• Stephen Park described "Friends" as a "toxic environment" when he guest-starred during a recent podcast interview.
• Park guest-starred in seasons two and three of "Friends" and said he heard racist comments on set.
• "Nobody felt the need to correct this or say anything about it. So this is normal behavior."

Despite its reputation as one of the most celebrated sitcoms of all time, one "Friends" guest star said the environment on set was uncomfortable for Asian actors.

"It was at the time, for me, I felt it was kind of a toxic environment," Korean-American actor Stephen Park said on an episode of the "Pod Meets World" a podcast.

Park appeared in a small role as a data-processing colleague of Chandler Bing (the late Matthew Perry) in the season two episode "The One With the Chicken Pox."

He described hearing racist slurs on set while making his second appearance on the show, in season three's "The One With the Ultimate Fighting Champion," which aired in 1997 and also guest-starred James Hong ("Blade Runner," "Mulan," "Everything Everywhere All At Once").

"James Hong was the actor who was also on the episode with me, and [the assistant director] was calling him to the set and you know, essentially saying, 'Where the fuck is the Oriental guy? Get the Oriental guy,'" Park recalled on the podcast.

"This is bigger than this show," Park added. "This isn't the first time that this happened, you know, but this is the environment where this is business as usual in Hollywood in 1997, I guess it was. And nobody felt the need to correct this or say anything about it. So this is normal behavior."

Fed up by the incident, Park wrote a "mission statement" outlining racism in Hollywood and sent it to everyone who'd signed up for his email list.

"Being an Asian-American actor, I continue to struggle to find roles for myself that are not insulting and stereotypical," he wrote at the time, according to archived versions available online.

"I just finished working as a guest star on one of the highest-rated shows on television, which brings me to my next point," Park continued. "Working with the people involved with this show was an extremely painful experience for me. A disturbing lack in generosity of spirit and basic human courtesy, in addition to a racial incident on the set, has forced me to speak out."

Park said the email made a big impression in Hollywood circles — that "it went viral before 'viral' was even a word" — and ended up getting published in several other publications, but ultimately did little to quell his concerns.

"I had become so race-conscious and so angry that I was looking at everything through the lens of race," Park said on the podcast. "I felt like there was no freedom. I didn't feel any freedom. So, I didn't have any idea what I was going to do, but I just decided to drop out. I told everybody, 'I'm not acting anymore.'"

Park's break didn't last forever. He'll next appear alongside Robert Pattinson in Bong Joon-ho's highly anticipated dystopian comedy "Mickey 17."

In recent years, he has also appeared in multiple Wes Anderson films, including 2023's "Asteroid City" and 2021's "The French Dispatch," and Joon-Ho's 2013 thriller "Snowpiercer."

America's fraying relationship with longtime allies is driving global economic shifts that were unthinkable just months ago.

Why it matters: Policy changes in the U.S. are rippling beyond its borders.

• Some of the world's biggest economies are in the midst of their own policy regime changes — pledging investments and adjustments in response to President Trump that could outlast him.

In Europe, the catalyst is the Trump administration's threat to pull back U.S. protection of European Union borders, as well as looming tariffs that could crush the already-ailing economy.

The intrigue: Europe is racing to adjust with plans that will play out over decades — a type of response not seen in Trump 1.0.

• Trump took office just as European leaders acknowledged the need for changes to reinvigorate its stagnant economy.
• But it also might be a sign of leaders expecting that Trump-style policies might stick even after he leaves office.

What they're saying: "Whereas Trump's first four years the Europeans viewed him as an accident, I think they see now he's no accident," Gordon Sondland, the former U.S. ambassador to the EU under Trump, tells Axios.

What's new: Germany's likely next chancellor, Friedrich Merz, announced plans to loosen the so-called "debt brake" that capped the deficit at 0.35% of GDP. This would let the country borrow billions for defense and infrastructure spending.

• "In view of the threats to our freedom and peace on our continent, the rule for our defense now has to be 'whatever it takes,'" Merz said at a press conference this week.
• Merz invoked an economically significant phrase for Europe: In 2012, then-European Central Bank president Mario Draghi said he would do "whatever it takes" to save the euro amid a debt crisis.

For proof of the historic nature of Germany's shift, look to the response in the bond market: Yields on the 10-year bund jumped more than 30 basis points in a single day, raising the nation's cost of borrowing.

What to watch: The scale of investment could help transform Europe's largest economy at a perilous time. It has been contracting since 2023, and Trump's proposed tariffs — set to take effect next month — could wreak havoc on its manufacturing industry.

• "Europe is being rocked by giant Trump shocks that have generated an equally massive response," Evercore ISI's Krishna Guha wrote in a client note Wednesday.
• "These are weeks when decades happen," Guha adds.

• The biggest cruise lines had a banner 2024 amid booming demand and prices.
• The largest — Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, and Carnival — saw revenue and passenger growth compared to 2023
• Royal Caribbean saw the most growth of all, welcoming some 8.6 million guests on board.

