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China’s economy expanded at the slowest annual pace in a year in July-September, growing 4.8%, weighed down by trade tensions with the United States and slack domestic demand. The July-September data was the weakest pace of growth since the third quarter of 2024, and compares with a 5.2% pace of growth in the previous quarter, the government said in a report Monday. In January-September, the world’s second largest economy grew at a 5.2% annual pace. Despite U.S. President Donald The President’s higher tariffs on imports from China, its exports have remained relatively strong as companies expanded sales to other world markets. China’s exports to the United States fell 27% in September from the year before, even though growth in its global exports hit a six-month high, climbing 8.3%. Exports of electric vehicles doubled in September from a year earlier, while domestic passenger car sales climbed 11.2% year-on-year in last month, down from a 15% rise in August, according to data released last week. Tensions between Beijing and Washington remain elevated, and it’s unclear if The President and Chinese leader Xi Jinping will go ahead with a proposed meeting during a regional summit at the end of this month. Xi and other ruling Communist Party members are convening one of China’s most important political meetings for the year on Monday, where they will map out economic and social policy goals for the country for the next five years. The economy slowed in the last quarter as the authorities moved to curb fierce price wars in sectors such as the auto industry due to excess capacity. China is also facing challenges including a prolonged property sector downturn which has been affecting consumption and demand. Data released Monday showed China’s residential property sales fell 7.6% by value in the January-September period from a year earlier. Industrial output rose 6.5% year-on-year last month, the fastest pace since June, but retail sales growth slowed to 3% from the year before. Ratings agency S&P estimates nationwide new home sales will fall by 8% in 2025 from the year before and by 6% to 7% in 2026. The World Bank expects China’s economy to grow at a 4.8% annual rate this year. The government’s official growth target is around 5%. Chinese shares rose Monday, with the Hang Seng in Hong Kong climbing 2.3% and the Shanghai Composite index up 0.5%. A National Bureau of Statistics spokesman said China has a “solid foundation” to achieve its full-year growth target, but cited external complications — including trade friction with the U.S. and other trading partners and protectionist policies in many countries — as reasons for the slowdown. China’s stronger economic growth in the first half of this year gives it “some buffer” to achieve the growth target, said Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING Bank. However, spending during China’s eight-day Golden Week national holiday in October was “mildly disappointing,” reflecting sluggish consumer confidence and demand, Morningstar analysts said in a note this month. Investments in factories, equipment and other “fixed assets” fell 0.5% in the last quarter, underscoring weakness in domestic demand. It also was reflected in prices, which have continued to fall both at the consumer and the wholesale level. There’s room for the government to do more, Song said. “(We) are looking to see if there will be further measures to support consumption and the property market, as the impact from previous policies begins to weaken,” Song said. Economists are also expecting a rate cut by China’s central bank by the end of the year, which could encourage more spending and investment. China’s economy is also likely to further slow in 2026, said Jacqueline Rong, chief China economist at BNP Paribas, as property investment in the country “looks (to) continue falling” and the AI boom, which helped lift China’s economy and fueled a stock market rally, is expected to moderate. —Chan Ho-Him, AP Business Writer View the full article

