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The plan started coming together inside a luxury box at MetLife Stadium. As the Premier League’s Chelsea was on its way to a shutout victory at the Club World Cup final in July, President Donald The President and FIFA President Gianni Infantino were deep in discussion at the New Jersey sports complex outside New York City on another matter: where the draw for next year’s World Cup would be held. The high-drama spectacle decides which teams will face each other in the group stage of soccer’s most prestigious tournament, along with the schedule for competition. It was widely expected to unfold in Las Vegas, home to the 1994 draw when the U.S. last hosted the World Cup and…

It’s the life of a saleswoman. Taylor Swift’s 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” sold 2.7 million copies in traditional album sales — which include physical and digital formats — in its first day in the U.S. That’s according to Luminate, an industry data and analytics company. The album was released Friday. The sales are impressive for a number of reasons. Swift has broken her record for most first-week sales… in one day. Her last album, 2024’s “The Tortured Poets Department,” amassed 2.61 million equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first week. “The Life of a Showgirl” has also become the second-largest sales week for any album in the modern er…

At the beginning of this year, a climate tech startup called CarbonCapture was ready to break ground on its first commercial pilot at a site in Arizona. But the project is now about to open 2,700 miles away, in Alberta, Canada. The company started considering new locations shortly after the inauguration, as the political climate around climate projects quickly changed. “We were looking for regions where we felt we could get support for deployment,” says CarbonCapture CEO Adrian Corless. “Canada was an obvious choice given the existence of good government programs and incentives that are there.” CarbonCapture makes modular direct air capture technology (DAC…

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Monday that the government shutdown is putting more stress on air traffic controllers who already have an extremely stressful job, as well as threatening a program that small communities rely on to help subsidize airline service. Controllers are expected to continue working without a paycheck, Duffy said, so they are now worried about how to pay their bills in addition to worrying about keeping flights safe. And there have started to be instances of controllers calling out sick, leading to delays at several airports Monday. “Now what they think about as they’re controlling our airspace is, how am I going to pay my mortgage? How d…

Democrats believe health care is an issue that resonates with a majority of Americans as they demand an extension of subsidies in exchange for their votes to reopen the shuttered U.S. government. But it is also one of the most intractable issues in Congress — and a real compromise amid the government shutdown will not likely be easy, or quick. There are some Republicans in Congress who want to extend the higher subsidies, which were first put in place in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, as millions of people who receive their insurance through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces are set to receive notices that their premiums will increase at the beginning of the year. B…

Laura Youngson didn’t expect to focus so much on soccer cleats when she organized a group of women to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and play a high-altitude match. The point of the 2017 game was to highlight inequality in sports for women and girls. On that front, Youngson achieved her goal with the match becoming the subject of a documentary and landing the group in the Guinness Book of World Records. Still, something bothered Youngson as the match unfolded. Glancing at the athletes’ feet, she was struck that all the women were wearing men’s or boy’s soccer cleats instead of gear that was designed specifically for them. The realization led her to launch IDA Sports, which mak…

Toyota is recalling nearly 400,000 vehicles because the rearview camera may not display when backing up, increasing the risk of a crash, federal traffic safety regulators said. Included in the recall are 2022-2025 Toyota Tundras and Tundra hybrids and 2023-2025 Sequoia hybrids. The number of automobiles in the recall total 393,838, with the non-hybrid Tundra making up more than half of them. The camera display malfunction is caused by a software problem, which will be fixed with an update by dealerships free of charge. Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed November 16. Owners can contact Toyota’s customer service at 1-800-331-4331. The numbers f…

Tesla rolled out “affordable” versions of its best-selling Model Y SUV and its Model 3 sedan, but the starting prices of $39,990 and $36,990 struck some as too high to attract a new class of buyers to the electric vehicle brand. Tesla’s stock fell 4% and Tesla bull Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, said he was disappointed that the cars were only about $5,000 cheaper than the next trims of the models. The new versions, called Standard, cost more than what the previous models started at, including a $7,500 tax credit that expired at the end of September. The much-awaited unveiling is crucial for Tesla as it pushes to reverse falling sales and waning market shar…