Every cruise line has benefited from booming demand for vacations at sea, but one company is standing — or floating — above the rest of its competitors: Royal Caribbean Group.

Royal Caribbean isn't the largest of the three most well-known cruise operators. It and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings each oversee three brands, compared to Carnival Corp's eight. As such, in 2025, Carnival is projected to account for 36% of the cruise industry's revenue, followed by Royal Caribbean at 24.8% and Norwegian at 14.1%, according to Cruise Market Watch.

Yet, when it comes to growth from 2023 to 2024 in both revenue and passengers accommodated, Royal Caribbean is the clear winner.

The cruise giant's two competitors saw record revenue in 2024: $25 billion for Carnival (a 15.9% increase from 2023) and $9.5 billion for Norwegian (a 10.9% increase). Similarly, both accommodated about 8% more passengers than the year prior: 13.5 million for Carnival and 2.9 million for Norwegian.

These year-over-year growth spurts are impressive. But they pale compared to Royal Caribbean's 2024 figures: an 18.6% revenue spike to $16.5 billion and a 12% increase in passengers to a record 8.6 million.

It's a sign that the company is increasingly capturing the eager-to-spend cruising market — expected to continue into 2025.

Royal Caribbean started the year with strong bookings and pricing, with plans to debut two new ships and a private resort to further entice potential travelers.

As for demand, "there's no area of weakness," Jason Liberty, the CEO of Royal Caribbean Group, told analysts in late January, a week before it experienced its strongest-ever "wave season" reservation week.

Liberty said its trend-setting private island and two latest and largest cruise ships, Utopia of the Seas and Icon of the Seas, have attracted both first-timers and regulars. Similarly, its cruises in the Caribbean, Alaska, Europe, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand have garnered plenty of demand.

Like Royal Caribbean, Carnival, and Norwegian have seen a boom in bookings and prices for 2025 — despite having more dry dock days than in 2024, which could negatively impact the number of passengers they accommodate. However, all three companies expect to debut more products this year, including new ships (including one of the world's largest from Royal Caribbean) and resorts.

That is to say, expect the entire mass-market cruise industry to sail into yet another banner year.

• I prefer watching TV shows and movies with the captions turned on. So do 63% of Americans under 30.
• But each streaming app has a slightly different way of turning on captions, which is confusing.
• There is literally nothing else going on in the world more terrible than this, I'm pretty sure.

I can't remember exactly when I started watching TV and movies with captions turned on, but it probably started with a show that had British accents that I — as a boorish American — struggled to understand.

Now, even though I don't need closed captioning, I almost always use it. And I'm not alone — a recent YouGov poll found that 63% of Americans under age 30 prefer watching TV with subtitles turned on.

It's great to be able to understand every nuance and whispered word, but something grinds my gears like no other: Each streaming service seems to have its own way of turning on captions — and it's hard to keep them all straight.

Inevitably, I'll start pushing buttons or sliding my thumb around the Apple TV remote — trying to find the right menu and the magic combination of gestures. Sometimes, this means accidentally pausing my show. Sometimes, it means accidentally turning it off. Sometimes, I manage to actually exit out of the app entirely.

Perhaps I should show you how hard it is to turn on subtitles

I should start with a disclaimer: I'm using an Apple TV set-top box that's connected to my TV. Things may work differently with a Roku or a Google Chromecast. (Using captions on mobile and desktop versions of streaming apps is easier because you don't have to fumble around with a remote control.)

Perhaps it's best if I show you. Allow me to take you on a tour through the annoyingly subtle ways each streamer does captions differently.

Netflix

To add captions on Netflix, there's a speech bubble on the lower right-hand side of the screen that shows up when you start a new show. Or you can swipe up on your remote to pull it onto the screen.

Personally, I find this the easiest and most intuitive way to do captions, but that may be partly because I've used Netflix the longest.

Amazon Prime

For Amazon Prime, you swipe up to open the menu, but BE CAREFUL!

You could easily tap the "Play from the Beginning" button, which will restart your episode. (Nooooooo!) The menu is on the lower left, under "Subtitles."

Click into that, and then tap "On" or "Off," which is confusing because does that mean you want to TURN on captions? Or does it mean that subtitles are already on? And how do you know which way it's toggled? Don't swipe right into "Languages," where you'll see "English [CC]" because that isn't actually the option to turn subtitles on or off — it's the menu to choose subtitles in a different language.

Basically, good luck!!

Disney Plus

On Disney Plus, you swipe down on your remote to access the menu. with Info/Audio/Subtitles.

Then, you choose from a list of languages that have been formatted in paragraph mode rather than a drop-down list. From there, you find "Engish [CC]." (Presuming you're looking for English like I am.)

Max

For Max, you swipe up and tap into the little speech bubble icon at the bottom right.

This will open a menu on the bottom right of the screen.

From there, it's pretty self-explanatory.

Peacock

On Peacock, you swipe up and open up a menu on the bottom left.

