First class isn't what it used to be, at least according to frequent airline passengers like Bonnie Friedman. She's been flying in the front of the plane for years and has witnessed the slow and sad decline of premium service.

"It was never fabulous," says Friedman, a communication consultant who lives on Maui. "But in the last three or four years, it has most definitely lost what little luster it had. The planes are cheaply made, the seats are smaller, the bathrooms almost too small to get into — and I’m a small person."

In first class. Yes, first class.

Friedman, like a lot of other air travelers, has noticed a marked decline in premium service. Seats have shrunk. Leg rests vanished. The food is barely edible, and the service is unacceptable.

And let's be clear about what we mean by first class: We're talking about domestic flights and generally excluding the competitive transcontinental flights, where airlines still make a half-hearted attempt to put the "first" into first class.

At a time when European countries are enduring some of the highest temperatures ever recorded, and as extreme weather becomes more common, Baghdad offers a troubling glimpse into a future where only the wealthy are equipped to escape the effects of climate change.

Say the term “personal brand.” Go ahead, I dare you. It’s cringe-worthy, right? I feel dirty just typing it.

That’s normal. Being a “brand” is sort of a gross concept, best reserved for commodities, cattle, and corporations—not people.

Humans aren’t hashtags. We’re complicated and nuanced. We have personal and professional lives. We’re moms and dads, partners and children, professionals, friends, and all the other stuff, too. We have different but authentic features of our personalities that we share on a day-by-day basis. Our quirks and flaws are part of that package.

That’s complicated in the age of social media. Not standing out carries serious risks when it comes to our professional lives, particularly if (like me) you’re part of generation X. How do you communicate you’re “all that and a bag of chips” without coming off like a poseur?

For some wealthy parents, the pressure to extend their social and financial status to their adult children can be overwhelming.

The recent college admission scandal revealed shocking things parents were willing to do to secure spots at top schools. But those same motivations drive some parents to bankroll their kids' lives into early adulthood, often to the detriment of the family.

"How many times have we seen in wealthy families where the breadwinner is so inundated with making a living and providing for a family, that love, intimacy and closeness are shown through financial means," says Dr. Alex Melkumian, a psychologist and financial therapist.

Support that keeps a young person living above their means can undermine their independence and create deep insecurities.

Voice assistants like Apple’s Siri record your voice once the service is activated and sometimes mistakenly capture personal moments. The Guardian newspaper reports that sometimes human contractors listen to these recordings when computers can’t decipher them. An Apple spokesperson tells NBC News that a “small portion” of Siri requests are analyzed to improve the service.

We must restore competition to the marketplace so our farmers and ranchers can once again have the opportunity to share in the prosperity that open, transparent and fair markets provide. And that means that Congress must pass comprehensive legislation ensuring our antitrust laws are tailored to today's markets, and federal agencies must once again aggressively enforce our existing antitrust laws.

U.S. immigration authorities have begun targeting businesses nationwide that offer work to undocumented immigrants in what they are calling “worksite enforcement surges” and will pursue criminal charges where warranted, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Tuesday.

Immigration officials so far have served 3,282 businesses with notices of inspection between July 15 and July 19, warning them that their records will be audited. Officials said notices won’t stop there and will continue to be rolled out across the 50 states and Puerto Rico.

ICE would not give a breakdown on how many were issued in Florida.

First global examination of affordability of both healthy and unhealthy foods shows prices matter for diet and health outcomes

Poor diets are the now the leading risk factor for the global burden of disease, accounting for one-fifth of all deaths worldwide. While the causes of poor diets are complex, new research finds the affordability of more nutritious foods is an important factor.

A new study by researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) is the first to document that the affordability of both healthy and unhealthy foods varies significantly and systematically around the world. The study also suggests that these relative price differences help explain international differences in dietary patterns, child stunting and overweight prevalence among adults.

Someone we know recently told us about a team-building event that proved anything but.

The chief executive who arranged it loved mountain biking. So he chose a venue to share his passion with his team. On the day, he shot around the track. Others with less experience took up to three hours longer. He settled in at the bar with a small entourage. Other staff trudged in much later, tired and bloody, not feeling at all like a team.

Many of us can recall team-building exercises that seemed like a waste of time. One problem is overcoming the natural human tendency to hang out with those people we already feel comfortable with, just as that chief executive did.

We suggest there is a better team-building approach. It doesn’t involve bicycles or obstacle courses or whitewater rafting. It doesn’t even necessarily involve your whole team.

