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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…

In the heart of Aceh province in northwestern Sumatra, the Ketiara Cooperative, led by the remarkable Ibu Rahmah, is facing a crisis unfolding as we speak. This community of women-led farmers was devastated by the rare Cyclone Senyar over the Thanksgiving weekend, which caused catastrophic mudslides. Farms have been decimated, homes destroyed, and two vital bridges have been washed away, isolating entire villages and cutting off access to essentials like food, clean water, and electricity. Hundreds of people have died and hundreds more are still missing in their worst natural disaster since the 2004 tsunami. Grace Farms, a cultural and humanitarian center in New Canaa…

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…

The average rate on a 30-year U.S. mortgage edged higher this week, though it remains relatively near its low point so far this year. The uptick brings the average long-term mortgage rate to 6.22% from 6.19% last week, mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Thursday. A year ago, the rate averaged 6.6%. Borrowing costs on 15-year fixed-rate mortgages, popular with homeowners refinancing their home loans, also rose this week. The rate averaged 5.54%, up from 5.44% last week. A year ago, it averaged 5.84%, Freddie Mac said. Mortgage rates are influenced by several factors, from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate policy decisions to bond market investors’ expectations f…

British oil giant BP just announced a new CEO, marking its fourth chief executive shake-up in the last six years alone. The company named Meg O’Neill, who previously led Australia’s top oil and gas company Woodside Energy for the role. O’Neill will become the first woman to hold the top executive spot at one of the world’s biggest oil companies. She said that she looks forward to working to “accelerate performance” at BP and plans to prioritize shareholder growth and reestablishing BP—now a possible takeover target—as a market leader in the oil and gas industry. O’Neill will take over from Murray Auchincloss, a longtime BP employee who was first appointed as inte…

Experts have compressed their predictions for when artificial general intelligence (AGI)—the type of AI that can equal or exceed human intelligence—will arrive. When predictions were first made in 2023, AGI was expected to arrive in 50 years. Newer estimates say five years. When GPT-5 came out this summer, it demonstrated surprising leaps in reasoning and memory, further accelerating those timelines. Progress is moving faster than anyone anticipated, and what once felt speculative now feels inevitable. Meanwhile, small teams are shipping products that would have required 100-person companies two years ago. The gap between the AGI debaters and the builders (those w…

America’s small businesses are the backbone of our economy. They create two-thirds of new jobs, power innovation, and anchor communities across the country. But that backbone is under real strain. Rising healthcare costs dominate the headlines, but what’s missing from the conversation is how deeply they impact the small businesses that keep our economy running. At Gusto, we see this strain firsthand. Our latest Small Business Jobs Report showed hiring slowed in November as owners continue to navigate higher costs and uncertainty. Rising healthcare premiums aren’t the only challenge, but they’re making it that much harder to grow and hire with confidence. Since 202…

President Donald The President’s handpicked board voted Thursday to rename Washington’s leading performing arts center as the The President-Kennedy Center, the White House said. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced the vote on social media, saying it was because of the “unbelievable work President The President has done over the last year in saving the building. Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation.” The President, a Republican who’s chairman of the board, often refers to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which is named for a Democratic predecessor, as the “The President Kennedy Center…

Update Thursday, December 18, 1:35 p.m.: Shares of The President Media and Technology Group (Nasdaq: DJT) remained elevated throughout early trading on Thursday following the Truth Social parent company’s eye-opening announcement that it will merge with the privately held fusion energy company TAE Technologies. As of midday, the stock was up more than 40% to roughly $14.67 a share. The stock is still down roughly 56% year to date. Shares had peaked for the year in January, early into President The President’s second term. Original story: In a surprising move, The President Media and Technology Group (DJT) said on Thursday that it is fusing itself to a fus…

At a time when Americans are frustrated and angry over the high cost of living, the government released a report Thursday showing that inflation had cooled unexpectedly in November. But economists quickly warned that last month’s numbers were suspect because they’d been delayed and likely distorted by the 43-day federal shutdown. And most Americans have not felt any let up in the high prices they are paying for food, insurance, utilities, and other basic necessities. The Labor Department reported Thursday that its consumer price index rose 2.7% in November from a year earlier. Yet, year-over-year inflation remains well above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Americ…