Make sure you skip over the "Restart" and "Next Episode" prompts before you scootch right into the "Subtitles and Audio" menu.

Apple TV+

On AppleTV+, or on movies or shows from the iTunes Store, the menu is on the bottom, and in list order.

This is almost identical to Netflix — but with one extra button to minimize the screen on the bottom right.

YouTube TV

Now, let's get to YouTube TV. Look, I'm not a religious person, but I know that hell is real because only Satan himself could have designed the user interface on the YouTube TV app.

First, you swipe down on the remote — but not too quickly, because then it will automatically drop you into a menu with thumbnails for other shows to watch. From that thumbnail menu, you have to swipe lightly back up, but not too far up or you'll get back into the show.

This will put you in the most far left "More to watch" option. From there, you have to scroll to the left several times to finally reach the CC button, which will open a new menu below. If this sounds confusing, IT IS.

Why are captions so hard?

Another disclaimer! I'll be honest: I am only 95% sure these are the right pathways for each app's caption settings. Because although I tested each app while writing this story, I kept messing up and fumbling around — sometimes going back a step or two and getting angrier and angrier as I went.

It is entirely possible that you have to actually swipe left when I said right, or up when I said down. But if I had to try these one more time, it might have actually driven me to madness. And that's sort of my point: This shouldn't be so hard!

You'll have to take my word that I'm capable when it comes to using a remote. I've put in the 10,000 hours of clicking around my TV. I know how to turn off motion smoothing; I've programmed a VCR to record. And yet, I still find captioning incredibly frustrating — and accidentally restart or stop my shows all the time.

Closed captions are a serious matter for some

I should say here something that's obvious, but important: Captioning is an accessibility issue. I am a hearing person who just prefers to use captions, but for someone who needs captions, confusion about how to turn them on could be a real problem.

Meredith Patterson, who's the president of the National Captioning Institute, told me she supports what's become the more ubiquitous use of captions. "We want closed captioning to be 'the norm' regardless of context and are committed to making that a reality," she said.

In the last few years, AI technology has made captioning easier and better than ever — more things can be captioned with fewer errors and latency, and ultimately, Patterson said, that's what matters to the people who need it.

How to improve captioning for everyone

I can imagine why streaming services want to have slightly different functionality. They want to have their own distinct identities. And they're all obviously committed to captioning, which is a good thing. Once you figure out how to work captions on each streaming app, they do work. (None responded to my request for comment on this story.)

But captions are so hard to access! At least for me. And there are some basic functions you want to be consistent when it comes to technology: You expect the privacy policy of a website to be in small print at the bottom; you expect to find customer service at the very top or very bottom of a shopping site; you know where to find notifications in a social app.

For a streaming service, turning on captions should be standard and easy.

Do you have a story to share about using captions on streaming services? Contact this reporter at [email protected].

• US job cuts hit the highest level since July 2020, fueled by DOGE's layoffs of federal workers.
• Challenger, Gray & Christmas reported a 245% increase in job cut announcements from February 2024.
• Retail and tech sectors also have also seen significant layoffs amid economic uncertainty.

Monthly job cut announcements in the US surged to their highest level since the COVID-19 pandemic last month, according to data from Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

The job cuts, spearheaded by President Donald Trump's DOGE committee, totaled 172,017 in February, the highest monthly level since July 2020 and the highest total for the month of February since 2009.

The reported job cuts in February represented a 245% increase from the 49,975 job cuts announced in February, and a 103% increase from the 84,638 job cuts announced in February 2024.

"With the impact of the Department of Government Efficiency [DOGE] actions, as well as canceled Government contracts, fear of trade wars, and bankruptcies, job cuts soared in February," said Andrew Challenger, Senior Vice President at Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Challenger tracked 62,242 job cuts announced by the federal government last month across 17 different agencies. That's a more than increase from the 151 government job cuts announced in February 2024.

The spike is important for investors, who will be paying close attention to Friday's jobs report, examining whether the DOGE-led job cuts are affecting the economic data.

Challenger's report comes one day after the release of the ADP employment report for February. Private payrolls rose by 77,000, badly missing estimates of 148,000.

It's not just the government announcing job cuts, though. Other areas of the economy that were vulnerable to job cuts include the retail and technology sectors, which announced 38,956 and 14,554 job cuts respectively in February.

The layoffs may keep mounting. Estimates on Wall Street suggest DOGE could cut as many as 300,000 jobs, and Apollo economist Torsten Sløk recently noted that two contractor jobs are tied to every government job. That means total layoffs could quickly approach one million if DOGE follows through with its job cuts.

Meanwhile, economic uncertainty is heightened amid Trump's tariff threats against Mexico and Canada and the growing risk of a recession hitting the economy.

And the job cuts could even lead to voluntary layoffs, according to Challenger.

"When mass layoffs occur, it often leaves remaining staff feeling uneasy and uncertain. The likelihood that many more workers leave voluntarily is high," the firm said.

Economists expect the US economy to have added 170,000 jobs in February, with the unemployment rate remaining at 4.0%.