About 40% of farm workers in the U.S. are undocumented immigrants, and they’ve become a focus of the The President administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown. Terrorized farm workers have been forced into hiding, and farms themselves have been left empty of their workers. Experts have long warned that The President’s promise of mass deportations would threaten industries that rely on undocumented workers—like agriculture—and that it could lead to mass disruptions in our food system. Now the The President administration’s labor department seems to be admitting that itself. In a document explaining the administration’s new rule cutting farmworker wages,…

The IRS will furlough nearly half of its workforce on Wednesday as part of the ongoing government shutdown, according to an updated contingency plan posted to its website. Most IRS operations are closed, the agency said in a separate letter to its workers. The news comes after President Donald The President and Congress failed to strike an agreement to fund federal operations, and the government shutdown has entered its second week, with no discernible endgame in sight. The agency’s initial Lapsed Appropriations Contingency Plan, which provided for the first five business days of operations, stated that the department would remain open using Democrats’ Inflation Reducti…

With no end in sight to the political impasse in Washington that has shut down the government, the U.S. IPO market is expected to experience a significant slowdown just as it was beginning to show signs of life again. Some companies are nevertheless forging ahead with their listings. Phoenix Education Partners, parent company of the for-profit University of Phoenix, which announced its IPO plans one day before the shutdown began, said on Wednesday that it has priced its shares at $32. That’s the midpoint of its earlier targeted range of between $31 and $33 a share. The company intends to list on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the “PXED” ticker sy…

Novo Nordisk said on Thursday it would buy U.S.-based Akero Therapeutics for up to $5.2 billion to add its promising experimental liver disease drug, in the first major deal by the Danish drugmaker’s new CEO to boost growth. The deal underscores new Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Doustdar’s efforts to revive sales growth and fend off intense competition from U.S. rival Eli Lilly. Doustdar, who took over the reins in July, last month also announced the company would cut 9,000 jobs. Akero is testing its drug, efruxifermin, in a late-stage trial of patients with severe liver scarring, or cirrhosis, due to a type of fatty liver disease known as metabolic dysfunction-associated…

Most members of the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate setting committee supported further reductions to its key interest rate this year, according to minutes from last month’s meeting released Wednesday. A majority of Fed officials felt that the risk unemployment would rise had worsened since their previous meeting in July, while the risk of rising inflation “had either diminished or not increased,” the minutes said. As a result, the central bank decided at its Sept. 16-17 meeting to reduce its key rate by a quarter-point to about 4.1%, its first cut this year. Rate cuts by the Fed can gradually lower borrowing costs for things like mortgages, auto loans, and business loa…

Flight delays and disruptions at U.S. airports have persisted for a fourth consecutive day due to staffing issues stemming from the government shutdown, which began on October 1. Air traffic controllers are expected to work without pay during the shutdown. As federal employees begin to feel the financial impact of the shutdown, many are calling out of work. And as the shutdown continues, many airports are struggling with growing staffing issues. Over 16,000 flights have been delayed since Monday According to FlightAware, which tracks flight delays, disruptions, and cancellations, as of late Thursday morning, more than 16,000 flights flying into, within, or out …

A potentially worrisome trend is emerging among young adults. Instead of landing a job and moving to the big city after graduation, many are moving back into their childhood homes instead. About 1.5 million more adults under 35 live with their parents today than a decade ago. That’s a 6.3% jump, more than double the rate of growth for the young adult population overall. The issue is affordability. Over the past decade, urban rents have climbed about 4% per year, while wages for full-time workers have increased by only 0.6% annually. That means it’s harder than ever to live in a big city on the typical salary—especially if you’re a new graduate without much work experi…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Most of America’s largest homebuilders have publicly stated that the peak 2025 housing market saw softer-than-expected conditions, particularly in many parts of the Sun Belt. This softer housing market environment caused unsold inventory to tick up. Indeed, since the pandemic housing boom fizzled out, the number of unsold completed U.S. new single-family homes has been rising: August 2016 —> 61,000 August 2017 —> 63,000 August 2018 —> 69,000 August 2019 —> 79,000 August 2020 —> 52,000 August 2021 —> 34,000 Aug…