After years of delays and scaled-back ambitions, Google officially killed its Privacy Sandbox, the once-flagship initiative aimed at replacing third-party cookies with privacy-preserving ad technologies. Driving the news. In a blog post Friday, Anthony Chavez, VP of Privacy Sandbox, confirmed that Google is retiring 10 remaining Sandbox APIs, including Attribution Reporting, Topics, and Protected Audience for both Chrome and Android. The move comes over a year after Google abandoned plans to phase out third-party cookies in Chrome altogether. Why we care. The Privacy Sandbox was Google’s answer to growing privacy regulation and industry backlash against cross-site tracking — but its complexity, limited adoption, and regulatory scrutiny stalled momentum. At last, Google is no longer forcing a shift away from third-party cookies, preserving the familiar targeting and measurement tools that power much of digital advertising. While this offers short-term stability and fewer disruptions to campaign performance, it also signals that true privacy-safe ad solutions are still unresolved, leaving the industry without a clear path forward as regulators and browsers continue tightening data rules. In short — advertisers get breathing room today, but more uncertainty tomorrow. The details. Google will phase out: Attribution Reporting API (Chrome and Android) Topics API (Chrome and Android) Protected Audience API (Chrome and Android) IP Protection, On-Device Personalization, and others What stays. CHIPS (Cookies Having Independent Partitioned State) – isolates cookie data to prevent cross-site tracking. FedCM (Federated Credential Management) – enables privacy-friendly sign-ins. Private State Tokens – helps verify legitimate traffic without tracking users. Between the lines. Google’s retreat follows years of industry skepticism. Many advertisers and publishers viewed Sandbox tools as confusing, limited, and unlikely to preserve ad performance at scale. By contrast, maintaining cookies while adding optional privacy controls keeps Chrome aligned with user choice — and ad revenue stability. What they’re saying. “We’ll continue our work to improve privacy across Chrome, Android and the web, but moving away from the Privacy Sandbox branding,” a Google spokesperson told Adweek. The bottom line. After five years, countless tests, and intense debate, Google’s grand privacy experiment is over — and the web’s future looks a lot more like its past. View the full article

Other studies have found fewer credit pulls could be viable, but this shows millions more would be adversely impacted than in a bi-merge. View the full article

A reader writes: The company I work for is a small father-and-son-owned business with 20 employees. This summer, our administrative assistant, Amy (age 50), broke her hand and required surgery. The injury occurred a week before a previously scheduled vacation. During her absence (one week and three days), the father (Bill) met a 21-year-old woman, Rose, at a car wash and offered her an administrative position, even though no position was open at the time. Upon returning from leave, Amy found Rose seated at her desk and was instructed to train her to perform her job duties. Amy’s own role was changed to scanning and organizing the backlog of company files, which she was told would later transition to other organizational “projects.” The company is already paperless, so this reassignment is limited in scope. Over the following months, it became apparent that Rose’s hiring was personally motivated. Bill frequently cooks breakfast for her, speaks to her using “baby talk,” takes her on irrelevant errands during work hours, and pays her to come in on Saturdays to “clean the office” with him alone. There are also indications that company funds have been used for Rose’s personal benefit, such as paying for her vehicle maintenance, paying for gas for her car weekly, and purchasing her gifts. Recently, Bill verbally confronted Amy during a meeting, believing she had insulted Rose. In addition, he yelled at her for scanning – the very task that she was assigned, with no response as to what tasks should be her focus. Bill is verbally abusive to everyone and has the emotional regulation of a toddler. Amy, caught off guard after months of frustration, raised her voice in response. Although no direct comment about Rose was made, Rose left the meeting upset and was granted two paid days off. Amy apologized to both owners and to Rose afterward. When she met with the son (Jason) to explain, Jason said he did not care about the perks Rose receives because she “does extra work,” and that while he would let this incident go, Amy must tolerate his father’s behavior and accept what happens in the company in order to remain employed. He also said he intends to start documenting her behavior and would look to terminate her if she continues to be a problem. The workplace has long been known for verbal hostility from Bill, but this is the first time that an angered response received any attention. Amy is concerned about potential retaliation and whether her reassignment and treatment could constitute age discrimination. I have encouraged her to speak with an employment attorney to clarify her legal position and to get guidance on how to document events appropriately, as well as begin to look for a new position as it is clear that, whether or not it is right, they will find a way to justify firing her. Is there anything else I can do with this situation? I know this is all wildly inappropriate, but it must be illegal too? So Bill hired a 21-year-old woman for a position that didn’t exist and bumped a 50-year-old employee out of her job to justify it, speaks to her in baby talk, pays her to come in on weekends when it’s just the two of them, and is verbally abusive to everyone else, and his son/co-owner responds by … telling everyone else to accept it or they’ll be fired? Eeesh. Yes, Amy should talk to an employment lawyer. It’s likely that there’s enough here to put together an age discrimination case — maybe not one she could prove at trial (although maybe so!) but definitely one that should give her enough leverage to get a decent settlement from the business. A lawyer could have a good time with this. However, one thing that lawyer will need to look at is whether the business meets the threshold to be covered by the federal age discrimination law. You said the business has 20 employees, and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act kicks in right at 20 employees — but owners generally aren’t considered employees, so if Bill and Jason are included in that count, the law would consider the business to have 18 employees … which would put it below the threshold for coverage. (Federal anti-discrimination laws only apply to business with a minimum number of employees — generally 15-20 — because of what’s otherwise seen as too much regulatory burden on very small businesses.) That said, your state might have its own age discrimination law that kicks in at a lower number of employees; many do, and the lawyer Amy talks to will know. As for what you can do beyond encouraging Amy to talk to a lawyer and offering to be a corroborating witness … well, there’s power in numbers. Would a group of your coworkers be willing to put their collective foot down about Bill’s abuse? If you act as a group, would you have the leverage to insist on changes? People often feel they’re at the mercy of an abusive boss — but if enough of you band together, you’d have more power as a group than you have on your own. (This is the whole idea of unions — but you don’t need a formal union to act collectively. And the National Labor Relations Act, which protects employees who band together to speak up about working conditions, applies to any business with one or more employees.) Really, though, a better long-term plan would be to get out. Any business, large or small, can be dysfunctional (we’ve seen plenty of proof of that here) — but when you get this kind of dysfunction at a small business, it tends to infuse absolutely everything, and generally the best move is to just get yourself out of there. The post the company owner might be having an affair with our young new hire and won’t tolerate any criticism appeared first on Ask a Manager. View the full article

