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The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate is now down to its lowest level in more than three years. The benchmark 30-year fixed mortgage rate eased to 6.06% this week, down from 6.16% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. One year ago, the rate averaged 7.04%. The last time the average rate was lower was Sept. 15, 2022, when it was at 6.02%. Meanwhile, borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also fell this week, dropping to 5.38% from 5.46% last week. A year ago, that average rate was at 6.27%, Freddie Mac said. Lower mortgage rates boost homebuyers’ purchasing power, good news fo…

A potent winter storm threatened blizzard-like conditions, treacherous travel, and power outages in parts of the Upper Midwest as other areas of the country braced Monday for plunging temperatures, strong winds, and a mix of snow, ice, and rain. The snow and strengthening winds began spreading Sunday across the northern Plains, where the National Weather Service warned of whiteout conditions and possible blizzard conditions that could make travel impossible in some areas. Snowfall totals were expected to exceed a foot (30 centimeters) across parts of the upper Great Lakes and as much as double that along the south shore of Lake Superior. “Part of the storm system is get…

When ChatGPT burst onto the scene, much of academia reacted not with curiosity but with fear. Not fear of what artificial intelligence might enable students to learn, but fear of losing control over how learning has traditionally been policed. Almost immediately, professors declared generative AI “poison,” warned that it would destroy critical thinking, and demanded outright bans across campuses, a reaction widely documented by Inside Higher Ed. Others rushed to revive oral exams and handwritten assessments, as if rewinding the clock might make the problem disappear. This was never really about pedagogy. It was about authority. The integrity narrative masks a …

Michael Jordan is widely recognized as one of the best basketball players to ever live. In a recent interview, Jordan revealed one of the secrets to his success: His love of the game. Jordan says he loved the game so much that he made sure to have a special clause included in his contract when playing with the Chicago Bulls, one which he’s “positive” players today don’t have: the “love of the game” clause. “If I was driving with you down the street, and I see a basketball game on the side of the road, I can go play in that basketball game,” Jordan told NBC’s Mike Tirico. “And if I get hurt, my contract is still guaranteed.” Jordan went on to explain that c…

McDonald’s limited-time McRib sandwich is a cultural icon. And like any item of its ilk, it’s divisive. On the one hand, the saucy, vaguely rib-esque boneless pork sandwich has a fan base so dedicated that it’s inspired its own Reddit megathread, merch, and a website called the McRib Locator. But on the other, the McRib has long been critiqued for its off-putting form factor and dubious ingredients. Now, a new class action lawsuit is asking the question that’s always plagued the sandwich: Is the McRib actually rib? The lawsuit, which was filed on December 23, 2025, in the Northern District of Illinois, alleges that McDonald’s has purposefully been misleading cust…

Your paycheck could be a little bigger in 2026, even if you didn’t get a New Year’s raise. That’s because, in order to adjust for inflation, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) made some major changes to the tax code last year. In case you missed it, the changes were announced back in October. Notably, the standard deduction for 2026 (to be filed in 2027)—which reduces the amount of your income you’ll be taxed on—will rise. “For tax year 2026, the standard deduction increases to $32,200 for married couples filing jointly,” the October announcement explains. “For single taxpayers and married individuals filing separately, the standard deduction rises to $16,100 for tax …

GameStop Corp. is forging ahead with efforts to reduce its physical footprint in the first weeks of 2026. The video game retailer is closing stores in numerous states this month, according to local media reports, and emails and store signage shared by customers on social media, part of its ongoing effort to reduce costs and adapt to changes in shopping habits. The closures are not completely unexpected. In its third-quarter earnings report on December 9, GameStop said it had already closed 590 stores in the United States during the previous fiscal year as part of a “store portfolio optimization review.” In a December filing to the Securities and Exchange Comm…

While the Lego Group has dipped its toes into tech waters before, the company hasn’t strayed far from its analog roots. But on Monday, the 94-year-old company unveiled a new product line that embraces the digital age, without abandoning its core business. At CES, Lego announced the upcoming launch of the Lego Smart Play system, an interactive technology that lets users’ Lego creations respond to player actions with tailored sounds, lights, behavior, and more. The company says it’s a way to further engage digital native kids without having them stare at yet another screen. While the toy market has struggled for the past few years, sales at the Lego Group have remai…

