What's on Your Mind?

The Powerball jackpot has grown to an estimated $1.25 billion for Wednesday night’s drawing after lottery officials said no ticket matched all six numbers drawn Monday night. The U.S. has seen more than a dozen lottery jackpot prizes exceed $1 billion since 2016. Here is a look at the largest U.S. jackpots won and the places where the winning tickets were sold: $2.04 billion, Powerball, Nov. 7, 2022. The winning ticket was sold at a Los Angeles-area gas station. $1.787 billion, Powerball, Sept. 6, 2025. The winning tickets were sold in Missouri and Texas. $1.765 billion, Powerball, Oct. 11, 2023. The winning ticket was sold at a liquor store in a tiny Califo…

The The President administration said in a court filing Monday that the president’s White House ballroom construction project must continue for unexplained national security reasons and because a preservationists’ organization that wants it stopped has no standing to sue. The filing was in response to a lawsuit filed last Friday by the National Trust for Historic Preservation asking a federal judge to halt President Donald The President’s project until it goes through multiple independent reviews and a public comment period and wins approval from Congress. The administration’s 36-page filing included a declaration from Matthew C. Quinn, deputy director of the U.S. Secre…

Kraft Heinz announced on Tuesday that new CEO Steve Cahillane will join the food giant to help steer its split into two companies. The former head of Kellanova joins the ailing food giant after years of declining sales and slow growth, and as shares are down 75% since 2017. In 2026, the company will split into two independent, publicly traded companies, Global Taste Elevation Co. and North American Grocery Co., with the first focused on condiments and the Heinz ketchup brand, and the second on Oscar Mayer, Kraft Singles, and Lunchables brands. Cahillane comes on board January 1, 2026 and will serve as chief executive officer of the first of those companies, which …

Many Americans are likely to see massive changes to their taxes in 2026, especially seniors. That’s largely due to President Donald The President’s so-called big, beautiful bill, a massive 940-page bill signed into law over the summer that includes an array of new tax write-offs but also fails to renew some previous deductions from the Biden administration. One change is a $6,000 deduction for seniors. Here’s what to know. Who qualifies for the new senior tax deduction? The President’s tax and spending law introduced a $6,000 deduction for qualifying seniors ages 65 and older, on top of the current additional standard deduction for seniors under existing la…

Whenever I tell people I’m an auctioneer, there are inevitably two follow up questions: First: “Do you talk really fast like those guys on TV?” followed by a cartoonish imitation, complete with an imaginary microphone and a pseudo Southern accent. Second: “What’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever sold?” After two decades of auctioneering, the answer is usually “something in the many millions.” I typically just name the last item I sold for over a million dollars. Whether someone pictures a fast talking cattle auction or a refined British gentleman selling Picassos in black tie, auctioneers are assumed to do one thing: talk. A lot. Which is why most peop…

Cloudflare has often been described as some version of “the most important internet company you’ve never heard of.” But for the better part of 2025, cofounder and CEO Matthew Prince has been trying to change that. The company’s core business is to improve the performance and enhance the security of websites and online applications, protecting against malicious actors and routing web traffic through its data centers to optimize performance. “Six billion people pass through our network every single month,” Prince says. If Cloudflare is doing its job well, no one notices. But in July, Prince declared “Content Independence Day,” a broadside against the AI companies th…

Is Reddit like other social media platforms? That’s the question before the High Court of Australia in light of the country’s under-16s social media ban. Last week, Reddit filed a lawsuit in Australia’s highest court seeking to overturn the country’s recently enacted social media ban for children. The San Francisco-based firm claims the law is unconstitutional because it infringes on Australia’s implied freedom of political communication. The lawsuit follows a case filed last month by Sydney-based rights group Digital Freedom Project. Reddit is also asking the High Court to rule that even if the legislation is valid, that Reddit is not like other social medi…

The USS Enterprise was an impossible dream rendered in fiber glass. Designed for Star Trek, it looked like a creation straight out of creator Gene Roddenberry’s imagination: Twin nacelles—those long, gleaming engine pods held by elegant pylons—extended from a central saucer holding the engines that allowed Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. Bones, and the rest of the crew to travel across the cosmos. Inside those nacelles, the show’s creators imagined, lay the secret that made those trips possible: a warp drive that could crease spacetime itself, folding the universe in front of the ship while unfurling it behind, allowing faster-than-light travel not through speed but thro…

