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Hillshire Brands, a subsidiary of Tyson Foods, has recalled some 58 million pounds of corn dogs and sausage-on-a-stick products, saying they “may be contaminated with extraneous material, specifically pieces of wood embedded in the batter,” according to the Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). The problem was discovered after the Tyson Foods subsidiary received multiple consumer complaints, five of which involved injuries. Upon investigation, Hillshire Brands determined that the wooden sticks entered the production process prior to product battering. The FSIS has received no additional reports of injury from consumption of these prod…

Despite being under a year old and having no revenue, Fermi America had a very successful initial public offering (IPO) this week. The company, which aims to provide data and power centers for artificial intelligence, saw its shares (Nasdaq: FRMI) close at $32.53 on their first day of trading Wednesday, up nearly 55% from their IPO price of $21 per share. Fermi’s stock price continued to rise through after-hours and into premarket trading on Thursday, reaching $36. It reached a high of $39 per share overnight, before dropping closer to $37 ahead of the market opening. What is Fermi? The company was cofounded by Rick Perry, former Texas governor, a GOP pr…

Investors in quantum computing stocks are having another great week, with shares in the major publicly traded firms up by double digits over the last 24 hours in most cases. Here’s a snapshot of their single-day growth as of the closing bell on Thursday: Rigetti Computing (Nasdaq: RGTI): Up 18.25% D-Wave Quantum Inc (NYSE: QBTS): Up 13.97% IONQ Inc (NYSE: IONQ): Up 10.32% Quantum Computing Inc (Nasdaq: QUBT): 5;32% All four companies were also up in premarket trading on Friday as of this writing. Why are quantum computing stocks rising this week? The rally is apparently being led in part by Berkeley, California-based Rigetti, which announced a ma…

Tesla’s Cybertrucks might be the most polarizing vehicle on the market. And due to their electronic door-open mechanism, they’re far from the safest. A new lawsuit underscores this, alleging that 19-year-old college student Krysta Tsukahara died during a fiery crash because the truck’s electric doors shut down, preventing the door from opening on either side, as the New York Times first reported. Tsukahara’s family is suing Tesla in Alameda County Superior Court. In Cybertrucks, a passenger has to click a button for the door to open. The only “manual” mechanism to open a rear door is to pull a cable—but reaching said cable involves removing “the rubber mat …

Hello there, and welcome once again to Fast Company’s Plugged In. For something that continues to suck up so much of the world’s attention, social networking has not exactly been a font of wild innovation in recent years. Its big names are all up there in years and showing their age: Facebook is 21, Twitter is 19. Instagram is 15, Snapchat is 14. Newer entrants, such as BeReal, rarely live up to their early great expectations. Even Bluesky, where many of us have found a home after fleeing the Elon Muskified version of Twitter, isn’t growing at its old clip. So I was intrigued when two new social networking experiences debuted in rapid succession in late September:…

Former Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers learned all about technology’s volatile highs and lows as a veteran of the internet’s early boom days during the late 1990s and the ensuing meltdown that followed the mania. And now he is seeing potential signs of the cycle repeating with another transformative technology as a whirlwind of investments and excitement about artificial intelligence has propelled the stock market to new highs. Chambers took a similarly meteoric ride in his early days running Cisco, which had a market value of about $15 billion in 1995, when networking equipment suddenly became must-have components for the buildup of the internet. The feverish dem…

With foot traffic down and Target’s stock still slumping, Taylor Swift’s new album release might be the shot in the arm the retailer needs. Target may be in the crosshairs of the culture wars, but the brand’s relationship with Taylor Swift still stands in 2025. The release of “The Life of a Showgirl” again brings a suite of special editions to Target as exclusives, luring Swifties to spread their cash around to pick up their favorite variants. But between the retailer’s faltering reputation and a smorgasbord of album options, will Swifties take their business elsewhere? Target’s very bad 2025 In January, Target announced that it would abandon longstanding init…

Last week, Starbucks announced the closure of 1% of its North American stores by the end of 2025, resulting in sudden job losses for hundreds of baristas. The closures are one part of a $1 billion restructuring strategy dubbed “Back to Starbucks”; the coffee chain will also be laying off 900 corporate employees. Processing the news in real time, Starbucks baristas have made their feelings about the closures clear, filming their reactions and going viral in the process. A Starbucks employee at a Washington state location posted a heartfelt video to TikTok last week. “Starbucks permanently closing my store and leaving us jobless was not on my 2025 bingo c…

