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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. On Thursday, President Donald The President announced that government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will buy an additional $200 billion in mortgage bonds. The President wrote: “Because I chose not to sell Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in my first term, a truly great decision and against the advice of the “experts,” it is now worth many times that amount—an absolute fortune—and has $200 billion in cash. Because of this, I am instructing my representatives to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds. This will drive mortgage rates…

U.S. stocks are rising toward records Friday following a mixed report on the U.S. job market, one that may delay another cut to interest rates by the Federal Reserve but does not slam the door on it. The S&P 500 climbed 0.5% in midday trading and was on track to top its all-time high set earlier in the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 237 points, or 0.5% and was also heading toward a record. The Nasdaq composite was 0.7% higher, as of 11:45 a.m. Eastern time. The gains came after the U.S. Labor Department said employers hired fewer workers in total during December than economists expected, though the unemployment rate improved and was better than e…

Some words are far too mild for the violence of what they describe. Migraine is one of them. For many people, it evokes a simple headache—an inconvenience solved with an aspirin (or Tylenol) and a glass of water. For those who’ve never experienced it, migraine is almost a cliché: a lame excuse to stay in bed or avoid a meeting. But for millions of people—and I’m one of them—migraine is anything but benign. It is a debilitating neurological disease that can force life to grind to a halt for days at a time. It is an invisible disability that millions are expected to simply “push through.” The Mild Version Everyone Sees—and the Severe One No One Understands I ofte…

Less than three months ago, the world watched the The President administration reduce the White House’s historic East Wing to a pile of rubble to begin construction on a massive new ballroom. But it looks like the dust from that demolition will have barely settled before The President starts another project to turn the presidential residence into his own personal real estate development endeavor. This week, The President and the head architect behind the ballroom construction, Shalom Baranes, revealed several heretofore unknown plans for the nation’s most symbolic building. They include multiple proposals that would add considerable architectural bulk to a White House…

As President The President takes even more steps to pull back on climate action, Bill Gates is emphasizing how governmental policies are crucial to addressing climate change. In his annual year-ahead letter, the billionaire Microsoft cofounder and philanthropist warns that the market alone is not enough to change our climate reality. “Without a large global carbon tax (which is, unfortunately, politically unachievable), market forces do not properly incentivize the creation of technologies to reduce climate-related emissions,” Gates writes. To stop global temperatures from increasing, we need to replace all emissions-emitting activities with affordable altern…

General Motors will be hit with charges of about $6 billion as sales of electric vehicles sputter after the U.S. cut tax incentives to buy them and also eased auto emissions standards. Shares slid almost 3% Friday. The charges that will be recorded in the fourth quarter follow an announcement in October that the Detroit automaker would take a $1.6 billion charge for the same reason in the previous quarter, with automakers forced to reconsider ambitious plans to convert their fleets to electric power. The EV tax credit ended in September. The clean vehicle tax credit was worth $7,500 for new EVs and up to $4,000 for used ones. GM, which had been the most am…

Sluggish December hiring concluded a year of weak employment gains that have frustrated job seekers even though layoffs and unemployment remained low. Employers added just 50,000 jobs last month, nearly unchanged from a downwardly revised figure of 56,000 in November, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate slipped to 4.4%, its first decline since June, from 4.5% in November, a figure also revised lower. The data suggests a reluctance by businesses to add workers even as economic growth has picked up. Many companies hired aggressively after the pandemic and no longer need to fill more jobs. Others have held back due to widespread uncertainty caused…

The beginning of a new year ushers in an ominous day in the NFL: Black Monday, the day when coaches are (typically) most at risk of losing their jobs. Black Monday happens the day after the regular season ends, a time when an especially harsh backward review is cast over the wins, losses, and total misses. The casualty list includes Raheem Morris, who lost his job with the Atlanta Falcons on January 4; Kevin Stefanski, Pete Carroll, and Jonathan Gannon (Arizona Cardinals), who were each fired on Black Friday by the Cleveland Browns, Las Vegas Raiders, and Arizona Cardinals, respectively; John Harbaugh, who was fired by the Baltimore Ravens on January 6; and Mike McDa…

Days after hitting the market, the new pill version of Novo Nordisk’s wildly popular weight-loss drug will be available through Amazon’s online pharmacy. Amazon joins telehealth providers, discount prescription stalwart GoodRx, and even Novo Nordisk itself in providing the novel weight-management drug for consumers who want to pay out of pocket. With the introduction of the oral version of Wegovy, the weight-loss drugs that have taken the world by storm will become even more accessible—and more readily available for anyone who can pay out of pocket. The oral version of Wegovy will start at $149 a month out of pocket through Amazon Pharmacy, and will cost $25 …

