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Power was restored Sunday to the bulk of the 130,000 homes and businesses in San Francisco impacted by a massive outage a day earlier that caused major disruptions in the city. About 17,000 customers remained without power as of noon Sunday, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. said. PG&E said earlier its crews were working to restore electricity in several neighborhoods and small areas of downtown San Francisco following Saturday’s outage. PG&E in a statement said it expects to restore power to remaining customers no later than 2 p.m. Monday. “The damage from the fire in our substation was significant and extensive, and the repairs and safe restoration will be complex…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. The average price net of incentives of new-builds sold by Lennar—America’s second largest homebuilder—came in at $386,000 in Q3 2025. That’s down -10.2% from $430,000 in Q4 2024 and down -21.4% from $491,000 in Q3 2022. While last quarter Lennar acknowledged that it will no longer be as aggressive in prioritizing volume over margin going forward, the giant homebuilder said that doing so (i.e., volume > margin strategy) over the past few years helped it gain market share while some other builders were more conservative. “During the past three …

Markets are flat early Tuesday in holiday-thinned trading before head of the release of new data on how the U.S. economy fared in the third quarter. Futures for the S&P 500, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq are all essentially unchanged before the opening bell. Shares of the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk jumped more than 7% overnight after U.S. regulators approved a pill version of the blockbuster weight-loss drug Wegovy, the first daily oral medication to treat obesity. Novo’s Wegovy is a GLP-1 drug that works like widely used injectables to mimic a natural hormone that controls appetite and feelings of fullness. Again touching new records,…

A pro-Russian hacking group claimed responsibility for a major cyberattack that halted package deliveries by France’s national postal service just days before Christmas, prosecutors said Wednesday. After the claim by the cybercrime group known as Noname057, French intelligence agency DGSI took over the investigation into the hacking attack, the Paris prosecutor’s office said in a statement to The Associated Press. The group has been accused of other cyberattacks in Europe, including around a NATO summit in the Netherlands and French government sites. It was the target of a big European police operation earlier this year. Central computer systems at French national post…

Stocks moved slightly lower in midday Friday trading as investors returned from the Christmas holiday. Trading is expected to be light. The S&P 500 index was down 0.1% as of 12:15 p.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.2%, and the Nasdaq composite was down less than 0.1%. Institutional investors are largely closed out of their positions for the year. The S&P 500 has climbed nearly 18% this year, helped by the deregulatory policies of the The President administration as well as investor optimism about the future of artificial intelligence. Gold and silver prices continued to climb, with silver rising more than 7% to $76.88 an ounce. Gold w…

Ketchup-inspired luggage. Soap based on the characters from Stranger Things. A hot sauce energy drink. These are just a few of the brand collaborations that we’ve seen in 2025—and it’s safe to say that all’s not well in the world of brand partnerships. A few years ago, the art of the brand collab most often involved bringing together two brands that already had overlapping design styles, fanbases, or product categories. Recall partnerships like Nike and Apple’s successful 2016 Series 2 Watch launch, for example; or Dolce & Gabbana’s elevated designs for Smeg in 2019; or even Lego’s 2020 collection with Ikea. All of these pairings make some measure of intuitive sen…

In cities across North America, the best and most exciting public spaces can increasingly be found near the water. Park spaces on and along seashores and riverfronts are in a kind of renaissance right now, with large and small cities alike opening major waterfront parks over the past few years. 2025 was especially active. Cities brought big, ambitious park designs to the water’s edge, adding valuable recreation space, ecological services, and engines for urban regeneration. Here are four of the best waterfront parks that opened in 2025. Seattle’s Waterfront Park More than 15 years in the works, Seattle’s new park is a true reconnection of the city wit…

Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. CEOs deal with many challenges, but apparently their overall health and fitness isn’t among them. Some 93% of CEOs surveyed by corporate wellness platform Wellhub rate their overall well-being as excellent or good. In contrast, the same study, released earlier this year, finds that only…

It’s the sort of thing you might not notice until it really matters, but the U.S. Postal Service recently changed how it defines the “postmark” on a piece of mail—warning that the postmark date is not a reliable indicator of when you actually mailed something. If you’re the sort of person who waits until the last minute to send time-sensitive mail, that means you’ll need to stand in line at your local post office and request a manual postmark when dropping off your mail. While the way mail is postmarked hasn’t undergone some major shift recently, the postal service set out earlier this year to clarify earlier what a postmark means and how the process works. B…

