• I have been on cruises with my kids multiple times and we love it.
• I started giving them independence early, they are now 14 and 15 and I trust them doing their thing.
• It helps them grow to be able to navigate unfamiliar situations.

I've been on 20+ cruises, both with and without my kids, who are now teenagers. I think cruises are the best kind of vacation with kids because they require minimal thinking. You get to experience multiple destinations without dealing with driving directions or dragging your luggage in and out of different hotels. You don't have to cook, and the hardest decision you probably have to make is choosing between the buffet and the dining room.

It's also the perfect place to give kids a little independence.

It all started with reading the signs

When they were 8 and honing their reading skills, we allowed our kids to lead us around the ship instead of the other way around. Most cruise ships have prominent signs to tell passengers what deck various activities are located on, making it easier to find your way around.

It started with heading to dinner on board the Disney Wonder. As we approached the elevator, my partner pointed to the sign and asked our boys, "How do we get to the Animator's Palate from here?" My kids carefully read the sign and saw that the restaurant was on Deck 4 Aft. Based on that information, they learned that we had to use the elevator to go down four decks and that the restaurant was located at the back of the ship.

It took a little coaching and allowing them to make mistakes, but by the time they were 10, my kids were confidently navigating their way around cruise ships. We allowed them to leave the dinner table when they were done eating, make their way to the kid's club, and sign themselves in, letting my partner and I relax and enjoy each other's company. My kids would wolf down their mac and cheese and dash off to play games with the kids they met on board, and the grownups get to linger over dessert. Everybody was happy.

When my boys turned 12, we lifted most restrictions and allowed them to roam freely on the cruise ship, with ever-loosening rules as they got older.

Yes, of course, we have rules

My boys are 14 and 15. Don't let your mind leap to worst-case scenarios and visions of teens gone wild — grubby-handed kids cutting in line at the buffet, being loud during the shows, and running amuck on deck. While it sounds like a cliché, oblivious mom response, my kids aren't like that. I have zero concerns about them doing something reckless, like trying to climb from one balcony to another, which is highly dangerous. They've earned their freedoms by behaving responsibly. And yes, of course, we have rules.

We require our kids to stay in contact with us via the chat function in the cruise line app throughout the cruise. No one is allowed in our stateroom, our kids cannot go in anyone else's, and we all get off and on the ship together. They're old enough to find food for themselves, but we insist on having dinner every night as a family. We communicate when planning our cruise so our kids have input and knowledge of what we'll do as a family, and when they get free time, we reinforce that on the first day, as soon as we get on the ship.

A sense of ownership

Our approach gives our kids a sense of ownership over their vacation, which helps them enjoy it more. Although I like to think of myself as a "cool-not-a-regular" mom whose kids want to hang out with me on vacation, if I'm honest with myself, they enjoy me more in smaller doses as hanging out with their peers becomes increasingly important.

Seeing my teens commandeer unfamiliar territory using their wits and available resources is a proud mom moment, although it comes with a side of bittersweet to realize they need me less and less. Although figuring out basic shipboard geography, like being able to distinguish the port side from starboard, aren't skills they're likely to need in their everyday landlocked life, I see my kids making their way through all kinds of unfamiliar situations with a self-assuredness that started with a random decision to let them find their way to a shipboard restaurant.

• Meredith Whittaker, the president of Signal, said agentic AI poses serious security risks to users.
• Agentic AI refers to bots that can reason and perform tasks for humans without their input.
• But having a bot complete tasks for users means giving it access to reams of data, Whittaker said.

Signal President Meredith Whittaker is skeptical about agentic AI — that is, AI agents that can complete tasks or make decisions without human input.

While some tech titans have touted how helpful agentic AI can be and launched AI agents for users to try, Whittaker warned of the privacy risks posed by the autonomous agents while speaking at the SXSW 2025 Conference and Festivals in Austin on Friday.

"I think there's a real danger that we're facing," Whittaker said, "in part because what we're doing is giving so much control to these systems that are going to need access to data."

Whittaker is the president of the non-profit Signal Technology Foundation that runs the end-to-end encrypted Signal app known for its digital security.

