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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lambert’s ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. Zillow economists have developed an economic model called Zillow’s Market Heat Index, which measures the competitiveness of housing markets across the U.S. This model analyzes factors such as home price changes, inventory levels, days on market, and buyer demand to generate a score indicating whether a market is hot (favoring sellers) or cool (favoring buyers). A higher score indicates a hotter metro-level housing market where sellers have more power. A lower score indicates a colder metro-level housing market where buyers have more power. Accord…

If you’ve ever been to a Nashville honky-tonk, you’ve witnessed the chorus of cowboy boots, the thrumming acoustic guitars, the roadhouse neon, the Stetsons, the buoyant bourbon-and-barbecue-fueled energy. You probably wouldn’t describe this scene as simply “a bar.” And yet, if you’re blind or have low vision and happen to use a screen reader to read the alt text of a photo of a honky-tonk, that’s likely the description you would get: “This is an image of a bar.” “The current [state of alt text] is pretty abysmal, just to be quite candid. It’s almost a bit ‘out of sight, out of mind,’ literally and figuratively,” says Josh Loebner, creative marketing agency VML’s…

Betty White is making her mark on the nation’s snail mail. The beloved actor of “The Golden Girls” fame was celebrated with a new U.S. Postal Service stamp at a first-day-of-issue ceremony at the Los Angeles Zoo on Thursday. Fans that were crowded behind barricades cheered as a blue curtain dropped to reveal the stamp featuring a portrait of White against a violet-colored background with lighter shades of bubbly spots in a nod to her sparkling personality. She wears a blue polka-dot blouse and peeking out of her blond curls is an earring shaped like a pawprint. “When I was working on the stamp surrounding myself with Betty White videos and pictures, I felt lik…

(Reuters) – Elon Musk said on Friday that his xAI has acquired X, the social media app formerly known as Twitter, in an all-stock transaction for $45 billion, including $12 billion debt. “xAI and X’s futures are intertwined. Today, we officially take the step to combine the data, models, compute, distribution and talent,” Musk said in a post on X, adding that the combined company would be valued at $80 billion. Neither X nor xAI immediately responded to a request for comment. The billionaire’s AI startup, which was launched in 2023, recently raised $6 billion from investors in a funding round that valued the company at $40 billion, sources told Reuters earlier…

As the 30th season of Major League Soccer (MLS) kicked off last month, the league unveiled an interesting new design addition: Each of its 30 teams sported a custom Apple TV logo on the left sleeve of its uniform featuring the colors and graphic elements of the team’s identity incorporated within the familiar Apple icon. For example, the Chicago Fire version includes the six-pointed star from the city’s flag and the team’s crest, while Atlanta United’s is filled with the characteristic five red and black stripes that adorn the club’s shirt. This effort, part of MLS’s 10-year deal with Apple to stream the league’s matches, represents an innovative step forward in its appro…

David Droga is a legendary advertising creative and executive. He’s also CEO of Accenture Song, one of the largest advertising and marketing services firms on the planet. For those two reasons, we kick off Brand New World with Droga at the 2024 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. Why there and then? It’s the world’s biggest convergence of media, marketing, entertainment, technology, and brands, and a mirror of what’s happening and a bellwether of what’s to come, on a global scale. There’s no better time and place to start a conversation about how brands, and the marketing and advertising industries, are approaching AI at this crucial and nascent moment. In this …

While home sales and remodeling rates remain low, Thumbtack—which connects homeowners with professionals to do work on their houses—says business is booming. In fiscal 2024, Thumbtack saw revenue of $400 million, up 27% from the previous year, with billions of dollars going to the roughly 300,000 small businesses that book work through the platform. Cofounder and CEO Marco Zappacosta attributes the company’s success to more than 15 years of work helping users find the right, trustworthy professional—even if they’re not entirely sure what they need to fix a problem in their home—bolstered by recent advances in artificial intelligence. “You’ve got to remember this i…

Visit just about any downtown on a weekend and you will likely happen upon a farmers market. Or, you might grab lunch from a food truck outside a local brewpub or winery. Very likely, there is a community-shared kitchen or food entrepreneur incubator initiative behind the scenes to support this growing foodie ecosystem. As rural America gains younger residents, and grows more diverse and increasingly digitally connected, these dynamics are driving a renaissance in craft foods. One food entrepreneur incubator, Hope & Main Kitchen, operates out of a school that sat vacant for over 10 years in the small Rhode Island town of Warren. Its business incubation pro…

OpenAI released a new base model on Thursday called GPT-4.5, which the company said is its best and smartest model for chat yet. It’s not a reasoning model like OpenAI’s o1 and o3 models, but it can be used to train other models to be reasoning models. Notably, GPT-4.5 was trained using 10 times the computing power (scores of GPUs in data centers) than its predecessor, GPT-4o. The result is a model whose outputs feel more natural and human, OpenAI said in its press release, and demonstrate a better general understanding of the world. Its writing and programming skills are better, and it hallucinates less. It also displays a higher level of emotional intelligence abou…

Getting invited to a first-round interview is exciting. It’s a chance to highlight your interpersonal skills, tell your story, and share how you would be an asset to their team. “The first interview is your chance to make a great first impression—but more importantly, it’s where you can build a genuine connection,” says Niki Jorgensen, general manager of client implementation at Insperity. To make the most of your first interview, experts recommend researching the company, practicing common interview questions so that you allow your personality to shine through, and create a connection with your interviewer. But here are some other ways to give yourself an extra edge—…

