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Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT) was never really meant to serve Pittsburgh. When the modern airport opened in 1992, it was built as a hub for U.S. Airways, primarily serving as a connection point for passengers heading elsewhere. Tens of millions of passengers used PIT annually, though only a small number of them were actually flying into or out of Greater Pittsburgh. Most stayed in the terminal, leaving one gate only to enter another, which was fine—until it wasn’t. “In 2004, the hub went away. Passengers plummeted. All those connecting passengers left,” says Christina Cassotis, who came on as CEO of the Allegheny County Airport Authority in 2015. After years …

Yum Brands is delivering on its promise to shutter hundreds of Pizza Hut locations. Three months after the fast-food giant announced its intention to close 250 underperforming Pizza Hut restaurants during the first half of 2026, the chain’s U.S. footprint appears to be notably smaller, according to a Fast Company analysis. A review of local media reports, online review platforms such as Yelp and Google Reviews, and Pizza Hut’s own store locator tool has found more than 50 locations that have closed in recent months, spanning cities across the United States. The true tally is likely much higher. Ranjith Roy, CFO of Yum Brands, indicated on an earnings call in…

Pizza Hut is closing hundreds of “underperforming” locations nationwide, according to parent company Yum! Brands, which reported fourth-quarter 2025 earnings on Wednesday. The company said it will shutter about 3% of Pizza Hut’s U.S. locations, or some 250 locations in the first six months of 2026, as the fast-causal chain struggles amid competition from Dominos Pizza and an overall decline in store sales and consumer demand. Fast Company has reached out to Pizza Hut for a list of locations that will be closing. Globally, Pizza Hut opened over 440 new restaurants in the fourth quarter of 2025 and nearly 1,200 restaurants in 2025, in 65 countries. Taco Bell…

Pizza Hut could soon be up for sale. Yum Brands, Pizza Hut’s parent company, said Tuesday it’s conducting a formal review of options for the brand, which has struggled to compete in a crowded pizza market. Yum CEO Chris Turner said Pizza Hut has many strengths, including a global footprint and strong growth in many markets. Pizza Hut has nearly 20,000 stores in more than 100 countries, and its international sales were up 2% in the first nine months of this year. China is its second-largest market outside the U.S. But Pizza Hut gets nearly half its sales from the U.S., where it has around 6,500 stores, and U.S. sales fell 7% in the same period. Pizza Hut was lo…

A Planned Parenthood affiliate just settled an investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over claims of discrimination against white employees, in a notable example of the agency’s ongoing focus on DEI-related discrimination. The $500,000 settlement will put an end to an EEOC investigation against Planned Parenthood’s Illinois chapter, which was initiated by employee complaints that the organization allegedly “segregated employees by race, subjected white employees to harassment, and engaged in disparate treatment against white employees regarding terms, conditions, and privileges of employment,” according to the agency. The EEOC found that Pl…

Few media brands scream “straight” quite like Playboy. Since the 1950s, the men’s lifestyle magazine has been best known for its photos of nude and scantily clad women (aka Playmates)—and, of course, for its iconic bunny mascot. But those who’ve been paying attention, Playboy has quietly undergone an editorial transformation. Since November, the magazine has relaunched its print edition (previously halted in 2020), started a Substack newsletter blending archival material with original writing, and introduced new Playmates to the world. It’s all been under the advice of Phillip Picardi, who was announced on March 11 as Playboy’s new chief brand officer and editor-in-ch…

Plug-in solar is on the way, and it could cut your electric bills. A growing number of states are poised to pass bills supporting the panels, which are designed for DIY installation: Hang one out a window or set it on a deck, plug it into a regular outlet, and power starts flowing back into your home. A new calculator helps you estimate how much you can save on power bills, using your zip code to estimate how much sunshine you get and how much you’re paying for electricity now. The tech could be especially useful in cities like New York, where renters have steep electric bills and don’t have roofs to install traditional solar panel systems. “A huge percent of…

For the first time in history, podcasts have overtaken talk radio as the most-listened-to medium for spoken-word audio in the United States. Podcasts, including video podcasts, eclipsed AM/FM talk radio (which notably doesn’t include listening to music on the radio), with 40% of listening time, as opposed to 39% for radio, according to Edison Research’s Share of Ear survey. Researchers have tracked these statistics over the last decade. In 2015, AM/FM radio accounted for 75% of the time Americans spent listening to spoken-word audio. At the time, podcasts accounted for just 10%. Year over year, that gap has slowly closed, as podcasts boomed in popularity, incr…

It might sound a little silly that there’s an entire subgenre of influencers who offer investment advice around Pokémon trading cards. Probably because it is a little silly. The idea of some YouTube Jim Cramer breathlessly warning viewers that “Surging Sparks is setting a fire under collectors and investors” is the stuff Saturday Night Live sketches are made of. Yet, there’s nothing silly about the amount of money changing hands in the Pokémon card space these days. Especially right now. If it weren’t clear from all the viral videos of brawls at various Costcos, the soaring popularity of Pokémon cards has lately reached stratospheric new heights. (Costco ultimatel…

