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Lowe’s Foundation is making a major investment in future skilled tradesworkers. On Tuesday, the home improvement retailer announced it would commit an additional $200 million to training 250,000 tradespeople by 2035 through its Gable Grants program, bringing its overall commitment to $250 million. The investment comes amid a rising need for skilled tradespeople driven by a surge in AI developments. According to JLL’s 2026 Global Data Center Outlook report, the global data center sector is expanding by about 14% a year. Over the next four years, nearly 100 gigawatts of capacity will be added, which will require a $3 trillion investment. At the same time, we’re seeing …

Samsung is saying goodbye to its namesake texting app, at least for United States customers. According to an end of service announcement published on the tech giant’s U.S. support website, Samsung Messages will be discontinued in July. Impacted owners of Samsung smartphones and other gadgets are being asked to switch to Google Messages in the meantime, “to maintain a consistent messaging experience on Android.” All Samsung Galaxy phones run on Google’s Android operating system. To switch to Google Messages, Samsung’s website gives users instructions to download the app from the Play Store, if not already on their phone, and set it as the default. Some people may a…

It’s a tough time to own fast-food restaurants. Franchisees for popular chains such as Applebee’s, Subway, and Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen have filed for bankruptcy recently, and another has joined them. Multiple entities associated with Friendly Franchisees Corporation (FFC), owner of 65 Carl’s Jr. locations across California, have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Restaurant Business first reported. Carl’s Jr. was founded almost 85 years ago and is known for its charbroiled burgers. FFC has yet to state whether any Carl’s Jr. locations will close as a result of the bankruptcies. Its founder, Harshad Dharod, owns the five associated entities that filed…

I recently noticed a paradox among a team of developers. With AI, engineers started writing code faster and getting answers in seconds, yet they also reported feeling more exhausted than before. AI hasn’t actually reduced the amount of work that needs to be done. Instead, it has fundamentally changed its nature. We can now run multiple tasks in parallel and perceive this as productivity. Up to a point, it is. But eventually, managing tools and constantly switching between them becomes more draining than performing the original tasks themselves. In some cases, it even slows down the process of finding a solution. I’ve been managing developer teams for over 15 years…

The most famous dead person to ever wear sunglasses just might be Bernie Lomax. Until now. Because the namesake for the 1989 hit comedy Weekend at Bernie’s was a fictional character, but you dear reader, you are very real. Liquid Death just announced its newest collab, this time with sunglasses brand Pit Viper, to make what its calling “Sunglasses for Dead People.” According to Liquid Death, 87% of people who have near-death experiences report seeing a blinding bright light. That’s not an exact science, but the canned water brand isn’t letting that get in the way of a good bit. Available on Pit Viper’s site for $119, the limited-edition shades feature shatt…

Travelers will soon face restrictions on how many portable chargers they can carry on a flight as airlines continue to try to reduce the risk of another lithium battery fire aboard their jets. Southwest Airlines announced Tuesday that starting April 20 passengers will only be able to carry one charger on their planes, and they won’t be allowed to put it in the overhead bin or in their checked luggage. The airline already requires passengers to keep their chargers in the open while they are using them, so flight attendants can act quickly if they start to overheat. The new Southwest rule goes even further than the limit of two chargers per passenger that the Internationa…

Fox Corporation has announced plans to partner with Kalshi to integrate the prediction market’s data across the media giant’s various cable networks. Tuesday’s announcement follows the rise in popularity of prediction markets, and marks Kalshi’s third partnership with a large media corporation, with similar deals struck with CNBC and CNN in December of last year. Kalshi’s platform allows users to bet on current events, anything from sports betting to politics. For instance, users can bet on who will win an election. From those wagers, a forecast is determined based on the crowd’s opinion. Not everyone is turning to the platform to bet. “Roughly 70% of peo…

It feels like a “hit-the-brakes” economy, with warning lights flashing everywhere: inflation pressures, AI disruptions, upside-down business models, and a persistent sense that some new market surprise or geopolitical tempest is waiting around the corner. Given these congested, conflicting signals, the instinct for many business leaders is to slow investment, tighten spending, and wait for more clarity. But how companies slow down can make the difference between paying a performance penalty and gaining a performance premium. Our research shows that organizations that keep transformation moving during peak uncertainty significantly outperform their wait-and-see pee…