President Donald The President said Sunday that the United States could purchase Argentinian beef in an attempt to bring down prices for American consumers. “We would buy some beef from Argentina,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One during a flight from Florida to Washington. “If we do that, that will bring our beef prices down.” The President promised earlier this week to address the issue as part of his efforts to keep inflation in check. U.S. beef prices have been stubbornly high for a variety of reasons, including drought and reduced imports from Mexico due to a flesh-eating pest in cattle herds there. The President has been working to help Argentina bolster its collapsing currency with a $20 billion credit swap line and additional financing from sovereign funds and the private sector ahead of midterm elections for his close ally, President Javier Milei. —Christopher Megerian, Associated Press View the full article

A popular frozen food producer has recalled nearly 92,000 pounds of breakfast burrito and breakfast wrap products that contain eggs due to a risk of contamination with Listeria monocytogenes. The ready-to-eat burritos and wraps were recalled after the producer, M.C.I. Foods, discovered a positive Listeria result while doing routine testing on scrambled eggs from external suppliers, according to a recall notice posted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). The recall impacts multiple brands supplied by M.C.I. Foods, including some that contain branding from the popular Minions animated franchise. The California-based company reported its findings to the FSIS, which published the notice on Saturday, October 18. Fortunately, no illnesses have been linked to the consumption of the affected products to date. Here’s what you need to know: Which products are being recalled? The individually packaged and bulk-packed frozen breakfast burritos and wraps were produced between September 17 and October 14, 2025. Affected products have establishment numbers “EST. 1162A” or “P-5890A” inside the USDA mark of inspection. These products were shipped to food service institutions nationwide, including schools. The FSIS notice notes that the Los Cabos, El Más Fino, and Midamar brand products are included in the USDA’s National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs. Below are the specific product details for impacted products. El Mas Fino: Egg, Ham, and Cheese Breakfast Burrito El Mas Fino: Egg, Sausage, and Cheese Breakfast Burrito Los Cabos: Sausage, Egg & 3 Cheese Breakfast Burrito Los Cabos: Egg, Cheese, Potato & Cooked Sausage Crumbles (Made with Turkey) Breakfast Wrap Los Cabos: Egg, Cheese & Cooked Sausage Crumbles (Made with Turkey) Breakfast Wrap Los Cabos: Cheese, Cooked Sausage Crumbles (Made with Turkey) & Egg Breakfast Wrap Midamar: Egg, Cheese & Beef with Sausage Seasoning Breakfast Wrap You can find a full list of product and lot codes on the FSIS website. Note that some of the products have Minions branding on the packaging. You can also find images of the product labels on the FSIS website. What if I have this product? Foods service institutions are instructed to throw away the recalled products. The FSIS is concerned that the recalled products may still be in refrigerators or freezers at these institutions, the notice states. Institutions are being urged to avoid serving the affected products. Recalled products should be thrown out. Where was this product sold? The recall notice doesn’t include a list of locations where the products were distributed. However, it notes that they were shipped to food service institutions nationwide, including schools. Fast Company has reached out to M.C.I. Foods for a list of distribution locations. We will update this story if we receive a response. If you have questions about the recall, you can contact M.C.I. Foods at 888-345-5364. What is Listeria? Listeria infection is an illness caused by bacteria that can spread through contaminated food. According to the Mayo Clinic, healthy people rarely become seriously ill from Listeria infection. But the disease can be fatal for unborn babies, newborns, and those with weakened immune systems. Pregnant women, adults 65 and older, and people with weakened immune systems are more at risk for infection. View the full article