Handmade punch cards are currently trending on TikTok as a cute, visual way to track 2026 goals. Modeled after the punch cards that will secure you a free coffee or sandwich after showing loyalty to one cafe or another, users instead punch, stamp or check off a square every time they make progress on their goals, whether that’s staying consistent at the gym, completing a no-spend weekend or paying down debt. “Today’s New Year’s Eve, and I made these little punchcards this morning of goals I have for myself starting this new year,” TikTok user @camiunderthesea said in a video showing off her deck of cards. “The first one is to read five books. I’ve been trying to…

You’ve put in the hours, delivered results, and earned the respect of your peers. But when it comes to moving up, the biggest obstacle isn’t performance or policy—it’s your boss. Managers often hold disproportionate power over career mobility. Research shows they can become the gatekeepers who decide who advances and who stalls. Gallup finds managers account for up to 70% of the variance in engagement, and half of employees say they left a job to escape their manager. Add to that the fact that companies fail to pick the right person for the job 82% of the time, and it’s clear why bad bosses cost organizations billions in lost productivity, stalled growth, and attritio…

Rumors have been circulating online that Microsoft is preparing to cut tens of thousands of jobs. TipRanks reported that the company is “considering massive layoffs” this month, potentially eliminating between 11,000 and 22,000 roles across the Azure Cloud, Xbox, and global sales teams. According to The Seattle Times, the claims appear to have originated on anonymous online forums like Reddit and Blind before rapidly spreading across Bluesky and X, drawing widespread attention and, in turn, swift denials from Microsoft executives. Microsoft’s chief communications officer, Frank X. Shaw, took to X to refute the rumors, calling them “100 percent made up/speculative…

What you do? It starts with what you know. Here are seven ways to learn faster and retain more. 1. Test yourself. A classic study published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest shows self-testing is an extremely effective way to speed up the learning process. Partly that’s because of the additional context you create. Test yourself and answer incorrectly, and not only are you more likely to remember the right answer after you look it up, but you’ll also remember the fact you didn’t remember. (Especially if you tend to be hard on yourself.) So, don’t just rehearse your sales pitch. Test yourself on what comes after your intro. Test yourself by…

2025 was a fairly humdrum year for Apple from a hardware perspective. While the company’s software—including the “26” versions of iOS, macOS, tvOS, and watchOS—got a major visual overhaul, Apple’s hardware lineup included just one brand new product: the iPhone Air. But that is set to change in 2026. This year, Apple is expected to release a number of brand-new hardware products, along with some updates to existing ones. And yes, AI will be a focus, too. Here’s what—and when—to expect from Apple in 2026. iPhone Fold The most anticipated device Apple is expected to release this year is a foldable iPhone. Colloquially known as the “iPhone Fold,” this device will b…

Detective Mike McCaffrey laughs when I ask if they busted the door down. Maybe I’ve seen too many movies. Normally, he says, they would. But in this instance, it’s not the ticket scam perpetrator’s residence. It’s his mother’s. So, in this high-rise apartment building on 96th Street in Manhattan, he simply knocks. The mother answers, kindly, oblivious to why the NYPD is at her door on this Tuesday morning. Inside, tucked in a small living room nook, is the man they’ve come for—the son, 28-year-old Nikhil Mahtani—surrounded by cellphones and laptops, tangled in charging cables. Months earlier, the NFL had tipped off law enforcement about Craigslist ads selling tick…

From the moment Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, began rolling out its Grok chatbot to paid X subscribers in 2023, it pitched the tool as the bad boy of large language models. Grok would supposedly be authorized to say and do things that its politically correct competitors—primarily ChatGPT, produced by Musk’s old nemeses at OpenAI—would not. In an announcement on X, the company touted Grok’s “rebellious streak” and teased its willingness to answer “spicy” questions with “a bit of wit.” Although xAI warned that Grok was “a very early beta product,” it assured users that with their help, Grok would “improve rapidly with each passing week.” At the …

We’ve had branded entertainment since Procter & Gamble invented soap operas back in the 1930s. But today, brands are forced to diversify the ways in which they gain and hold our attention. It’s no longer as viable or effective to depend on traditional paid media tools. Innovative marketers are increasingly investing in content and experiences that attract and engage audiences rather than interrupt and annoy them. And the shift is driving results. Brands of all stripes talk about “brand entertainment,” but it’s the exceptions that truly create actual entertainment. I’ve spent a lot of time this past year writing and talking on the Brand New World podcast abou…