Workplace training invites are dropping in many employees’ inboxes now that the new year is underway. Most employers require staff to complete multiple HR modules annually: training on harassment, workplace relationships, or conflicts of interest, for example, followed by a quick quiz. Recently, however, a new TikTok trend imagining fake workplace “training modules” is going viral. “It’s 5 pm and you notice one of your colleagues is crying at their desk,” creator @pepsimasc posted in November. “Do you A: check in and ask how they’re doing, or B: tell them to shut the fuck up?” the skit begins. He continues on to the next imaginary scenario: “You’re in a meetin…

Six decades after it was created by Congress, the nonprofit that brought America Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Sesame Street will shut down for good. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced this week that it would officially shut down, ushering in an uncertain new era for the future of public broadcasting. The organization historically administers funds for NPR, PBS, and more than 1,000 local TV and radio stations nationwide. The nonprofit entity was signed into law by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 to manage federal funds for educational TV and radio shows, but it fell victim to a defunding campaign initiated by the The President administration …

Elon Musk took over X and folded in Grok, his sister company’s generative AI tool, with the aim of making his social media ecosystem a more permissive and “free speech maximalist” space. What he’s ended up with is the threat of multiple regulatory investigations after people began using Grok to create explicit images of women without their permission—and sometimes veering into images of underage children. The problem, which surfaced in the past week as people began weaponizing the image-generation abilities of Grok on innocuous posts by mostly female users of X, has raised the hackles of regulators across the world. Ofcom, the U.K.’s communications regulator, has made…

Ellie Ghassali was on a plane back to the U.S. from Sydney when he spilled red sauce on his new phone. The phone still had its screen protector on, so he just peeled it off, and the red sauce was gone. At this very moment, an idea popped into his head: What if you could “peel off” your dinner plate in a similar way? Ghassali, who lives in New Jersey, is now the founder and CEO of Peelware, a company that makes disposable, “peelable” dinnerware that is biodegradable and compostable. Plates come in stacks of 15, meaning that you eat on the top layer, peel it off and compost it when you’re done, then eat anew on the next layer (the 14th). And then the next layer (the 13th), …

Since exercise can make you smarter, less stressed, and happier, Google decided to find ways to help employees exercise more often. The research team assigned employees to one of three groups: People in one group were asked to pick a convenient two-hour window, and to follow a strict routine: something along the lines of “work out at 6 p.m. every day.” They then received a financial reward every time they worked out. People in a second group followed a flexible plan, working out whenever they wished. They also received a financial reward every time they worked out. People in the third group (the control group) were simply “encouraged” to work out more: no routi…

On the edge of Boulder, Colorado, a remarkable convergence of mutually beneficial collaboration is underway, and it could reshape how housing gets built, who builds it, and who is able to afford it. This is all happening inside BoulderMOD, a new modular housing factory built by the city of Boulder for use by the local Habitat for Humanity affiliate and powered by the labor of apprentice modular home builders from area public high schools. The students come to the factory several hours a day for hands-on education in advanced home building, working on actual modular homes that are now being installed in a section of Boulder devastated by flooding. At full capacity…

Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. In today’s article, we’re sharing the full results from the Q4 2025 Zoodealio-ResiClub Real Estate Agent Survey. To conduct our real estate agent survey, ResiClub partnered with Zoodealio, a cash-offer platform, and iBuyer-management software designed for real estate agents. Among the 204 agents who took the survey, half (51%) have been real estate agents for 15 years or longer. The survey was fielded from November 17 to December 29, 2025. Respondents included real estate agents spanning all regions of the U.S., giving us a ground-level view of b…

Warner Bros. again rejected Paramount’s latest takeover bid and told shareholders Wednesday to stick with a rival offer from Netflix. Warner’s leadership has repeatedly rebuffed Skydance-owned Paramount’s overtures—and urged shareholders just weeks ago to back its the sale of its streaming and studio business to Netflix for $72 billion. Paramount, meanwhile, has sweetened its $77.9 billion offer for the entire company and gone straight to shareholders with a hostile bid. Warner Bros. Discovery said Wednesday that its board determined Paramount’s offer is not in the best interests of the company or its shareholders. It again recommended shareholders support the Netflix d…