I just launched a wine app, which means I’ve spent the last six months thinking obsessively about one thing: how do you remove friction from decisions that shouldn’t be hard? The answer taught me something bigger about rituals, and why so many of the ones we create at the end and beginning of the year fail us. Here’s my founder story, but from the wine aisle. Last December, I was standing in front of a wall of bottles, paralyzed. Not because I don’t like wine. I do. I was paralyzed because the entire experience was designed to make me feel small. The sommelier energy, the gatekeeping language, the implied message that if I couldn’t name the terroir, I didn’t d…

When the confetti settles and the ball has dropped, many Americans will wake up on New Year’s Day—Thursday, January 1, 2026—with errands to run, groceries to buy, or just the urge to grab coffee. But because New Year’s Day is a federal holiday, the holiday clock affects a wide range of services differently: Some go dormant for the day, others hum along with normal or modified hours, and a few offer the convenience you might need as you kick off the new year. Here’s what to expect if you’re planning to be out and about—or just need to know whether that store you’re counting on is open. Will I get mail on New Year’s Day? Thursday is a full federal holiday, w…

How seriously are you taking your 2026 rebrand? Do you have your 365 buttons ready? If this means nothing to you, you likely spent the holiday period at the lord intended – offline. But if spending less time on your phone isn’t one of your 2026 resolutions, let me catch you up. It started with a TikTok posted in December, all about rebranding for 2026. In the comments people shared their own strategies and self-improvement tips for the upcoming year. One comment, however, stood out from the rest. “I’m getting 365 buttons, one for each day because I want to do more stuff and I’m scared of time so I want to be more conscious of it,” a user called Tamara wrote.…

I recently argued that return-to-office mandates aren’t really about productivity; they’re about control. Ironically, my article published smack-dab in the middle of a September inflection point of increasing office time requirements, a phenomenon Owl Labs dubbed “hybrid creep.” And now, perhaps shockingly, I’ve started a new job with a team that (gasp!) has an office. When I wrote my argument against RTO, I had no inkling that I would soon be back in an office (part-time) myself. I am now basically in a live experiment. So far, it’s changed how I feel about the idea of going into an office. It hasn’t changed my view on RTO. A lab for truly flexible work My ne…

You hear the blurps and bloops after you pass the food court in the Mall of Georgia on a fall Sunday afternoon, the unmistakable sound of points being scored and players eliminated. Then you see him: Standing in an oversize vitrine is a 6-foot-tall animatronic rodent. He’s grinning and waving, but frozen in place, preserved like a museum piece. This isn’t an outpost of Chuck E. Cheese, the 48-year-old family pizza chain with more than 460 restaurants in 45 states and another 88 abroad. It’s Chuck’s Arcade, a fledgling new enterprise launched this past summer by parent company CEC Entertainment in an effort to expand the brand’s reach to Gen Xers, nostalgic millenn…

Dog owners have a lot of choices nowadays when it comes to picking out pet food for their pup. Dry kibble or wet? Beef or chicken? Frozen, fresh, or raw? Brands even boast “human-grade” ingredients and grain-free recipes. If you have a dog, your decision may be focused on nutrients, or maybe price. But one vet-turned-environmental researcher wants you to also consider the climate impact. And that impact could be huge—depending on the type of food, your dog’s diet could have a greater environmental impact than your own. Calculating the carbon footprint of dog food What we eat matters for the planet. Globally, food production is responsible for more than a q…

If you had a severe case of the Sunday Scaries last weekend, you are not alone. It’s a sentiment many have been sharing online. Ready or not, with it comes an influx of unread emails, meeting invites, and responsibilities—smugly pushed to the New Year in the last weeks of December—now coming back to haunt us all. Indeed, the first Monday of the year is the Monday-est Monday of all. “Oh god,” one TikTok user posted on Monday 6th. “Everyone is circling back.” “Worst aesthetic ever: Back to work in the first week of jan,” another wrote, riffing on TikTok’s “rare aesthetic” trend. Some have used the lyrics to The Smiths’ “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable No…

