Armed with a slim laptop and a Wi-Fi hot spot, Bobbie Carlton used to work everywhere—coffee shops, clients’ offices. The 56-year-old, who runs an online speakers’ platform, felt like the archetype of the modern worker. “Cords are for old people,” she explained.

Now 50 feet of Ethernet cable snakes through her 100-year-old house in Lexington, Mass., climbing over doorways, running up the staircase, taped to the floor of the upstairs hall. It’s seriously ugly, she acknowledges.

“Good God, this is, like, me in the ’80s,” she says.

And yet, she loves it. 

“I’m sitting down, and I’m plugging in,” she says.

Sandbox AQ, a software startup developing quantum-computing and artificial-intelligence tools for commercial use, on Tuesday officially spun off from Alphabet Inc.’s Google to become a stand-alone company.

The move was fueled by a “nine-figure” funding round that included Breyer Capital, T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. and Guggenheim Partners LLC, among other investors, the company said. The amount and terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s former chief executive, was named chairman of the new company, and a number of other high-profile investors will serve as advisers, Sandbox said.

Sandbox AQ, a software startup developing quantum-computing and artificial-intelligence tools for commercial use, on Tuesday officially spun off from Alphabet Inc.’s Google to become a stand-alone company.

The move was fueled by a “nine-figure” funding round that included Breyer Capital, T. Rowe Price Associates Inc. and Guggenheim Partners LLC, among other investors, the company said. The amount and terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s former chief executive, was named chairman of the new company, and a number of other high-profile investors will serve as advisers, Sandbox said.

To Whom It May Concern: Job applicants are putting a hard stop to those dreaded cover letters.

Many hiring managers say a sharp cover letter remains one of the best ways to make the case for why you are the right person for the job. Yet many job seekers say the self-promoting exercise is too torturous and time-consuming to be worth the effort for a less-than-dream role. It’s also just plain insulting, they argue, since it’s often an algorithm, not a human, that screens and sorts the applications.

Now, as employers struggle to fill millions of openings, job seekers are using their leverage to say no to what, until recently, was a must for landing a decent position.

To Whom It May Concern: Job applicants are putting a hard stop to those dreaded cover letters.

Many hiring managers say a sharp cover letter remains one of the best ways to make the case for why you are the right person for the job. Yet many job seekers say the self-promoting exercise is too torturous and time-consuming to be worth the effort for a less-than-dream role. It’s also just plain insulting, they argue, since it’s often an algorithm, not a human, that screens and sorts the applications.

Now, as employers struggle to fill millions of openings, job seekers are using their leverage to say no to what, until recently, was a must for landing a decent position.

As more companies begin their return to the office, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. FB +2.11% is becoming more remote than ever before.

The company’s management team, including Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, is scattering to locations far from its Silicon Valley headquarters in an extreme test of the limits of remote work.

Naomi Gleit, the company’s head of product and one of its longest-tenured employees, has relocated to New York. Chief Marketing Officer Alex Schultz plans to move to the U.K., and Guy Rosen, the company’s vice president of integrity, will be moving to Israel in the near future, according to a company spokesman.

As more companies begin their return to the office, Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. FB +2.11% is becoming more remote than ever before.

The company’s management team, including Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, is scattering to locations far from its Silicon Valley headquarters in an extreme test of the limits of remote work.

Naomi Gleit, the company’s head of product and one of its longest-tenured employees, has relocated to New York. Chief Marketing Officer Alex Schultz plans to move to the U.K., and Guy Rosen, the company’s vice president of integrity, will be moving to Israel in the near future, according to a company spokesman.

Broadway, looking to regain its prepandemic audiences, is relying on boldface names such as Hugh Jackman, Daniel Craig, Sarah Jessica Parker…and Mike Boschen.

Mr. Boschen is in the current revival of “The Music Man.” He is a trombonist, and they are having a moment.

In “Hadestown,” trombonist Brian Drye appears on stage and interacts with the cast. (As one theater observer noted on Twitter: “Phenomenal cast and all, but the trombone is the real star.”) In “Chicago,” trombonists Bruce Bonvissuto and James Burton III have coveted places on stage with the rest of the orchestra. “We can feel very viscerally the energy coming from the audience,” says Mr. Bonvissuto.

Broadway, looking to regain its prepandemic audiences, is relying on boldface names such as Hugh Jackman, Daniel Craig, Sarah Jessica Parker…and Mike Boschen.

Mr. Boschen is in the current revival of “The Music Man.” He is a trombonist, and they are having a moment.

In “Hadestown,” trombonist Brian Drye appears on stage and interacts with the cast. (As one theater observer noted on Twitter: “Phenomenal cast and all, but the trombone is the real star.”) In “Chicago,” trombonists Bruce Bonvissuto and James Burton III have coveted places on stage with the rest of the orchestra. “We can feel very viscerally the energy coming from the audience,” says Mr. Bonvissuto.

People want to live in Manhattan as much as they ever have. The problem is that not enough people want to work there.

And for Midtown Manhattan, a neighborhood built on the five-day-a-week commuter, that is a problem so momentous that after decades as the dominant office district in the country, real-estate developers and city planners are trying to imagine what else it can offer.

On the residential side, Manhattan apartment rentals are booming and sales are reaching record levels. But offices in Midtown are attracting barely one-third of their pre-pandemic workforces.

“There’s no question that Midtown is going to have to reinvent itself,” said Chris Jones, senior research fellow at the Regional Plan Association, an urban-planning group.