An AI agent is marketed like a "magic genie bot" that can think multiple steps ahead and complete tasks for users so that "your brain can sit in a jar, and you're not doing any of that yourself," Whittaker said.

As an example, she said agentic AI could accomplish tasks like finding a concert, booking tickets, and opening an app like Signal to message friends with concert ticket details. But at every step in that process, the AI agent would access data that the user may want to keep private, she said.

"It would need access to our browser, an ability to drive that. It would need our credit card information to pay for the tickets. It would need access to our calendar, everything we're doing, everyone we're meeting. It would need access to Signal to open and send that message to our friends," she said. "It would need to be able to drive that across our entire system with something that looks like root permission, accessing every single one of those databases, probably in the clear because there's no model to do that encrypted."

Whittaker added that an AI agent powerful enough to do that would "almost certainly" process data off-device by sending it to a cloud server and back.

"So there's a profound issue with security and privacy that is haunting this sort of hype around agents, and that is ultimately threatening to break the blood-brain barrier between the application layer and the OS layer by conjoining all of these separate services, muddying their data, and doing things like undermining the privacy of your Signal messages," she said.

Whittaker isn't the only one worried about the risks posed by agentic AI.

Yoshua Bengio, the Canadian research scientist regarded as one of the godfathers of AI, issued a similar warning while speaking to Business Insider at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January.

"All of the catastrophic scenarios with AGI or superintelligence happen if we have agents," Bengio said, referring to artificial general intelligence, the threshold at which machines can reason as well as humans can.

"We could advance our science of safe and capable AI, but we need to acknowledge the risks, understand scientifically where it's coming from, and then do the technological investment to make it happen before it's too late, and we build things that can destroy us," Bengio said.

• A Canadian brewery is selling the "Presidential Pack," or 1,461 cans of its Canadian Lager.
• It's intended to last the course of President Trump's entire second term.
• Some Canadian provinces have pulled US-made alcohol from their shelves in response to Trump's tariffs.

Canada's oldest brewery is leaning into the country's ongoing trade war levied by President Donald Trump.

Moosehead Breweries, located in the province of New Brunswick that's northeast of Maine, said it's now selling the "Presidential Pack," which includes 1,461 cans of its Canadian Lagers. That's one beer for every day of Trump's term, the brewery said.

"If the start of 2025 has taught us anything, it's that it will take determination to weather four years of political uncertainty—and what better way to make it through each day than with a truly Canadian beer," Karen Grigg, the breweries' director of marketing, said in a press release.

The case is retailed for $3,490 CAD ($2,428 USD) and is available in three provinces: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Ontario.

Trevor Grant, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Moosehead Breweries, said the "Presidential Pack is something that we as a team have been talking about for a few weeks since some of these challenges with the tariffs and the US administration."

"Obviously, it's a bit of a difficult situation, so trying to maybe have a little bit of fun with it," he said.

Moosehead Breweries' "Presidential Pack" is the latest act of defiance from Canadians against Trump, who has imposed new tariffs on Canada, Mexico, and China. Trump has disparaged Canada's prime minister as a "governor."

Canada and Mexico's imports were hit with 25% tariffs, while energy imports from China are 20%. Energy imports from Canada also have a 10% tariff. Although the tariffs went into effect on March 4, Trump backtracked days later and said he's granting a one-month tariffs pause on certain goods from Canada and Mexico.

Canada is the US's largest trading partner. Trump has floated the idea of making Canada the 51st US state, which has also garnered ire from Canadians and led them to boycott US-made products. Canadian officials have said Trump's idea is not a joke.

Moosehead Breweries' Grant said Canadian shoppers are looking for locally made products "now more than ever."

"We do think this is a real opportunity for us," Grant said.

He added that Moosehead Breweries operates "in a small community here in St. John, New Brunswick, and we like to stay connected to our community and give back."

"We'd like to see Canadians do the same thing and buy local," Grant said.

The US liquor and spirits industry is already fearing the pushback.

