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Pizza Hut is closing hundreds of “underperforming” locations nationwide, according to parent company Yum! Brands, which reported fourth-quarter 2025 earnings on Wednesday. The company said it will shutter about 3% of Pizza Hut’s U.S. locations, or some 250 locations in the first six months of 2026, as the fast-causal chain struggles amid competition from Dominos Pizza and an overall decline in store sales and consumer demand. Fast Company has reached out to Pizza Hut for a list of locations that will be closing. Globally, Pizza Hut opened over 440 new restaurants in the fourth quarter of 2025 and nearly 1,200 restaurants in 2025, in 65 countries. Taco Bell…

Alphabet said on Wednesday it was targeting capital expenditure of $175 billion to $185 billion this year, in yet another aggressive ramp-up in spending from the Google parent as it deepens its investments to push ahead in the AI race. Analysts on average had expected Alphabet to spend about $115.26 billion this year, according to data compiled by LSEG. Shares of the company fell more than 6% in extended trading. Revenue at Google Cloud grew 48% to $17.7 billion in the fourth quarter ended December, compared with analysts’ average estimate of a 35.2% jump, according to data compiled by LSEG. Cloud computing majors have poured hundreds of billions of dollar…

Rent can eat up an entire paycheck at the start of the month, so a growing number of renters are turning to a financial product that promises relief by letting them split the bill — for a price. So-called “rent now, pay later” services have emerged over the past few years as housing costs climb and paychecks grow less predictable, particularly for lower-income and gig-economy workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, rents have jumped nearly 28% in the past five years. Companies such as Flex, Livble, and, more recently, Affirm, say breaking rent into multiple payments can help renters manage cash flow. But consumer advocates warn the products typically…

Just in time for the Super Bowl, PepsiCo is cutting the price of Doritos, Cheetos, Lay’s, Tostitos, and other snacks by up to 15%. The move comes after consumers complained the chips were too pricey. “Our customers . . . have been honest with us about how rising everyday costs are making their daily decisions harder. Message received,” PepsiCo said in a statement. “Lowering the suggested retail price reflects our commitment to help reduce the pressure where we can,” PepsiCo Foods U.S. CEO Rachel Ferdinando added. The new discounted prices roll out this week, ahead of this Sunday’s big game, one of the biggest days for snack purchases. PepsiCo said supermarket…

February is always difficult in Minneapolis. It’s when the nerve-flaying cold of December and January starts to seem like a dress rehearsal. But this February has proven brutal for other reasons. As thousands of ICE agents storm the city with lethal force, many residents have larger troubles than the arctic weather. Some are terrified of getting detained or deported; others are worried about getting attacked for documenting the chaos or for helping their neighbors. A Minneapolis food scene staple for the past 15 years, Modern Times and its customers have been front row for unrest before. Just six blocks from where George Floyd was murdered six years ago, the Powderhor…

Amazon is rolling out a new feature in hopes of retaining, or perhaps attracting, new Prime members. The tech giant announced Wednesday that Alexa+, its AI-powered assistant, is now available for free to all Prime members. Last March, Amazon began offering an “early access” preview for the new voice assistant that saw an “inspiring” response, with tens of millions of customers requesting access, according to a statement. The company has revamped its legacy Alexa product to handle more complex interactions—offering examples of how users can engage in “deep conversations” with Alexa+ that may be ongoing over the course of potentially several days, as the technology …

For a show that lasts roughly 13 minutes, the Super Bowl halftime performance has fueled decades of conversation. Sometimes the spark comes from a single moment — as it did when Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake’s infamous “wardrobe malfunction” triggered a broadcast reckoning. Other times, it arrives through imagery and intent, from Jennifer Lopez’s 2020 caged children staging that critiqued U.S. immigration policies to children at the U.S.-Mexico border to Kendrick Lamar’s carefully layered Black storytelling, delivered as Donald The President watched from his seat inside the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. The halftime show magnifies everything — fashion ch…

Low Earth orbit is already getting crowded. Around 14,500 active satellites are circling Earth, and roughly two-thirds of them are run by SpaceX. Now, in filings connected to Elon Musk’s plan to fold SpaceX and his AI firm xAI together ahead of an IPO, the company has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to launch up to one million more. The figure is so large it would dwarf the number of satellites currently in orbit. In fact, it is more than every object ever sent into space by every nation combined. So why is Musk planning it, and what would it mean for the rest of us? In a public update posted on the SpaceX website as part of the me…

The Washington Post informed its team on Wednesday morning that it was starting a round of mass layoffs, according to multiple media reports and a memo seen by Fast Company. Multiple sections are being shut down completely, while others are being shrunk significantly. The paper’s executive editor, Matt Murray, announced the cuts to the newsroom employees, saying that all sections would be impacted by the layoffs. He said the Post would be making a “strategic reset,” and is also cutting staff on the business side. The New York Times reported that approximately 30% of the Post’s employees are being laid off, including more than 300 of the around 800 journalists. …