Zoho Corporation is making another major move to simplify how small businesses adopt and use artificial intelligence — this time by embedding “agentic AI” directly into its Collaboration, Customer Experience, and Human Resources tools at no extra cost. The announcement, aims to remove one of the biggest barriers to AI adoption among small and midsize businesses: complexity. By integrating these intelligent assistants into everyday apps, Zoho wants to make AI feel less like an add-on and more like a natural part of daily operations. For small business owners who have struggled with limited budgets or technical expertise, Zoho’s latest updates could level the playing field. The company’s built-in Zia Agents now help handle repetitive tasks, summarize customer data, and provide human-like support—all inside existing tools such as Zoho Desk, Zoho Cliq, and Zoho People. The updates to Zoho Desk, the company’s customer service platform used by more than 100,000 businesses worldwide, are particularly noteworthy. New AI-powered assistants like the Resolution Expert automatically document ticket resolutions to create better self-help resources and speed up future responses. A Support Specialist agent is designed to respond to customer tickets with human-like empathy, while Field Extraction and Auto Email Reply automate the most tedious parts of customer support—parsing information from messages and drafting accurate responses instantly. Another standout feature, Field Prediction, helps agents choose the most relevant options from dropdown menus based on ticket context, while Generate Content creates concise summaries and comments using prompts. All of these features are available to users in the U.S. and India, with rollout beginning immediately and additional capabilities arriving in November 2025. The following table provides a detailed overview of the newly introduced AI features for Zoho Desk, along with their descriptions and rollout timelines. ApplicationFeatureFeature DescriptionAvailabilityAvailable Territories Zoho Desk Resolution ExpertDocuments ticket resolutions to enhance future support interactionsNov 2025US, IN Support SpecialistResponds to tickets with human-like empathyNov 2025US, IN Field ExtractionExtracts structured data (names, phone numbers issues) from unstructured ticket content Available US, IN Auto Email ReplyGenerates and sends replies using help articles Available US, IN Field PredictionPredicts best value for pick list fields based on ticket context Available US, IN Generate Content Automatically creates summaries or comments from ticket content using a prompt Early Access US, IN For small business support teams, these updates could mean faster resolutions, happier customers, and fewer late-night email marathons. Zoho’s AI aims to handle much of the background work—turning unstructured communication into actionable data and freeing up employees for strategic, high-value tasks. From a practical standpoint, Zoho’s decision to make these tools free with existing paid subscriptions could be a significant differentiator in an increasingly competitive market. Many software vendors now charge extra for AI functionality, forcing small businesses to weigh cost against convenience. Zoho’s inclusive approach lowers that friction and aligns with its long-standing reputation for affordability and accessibility. Still, small businesses adopting these tools may need to think carefully about change management and data training. While Zoho’s AI agents learn from existing company data, users will want to ensure their systems are well-organized and privacy-compliant to avoid confusion or errors. If used strategically, however, Zoho’s latest agentic AI integrations could give small businesses something they’ve long needed—a smarter, simpler way to get more done without extra costs or complicated integrations. The company’s promise to include these upgrades in its Collaboration, Customer Experience, and HR platforms underscores a larger industry shift toward embedded intelligence—AI that doesn’t sit outside your workflow but quietly runs inside it, making everyday tools a little more capable, a little more human, and a lot more efficient. All features announced are included with a paid subscription to each Zoho app and are currently available in select territories, with expanded rollout planned through late 2025. This article, "Zoho Desk Expands Collaboration AI to Simplify Work for Small Businesses" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