Lawson Whiting, the CEO of Jack Daniel's parent company, said Canadian provinces pulling US-made alcohol from their stores was "worse than tariffs" in an earnings call this month.

"It's literally taking your sales away," Whitling said, adding that the response seemed "very disproportionate" to the 25% tariff.

Following Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's announcement that he would impose retaliatory 25% tariffs on $155 billion worth of American goods, the Kentucky Distillers' Association said that decision could have "far-reaching consequences across Kentucky, home to 95% of the world's bourbon."

Andrew Oland, the CEO and president of Moosehead Breweries, called the tariffs a "disappointment" during an interview with CTV News on Wednesday.

"We've always had such a close relationship with the United States, and so it's really sad to see this relationship going in a different direction," he said.

Some Trump administration officials citing health concerns are looking to remove "junk food" from a federal food assistance program serving more than 41 million Americans.

The big picture: A ban on any foods in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could be particularly paramount for recipients living in food deserts who don't have access to nutritious foods nearby.

• A ban would require action through Congress.
• Late last month, House Republicans voted to pass a budget resolution that sets the stage for $230 billion or more in cuts to agriculture programs, with a large chunk expected to come from SNAP.

State of play: The Food and Nutrition Act defines food for SNAP purposes as any food or food product for home consumption, with some limited exceptions like alcoholic beverages or hot foods for immediate consumption.

• In order to narrow that definition, either Congress would need to change the law or a state would need to propose and get approval for a demonstration project to test that, Katie Bergh, senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told Axios.
• "This is something that we've seen a handful of states request in the past, where they essentially are asking the Department of Agriculture to approve a request to restrict the foods that SNAP participants within their state can purchase in some form," she said.
• But no such requests has ever been approved under either Republican or Democratic presidents, including under the first Trump administration.

Catch up quick: Newly-confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins have indicated they're in favor of removing sugary drinks and processed foods from SNAP.

• "The one place that I would say that we need to really change policy is the SNAP program and food stamps and in school lunches," Kennedy said on Fox News last month. "There, the federal government in many cases is paying for it. And we shouldn't be subsidizing people to eat poison."
• Rollins echoed the sentiment, telling reporters at the White House, "When a taxpayer is putting money into SNAP, are they OK with us using their tax dollars to feed really bad food and sugary drinks to children who perhaps need something more nutritious?"

By the numbers: More than 41 million people in the U.S. received SNAP benefits in 2024.

• The average SNAP benefit per person in fiscal year 2025 is $6.16 per day, according to estimates from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Zoom in: There are a number of risks with the proposal to cut foods from SNAP, including logistical and cost concerns, access in food desserts, equity issues and questions over how to measure success and behavioral changes among consumers.

• Anything that increases administrative burden affects other parts of the program at the state level, Gina Plata-Nino, SNAP Deputy Director at the Food Research & Action Center, told Axios.

Case in point: There would be a large impact on retailers. Those that are not large scale like Walmart, with resources to change markings on SNAP-approved foods, could decide not to operate the program at their stores at all.

• Deciding which foods to cut also presents questions on how to define and measure junk foods, Plata-Nino said, questioning whether it'll be through sodium or sugar content.
• Orange juice, for example, has a lot of sugar but is important for diabetics having medical issues, she noted. Cheese has a higher content of sodium than some chips, and milk has a higher fat content than other drinks.
• "Are we going to ban milk and cheese?" she questioned.

Food deserts are areas where residents have limited access to affordable and healthy food, particularly fresh fruits and vegetables.

• In such areas, individuals may be driving two hours each way to a grocery store and so they're unable to go as often, Gina Plata-Nino said.
• Because fresh produce doesn't last a month until they're able to go again, people there may buy food in bulk, processed items that last longer or opt for frozen options — foods that could potentially be cut under the proposal.

Between the lines: The diets of Americans across income levels are falling short of what experts recommend.

• Bergh said aside from feasibility and cost concerns, the premise of the junk food cutting effort is "fundamentally misguided."
• "Contrary to some of the claims that proponents of these efforts have been making, there's actually pretty extensive research linking SNAP participation to better health outcomes and lower medical costs," Bergh said, noting limited data on what SNAP participants buy.

