What's on Your Mind?

The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage edged higher this week to just above its 2025 low. The average long-term mortgage rate rose to 6.16%, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. That’s up slightly from 6.15% last week, when the average rate dropped to its lowest level since October 3, 2024. One year ago, the rate averaged 6.93%. Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, rose this week to 5.46% from 5.44% the previous week. A year ago, it averaged 6.14%, Freddie Mac said. Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond marke…

Jan. 26 marks the official start date of the 2026 tax filing season, when the IRS will begin accepting and processing 2025 tax returns. April 15 is the filing deadline. Tax experts, including the IRS’ independent watchdog, have warned that this year’s filing season could be hampered by the loss of tens of thousands of tax collection workers who left the agency through planned layoffs and buyouts spurred by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. The IRS will also be responsible for implementing major provisions of Republicans’ tax and spending package signed into law last summer. Several provisions in the law retroactively affect the 2025 tax year, likely…

If you visit the Hermès website in search of a scarf or a handbag, you’ll be greeted by a collection of whimsical sea creatures swimming across the screen. To navigate to the watch section, you’ll click on an image of a watch flanked by an eel. To locate shoes, you’ll click on a loafer with a pelican sitting inside it as if it were riding a boat. These sea horses and fish and eels and star fish are intriguing to the eye. While digitally-rendered images are hyper smooth, symmetrical, and flawless, these pictures bear all the imperfections of a hand-drawn illustration. We see the texture of the paper grain in the background, a slight irregularity in the lines, uneve…

When a gunman began firing inside an academic building on the Brown University campus, students didn’t wait for official alerts warning of trouble. They got information almost instantly, in bits and bursts — through phones vibrating in pockets, messages from strangers, rumors that felt urgent because they might keep someone alive. On Dec. 13 as the attack at the Ivy League institution played out during finals week, students took to Sidechat, an anonymous, campus-specific message board used widely at U.S. colleges, for fast-flowing information in real time. An Associated Press analysis of nearly 8,000 posts from the 36 hours after the shooting shows how social medi…

New York Attorney General Letitia James is demanding more information about Instacart’s recent, and highly controversial, price tests, and suggesting that the scheme—which saw customers charged notably different prices for the same products, when offered at the same stores—might have violated a new state law. Late last year, Consumer Reports and the Groundwork Collaborative released an investigation that found that a single item posted on Instacart could have as many as five different prices, and that costs for a single item could range from just seven cents to $2.56. The investigation found that while some prices changed, and some differed only marginally, for some …

Fast-casual salad chain Salad and Go is closing more stores and exiting Texas and Oklahoma completely. The eatery will close a total of 32 stores, 25 in Texas and seven in Oklahoma, by January 11. The closures will impact around 600 employees. The company will also close its Dallas headquarters and relocate to Phoenix. Salad and Go operates as a drive-through and grab-and-go business, known for affordable salads, wraps, and other healthy menu items. The fast-casual chain was founded in 2013 in Gilbert, Arizona. Salad and Go began rapid expansion efforts in 2022. However, the salad chain has recently been reducing its retail footprint, closing 41 of its stores …

The dreaded performance review draws the ire of employees and managers alike. Workers fret that reviews fail to capture the full scope of their work, or that they are an unfair assessment of their performance. For managers, reviews can be a time-consuming nuisance and involve the challenging task of delivering tough feedback. But a new study from Cornell University finds that the structure of the performance review can have a huge impact on how workers feel about them. Over the last decade, a number of companies have revamped their performance reviews, seemingly to address the long-standing pain points. The likes of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have moved aw…

American Airlines will begin offering free, high-speed Wi-Fi on flights beginning this month. The airline made the announcement this week in a press release, explaining that the service will extend to around two million flights in 2026. However, not all fliers will receive the perk. The new service will be sponsored by wireless provider AT&T. “Free high-speed Wi-Fi isn’t just a perk—it’s essential for today’s travelers,” said Heather Garboden, chief customer officer at American Airlines, in the release. The rollout won’t kick off all at once, the announcement explained, but instead will happen in phases. This month, the service will be available only on…

