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Denny’s Corporation (NASDAQ: DENN) told investors it is closing another 30 restaurants, for a total of 180 closures combined in 2024 and 2025, while reporting fourth-quarter earnings on Wednesday. (It had previously said it would close a total of 150 locations.) The move is part of the restaurant chain’s plan to jumpstart its waning growth. Denny’s, like many fast-food and casual-dining chains, has been struggling in recent years due to inflation, changing customer habits, and skyrocketing food prices. It’s just one of many major chains to announce store closures recently, a list that includes TGI Fridays, Shake Shack, and Wendy’s as well. But Denny’s told Fast Compa…

If you are career-minded, you may think applying for a loftier position in another company is the best route. In fact half of millennials expect to leave their current company within a year. But it’s not always the right move. Advancing in your present company may be a smarter move. You already know the culture and the people. If you enjoy them, who is to say that you’d find something better elsewhere? Also, some companies reward loyalty. And why would you want to compete with hundreds of applicants in a chaotic job market? If you are staying, hone your strategy. Follow these five steps to boost your likelihood of advancing. 1. ASK FOR VISIBLE ASSIGNMENTS …

Andrew Brodsky is a management professor at McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also CEO of Ping Group and has received numerous awards, including being chosen by Poets & Quants as one of the Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors of 2023. What’s the big idea? Instant messaging, email, video calls, and other digital tools have largely replaced in-person communication for most workplaces. We have all become virtual communicators, and with this comes a new set of rules for interpersonal success. The PING framework distills best practices for optimal outcomes when relying on technology to communicate. Below, Andrew shares five key i…

Red Robin Gourmet Burgers is looking to close up to 70 underperforming locations, representing about 14% of the 498 restaurants that were operating as of the end of last year. The company has already closed one restaurant upon lease expiration, it said in an earnings release last week, and it plans to close three additional locations within the first quarter of 2025. Most of the 70 locations are likely to close at some point in the next five years once their leases expire, Restaurant Dive reported, with as many as 15 closing this year. This decision follows a review of the company’s operations, which revealed that these sites are not meeting performance expe…

A Texas county on Wednesday approved holding an election sought by SpaceX that would let residents living around billionaire Elon Musk’s company decide whether to formally create a new city called Starbase. The election was set for May 3 and votes can only be cast by residents living near the launch site that is currently part of an unincorporated area of Cameron County, located along the U.S.-Mexico border. In December, more than 70 area residents signed a petition requesting an election to make Starbase its own municipality. Most of the residents are company employees and the community includes more than 100 children, according to copies of the petition obtained by Th…

If you tune into the Puppy Bowl on Sunday, you’ll likely see a key person’s influence — even if you don’t actually see her. Victoria Schade is a dog trainer and novelist who’s the show’s lead puppy trainer and wrangler. She’s the one making sure the shelter pups have a conflict-free contest and that they’re captured at their most adorable—all from off-camera. It is Schade who gets the puppies to look up during the “The Star-Spangled Banner” or run through a tunnel to get to the field for the starting lineups. She’s on the lookout for possible conflicts or nervous dogs. “My responsibilities include ensuring puppy happiness and safety during gameplay,” she says.…

One of the world’s most well-known stock market indexes, the S&P 500, will soon look a little different. That’s because its roster of 500 companies is getting a shakeup, which will see the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global join the index. In the process, Coinbase will replace legacy financial services company Discover Financial. Here’s what you need to know about the changes coming to the S&P 500. What is the S&P 500? The S&P 500 is one of the world’s best-known stock market indexes. A stock market index is essentially a running list of publicly traded companies whose stock prices are tracked. These indices can help give investors an overv…

On Thursday, United Parcel Service (UPS) predicted downbeat 2025 revenue as it cut back service with its largest customer, Amazon, in order to focus on more profitable businesses. The decision will cut Amazon’s transported volumes by more than 50% by the second half of 2026. The unexpected announcement came with disappointing revenue results, with UPS failing to meet expectations for 2024. UPS’s Q4 revenue was $25.3 billion, slightly below the predicted $25.42 billion. This decision came at a time when UPS is struggling due to a decline in parcel demand following the e-commerce boom of the pandemic and an increase in shipments from discount online retailers such …