What she's saying: The data available shows there's no meaningful difference in the types of foods people are purchasing with SNAP versus other payment methods.

• "So it's pretty troubling that the solutions being proposed here are ones that really only single out the lowest income Americans in a way that's really stigmatizing and burdensome for them," Bergh said.
• "Just as a basic principle, everyone should have the same ability to choose the foods that best meet their needs regardless of how I'm paying at the checkout line."

Go deeper: America's food aid gap, mapped

Tennessee was a crucial battleground in the early civil rights movement, influencing the late John Lewis' fight against Jim Crow before he helped lead the march in Selma.

Why it matters: Decades later, Tennessee is again at the center of a civil rights fight. Organizers and lawmakers warn that Tennessee is becoming a "testing ground for voter suppression" and that policies there could spread across the country.

Driving the news: Three Black women — state Sen. Charlane Oliver, Stand Up Nashville's Odessa Kelly and The Equity Alliance's Tequila Johnson — are helping lead the fight in Tennessee. They spoke with Axios before the 60th anniversary of the Selma march, a catalyst for the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

This year, there is a looming fear of a rollback on voting and civil rights. Civil rights leaders say the march should act as a renewed call to action.

Flashback: Before becoming a civil rights icon, Lewis trained in Nashville, where early sit-ins shaped his philosophy of nonviolent resistance.

• That foundation carried him through Selma and, ultimately, to Atlanta, where he spent decades fighting for voting rights in Congress.

"Tennessee is where John Lewis cut his teeth," Oliver said. "And now we're watching it become a testing ground for voter suppression."

The big picture: Oliver says that since the Supreme Court's 2013 Shelby County v. Holder ruling weakened the Voting Rights Act, Tennessee has seen a surge in restrictive voting laws.

• Laws like Tennessee's strict voter ID requirements, bans on college student IDs for voting, and polling place reductions in growing Black communities reflect a broader strategy to limit ballot access.
• The state ranks among the lowest in voter turnout and has some of the strictest disenfranchisement laws for formerly incarcerated individuals.
• Tennessee is the only state that requires child support payments before restoring voting rights. Oliver says she considers that a modern-day poll tax.

What they're saying: Johnson sees history repeating. She says these modern measures reflect Black voters' obstacles when trying to vote — counting bubbles in soap, guessing how many jellybeans are in a jar, or reciting the Constitution from memory.

State of play: The Trump administration's work to unravel successful diversity efforts adds gasoline to the fire, Johnson says.

• "This moment feels both familiar and unfamiliar," Oliver said. "The threats we face today are even more dire because of who is in the White House."
• "When John Lewis marched in Selma, they could at least pressure the administration to act. Now, we have leaders trying to take us back — not just pre-Civil Rights Movement, but to an era where Jim Crow was law."

Kelly shares that frustration.

• "I'm enraged," she said. "My parents were born in the '40s during Jim Crow, and to see the civil rights bill being torn apart bit by bit, it's heartbreaking. We have to rethink how we build and protect the community."
• "The policies that alarm people nationally? They were tested in Tennessee first," Kelly said. "We're seeing voter suppression laws, attacks on public education and corporate influence shaping policy in ways that harm marginalized communities."

Zoom out: The Supreme Court's weakening of voter protections makes it tougher to challenge suppression laws.

• "These laws aren't just happening in a vacuum," National Urban League president Marc Morial said. "Since Shelby, we've seen a flood of voter suppression bills designed to make it harder for people to vote."

Zoom in: Morial says the John Lewis Voting Rights Act is "essential to restoring the protections we lost and ensuring every American has the right to vote without obstruction."

The bottom line: Civil rights leaders say a new fight is beginning.

• "We are not backing down," Morial said. "We will challenge these policies in the courts, at the ballot box, and in the streets."
• "We can't wait until laws pass to fight back. We must anticipate these attacks and organize now," Johnson said.

Oliver agrees: "John Lewis showed us the way. Now it's on us to keep marching."