Zoho Corporation is making another major move to simplify how small businesses adopt and use artificial intelligence — this time by embedding “agentic AI” directly into its Collaboration, Customer Experience, and Human Resources tools at no extra cost. The announcement, aims to remove one of the biggest barriers to AI adoption among small and midsize businesses: complexity. By integrating these intelligent assistants into everyday apps, Zoho wants to make AI feel less like an add-on and more like a natural part of daily operations. For small business owners who have struggled with limited budgets or technical expertise, Zoho’s latest updates could level the playing field. The company’s built-in Zia Agents now help handle repetitive tasks, summarize customer data, and provide human-like support—all inside existing tools such as Zoho Desk, Zoho Cliq, and Zoho People. The updates to Zoho Desk, the company’s customer service platform used by more than 100,000 businesses worldwide, are particularly noteworthy. New AI-powered assistants like the Resolution Expert automatically document ticket resolutions to create better self-help resources and speed up future responses. A Support Specialist agent is designed to respond to customer tickets with human-like empathy, while Field Extraction and Auto Email Reply automate the most tedious parts of customer support—parsing information from messages and drafting accurate responses instantly. Another standout feature, Field Prediction, helps agents choose the most relevant options from dropdown menus based on ticket context, while Generate Content creates concise summaries and comments using prompts. All of these features are available to users in the U.S. and India, with rollout beginning immediately and additional capabilities arriving in November 2025. The following table provides a detailed overview of the newly introduced AI features for Zoho Desk, along with their descriptions and rollout timelines. ApplicationFeatureFeature DescriptionAvailabilityAvailable Territories Zoho Desk Resolution ExpertDocuments ticket resolutions to enhance future support interactionsNov 2025US, IN Support SpecialistResponds to tickets with human-like empathyNov 2025US, IN Field ExtractionExtracts structured data (names, phone numbers issues) from unstructured ticket content Available US, IN Auto Email ReplyGenerates and sends replies using help articles Available US, IN Field PredictionPredicts best value for pick list fields based on ticket context Available US, IN Generate Content Automatically creates summaries or comments from ticket content using a prompt Early Access US, IN For small business support teams, these updates could mean faster resolutions, happier customers, and fewer late-night email marathons. Zoho’s AI aims to handle much of the background work—turning unstructured communication into actionable data and freeing up employees for strategic, high-value tasks. From a practical standpoint, Zoho’s decision to make these tools free with existing paid subscriptions could be a significant differentiator in an increasingly competitive market. Many software vendors now charge extra for AI functionality, forcing small businesses to weigh cost against convenience. Zoho’s inclusive approach lowers that friction and aligns with its long-standing reputation for affordability and accessibility. Still, small businesses adopting these tools may need to think carefully about change management and data training. While Zoho’s AI agents learn from existing company data, users will want to ensure their systems are well-organized and privacy-compliant to avoid confusion or errors. If used strategically, however, Zoho’s latest agentic AI integrations could give small businesses something they’ve long needed—a smarter, simpler way to get more done without extra costs or complicated integrations. The company’s promise to include these upgrades in its Collaboration, Customer Experience, and HR platforms underscores a larger industry shift toward embedded intelligence—AI that doesn’t sit outside your workflow but quietly runs inside it, making everyday tools a little more capable, a little more human, and a lot more efficient. All features announced are included with a paid subscription to each Zoho app and are currently available in select territories, with expanded rollout planned through late 2025. This article, "Zoho Desk Expands Collaboration AI to Simplify Work for Small Businesses" was first published on Small Business Trends View the full article