When Leonard Foglia was invited to direct an opera based on Herman Melville’s masterpiece about a white whale, his first reaction was: “Moby-Dick. That’s great!” “Then I ran to a used bookstore and got the book,” he recalled, “and I thought: Oh my God, what am I in for here? It’s so daunting. I didn’t panic, but I thought, How do we do this?” How he and his collaborators did it will be on display at the Metropolitan Opera beginning March 3. The opera is composed by Jake Heggie to a libretto crafted by Gene Scheer. To begin with, Scheer had to whittle a novel of more than 600 pages down to a 64-page libretto. He kept as much of Melville’s language as possible, …

There are certain social media rules we can all agree on: Ghosting a conversation is impolite, and replying “k” to a text is the equivalent of a backhand slap (violent, wrong, and rude). But what about the rest of the rules? When can we really remind someone of our old Venmo request? What happens when someone tries to flirt with you on LinkedIn? Fortunately, terminally online writers Delia Cai and Steffi Cao are here to answer all your digital quandaries, big or small. For Fast Company’s final installment of our advice column, Posting Playbook, Steffi Cao and Delia Cai tackle your biggest questions about online careerism and Venmo etiquette. I feel like I should …

By now everyone knows that scrolling social media isn’t exactly good for you. But did you know it might be making you sweat? Researchers from the psychology department at Durham University tracked the physiological responses of scrolling on social media and found a rather strange side effect. The researchers asked 54 young adults to browse Instagram for 15 minutes while monitoring their heart rate and their skin conductance (which would tell how much sweat they produced). Compared to reading a news article on a phone, they found scrolling Instagram made people’s heart rates slow down and, simultaneously, made them sweat more. From the control group, who just read the…

Peavey Industries LP, Canada’s largest farm and ranch retailer, has announced the shuttering of all its locations across the country following its filing for creditor protection under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA), granted by the Court of King’s Bench Alberta. The closures will impact 90 Peavey Mart stores and six MainStreet Hardware locations, with liquidation sales starting immediately, marking the end of nearly six decades of operations for the Alberta-based company, which has long been a key player in Canada’s rural and suburban retail landscape. ‘A profoundly difficult decision’ The news comes as Canada’s retail industry faces unpreceden…

Nissan is slashing production at its U.S. plants and offering buyouts to factory workers there as part of the Japanese automaker’s urgent efforts to return to profitability. The move is part of Nissan Motor Corp.’s plans, announced two months ago, to slash 9,000 jobs globally, including in China, after it racked up a quarterly loss due to sinking sales and ballooning inventory. At Nissan’s plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, one production line will maintain two shifts, while the other line will consolidate to one shift, the company said. The Smyrna plant makes Murano, Pathfinder and Rogue sport-utility vehicles and the Infiniti QX60 luxury model. In the Canton plant in Missi…

The challenge is formidable: Create an ad campaign that somehow shows a brand’s integral role in a pivotal moment of human history. But also, like, make it fun? When OpenAI’s ChatGPT hit 100 million users two months after its launch in November 2022, a UBS study declared it the fastest-growing consumer application in history. Now at upwards of 400 million users, ChatGPT might be the best-known consumer product to invest the least in advertising. Historic product awareness, zero brand awareness. For OpenAI chief marketing officer Kate Rouch, the Super Bowl was the perfect stage to start telling the world what the brand actually means. “Obviously, 130 mi…

High-performance computing, or HPC for short, might sound like something only scientists use in secret labs, but it’s actually one of the most important technologies in the world today. From predicting the weather to finding new medicines and even training artificial intelligence, high-performance computing systems help solve problems that are too hard or too big for regular computers. This technology has helped make huge discoveries in science and engineering over the past 40 years. But now, high-performance computing is at a turning point, and the choices the government, researchers and the technology industry make today could affect the future of innovation, nation…

