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Rite Aid is moving quickly to close additional store locations after selling a substantial chunk of its pharmacy business to other companies last week. The drugstore chain, which is winding down operations after seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for a second time earlier this month, has listed 95 store locations that it wants to close as it continues to seek buyers for its retail operations. The locations span six states, with Rite Aid’s home state of Pennsylvania being hit hardest. The list includes more than 70 Pennsylvania stores. Competitors scoop up Rite Aid’s pharmacy assets The move to close additional locations was disclosed in a court filing one…

It looks like it could be sitting on the campus of any number of major universities across the country, but this sleek, glass-lined educational building is far from the conventional teaching space: It’s a new training facility for the Ironworkers Local 63 union in Chicago. The training facility is being used to give young ironworkers hands-on experience welding, climbing, and installing the essential elements that underlie buildings around the world. As anxiety snowballs over just which professions will survive the emergence of artificial intelligence, physical trades like ironwork are seeming more and more AI proof—the building itself a counterargument to the percept…

Walk into any grocery store to stock up for Halloween and you will discover that, for chocolate treats, you have two basic choices: Will it be Mars or Hershey? I often buy both, but that is beside the point. The point is that the two giants compete for market share, but both enjoy robust sales. In other words, a relatively stable duopoly defines the U.S. chocolate candy market. But it wasn’t always like this. Before the 1960s, the Hershey Chocolate Corp. reigned supreme as the undisputed chocolate king. It was in that decade that Mars went for Hershey’s jugular. Hershey Chocolate’s response brought lasting change to its candy business, the local community,…

The rise of artificial intelligence in recent years, along with the surge in AI-generated online content, has given more credibility to a decades-old conspiracy theory known as the Dead Internet Theory. It holds that most of the content we encounter online isn’t actually produced by living humans but by lifeless bots. AI is increasingly turning the once-fringe theory into a reality, but even today, at least one of the participants—the living, breathing observer browsing the web on the other side of the screen—is still usually a real, sentient being. Yet this may not be true for much longer. Thanks to AI systems’ increasing reliance on a technology known as headl…

When a door broke loose on a new electric bus in Des Moines, Iowa, and nearly fell off, it was one in a long list of problems for the local transit agency. The city began using its fleet of seven electric buses, made by the startup Proterra, in 2021. The vehicles soon showed defects in the suspensions, weatherproofing, and wheelchair ramps. After only 18 months of use—and unsuccessful attempts to get the manufacturer to fix the problems—the agency had to pull them off the road. Other cities had similar issues. In Philadelphia, Proterra buses were sidelined in 2020 after the heavy batteries started to crack the vehicle chassis. (This summer, one of those vehicles s…

Innovation hubs were once the darlings of corporate strategy, promising to future-proof businesses and spark breakthrough ideas. But two decades in, the cracks are showing. Too many hubs have struggled to prove their worth, and some have quietly shut down altogether. In reality, these costly spaces never lived up to the hype—and the future lies elsewhere. Rather than investing in shiny new labs, organizations should be cultivating innovation communities: networks of people, inside and outside the company, who collaborate around shared challenges and opportunities. Looking Back: Proliferation Innovation hubs have proliferated through private enterprise over the…

The results are in. McDonald’s latest earnings report sheds light on the growing divide among U.S. consumers—as the wealthiest Americans continue to spend and eat out—while lower income families are making less trips to the Golden Arches as they battle the rising cost of living, skyrocketing food prices, grocery inflation, and stagnate wages. A look at McDonald’s third quarter earnings, released Tuesday after the closing bell, shows the fast food giant’s U.S. same-store sales increasing 2.5%, over the same period last year, (up 3.6% globally,)—but missing analyst expectations with adjusted earnings per share (EPS) coming in at $3.22, ten cents under expectations of $3…

When I first learned about Roth IRAs and Roth 401(k) plans—the tax-advantaged retirement plans that are funded with a taxpayer’s after-tax income—I remember thinking that it must be nice to have enough income that you could afford to contribute money to your retirement without an immediate tax break. But even though you fund Roth accounts with after-tax dollars, making them more expensive on the contribution side, they are ultimately a savvy way to save money in the long run. Unfortunately, if you don’t know what these accounts are or how they work, you will miss out on all of their benefits. Here’s everything you need to know to make the most of Roth retirement a…