When filmmaker Travis Gutiérrez Senger reflects on Asco’s legacy, he quickly notes they were more than an art group; they created a movement, one with remarkable influence on Chicano art history. “That movement continues today, and it’s very expansive,” he says. “There’s a lot of books, films and things that will be written about Asco over a period of time. And this was our contribution in some ways.” He’s referring to Asco: Without Permission, a documentary that chronicles the story of the 1970s art group founded by multidisciplinary artist Patssi Valdez, muralist Willie Herrón III, painter and performance artist Gronk and writer and photographer Harry Gamboa Jr.…

In today’s whiplash business environment of change and uncertainty, there are a few simple, timeless strategies that consistently rank among the best for accelerating growth. No reinventing the wheel required. One such strategy is test-to-scale—close cousin of the venerable test-and-learn approach that’s long been a startup staple. Both can play a key role, depending on the stage of your company, industry, size, growth curve, and—importantly—internal culture. Basically, test-and-learn uses small scale, iterative experiments to see what works best. Testing different messaging in a marketing campaign, for example, or perhaps different product features. The idea …

Yellowjackets is back with more chaos, more wilderness—and a main title that is grungier than ever. Ever since the first season premiered in 2021, the show’s opening credits have been one of the most frenetic on television. Blink and you’ll miss something. Set against the grungy song “No Return” by Craig Wedren and Anna Waronker, the title is meant to feel like an assault on the senses. It is 90 seconds long, and the longest frame lasts about a second. This makes for a tense intro, in which our brains are bombarded with flickering images faster than we can process them. And that’s precisely the point. “We want this to be glitched so much that if someone takes a still, the…

“China has already won the materials war.” Andrew Barron, one of the top materials experts on the planet, didn’t mince words when I interviewed him for a documentary on the dangers of our civilization’s dependency on China’s quasi-monopoly of rare earth minerals. If the world does not stop depending on China’s supply of rare earths, he warned two years ago, we could face an economic collapse in just a few decades. It sounds like a dystopian sci-fi movie, but this potentially catastrophic scenario began this week for the United States, when Xi Jinping’s government issued an immediate suspension of rare earth mineral and magnet exports, retaliating against Presiden…

WeWard, an app that offers real-world rewards for walking, announced Wednesday it’s signed tennis champ Venus Williams as an investor and ambassador for the app. The app, which offers users points called Wards for steps taken, lets users track their movements or import pedometer data from tools like iPhone’s Apple Health, Android’s Google Fit, or Fitbit. When they’ve racked up enough Wards, they can be redeemed for gift cards, charitable donations, or even cash deposits to user bank accounts. “We’ve decided to do something very simple,” says cofounder and CEO Yves Benchimol. “We just give cash to people to walk.” In addition to tangible rewards, users can also…

Nearly all job growth since 1980 has been in occupations that are social-skill intensive. Teamwork, for instance, is now considered “very” or “extremely” important in eight of 10 occupations. Not surprisingly, a Stanford study shows that people working collaboratively persist on a task for 64% longer than those working individually on the same task, and they exhibit higher levels of engagement. According to the platform LinkedIn, the most in-demand skills in 2024 include “teamwork” and “communication.” Jobs that require high levels of analytical and mathematical reasoning but low levels of relational skills have been declining because they are easier to automate. As …

At a recent groundbreaking for one of our data center campuses, three members of the community told our team, “Great, we’re going to get a Trader Joe’s now.” It may sound funny, but this is one small part of the data center effect. Having Starbucks and Whole Foods establishments in the neighborhood famously have been associated with higher property values. Data centers also boost the communities where they’re located, by creating jobs and supporting revitalization efforts, for example. Of course, the industry faces criticism too, often based on outdated perceptions that don’t reflect advances in design and sustainability. But public opinion is shifting—partly tha…

Featuring Brad Charron, CEO, Aloha and Carla Vernón, CEO, The Honest Company. Moderated by Yasmin Gagne, Staff Editor, Fast Company. When a company’s momentum reverses direction (or is even on the brink of bankruptcy), how does a leader pivot toward recovery and a return to success? In this panel, you’ll hear from CEOs who seized the reins of their companies when they were struggling—and managed to get things back on track. View the full article

Featuring Matthew Prince, Cofounder and CEO, Cloudflare. Moderated by Brendan Vaughan, Editor in Chief, Fast Company. With a quarter of the global internet powered by Cloudflare—its network provides service to over 300 cities across more than 100 countries—the company is at the helm of delivering content and connecting millions. But as AI-powered bots grow at a prolific rate and cybersecurity risks become increasingly sophisticated, ensuring the safety of the internet requires innovative thinking. Join Cloudflare cofounder and CEO Matthew Prince for a one-on-one conversation on how the company plans to tackle the challenges of the future. View the full article

Resilience is no longer just about grit or recovering from setbacks. It’s about anticipating change, staying agile in uncertainty, and continuously evolving. The most future-ready organizations build resilience not just at the leadership level, but across their entire workforce—equipping employees with the skills, mindsets, and support systems they need to turn disruption into momentum.  People today expect more—learning, development, well-being, and strong leadership—to help them navigate the future of work. Companies that invest in these areas don’t just retain top talent; they build workforces that are unstoppable. Here are four powerful strategies to embed r…