The Wyoming Valley West School District in Pennsylvania sent out hundreds of letters this week telling parents who had lunch debt to pay or their children could go into foster care.

The letter, which was reviewed by CNN, told parents that there have been "multiple letters sent home with your child" and that no payments had been made.

"Your child has been sent to school every day without money and without a breakfast and/or lunch," the letter read. It also said failure to provide children with food could result in parents being sent to Dependency Court.

"If you are taken to Dependency court, the result may be your child being removed from your home and placed in foster care," the letter read.

Last year, a passenger on United was given $10,000 in travel credit for volunteering to be bumped from her flight. While it’s very unlikely you’d receive the same amount if you agree to volunteer, it’s important you know what you’re entitled to.

While the odds of being involuntarily bumped from your flight are pretty slim these days, it’s still possible. It’s much more likely airlines will voluntarily bump passengers on overbooked flights, luring them with compensation in exchange for their seat.

If you’re standing at a gate and an attendant offers compensation, it’s important you know how much cash you’re entitled to. Technically, under regulations by the Department of Transportation, there is no limit to the amount of cash an airline can offer a passenger who volunteers to be bumped; some airlines like Delta and United have allowed gate agents to give out up to $10,000 and $9,950 in travel credits, respectively. (To reiterate, however: It’s very unlikely.)

A YouTuber could face criminal charges after his photo of a handwritten menu from his flight on Garuda Indonesia, Indonesia's flagship airline, was mocked online.

Rius Vernandes, who has 121,000 followers on Instagram and 500,000 subscribers on YouTube and often reviews flights, shared the image of the menu on his business-class flight on Saturday with the caption "The menu is still being printed sir," The Guardian reported.

The menu, written on a white piece of paper, showed options including beef steak and crème brûlée.

Dear Care and Feeding,

My husband and I want to have our first kid soon. Before we start trying, we need to figure out how to handle my mother.

We aren’t close at all. I maintain a polite relationship with her to minimize guilt trips and dramatics that arise when I keep the much-greater distance I would prefer. She’s learned that there will probably be a kid eventually, and she’s become obsessed with moving near me and being “Grandma’s Babysitting Service.” I’ve tried telling her that wouldn’t work for us, but she says, “You have no idea how hard it will be, especially after the second” or “Why have babies if you’re going to dump them at some day care?” or “You can’t afford good child care.”

We can afford day care, and while it’s expensive, more importantly, it’s not my mother. She was a big believer in corporal punishment and severe “Tiger Mom” parenting methods. I would never leave a kid with her unattended for even a few minutes.

We have major differences in values, and she thinks it’s her responsibility that her grandchildren participate in her religion (she embraces its most judgmental and hateful aspects), which is unacceptable to my husband and me. I don’t want her “help” raising my child, and I don’t want to deal with her guilt trips, unsolicited advice, and other intrusions into the happy and stable life I’ve built for myself.

She claims all her friends live near their grandbabies and take care of them when the parents have to go to work, and that it’s not fair that she might not get to do the same. She has started looking at homes in our area (where she knows no one but us), and, as she can’t afford to live in the city, she’s started telling us to move to the suburbs and get a house with enough room for her to live with us. This is not happening. Is there a way to handle this short of full estrangement while she’s living in a fantasy world and not my metro area?

A Georgia man died in the Dominican Republic in March, adding to the list of U.S. tourists who have passed away in the Caribbean vacation destination this year.

In a statement sent Tuesday, the State Department confirmed to USA TODAY that an American citizen died there in March.

ABC News and Atlanta affiliate WSB-TV 2 report Tracy Jerome Jester Jr., 31, of Forsyth, Georgia, died on March 17 while vacationing with his sister, according to his mother, Melody Moore.

Moore told ABC she spoke to her son the night before he died and that he noted he drank a soda that tasted odd. The next day, her daughter called to say he was vomiting and complaining he couldn’t breathe.

A mother from New Rochelle, New York, died while undergoing plastic surgery in the Dominican Republic, CBS New York reports. She is the third American to die in a month during a cosmetic operation in the Caribbean nation.

According to her sister, Maxine David, Alexandra Medina was unhappy with her appearance, and asked doctors in the U.S. about undergoing liposuction. However, she was apparently told that she needed to lose weight before getting the surgery.

Her sister says Medina contacted a Dominican doctor through Facebook, who said the surgery wouldn't be an issue. "This doctor was like, 'No problem. We can do it. We can handle it. We've dealt with bigger women, so come here. We'll do it.' And it was obviously also cheaper," David said.