julian Robertson’s Tiger Management — is up just 5.8% through November in its flagship stock-picking hedge fund after a 0.5% gain last month, a person close to the manager told Business Insider.

This trails the returns of the overall S&P 500, which was up more than 16% through the same stretch, as well as many of the firm’s main rivals.

Fellow Tiger Cubs Coatue, Maverick, and D1 have all outperformed Andreas Halvorsen’s Viking Global through the same stretch. Coatue is up more than 13% through November, a person familiar with the firm told Business Insider. Lee Ainslie’s Maverick was up over 23% through November 21, according to HSBC’s Hedge Weekly report. And Dan Sundheim’s D1 has returned 28% through November in the firm’s public equities book, an individual close to the manager told Business Insider.

The managers mentioned declined to comment or did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

For Viking, this run of performance coincides with the firm’s first calendar year without Ning Jin, the former chief investment officer of the manager.

Jin was with Viking for 17 years and was the sole CIO of the firm in 2019 before departing in August of last year. He launched his own firm, Avantyr Capital, earlier this quarter with $1.5 billion.

Viking has become somewhat of an incubator for the industry’s next generation, as several former executives for the firm have gone on to start their own funds, with Sundheim being the biggest of the Viking spin-offs.

The firm’s current CIO is Justin Walsh, who first joined Viking as an intern in 2010. He started full-time at the manager in 2011 and has steadily climbed the ranks since.

At a conference last summer, Walsh spoke about the market risks associated with the growth of large multistrategy hedge funds like Citadel and Millennium, as well as his favorite luxury stock, Cartier-owner Richemont. Walsh was the portfolio manager for industrials and consumer stocks before becoming CIO after Jin’s departure.

Viking’s portfolio and investment style differ somewhat from those of its tech-heavy Tiger Cub peers. The manager is known for taking a more diversified approach, with a significant focus on its short book, to hedge market risk.

In 2022, that paid off for the long-running firm: Viking was down 2.5% that year in its public equities portfolio, while funds like Coatue and Tiger Global suffered much heavier losses.

But that means the firm can miss out on big gains when the market is powered by a small subset of companies. According to regulatory filings, the manager’s biggest holdings, as of the end of the third quarter, are four financial services companies: PNC, JPMorgan Chase, Charles Schwab, and Capital One.

Within Viking’s top 10 holdings, only Microsoft and Taiwan Semiconductor would be considered a part of the AI trade that has fueled much of the overall market’s gains in 2025.

• YouTube announced that it will hold the global rights to the Oscars starting in 2029.
• It’s a major victory as streamers compete over the finite number of marquee live events.
• Historically, the Oscars are one of the most-watched telecasts of the entire year.

Hollywood’s biggest night is going to a streamer.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced on Wednesday that YouTube will hold the global rights to the Oscars from 2029 through 2033.

While that means they’ll no longer be on ABC starting in 2029, ending a more than 50-year run of consecutive broadcasts on the television network, the Oscars will continue to be available for free worldwide — just on YouTube and YouTube TV. As part of the partnership, red carpet coverage and other behind-the-scenes content from before the award show is also included.

The news comes as streamers like YouTube, Netflix, and Amazon Prime, and others, increasingly compete over live events to host on their respective platforms. Historically, the Oscars are one of the most-watched nights of TV, and in non-presidential election years, it is often the only non-sporting event to chart within the top 100 most-watched telecasts of the year.

“The Oscars are one of our essential cultural institutions, honoring excellence in storytelling and artistry,” YouTube CEO Neal Mohan said in a statement. “Partnering with the Academy to bring this celebration of art and entertainment to viewers all over the world will inspire a new generation of creativity and film lovers while staying true to the Oscars’ storied legacy.”

Disney and ABC will continue to hold the rights to the Oscars through 2028, including the milestone 100th Academy Awards.

Outside of the Oscars, the Google Arts & Culture initiative will provide digital access to select Academy Museum exhibitions and programs, the academy said in a statement.

The agreement was also struck at a time when YouTube has evolved beyond a place people post and watch short clips and amateur videos on mobile and desktop to become a fixture in the living room. The monthly Nielsen Gauge shows YouTube grabbing the top spot in share of TV viewing among media companies for months running, with a 12.9% share in October, ahead of Disney (11.4%) and NBCUniversal (8.6%).

The nature of what people are watching has also changed. The streaming data analysis company Digital i found that videos lasting 30 minutes or more accounted for 73% of total viewing on YouTube in the US in October 2024, up 8% from a year earlier.

YouTube has encouraged this shift, rolling out new tools for creators to incentivize them to make serialized shows that look like what you think of as traditional TV.

YouTube’s living room-domination plans loomed in the background of its recent highly public dispute with Disney over how much it should pay the media company to carry its channels like ESPN and ABC News on YouTube TV. Google recently shared numbers showing YouTube TV was the No. 4 pay-TV service in the US.

Traditional media companies have tried to combat YouTube’s expansion by taking a page from the platform and striking deals with YouTube video creators and podcasters.