If you had a severe case of the Sunday Scaries last weekend, you are not alone. It’s a sentiment many have been sharing online. Ready or not, with it comes an influx of unread emails, meeting invites, and responsibilities—smugly pushed to the New Year in the last weeks of December—now coming back to haunt us all. Indeed, the first Monday of the year is the Monday-est Monday of all. “Oh god,” one TikTok user posted on Monday 6th. “Everyone is circling back.” “Worst aesthetic ever: Back to work in the first week of jan,” another wrote, riffing on TikTok’s “rare aesthetic” trend. Some have used the lyrics to The Smiths’ “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable No…

Inside Girl Scouts’ headquarters in New York City and its two licensed bakeries, a team of trend forecasters, marketers, and food scientists spend years cooking up its next iconic cookie. Now, fans of the annual cookie sale are about to get a taste of what the Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) team has been baking behind closed doors. The newest addition to the cookie lineup are Exploremores, a rocky road ice cream-inspired sandwich cookie with chocolate shortbread exteriors and chocolate, marshmallow, and toasted almond-flavored cream centers. For Girl Scout cookie enjoyers, a fresh cookie is always a welcome surprise. But, according to Wendy Lou, GSUSA’s chief rev…

Once the ball starts rolling in the Spanish league, the game is on for some 50 analysts who start looking for signs of online piracy. They scan websites, social media posts, IPTV platforms and streaming portals in search of illegal broadcasts of La Liga matches. The trained analysts identify the pirated content and take the steps needed to take them off air, including notifying Internet intermediaries like Cloudflare, the U.S.-based company whose content-delivery network is believed to manage nearly 20% of the Internet traffic worldwide. And that’s when the real fight begins for the Spanish league. La Liga, one of the most active European leagues fighting piracy and a…

Gaming peripheral company Razer is betting that people want AI holograms. So much so that it introduce a perplexing new product at CES 2026 that early critics have dubbed a “friend in a bottle.” Project AVA, is a small glass cylinder that features a 5.5-inch animated desk buddy that can interact with you, coach you, or offer gaming advice on demand—all powered by xAI’s Grok. Project AVA uses a technology Razer calls “PC Vision Mode” that watches your screen, allowing its 3D animated inhabitant to offer real-time commentary on your gameplay, track your mood, or simply hang out. It attempts to sell the illusion of presence—a companion that isn’t just an app you close, b…

Gmail was always a gateway drug for the greater Google ecosystem. When it launched in 2004, Gmail stood out by offering then-wild amounts of storage for free. Despite few updates to its design in two decades, it now boasts 2.5 billion users and is the largest email service in the world. And—like so much of the tech industry—Google is betting that email will sell you on its next big bet: AI. Starting today, Gmail will begin rolling out three new AI services that will significantly impact the way use your inbox. Gmail’s new AI features Two of the services require a $20/mo subscription to its Gemini AI service, while the third will come to all users, free. (A…

Health tech gadgets displayed at the annual CES trade show make a lot of promises. A smart scale promoted a healthier lifestyle by scanning your feet to track your heart health, and an egg-shaped hormone tracker uses AI to help you figure out the best time to conceive. Tech and health experts, however, question the accuracy of products like these and warn of data privacy issues — especially as the federal government eases up on regulation. The Food and Drug Administration announced during the show in Las Vegas that it will relax regulations on “low-risk” general wellness products such as heart monitors and wheelchairs. It’s the latest step President Donald The President…

We live in a world of ambient hums, from air conditioners and distant traffic to the whir of our own thoughts. It’s no surprise many people reach for active noise-cancelling (ANC) headphones to escape it all. Originally designed for planes and offices, ANC devices, including earbuds, have become a popular bedtime tool for chasing total quiet. But the brain doesn’t actually want silence to sleep, and forcing it can backfire. The best way to fall and stay asleep is to quiet the mind, not just what enters your ears. We call this creating “cognitive silence,” and ANC often gets in the way. Even during sleep, the brain keeps an ear out for danger. It’s an evolutionary surv…

As CES 2026 gets underway, Havas Media Network North America is publishing its 2026 Predictions Forecast, outlining the forces we believe will define the year ahead and separate brands that grow from those that fade. This perspective is drawn directly from that report and grounded in what leaders are seeing, discussing, and debating in Las Vegas this week. CES has always been where the future shows up first. But walking the floors this year, one thing is unmistakable: The industry is no longer dazzled by what’s possible. It’s demanding proof of what works. As technology accelerates, consumer expectations fragment, and financial scrutiny intensifies, 2026 is…

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…