The Great British Railways has a great British brand. The U.K.’s new public railway is leaning on well-known, classic symbolism for its visual identity unveiled this month. Train liveries for the new brand will show a design of a stylized Union Jack flag, while the new logo brings back an old double arrow concept designed in 1965 by Gerald Barney for the old state-run British Rail. The brand’s font is the simple, modern sans-serif Rail Alphabet 2, an updated version of the British Rail font designed in the 1960s by Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir. The new brand was designed in house by the U.K.’s Department for Transport and it will begin rolling out on trains, …

A private equity firm owned by President Donald The President’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is no longer backing Paramount’s hostile acquisition bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, the firm confirmed Tuesday. Days after Warner agreed to be bought by Netflix in early December, Paramount launched a rival bid that seeks to bypass Warner’s management and appeal directly to its shareholders with more money. Paramount is offering $30 per Warner share to Netflix’s $27.75. Warner, one of the “big five” Hollywood studios, owns Warner Bros. Pictures, HBO, the DC Comics universe and the Harry Potter franchise. Experts say its acquisition could supercharge the winning company and reshap…

In a seismic shift for one of television’s marquee events, the Academy Awards will depart ABC and begin streaming on YouTube beginning in 2029, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday. ABC will continue to broadcast the annual ceremony through 2028. That year will mark the 100th Oscars. But starting in 2029, YouTube will retain global rights to streaming the Oscars through 2033. YouTube will effectively be the home to all things Oscars, including red-carpet coverage, the Governors Awards, and the Oscar nominations announcement. “We are thrilled to enter into a multifaceted global partnership with YouTube to be the future home of the…

As readers look to curl up with a proverbial good book this winter—and put their holiday bookstore gift cards to work—they’ll be faced with an obvious question: What should they pick up next? “People find it much harder than you think, because there’s so much choice out there,” says Rachel Van Riel, founder and owner of the book recommendation website Whichbook. “Where do you start?” Whichbook employs human readers to classify books along dimensions like moods, levels of violence and sexual content, attributes of the main characters, and length. It’s a process Van Riel says artificial intelligence can’t yet replicate, though it’s still quite mathematical in natu…

The The President administration has announced a massive package of arms sales to Taiwan valued at more than $10 billion that includes medium-range missiles, howitzers and drones, drawing an angry response from China. The State Department announced the sales late Wednesday during a nationally televised address by President Donald The President, who made scant mention of foreign policy issues and did not speak about China or Taiwan at all. U.S.-Chinese tensions have ebbed and flowed during The President’s second term, largely over trade and tariffs but also over China’s increasing aggressiveness toward Taiwan, which Beijing has said must reunify with the mainland. If app…

The rapid growth of data centers during the AI boom has been a dominating narrative of 2025—and, in many instances, not a popular one. Across the country, communities have pushed back against data centers planned for their cities and states. Some have even turned to online petition sites to raise awareness and voice collective opposition to data center projects in their communities. One such site, the popular platform Change.org, says it has seen a significant spike data center-related petitions in recent months. Change.org saw at least 113 petitions that mentioned data centers in 2025, the platform shared with Fast Company, totaling around 50,000 signature…

Bitcoin investors are bracing for “Witching Friday” tomorrow, December 18, when billions of options are due to expire—making for what could be a highly volatile, roller-coaster ride at the end of the week for the markets. Some $23 billion in contracts are set to expire just on Deribit, the largest Bitcoin exchange, according to Bloomberg. Here’s what to know. What is ‘Witching Friday’? “Witching Friday,” also known as “triple witching” or “the triple witching hour,” refers to the last hour of the stock market trading session on the third Friday of March, June, September, and December, when three kinds of securities expire simultaneously, often leading to i…

President Donald The President’s plans to add a ballroom to the White House would be bad for the design of the White House complex and grounds, according to a National Park Service (NPS) report. The report said the annex would “disrupt the historical continuity of the White House grounds and alter the architectural integrity of the easts side of the property.” Still, The President is clear for now to move ahead with his plans. The NPS report is just the latest speed bump facing The President’s plan to build a new annex since he had the White House East Wing demolished in October without seeking outside approval. It’s a saga of inflated expectations and a ballooning bu…

My work across decades has spanned sectors, geographies, and cultures, focusing on exploration, discovery, and innovation. My husband and I have defined our work across business, nonprofit, and philanthropy simply: “We invest in people and ideas that can change the world.” I spend much of my time exploring and sharing exciting developments that hold great promise. This work has taken me from building the Internet revolution, to working in villages and cities across the globe and America’s 50 states, to the boardroom of the National Geographic Society, where I just completed a decade of service as Chairman of the Board. It has been a true privilege to lead these ef…