Most business leaders view themselves primarily as “productive” rather than “creative.” Productivity is often associated with measurable outcomes, such as efficiency, consistency, and task completion. Creativity, by contrast, is frequently perceived as spontaneous, unpredictable, and elusive. Yet, productivity and creativity are not at odds. In fact, they reinforce each other powerfully. Leaders who successfully integrate productive habits with creative practices can unlock new levels of innovation, effectiveness, and personal fulfillment. A global Adobe survey found that 75% of professionals report growing pressure to be productive rather than creative at work, whil…

When a grizzly bear attacked a group of fourth- and fifth-graders in western Canada in late November 2025, it sparked more than a rescue effort for the 11 people injured—four with severe injuries. Local authorities began trying to find the specific bear that was involved in order to relocate or euthanize it, depending on the results of their assessment. The attack, in Bella Coola, British Columbia, was very unusual bear behavior and sparked an effort to figure out exactly what had happened and why. That meant finding the bear involved—which, based on witness statements, was a mother grizzly with two cubs. Searchers combed the area on foot and by helicopter and tra…

However uncertain the outlook is for the American auto industry in the age of tariffs, growing competition from China, and the rise of EV upstarts, the view inside the new boardroom at General Motors is stylishly optimistic. Part of the automaker’s new corporate headquarters that’s opening January 12, the boardroom is a large and elegant space with a massive marble table surrounded by mainstay elements of mid-century modern design. Fluted wood wall treatments, subtle curves, geometric overhead lighting, minimalist bench seating, and sweeping views of a changing downtown Detroit combine to create a physical manifestation of how GM sees itself evolving through the 21st …

There are few things more evocative of the free American spirit and the nation’s wide-open spaces than the image of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle zooming down a stretch of empty highway. But while taking one of the legendary hogs for a spin may still be liberating for riders, the company’s independent dealership owners are feeling an increasingly tight financial and business squeeze. A rash of reports in recent weeks have sounded alarms about the troubles Harley dealers face, and the rising number of dealerships closing shop as a result. While Harley-Davidson still counts more than 650 of those locations in operation across the U.S., specialist automotive media warn th…

When the inevitable robot uprising comes, I’ll be ready, thanks to some valuable lessons I picked up at CES. First, if given the choice of a dance off versus hand to hand combat, opt for the fight. Second, wear a cup when you do. Robotics company Unitree showcased its G-1 humanoid robot at the show. The G-1 is a rarity in the robotic world in that it’s already on the market for under $15,000. Unitree’s booth was an ongoing spectacle, surrounded by people eager for a close look at the dapperlooking unit, wearing a white shirt and button down vest, showcasing impressive dance skills, throwing down moves that even Shabba-Doo and Bugaloo Shrimp could respect. There w…

Just four days into the new year, awards season kicked off with the Critics Choice Awards. One week later, it’s time for the Golden Globes to shine. The 83rd edition of this star-studded event—which takes place on Sunday, January 11, in Beverly Hills, California—celebrates greatness in both television and film. Here’s everything you need to know about the big night, including how to tune in. History and past controversy of the Golden Globe Awards The Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), the former organization behind the Golden Globes, was founded in 1943. Under this banner, journalists came together to create an awards ceremony to honor the artists the…

Although there is no shortage of AI enthusiasts, the general public remains uneasy about artificial intelligence. Two concerns dominate the conversation, both amplified by popular and business media. The first is AI’s capacity to automate work, fueling widespread FOBO, or fear of becoming obsolete. The second is AI’s tendency to reproduce or even exacerbate human bias. On the first, the evidence remains mixed. The clearest signal so far is not the wholesale replacement of jobs, but the automation of tasks and skills within jobs. Most workers are less likely to lose their roles outright than to be forced to rethink what they do at work and where they add value. In that…

Roblox, a gaming app used by nearly half of the entire U.S. population of under-16s, has rolled out a new mandatory safety feature to put a stop to children communicating with adults on the platform. Starting on January 7, players in the U.S. were required to submit to facial age estimation via the app to access the chat feature, although age verification remains optional to play the games themselves. Users in the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands are already required to complete an age check to chat with other users, but the requirement will now roll out to the U.S. and beyond. The verification is being processed by a third-party vendor, Pers…