You know the expression, “If you want to get something done, ask a working mother?” Surprising as it may seem, the same holds true for cancer patients. Conventional wisdom holds that cancer patients are too sick and fragile to work, at least not to their full ability. That can certainly be true in some cases, sometimes tragically. And I’m not suggesting that anyone should ever feel pressured to work if they don’t feel well enough to do so. But in many instances, the stereotype that cancer patients are too compromised to work is a myth. I know because I’ve been living—and working—with an incurable type of blood cancer for more than twenty-two years. And I’m by no mea…

We’re in the midst of a child care crisis in America, but when fathers want to take on more childcare to equal their partners’ efforts, they are being stymied by their employers. Max, who requested to go by a pseudonym, spent 15 years as a contractor: no benefits, little job security, and frequent change. When recruited for a full-time role, he was upfront about his wife’s pregnancy and his need to take parental leave when their first-born child was due. “I said, ‘I’m going to be flexible—I don’t have to take off right away and I can do it in stints.’ I was offering these different plans because it was important to me for the company to be successful,” Max says. “…

Below, Leanne ten Brinke shares five key insights from her new book, Poisonous People: How to Resist Them and Improve Your Life. Leanne is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, where she directs the Truth and Trust Lab. She has been studying deception, distrust, and dark personalities for the past 20 years. What’s the big idea? Most people are far kinder—and more trustworthy—than we assume. The real danger comes from a small group of manipulative personalities who exploit our good nature. Once you understand how they operate, you can spot them early and take back control. Listen to the audio version of this Book Bite—read …

The National Capital Planning Commission has voted to approve President Donald The President’s controversial White House ballroom plans, greenlighting the demolition of the historic East Wing to make way for a new neoclassical structure. But the ballroom is just one piece of a much bigger picture. Last year, the president signed an executive order mandating that new federal buildings return to a “traditional and classical” style, sparking a fierce debate among architects about who gets to decide what American democracy looks like. On this episode of FC Explains, staff writer Nate Berg breaks down the design agenda behind MAGA architecture, who is driving it, and what…

Entrepreneurs displaying narcissistic behavior are better able to convince investors to give them money when their grandiosity comes across as confidence as opposed to defensiveness or arrogance. That’s what we learned from watching 12 seasons of the popular reality TV show Shark Tank to better understand how an entrepreneur’s psychological profile affects their ability to secure funding. My research focuses on how entrepreneurs respond to challenges, including how personality affects their work. My colleagues and I based our study off the concept that there are two distinct “flavors” of narcissism: narcissistic admiration and narcissistic rivalry. Narcissisti…

Loredana Crisan says her relationship with creativity started when she was 7 years old, sitting with her mother in her family’s kitchen in Bucharest, Romania. “The question she posed was, ‘Do you want to learn piano,’ and as a kid I was like, ‘Yes!’ –– probably because I was singing in the house.” From then on, says Crisan, she never stopped playing. In fact, she ended up as a student studying classical music in a conservatory. “I was very dedicated to music for a very long period of my life,” says Crisan. Now, as Chief Design Officer at Figma, Crisan says her musical training has informed her relationship with her work in ways she never expected. “If we are successf…

The cutting board may be the most used object in your kitchen, but its design hasn’t changed considerably since 3,000 BCE, when the ancient Egyptians began using slabs of wood for food preparation. The cutting board has to do a lot of work: It needs to absorb knife marks, soak up onion juice, and be big enough to hold vegetables and scraps. On a daily basis, home cooks are forced to confront the logistical problem of where to put the parsley they just chopped when they move on to the carrots. By the end of meal prep, the kitchen counter is littered with food waste and crowded with mismatched bowls of ingredients. It seems like a minor inconvenience, one that most …

In the world of convenience stores, 7-Eleven is undoubtedly the cool kid. Phoebe Bridgers named-dropped the c-store in a song, Lana del Rey has posed in front of its parking lot, and, in Asia, the stores have become a must-visit spot. But is the brand cool enough to wear? People seem to think so. “Nothing could have prepared me for how hard the 7-eleven merch website goes,” Axios congress reporter Andrew Solender said on X this week, sparking a discussion about the brand’s merchandise website. Some of the offerings are straightforward—a white t-shirt with 7-Eleven’s logo—while others look less like corporate swag and more look more like they belong to …