The ability to discreetly communicate with the adversary is more important than everView the full article

But ensure you understand costs, premiums, risks, and potential surrender charges. By Rory Henry CFP®, BFA™ For CPA Trendlines Go PRO for members-only access to more Rory Henry. View the full article

But ensure you understand costs, premiums, risks, and potential surrender charges. By Rory Henry CFP®, BFA™ For CPA Trendlines Go PRO for members-only access to more Rory Henry. View the full article

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today...View the full article

If you found it difficult to access sites and services early Monday morning, you are not alone. In fact, the rest of the world was having trouble, too. For a short period of time, a global outage prevented people from accessing a wide variety of sites and services, from Facebook to Fortnite. The trouble stemmed from Amazon Web Services (AWS), an Amazon product that offers cloud hosting for a massive number of websites and companies. If you use internet-connected products, chances are a good number of them rely on AWS. As such, when AWS goes down, so do those sites and services. That includes social media platforms like Facebook and Snapchat; retailers and restaurants like Amazon, AT&T, and McDonald's; streaming services like Prime Video, Hulu, and Disney+; messaging apps like Signal; games like Fortnite, Roblox, and Pokémon; cryptocurrency platforms like Coinbase; and media organizations like The New York Times. Even services not immediately associated with AWS appear to have struggled over the past 12 hours. Notably, that includes Apple online services like Apple TV, Apple Music, and the App Store. Amazon says an issue with one of its core database products caused the outage. AWS's first report came at 12:11 a.m. PT (3:11 a.m. ET) noting "increased error rates and latencies" specifically with its services around its U.S.-East-1 Region center. After a few more updates, AWS confirmed it had discovered a "potential root cause" at 2:01 a.m. PT. By 2:22 a.m. PT, the company had rolled out the first of its mitigations to solve the issue, and saw "early signs of recovery." Five minutes later, they reported "significant signs of recovery." By 3:35 a.m. PT, AWS says the underlying issue was fixed, and most operations are normal now, though certain requests may be throttled, while some services may also be working through a backlog. The issue highlights the fragility of the current internet and its services: When so many companies all rely on the same provider for cloud hosting, any critical issues to that cloud hosting service can take out a huge number of sites and services. For now, the internet as a whole appears to be back to normal operations—just in time for anyone on the East Coast to start work. View the full article

Daylight burglary of priceless royal jewels triggers review of security measures at country’s cultural institutionsView the full article

Go PRO for members-only access to more CPA Trendlines Research. View the full article

Go PRO for members-only access to more CPA Trendlines Research. View the full article

Concerns mount about hidden exposure to private capital firms and hedge funds in wake of credit market wobblesView the full article

A judge agreed to expand her temporary restraining order to add more federal worker unions after their lawyers said there's an "urgent" need to prevent layoffs. View the full article