Jeffrey Epstein’s network of money and influence often intersected with scientific and academic communities. The disgraced financier spent years cultivating relationships with researchers at elite universities, frequently dangling the promise of funding. Some of the work he supported has had, and may still have, direct and indirect impacts on Silicon Valley’s most powerful technologies. Epstein was first convicted in 2008 on charges of soliciting a minor for prostitution, yet he continued to maintain a web of relationships across the worlds of technology and academia until he was indicted on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019. The Department of Justice’s latest …

Much to the chagrin of investors, the value of Bitcoin continues to slide. As of Wednesday morning, the world’s most popular cryptocurrency was trading around $75,000 per coin. That’s down more than 10% over the past five days, down 18% over the past month, and down a whopping 34% over the past six months. It’s a far cry from October of last year, when Bitcoin’s price topped out at nearly $125,000. Values are now roughly where they were in early April 2025, and before that, in November 2024. From bump to slump Notably, Bitcoin’s value is now lower than it was when The President took office last January, effectively giving up all of the “The President Bump”…

We live in a world of increasing change. The international order is shifting and political certainties are evaporating day by day. Technological shifts are changing how we experience the world and interact with others. And in the workplace, AI is poised to unleash what might be the most revolutionary set of changes humanity has experienced since the first hunter-gatherers settled down to grow crops and build cities. But while change is everywhere, we still find it hard to manage. The statistics around organizational change have always been brutal. For at least the last quarter century, corporate transformation efforts have failed at a remarkable rate: only three out o…

Dutch semiconductor chip machine maker ASML recorded a record net profit of 9.6 billion euros ($11.5 billion) in 2025 on sales of 32.7 billion euros fueled by AI-driven demand, the company reported Wednesday as it also announced plans to slash its workforce by about 1,700, about 4% of its workforce. The growth comes despite Dutch government restrictions on exports of machines that can be used to make chips that can be integrated into weapons systems. The measures, initially announced in 2023 and later expanded, are seen as part of a U.S. policy that aims at limiting China’s access to such technology. “In the last months, many of our customers have shared a notably more …

Since Brian Niccol took over as Starbucks Chairman and CEO in 2024, he’s promised a grand turnaround for the coffee giant by going back to its roots in lovingly designed, customer-centric stores. The messaging wasn’t enough to break six straight quarters of global sales decline. Global sales grew 1% at the end of the 2025 fiscal year, but they left the U.S. behind. Now, Starbucks’s Q1 2026 earnings have beat analyst estimates and seem to be cementing a turnaround, marking the first time same store sales have increased in the U.S. in eight quarters. Starbucks same store sales were up 4% in the U.S. and 5% globally during the first quarter, thanks largely to a 3% ri…

When Mikala Mahoney was laid off from her marketing job last summer, first she was shocked. Then the anxiety flooded in. “I realized that over the past few years in my career I had created a false sense of steadiness,” she tells Fast Company. Friends had regularly told Mahoney she was fortunate to have landed a good, stable job as a marketing coordinator at Paramount+. In a moment, that illusion was in pieces. Mahoney threw herself into the job hunt, quickly landing her next role. A few months later, she was laid off again. After losing her job twice in less than a year, this time she decided to bet on herself. Following the traditional path as a salar…

Being a night owl can be bad for your heart. That may sound surprising but a large study found people who are more active late at night — when most of the population is winding down or already asleep — have poorer overall heart health than the average person. “It is not like, that, night owls are doomed,” said research fellow Sina Kianersi of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who led the study. “The challenge is the mismatch between your internal clock and typical daily schedules” that makes it harder to follow heart-healthy behaviors. And that’s fixable, added Kianersi, who describes himself as “sort of a night owl” who feels a boost in “my anal…

When people complain about a lack of work-life balance, they’re typically feeling that they are spending too much time working. They may be spending a lot of combined time at the office and commuting, or just putting in a lot of hours both at work and at home. Fixing that problem can’t be done abstractly, though. If you’re going to address the balance of work and life activities, you have to start getting specific about where your time is going and where you really want it to go. Think about how you’re spending your time. At work, you’re spending time in meetings, writing documents, engaging with clients, or doing particular technical tasks like coding. Similarly,…

Another day, another announcement of restaurant closures in the casual-dining space. Earlier this week, FAT Brands filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. As part of that process, the restaurant company is seeking to reject leases for a number of shuttered company-owned restaurants, including locations for Johnny Rockets, Smokey Bones, and Yalla Mediterranean, court filings show. FAT Brands owns 18 restaurant chains in total, including Fatburger, Round Table Pizza, Great American Cookies, and more. Most of its more than 2,200 locations worldwide are franchised. FAT Brands said in its bankruptcy filing that owns roughly 150 locations directly. “Our dynamic…