I have spent my career watching companies make bold declarations about gender equality, only to see those promises fade when tested. Women are often spotlighted in recruitment campaigns but left behind in promotions, appointments, and development opportunities. Policies designed to level the playing field disappear without explanation, replaced with vague references to “merit,” “culture fit,” and the elusive “gravitas.” The 2025 U.N. International Women’s Day theme—For ALL women and girls: Rights. Equality. Empowerment—is urgent. However, progress in gender equity is not accelerating; it is stalling. In recent months, executive orders have gutted diversity program…

The world’s leading minds in AI are gathering in Paris for the AI Action Summit, which kicked off on Monday. French president Emmanuel Macron is hosting the summit, which includes Vice President JD Vance among its attendees. But the summit—which is focused on discussion and debate about the future of the technology—comes at a time when things are moving quickly in the AI space. While France’s minister for AI and digital affairs, Clara Chappaz, may want to keep the debate focused on three key objectives for the summit, covering societal and cultural, economic, and diplomatic needs, there’s much more going on at the minute. Between Project Stargate, the U.S.’s $500 …

Kendrick Lamar aims to infuse his Los Angeles hip-hop flavor into New Orleans while staying true to his storytelling roots during Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime performance. “Being in the now and being just locked-in to how I feel and the energy I have now, that’s the L.A. energy for me,” he said Thursday at a press conference hosted by Apple Music. “That’s something I wanted to carry over to New Orleans and for the world to see. This is me. This is Kendrick Lamar, 37 years old, and I still feel like I’m elevating, I’m still on a journey.” The rap megastar will take the Super Bowl stage fresh off a Grammy triumph, where he claimed two of the night’s biggest awards —…

At a time when book bans are raging and the federal government is pushing back against DEI initiatives, there’s one place where diversity is thriving: children’s literature. Picture books—which cater to those under the age of 10—are often children’s first introduction to poetry and art. And this year, there are many newly-published picture books that celebrate aspects of Black life in nuanced ways, portraying history, culture, and joy. Here are five of our favorites. ‘City Summer, Country Summer’ [Art: Courtesy of Kokila/Penguin Random House] By Kiese Laymon, illustrated by Alexis Franklin. (Kokila/Penguin Young Readers, ages 5-9.) Author Kiese Laymon is…

There was a time when few people in the coastal Pakistani city of Gwadar understood what climate change was. After a decade of extreme weather, many more do. Rain battered Gwadar for almost 30 consecutive hours last February. Torrents washed out roads, bridges, and lines of communication, briefly cutting the peninsula town off from the rest of Pakistan. Homes look like bombs have struck them and drivers swerve to avoid craters where asphalt used to be. Gwadar is in Balochistan, an arid, mountainous, and vast province in Pakistan’s southwest that has searing summers and harsh winters. The city, with about 90,000 people, is built on sand dunes and bordered by the Ar…

As organizations grapple with rapid developments in technology and policy while also balancing shifting market conditions and financial realities, having a deep bench of leadership talent is crucial. However, a recent survey from TalentLMS, found that 45% of managers say their companies aren’t doing enough to develop future leaders. One of the key issues is that companies are using a narrow scope in offering leadership development opportunities, says Nikhil Arora, CEO of learning technology company Epignosis, the parent company of TalentLMS. “A lot of companies kind of limit the leadership development to the top 1%, leaving behind the remaining 99%,” he says. Aror…

Diversity initiatives, often called DEI, are in the political and business crosshairs. In recent weeks, Meta, Walmart, Target, Ford, and McDonald’s are among global companies ending their formal DEI initiatives. Some of the bluster is performative. And yet, for many employees and global firms, there’s a sense that this is an opportunity to rebalance the goals and rethink the strategy by innovating diversity practices to better meet the global business goals. Most DEI programs were crafted years ago, and their relevance and impact has been diminishing. Many initiatives overreached and have not adequately evolved to meet the changing environment. Like with any busines…