Some flavor crazes flirt with us and fade. Others stay and make themselves at home. It’s too soon to tell for sure, but the Dubai chocolate movement seems to have put down roots and is spreading at a brisk clip. The sweet flavors and thick texture that have made Dubai chocolate bars a hit are morphing into other kinds of confections too. Let’s back up for a minute. The original and now-classic Dubai chocolate bar was created by Fix Chocolatier in the United Arab Emirates in 2021, and by 2023 had exploded on social media. Rich and indulgent, it features a thick, milk chocolate shell usually encasing a creamy pistachio (and often tahini) filling mixed with crispy, s…

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…

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…

Around 70,000 Discord users may have had images of their government IDs stolen, according to an update from the company. Last week, the popular chat platform notified users that the third-party vendor the platform uses for customer service was hacked, affecting Discord users who had interacted with the app’s customer support or trust and safety teams. Discord initially announced last week that an unauthorized group gained access to a “small number” of government ID images. That includes images of sensitive documents like driver’s licenses, passports and potentially even selfies of people holding those documents – a common way to verify identity for online accounts. …

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for her struggle to achieve a democratic transition in the South American nation, winning recognition as a woman “who keeps the flame of democracy burning amid a growing darkness.” The former opposition presidential candidate is a “key, unifying figure” in the once deeply divided opposition to President Nicolás Maduro’s government, said Jørgen Watne Frydnes, chair of the Norwegian Nobel committee. “In the past year, Ms. Machado has been forced to live in hiding,” Watne Frydnes said. “Despite serious threats against her life, she has remained in the country, a choice that has inspired m…

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…

America’s largest brick-and-mortar retailer is partnering with the country’s most prominent AI firm in the clearest signal yet that companies are hoping to boost their sales with artificial intelligence-assisted shopping tools. Today, Walmart and OpenAI announced a new partnership that will allow ChatGPT users to buy Walmart products directly from within the chatbot itself. Here’s what you need to know about the news, and how Walmart’s stock price is reacting. The Walmart-OpenAI deal explained Today, retail giant Walmart Inc. (NYSE: WMT) announced a major new deal with ChatGPT maker OpenAI. The deal will see the artificial intelligence firm’s chatbot gain t…

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday vetoed landmark legislation that would have restricted children’s access to AI chatbots. The bill would have banned companies from making AI chatbots available to anyone under 18 years old unless the businesses could ensure the technology couldn’t engage in sexual conversations or encourage self-harm. “While I strongly support the author’s goal of establishing necessary safeguards for the safe use of AI by minors, (the bill) imposes such broad restrictions on the use of conversational AI tools that it may unintentionally lead to a total ban on the use of these products by minors,” Newsom said. The veto came hours after he signed a…

When athletes arrive in Milan for the 2026 Winter Olympics, they’ll find themselves living on top of what was once a bustling 19th-century rail yard. The newly revealed athletes village is located in the city’s historic Scalo di Porta Romana district—and when the Games are over, it’ll be converted into Italy’s largest-ever affordable student housing development. The Olympic Village design was led by the global architecture firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM). It includes six mass-timber residential buildings, two former train repair sheds that have been renovated into communal spaces, and 40,000 square meters of green space. After the Winter Olympics take place,…

The ongoing government shutdown is delaying the announcement of the annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustment for tens of millions of beneficiaries. Originally scheduled for Wednesday, the 2024 Social Security COLA announcement will now be Oct. 24. It is timed to the September Consumer Price Index, which also has not yet been released. The agency adjusts its benefits every year based on inflation. The postponement of the announcement is the most recent example of how the government shutdown, entering its third week and with little progress made toward a resolution, has made it more difficult for people to plan out their finances. Projections by Senior Citizens L…

For a generation of young Americans, choosing where to go to college — or whether to go at all — has become a complex calculation of costs and benefits that often revolves around a single question: Is the degree worth its price? Public confidence in higher education has plummeted in recent years amid high tuition prices, skyrocketing student loans and a dismal job market — plus ideological concerns from conservatives. Now, colleges are scrambling to prove their value to students. Borrowed from the business world, the term “return on investment” has been plastered on college advertisements across the U.S. A battery of new rankings grade campuses on the financial benefits…