The stock prices of RAM and NAND manufacturers surged yesterday, with Micron Technology (Nasdaq: MU) up 10%, Sandisk Corporation (Nasdaq: SNDK) up 27%, Western Digital Corporation (Nasdaq: WDC) up 16%, and Seagate Technology Holdings (Nasdaq: STX) up 14%. The driving factor behind this recent stock surge is a shortage of RAM, or random-access memory. The shortage expected to last throughout 2026, and it could mean that you’ll pay much more for personal computers and smartphones this year. Here’s what you need to know about the RAM shortage of 2026. Why is there a RAM shortage in 2026? The RAM shortage in 2026 can essentially be blamed on one thing: artific…

Crowds flooded the freshly opened showroom floors on Day 2 of the CES and were met by thousands of robots, AI companions, assistants, health longevity tech, wearables and more. Siemens President and CEO Roland Busch kicked off the day with a keynote detailing how its customers are harnessing artificial intelligence to transform their businesses. He was joined onstage by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to announce an expanded partnership, saying they are launching a new AI-driven industrial revolution to reinvent all aspects of manufacturing, production and supply chain management. Lenovo ended the day with a guest star-rich visual banquet dedicated to spotlighting how its AI pl…

China escalated its trade tensions with Japan on Wednesday by launching an investigation into imported dichlorosilane, a chemical gas used in making semiconductors, a day after it imposed curbs on the export of so-called dual-use goods that could be used by Japan’s military. The Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a statement that it had launched the investigation following an application from the domestic industry showing the price of dichlorosilane imported from Japan had decreased 31% between 2022 and 2024. “The dumping of imported products from Japan has damaged the production and operation of our domestic industry,” the ministry said. The measure comes a day after B…

On the first anniversary of the most destructive wildfires in the L.A. area, the scant home construction projects stand out among the still mostly flattened landscapes. Fewer than a dozen homes have been rebuilt in Los Angeles County since Jan. 7, 2025, when the Palisades and Eaton fires erupted, killing 31 people and destroying about 13,000 homes and other residential properties. For those who had insurance, it’s often not enough to cover the costs of construction. Relief organizations are stepping in to help, but progress is slow. Among the exceptions is Ted Koerner, whose Altadena home was reduced to ash and two chimneys. With his insurance payout tied up, the 67-ye…

The Tin Can phone is designed to be a simple and screen-free way for children to connect with friends and family. But since Christmas morning, when many families unwrapped and installed the retro, landline-style phones, network issues have left many users unable to make or receive calls. “Ultimately, Christmas Day overwhelmed us,” says Tin Can cofounder and CEO Chet Kittleson. “We spent months preparing for it, and we just didn’t get it all right.” Tin Can customers on social media including Reddit and Instagram have reported a variety of issues both making and receiving calls with the devices. Some new users also experienced trouble setting up their accounts an…

Batteries are powering a significant shift in how we go about our daily lives, ranging from the devices we carry to electric vehicles and energy storage systems. Batteries play a critical role across key sectors from data center infrastructure, military, and microgrid applications to consumer electronics and more. But as demand surges, so does end-of-life material that needs to be managed. Beyond serving as compact energy sources, batteries also represent a domestic source of essential critical minerals. To fully realize their value, it is crucial to close the loop at end-of-life by recovering these minerals and strengthening the supply needed to support a rapidly exp…

Less than 24 hours after the horrifying shooting of woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, merchandise related to the slain U.S. citizen is already proliferating on e-commerce shopping sites, including on Amazon and Etsy. Here’s what you need to know. What’s happened? On Wednesday, a woman was fatally shot by an ICE officer near a raid that federal officials were conducting. The woman was identified by authorities as Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen. As CNN reports, multiple videos taken by bystanders on the scene show ICE agents confronting the car that Good was driving, which was parked s…

Dog owners have a lot of choices nowadays when it comes to picking out pet food for their pup. Dry kibble or wet? Beef or chicken? Frozen, fresh, or raw? Brands even boast “human-grade” ingredients and grain-free recipes. If you have a dog, your decision may be focused on nutrients, or maybe price. But one vet-turned-environmental researcher wants you to also consider the climate impact. And that impact could be huge—depending on the type of food, your dog’s diet could have a greater environmental impact than your own. Calculating the carbon footprint of dog food What we eat matters for the planet. Globally, food production is responsible for more than a q…

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he plans to meet with Danish officials next week after the The President administration doubled down on its intention to take over Greenland, the strategic Arctic island that is a self-governing territory of Denmark. Since the capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, President Donald The President has revived his argument that the United States needs to control the world’s largest island to ensure its own security in the face of rising threats from China and Russia in the Arctic. Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenland counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, had requested a meeting with Rubio, according t…