For all the advances in data science, artificial intelligence, and behavioral assessments, one hiring ritual remains stubbornly unchanged: the job interview, where candidates are still subjected to awkward brainteasers about golf balls in airplanes, forced to disclose their “biggest weaknesses” to amateur psychologists, asked whether they would keep working after winning the lottery, or made to present to silent panels who seem less interested in evidence of competence than in observing how gracefully applicants endure a mildly humiliating social experiment. Despite decades of research showing that traditional interviews are only moderately reliable predictors of perf…

Wall Street surged in Wednesday premarket trading as oil prices plunged 16% after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire that includes the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. Futures for the S&P 500 jumped 2.7% before the opening bell and futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 2.6%. Nasdaq futures soared 3.4%. Benchmark U.S. crude sank $18.43 to $94.52 a barrel, a nearly 16% decline. Brent crude, the international standard dropped $15.54 to $93.73 a barrel. Natural gas futures declined close to 5%. The drops reversed some of the rise in oil prices since the start of the war more than five weeks ago that had effectively blocked passage through…

Shares in Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE: DAL) are on the rise this morning after the company reported its Q1 2026 results. While Delta comfortably beat revenue expectations, the U.S. air carrier also addressed the biggest challenge it is currently facing, rising gas prices, and how it is working to mitigate that challenge. Here’s what you need to know. Delta’s Q1 beats expectations, stock surges On Wednesday, Delta Air Lines announced its Q1 2026 financial results, covering the January through March period. The results, announced before markets opened, showed the company had a strong quarter. The company reported non-GAAP operating revenue of $14.2 billion a…

The airport is chaos. Lines snake beyond the designated barriers and out the doors as frazzled travelers tug their luggage and scowl at their phones, their grimaced faces even more dramatic in the harsh lighting. I stand in the security queue, sensing the stress emanating from everyone around me like swarms of buzzing flies. A man behind me huffs with dramatic indignation, a couple ahead bickers in hissed whispers “we should have left earlier!”, and someone’s roller bag keeps thwacking my heels. My fists clench as irritation winds me tighter. The security checkpoint seems miles away and my flight is in an hour. I feel myself being sucked into the collective vortex…

The American job market is now filled with so-called ghost jobs —listings for positions that don’t actually exist, from companies that have no intent to hire—wasting not only hours of your time, but also your money, too. According to a comprehensive study by Enhancv, a global AI resume builder, 37% of people looking for jobs are now paying a “ghost tax”—reporting direct out-of-pocket expenses, including travel, childcare, and paid certifications, as a result of chasing phantom listings. The March 2026 study surveyed 1,000 U.S. professionals across all career levels. “When job seekers are losing actual money to engage with a company’s brand, we aren’t just look…

Facing stagnant sales, Panera Bread is aiming to become one of the restaurant industry’s rare comeback stories. The fast-casual chain’s latest move is the introduction of new “Salad Stuffers,” a fresh spin on one of Panera Bread’s most iconic menu items: the bread bowl. Instead of filling a sourdough bread bowl with soup, however, it’s stuffing a handheld Italian-style roll with salad. The idea sounds simple enough, and yet CEO Paul Carbone says Panera thoroughly tested the innovation before adding it to the menu. A team of chefs and bakers experimented with 20 different breads to find one with the desired “fluffy and soft” texture. Any salad on Panera’s menu,…

We talk a lot about visionary leadership. You know, the ability to see around corners, spot emerging patterns, and imagine futures that don’t yet exist. These are all very important activities for strategic work. But something we rarely consider is what happens when the physical instrument of vision itself is under siege. Said more bluntly, what happens when our eyes succumb to the daily assault of screen time? I recently spoke with Dr. Valerie Sheety-Pilon, SVP of clinical and medical affairs at VSP Vision Care, whose organization has spent three years tracking the state of vision health in the American workforce. The data she shared stopped me cold—and it reframed h…