Strategic planning is a big business. Companies spend millions of dollars working with consulting firms to chart a path forward. Not only does a lot of money change hands as part of this process, but the amount of time that employees invest in working on the plan likely doubles the cost of the entire process. In the end, leadership gets a shiny report they can send to employees, shareholders, external stakeholders, and others. Often, though, much less money and time is invested in implementing that plan than was spent creating it. As a result, there is a lot of cynicism around engaging in strategic plans. In many ways, this feels a lot like New Year’s resolutions.…

A new insult for artificial intelligence just dropped thanks to Microsoft’s CEO. If you use Microsoft products, it’s near impossible to avoid AI now. The company is pushing AI agents deep into Windows, with every app, service, and product Microsoft has on the market now including some kind of AI integration, without the option to opt out. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently shared a blog post to LinkedIn titled “Looking Ahead to 2026” offering an insight into the company’s focus for the new year. Spoiler alert: it’s AI. Nadella wrote that he wants users to stop thinking of AI as “slop” and start thinking of it as “bicycles for the mind.” Many took the post…

Every organization believes it’s in the productivity business. Every executive thinks faster, longer, more densely packed meetings equal better results. They’re wrong. The meetings that actually work—the ones where breakthroughs happen and teams leave energized rather than depleted—operate on a completely different logic. They’re designed around how human brains actually function, not how we wish they would. By helping organizations transform their cultures through my Move. Think. Rest. (MTR) framework, I’ve watched the same pattern emerge: Companies spend millions on the latest collaboration software and meeting tech, then squander the opportunity by applying the…

Technological advancements in various fields of science are shattering what some scientists once deemed impossible. In recent years, researchers have mitigated the existential threat of asteroids, unlocked the power of immunotherapy to treat cancer tumors, and achieved unprecedented control over the human vestibular system. These scientific innovations have been fostered by new types of cross-disciplinary collaboration and the use of artificial intelligence tools. And though they’re approaching it from vastly different perspectives, planetary science, pathology, and neuroscience researchers shared at the World Changing Ideas Summit in November how they’re re…

Americans stressed by high grocery bills have one bright spot to look forward to in 2026. Value-minded grocery chain Aldi is coming to more cities around the country, with 180 new stores set to open in the U.S. this year. Aldi is a compelling option for grocery shoppers on a budget. Founded in Germany, the company envisioned itself as a discount grocery store from day one. Aldi’s aggressive U.S. expansion will meet the needs of more shoppers seeking a no-frills grocery experience without compromising on quality – a niche shared by Aldi competitors like Costco and Trader Joe’s. The budget grocery chain currently operates in 39 states across more than 2,600 stores i…

When I was a product marketing leader for a corporate regional bank, I found myself getting annoyed during an all-day strategy meeting. My frustration came from hearing the same voices, sharing the same old ideas. I wondered why other people, especially the women in the room, weren’t speaking up. I remember thinking, “Well, you could be the one to speak up.” I felt nerves jump in my throat and doubt sink heavily in my stomach. Who was I to speak up? I thought that others in the room were smarter than me since they had higher titles and more experience. Looking back now, I realize that I had a big problem, a Pedestal Problem. I silenced my ideas because I was intimida…

Being a field dependent on big developer clients and even bigger sums of money, rarely do architects get to pick the projects they work on. Would they if they could? Absolutely. Fast Company asked architects and designers from some of the top firms working around the world to think about the kinds of projects they wish they could do, clients, budgets, and possibly reality notwithstanding. From the abstract to one very specific (and notorious) train station, seven architects shared building projects they’d love to tackle in 2026. Here’s the question we put to a panel of designers and leaders in architecture: What’s your dream project in 2026? An urban district …

Most organizations still hire for culture fit—even those that loudly champion diversity and inclusion. The phrase sounds benign, even wise: who wouldn’t want colleagues who “fit in”? But behind this feel-good notion lies one of the biggest obstacles to innovation and progress in modern workplaces. Culture fit has become a euphemism for cultural cloning: selecting people who already look, think, and behave like the incumbents. It’s a polite way of saying, we want people like us, because there’s nothing more comforting than working—and hanging out—with people who are just like you! The irony, of course, is that such homogeneity kills the very things organizations claim …