Benson Lu’s life revolves around Pokémon. The 26-year-old has played the mobile game Pokémon Go every day for a decade, watches the animated show every week, goes to the local card shop in his Los Angeles suburb to play the brand’s trading card game every week, and has a whopping collection of cards worth more than $70,000. “I don’t remember when was the last day I did not think about Pokémon at all,” he said. In the 30 years since Pokémon debuted in Japan with the 1996 release of Pokémon Red and Pokémon Green for Nintendo Game Boy, the franchise has taken over the globe with its animated shows, mobile games and highly coveted trading cards. Its popularity continues wi…

Record cold temperatures are once again expected to hit a swath of the country this weekend—even plunging Florida into its coldest stretch of the last 15 years, potentially bringing snow to areas of the state that haven’t seen it in four decades. This arctic blast is actually a sign of climate change—and of how extreme weather happens in an increasingly warming world despite erroneous claims by the president and others. There’s a difference between weather and climate Ahead of the winter storm that brought intense snow, ice, and freezing temperatures to about two-thirds of the United States earlier this month, President The President took to Truth Social to r…

Let’s get one thing out of the way right now: If you’re taking photographs with a Polaroid camera in the 21st century, it’s not because pristine image quality is your overarching priority. In the digital age, the dreamy imperfection of Polaroid pictures is part of their appeal. They’re never that sharp, and no two come out exactly the same. Even Fujifilm’s Instax cameras—instant photography’s current market-share giant—produce more consistent results. Still, even people who love Polaroid’s analog soul and tactile immediacy have their limits. Each shot from an eight-photo film pack costs about $2.25, considerably more than Instax shots. That’s less than it did in insta…

Polaroid’s new collaboration with the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MoMA) is designed to make your retro photos look like colorful works of pop art—and it feels like a flashback to 2014. The partnership includes two exclusive items: an $130 Polaroid camera and a separate $22 set of eight custom film frames. The camera itself is an analog instant camera—specifically, Polaroid’s Now Generation 3 model—rendered in a bright blue housing, complete with the “MoMA” wordmark in a lighter blue across the front. Included with the device are three neon, MoMA branded wrist straps to customize the look. Where the collaboration really shines is with its custom Polaroid film …

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign is remembered a decade on for the exclamation point in its “Jeb!” logo, but Jesse Jackson’s campaign actually used the punctuation 28 years before him. Jackson, the civil rights activist who died Tuesday at the age of 84, ran for president twice, in 1984 and 1988. At the 1988 Democratic National Convention, his supporters held red signs that said “Jesse!” in white. Jackson came in second in the 1988 primary with nearly 30% of the vote against the party’s nominee Michael Dukakis, and since then, candidates from Bush to 2012 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and former U.S. Sen. Lamar Alex…

After Zohran Mamdani’s campaign aired a commercial that used a Knicks-style campaign logo that wrote out “Zohran” over an image of a basketball, the NBA team asked them to take it down. The Mamdani ad, which aired during the New York Knicks’s opening game last week, shows black-and-white footage of a pick-up basketball game in a park as the narrator says “New York, this is our year.” There’s shots of Mamdani campaigning interspersed with the pick-up game, and the narrator says “Things can be different. Hope is back,” before the Knicks-style logo flashes on the screen over the sound of drums. The Knicks, whose owner donated last year to Mayor Eric Adams, weren’…

Polymarket is updating the rules of its platform to crack down on insider trading as the prediction market giant looks to curb scrutiny over market manipulation. Announced Monday, the updated rules outline three distinct categories of insider trading that will be prohibited on the platform: trading on stolen confidential information (based on confidential info that violates a preexisting obligation), trading on illegal tips (based on info that was passed down illegally), and trading by those who can influence the outcome. “Markets thrive on clarity,” Neal Kumar, chief legal officer of Polymarket, said in a press release. “These rule enhancements make our expectati…

Prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi have hit the headlines—not least because of their role in making some people filthy rich off the back of the Middle Eastern war. But they’ve also drawn the attention of legislators concerned about their growing prominence. Many officials have privately raised concerns about platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi. Arizona’s attorney general has gone further, charging Kalshi with offering what the state alleges are illegal bets on election outcomes. “Kalshi may brand itself as a ‘prediction market,’ but what it’s actually doing is running an illegal gambling operation and taking bets on Arizona elections, both of which violate…

As the United States was preparing a daring mission to rescue an airman whose fighter jet was shot down by Iran, there was money to be made. Users on Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market, could place bets on when the airman would be rescued. When Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., shared a screenshot of the activity on social media, an April 3 rescue was trading at 15% compared with 63% who were betting on April 4. After Moulton posted the screenshot and blasted this “dystopian death market,” Polymarket stopped the betting, saying the market “does not meet our integrity standards.” A former Marine who served four tours in Iraq, Moulton said he was “absolutely not…