Before food influencers were deep-frying Chipotle burritos, putting an entire serving of mac and cheese on their Chick-fil-A sandwich, and making McDonald’s hash browns into ice cream sandwiches, there was another food-hack-slash-Frankenfood that ruled the internet: the quesarito. This week, Taco Bell brought it back to its official menu. The quesarito is exactly what its name implies: a fully loaded burrito that, instead of being wrapped in a regular tortilla, has been lovingly sealed inside a giant quesadilla. It’s the epitome of fast-food gluttony, and as of December 18, it’s back in Taco Bell stores for a limited time for $6.70 (and a relatively modest 570 calorie…

Stocks rose in morning trading on Wall Street Friday and further trimmed losses from earlier in the week for several major indexes. The S&P 500 jumped 0.8%, adding to gains made on Thursday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 283 points, or 0.6%, as of 10:05 a.m. Eastern. The Nasdaq jumped 1% and is now on track for a weekly gain. Technology stocks with an focus on artificial intelligence once again led the market. Nvidia jumped 3.4% and Broadcom rose 2.4%. Oracle rose 7% on news that it, along with two other investors, had signed agreements to form a new TikTok U.S. joint venture. Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX each get a 15% share in the popular social video pla…

Canada and the U.S. will launch formal discussions to review their free trade agreement in mid-January, the office of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said. The prime minister confirmed to provincial leaders that Dominic LeBlanc, the country’s point person for U.S-Canada trade relations, “will meet with U.S. counterparts in mid-January to launch formal discussions,” Carney’s office said in a statement late Thursday. The United States-Mexico-Canada trade pact, or USMCA, is up for review in 2026. U.S. President Donald The President negotiated the deal in his first term and included a clause to possibly renegotiate the deal in 2026. Carney met with the leaders of Canad…

The seven states that rely on the Colorado River to supply farms and cities across the U.S. West appear no closer to reaching a consensus on a long-term plan for sharing the dwindling resource. The river’s future was the center of discussions this week at the annual Colorado River Water Users Association conference in Las Vegas, where water leaders from California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming gathered alongside federal and tribal officials. It comes after the states blew past a November deadline for a new plan to deal with drought and water shortages after 2026, when current guidelines expire. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has set a n…

Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes rose in November from the previous month, but slowed compared to a year earlier for the first time since May despite average long-term mortgage rates holding near their low point for the year. Existing home sales rose 0.5% in last month from October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.13 million units, the National Association of Realtors said Friday. Sales fell 1% compared with November last year. The latest sales figure came in slightly below the 4.14 million pace economists were expecting, according to FactSet. Through the first 11 months of this year, home sales are down 0.5% compared to the same period last ye…

It’s been nearly a decade since Netflix introduced fans to the fictional town of Hawkins, Ind., the Upside Down, Demogorgons, and the Stranger Things universe. Since 2016, the sci-fi series has become a massive hit for Netflix making it one of the streaming service’s most-watched shows with the fourth season alone amassing over 140.7 million views globally, according to the company. The series has earned 12 Primetime Emmy Awards over the course of the last several years, has pushed its young cast into superstardom, and has become a global phenomenon inspiring several live events and pop-up stores in various cities. And its fifth and final season, which is premiering …

Visa and Mastercard have agreed to pay $167.5 million to settle a long-running class action lawsuit. The suit, which was first filed back in Oct. 2011, accused the two major credit card companies of conspiring to keep ATM fees artificially high. The proposed settlement, filed on Thursday in Washington, if approved, it will mean an end to “almost fourteen years of vigorously contested litigation.” The lawsuit alleged that both companies “participated in an unlawful conspiracy” involving Visa and Mastercard blocking independent ATM operators from offering lower prices. If approved, the settlement will have Visa and Mastercard pay millions to ATM users who say the…

Much like how the character Jack Dawson proudly proclaims to be king of the world after boarding the Titanic, film director James Cameron could claim to be king of the box office. Cameron chooses to take a mellower approach, letting the numbers do the talking. His latest film, Avatar: Fire and Ash, hits theaters this Friday and is primed to break even more box office records. Let’s take a look at the history of this franchise before we discuss industry projections. A brief history of the ‘Avatar’ films The first Avatar film came out in 2009 and received generally positive reviews. “Cameron and his artists have so lovingly imagined the moon of Pandora that…