Christmas is coming, and our bank accounts are getting, well, obliterated. But luckily, it’s no longer just your quirky aunt who appreciates a good secondhand store: Shopping for gently used items, especially during the holidays, is now on trend. And if you get on board, you might be able to save a bundle by swapping your mall run for a day of thrifting. In recent years, “Thriftmas”—or shopping for Christmas gifts at stores like Good Will, The Salvation Army, Savers, and online platforms that sell used items—has been creeping into the mainstream. And this year is no different. According to global data from online store ThredUp, in 2025, shoppers plan to dedicate near…

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…

Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Company’s weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. I’m Mark Sullivan, a senior writer at Fast Company, covering emerging tech, AI, and tech policy. This week, I’m focusing on Big AI’s biggest sales pitch—the quest for AGI—and the idea that the industry should focus on more modest and achievable tasks for AI. I also look at Databricks’s new $4 billion-plus funding raise, and at Google’s new Gemini 3 Flash model. Sign up to receive this newsletter every week via email here. And if you have comments on this issue and/or ideas for future ones, drop me a line at sullivan@fastcompany.com, and follow me on…

The Christmas holiday season is a time to step back from the busy pace of modern life and connect with our nearest and dearest instead of screens, apps and chatbots. Here are some suggestions on how to unplug from the online world for the next few weeks as you sit down for a festive meal, exchange gifts or take time out for some self-reflection. Do not disturb me Your phone already has built-in features that can help you stop getting distracted. To temporarily silence all those attention-seeking notifications, use the Focus setting on your iPhone or Android device. This mode is designed to stop interruptions when you want to concentrate. You can customize it by b…

You’ve probably seen them: clutch purses designed to look like croissants, anime-inspired hot sauce gear, purposefully ketchup-stained shirts, and even fried chicken perfumes. It seems like many of our favorite food brands are betting on merch, with surprisingly effective results. While some might see these as stunts or a new revenue play, it’s more meaningfully a reflection of cultural and consumer shifts. Consumers today aren’t just eating at these restaurants, they’re fans of the brands themselves. Chain restaurants like Waffle House, Applebee’s, or Cracker Barrel occupy a unique emotional space. Just as people support sports teams, they express fandom for these c…

BJ’s Wholesale Club is planning to open nine new U.S. stores in 2026, and already debuted a new location on December 17 in Casselberry, Florida—its third in December alone, following openings in Springfield, Massachusetts, and Sumter, South Carolina. BJ’s currently has more than 250 clubs in 20-plus states. In 2025, the membership-based warehouse chain added 12 new locations in a number of states, including Georgia, Kentucky, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee. “Our momentum remains strong as we continue to bring unbeatable value and convenience to new communities,” Bill Werner, BJ’s Wholesale Club’s EVP of strategy …

There’s no shortage of apocalyptic headlines about the future of work in the era of artificial intelligence. For workers, the technology has inflicted anxiety and uncertainty, provoking questions of when, how many, and which kinds of workers will be replaced. Companies have been propelled into a FOMO fury to integrate AI expediently or miss out on efficiency, cost savings, and competitive advantage. The disruption is inevitable, but from where I sit at the nexus of employee mental health and technology, we’re asking the wrong questions. Enhancing, not replacing, humans As CEO of Calm, I have spent the past year visiting with executives and their teams across the co…

Last week, two fonts became the unlikely stars of a political messaging firestorm, after the The President administration replaced Calibri as its official diplomatic font in favor of Times New Roman, claiming that an initial shift to Calibri in 2023 was part of former President Biden’s “DEIA” agenda. The implication was clear: Calibri was framed as a liberal, Democratic font; while Times New Roman took its place as the The President administration’s more conservative choice. Now, a new study is revealing the major flaw in this logic: font is certainly a political tool, but it’s not inherently partisan. The study, titled “You’re Just Not My Type: How Attitudes Towards …