If you’ve ever been startled while watching a show on a streaming service that was interrupted by an unreasonably loud commercial and thought to yourself, that should be illegal, soon it will be. At least in California. California Gov. Gavin Newsom this week signed a bipartisan bill into law that bans video streaming services that serve customers in the state from airing audio of commercial advertisements that are louder than the video content it accompanies. It goes into effect July 1, 2026. “We heard Californians loud and clear, and what’s clear is that they don’t want commercials at a volume any louder than the level at which they were previously enjoying a pro…

The trade war between the U.S. and China is heating up: On Friday, U.S. President Donald The President lashed out at Beijing after China said it would tighten control over rare earth mineral exports, with the president saying he would impose a new 100% duty on Chinese goods—”over and above” existing tariffs. The reignited trade war has rocked markets, particularly tech stocks, with the Nasdaq closing 3.6% down on Friday. Analysts are warning that the escalation could lead to an even more economically turbulent market outlook than was seen earlier this year after The President made his “Liberation Day” tariff announcement. The President made the threat on social media…

In September 2023, we thought we had done something revolutionary. Helios AI became the first company in our industry to launch a generative AI agent. We called her Cersi. She was designed to help food companies understand the climate risks threatening their agricultural supply chains. She was powerful, intuitive, years ahead of the curve—and almost completely ignored. At the time, ChatGPT had just exploded onto the scene, and the hype around AI was deafening. Headlines promised that AI would transform every corner of business. Venture capital poured into the sector. But hype doesn’t always translate into real-world use—especially in industries that aren’t built to ad…

Vice President JD Vance on Sunday said there will be deeper cuts to the federal workforce the longer the government shutdown goes on, adding to the uncertainty facing hundreds of thousands who are already furloughed without pay amid the stubborn stalemate in Congress. Vance warned that as the federal shutdown entered its 12th day, the new cuts would be “painful,” even as he said the The President administration worked to ensure that the military is paid this week and some services would be preserved for low-income Americans, including food assistance. Still, hundreds of thousands of government workers have been furloughed in recent days and, in a court filing on Friday,…

Companies operating in the rare earths and mining spaces are seeing their share prices soar this morning as President Donald The President’s latest tariff feud with China enter its second week. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? Last week, President The President threatened new tariffs on China as high as 100% in retaliation for the country putting export controls on products that contain rare earth elements. “Rare earths” are a group of elements that actually aren’t rare, but are hard to find and expensive to mine. The elements also happen to be essential to many industries, including technology, automotive, and defense. Rare earths are criti…

Immigrants selling food, flowers, and other merchandise along the sidewalks of California will have new privacy protections intended to keep their identities secret from federal immigration agents. The measure, signed into law this past week by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, comes on the heels of other recently enacted state laws meant to shield students in schools and patients at health care facilities from the reach of President Donald The President’s immigration enforcement actions. Democratic-led states are adding laws resisting The President even as he intensifies his deportation campaign by seeking to deploy National Guard troops to Democratic-led cities to r…

News organizations including The New York Times, The Associated Press and the conservative Newsmax television network said Monday they will not sign a Defense Department document about its new press rules, making it likely the The President administration will evict their reporters from the Pentagon. Those outlets say the policy threatens to punish them for routine news gathering protected by the First Amendment. The Washington Post, The Atlantic and Reuters on Monday also publicly joined the group that says it will not be signing. AP confirmed Monday afternoon that it would not sign. “Reuters is bound by its commitment to accurate, impartial and independent news,” the …

Amid dramatic disruption, what role should business play in building the future? Airbnb cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky shares his candid perspective on business, politics, creativity, and AI—tracing from Airbnb’s humble beginnings to bold plans for the company’s future. Through a designer’s lens, Chesky also reveals the single question leaders must ask themselves, and explores how best to make tricky decisions in a volatile climate. This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company, and recorded live at the 2025 Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco. From the team behind the Masters …

Anti-The President rallies are scheduled for Saturday, October 18 in all 50 states at over 2,500 community events, which have been dubbed “No Kings” protests. The event’s organizer, Indivisible, is calling it “the biggest day of peaceful protest in modern U.S. history.” The pro-democracy demonstrations are organized by Indivisible and a coalition of partners including: the ACLU, American Federation of Teachers, Common Defense, 50501, Human Rights Campaign, League of Conservation Voters, MoveOn, National Nurses United, Public Citizen, SEIU, and United We Dream. “Together, millions will send a clear and unmistakable message: We are a nation of equals, and our countr…