Chipotle is officially in its Ozempic era. Today, the brand is launching an all-new High Protein Menu in the U.S. and Canada, which it describes as “a clean menu for the protein movement.” The menu comes with six items, including proteinmaxxed burritos and bowls and a new salad option. The real stand-out, though, is what Chipotle is billing as its “first-ever snack,” but is really just a tiny cup of chicken. The High Protein Cup is a topping-less, four-ounce serving of adobo-seasoned chicken that you could easily hold in the palm of your hand—and it’s a perfect, if somewhat depressing, symbol of the GLP-1 age. For Chipotle, the new menu means embracing two e…

Stargazers and scientists are getting a holiday present from the cosmos this week. 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar comet, will get “closest” to Earth on Friday, December 19, as part of its journey across the galaxy. Let’s break the facts of this natural phenomena down because it sounds like it could be the plot of an exciting science fiction thriller. What is an interstellar comet? Much like a Christmas tree, planets in our Solar System revolve around our star, the sun. It’s not the only planetary system out there. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains other systems, and if you zoom out even further, there are even more. The comet 3I/ATLAS is labeled in…

Every year since 2010, I’ve posted an article about what trend I expect to dominate the next twelve months. Throughout the 2010s, these forecasts usually focused on emerging technologies or new currents in management thinking. But around 2020, that began to shift. The annual trends increasingly centered on how we cope with change rather than the change itself. Last year my trend was “The Coming Realignment.” History tends to propagate at a certain rhythm and then converge and cascade around certain points. Years like 1776, 1789, 1848, 1920, 1948, 1968, 1989—and, it seems, 2020—mark these inflection points. The years that follow are usually spent absorbing the shock an…

It might surprise people that my husband and I pay a financial planner, given that I spend a lot of time on financial, tax, and investment planning at work. However, hiring a planner has delivered a return that can’t be quantified: peace of mind. Here are some key reasons we pay for financial advice. 1) We wanted a second opinion on a few important decisions. I wanted a different perspective on less-familiar subjects, such as handling employer stock, and whether we needed long-term care insurance. We could have confronted both issues on our own, but having professional guidance helped us move forward more confidently. 2) We found a business model that makes sense for …

A Republican push to make drilling cheaper on federal land is creating new fiscal pressure for states that depend on oil and gas revenue, most notably in New Mexico as it expands early childhood education and saves for the future. The shift stems from the sweeping law President Donald The President signed in July that rolls back the minimum federal royalty rate to 12.5%. That rate — the share of production value companies must pay to the government — held steady for a century under the 1920 Mineral Leasing Act. It was raised to 16.7% under the Biden administration in 2022. The President and Republicans in Congress say the rate reset will boost energy production, jobs an…

A new hotspot just opened in New York—and it’s in terminal 5 of John F. Kennedy International Airport. BlueHouse, a 9,000-square-foot space exclusively available to select JetBlue Airways customers, welcomed its first guests at 5 a.m. this morning as the airline’s first foray into the pitched battle for lucrative premium fliers. Designed by Gensler, BlueHouse is a smorgasbord of New York’s iconic and eclectic design heritage. From the Art Deco elevator indicator to black-and-white deli tile on the floor and the Grand Central Terminal-inspired ceiling mural, the space screams Big Apple while staying true to JetBlue’s quirky and, well, blue heritage. “It’s unqu…

Imagine this: One day, you won’t have to waste hours of your life doing your most arduous, least favorite forms of shopping. You know what I’m talking about—buying Christmas presents for distant aunts, getting supplies for your kid’s birthday, ordering groceries for dinner. In the near future, you’ll empower your AI agent to tackle the task, then off it will go, identifying the right items, comparing prices and—most impressively—making the purchase for you. Within hours, a tin of your aunt’s favorite biscuits, the correct number of Peppa Pig plates, and a bag of groceries will arrive at your doorstep. We’re not quite there yet, but experts say that this future is …