U.K. banks and government tech systems going down. University students in Australia struggling to complete their coursework. Homes across Europe losing access to their Ring doorbells. While you were sleeping, large parts of the Amazon Web Services (AWS)-based internet went offline around the world. According to the AWS outage monitor, the problem stemmed from a misconfiguration of Domain Name System (DNS) resolution within the company’s cloud infrastructure. The problem was remedied within three hours of being encountered—by people unable to log onto Roblox or search the web with Perplexity. But the outage highlights just how much the web’s day-to-day functionality relies on the the existence of too few companies. AWS controls around a third of the market; Microsoft, through its Azure cloud service, and Google hold around another third. They are some of a handful of companies that dominate the market—and do so because of their ordinary success and smooth running of cloud infrastructure services. That success, some argue, has translated to overly concentrated control by a small number of companies of key bits of the web’s infrastructure, which was always meant to be distributed and with many points of failure. “The main reason for this issue is that all these big companies have relied on just one service—AWS—without planning for redundancy,” says Nishanth Sastry, director of research at the University of Surrey’s department of computer science. It means that in the rare event of an outage from those key infrastructure providers, we see catastrophic consequences across different sectors, from gaming to government. “Once again, we are experiencing how the concentration in the computing industry, in this case in cloud computing, can crash major parts of our internet, all at once,” says Corinne Cath-Speth, an expert on cloud computing and head of digital at human rights organization ARTICLE 19. “The infrastructure underpinning democratic discourse, independent journalism, and secure communications cannot be dependent on a handful of companies.” Even those that do have multiple eggs in multiple metaphorical baskets were affected. Signal, the secure messaging app which rents cloud infrastructure from AWS, Google and Microsoft Azure, faced outages because of AWS’s issues. Amazon did not immediately respond to Fast Company’s request for comment. That urgency needs to go to the top of governments, nevermind businesses, reckons Amandine LePape, chief operating officer and co-founder of Element, which provides secure communications to governments. “Centralized systems may offer convenience and scale, but they also create single points of failure,” she says. “True resilience comes from decentralisation and self-hosting.” That needs to be considered for the future—similar outages of AWS have occurred in 2020, 2021 and 2023—because it’s likely to happen again. “Governments and other organizations must rethink their infrastructure strategies now,” says LePape, “or risk being next in line when the cloud goes dark, especially when it comes to their communications.” View the full article

French luxury goods company Kering said Sunday it is selling its beauty division to L’Oreal for 4 billion euros ($4.66 billion). Under the agreement, Clichy, France-based L’Oreal will acquire the House of Creed high-end fragrance company as well as licenses to create beauty and fragrance products for Kering brands like Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga. The companies said they will establish a strategic committee to ensure coordination between Kering brands and L’Oréal. Kering and L’Oréal said they are also exploring joint business opportunities in the wellness and longevity market, combining L’Oreal’s innovation with Kering’s deep understanding of luxury clients. The deal has some precedence. L’Oreal acquired the beauty license for Kering’s Yves Saint Laurent brand in 2008. Luca de Meo, CEO of Paris-based Kering, said the deal combines L’Oreal’s expertise with Kering’s luxury reach. “Joining forces with the global leader in beauty, we will accelerate the development of fragrance and cosmetics for our major houses, allowing them to achieve scale in this category and unlock their immense long-term potential, as did Yves Saint Laurent Beauté under L’Oréal’s stewardship,” de Meo said in a statement. Nicolas Hieronimus, the CEO of L’Oreal Groupe, said Creed is one of the fastest growing players in the niche fragrance market, while Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga are “exceptional couture brands with enormous potential for growth.” The all-cash deal is expected to close in the first half of 2026. L’Oréal will also pay royalties to Kering for the use of its licensed brands. —Dee-Ann Durbin, AP Business Writer View the full article

On a recent weekday in Aspen, Colorado, Stu Landesberg stood with a group of firefighters on a mountainside and watched a drone take off and fly toward a simulated fire. The drone detected the “hotspot”—a pile of ice, since wildfire risk was too high that day for real flames—and then aimed and blasted it with fire suppressant. The test flight was one of thousands that Landesberg’s startup, Seneca, has run while operating in stealth mode over the last several months. The company officially launched today, announcing that it has raised $60 million. It aims to reshape wildfire response—and help protect wildfire-prone communities in a way that hasn’t been possible until now. “Once I started learning about this problem, I became obsessed with it” For Landesberg, the startup represents an unexpected pivot. Since 2012, he’d led Grove, the consumer products company known for cutting plastic waste in packaging. But in late 2023, the company brought in a new CEO, former Amazon executive Jeff Yurcisin, to help it grow. Landesberg became chairman of the board, and started to think about what he wanted to take on next. “I looked around at the problems that were enormous—planetary scale,” he says. That list included wildfires, a challenge that he was intimately familiar with as a Californian. As fires have dramatically increased in recent years, he lost fire insurance on his own house. His father-in-law’s house also went through a fire. The wildfire crisis keeps growing. Fires are now burning eight times more land in the West each year than they did in the mid-1980s. In 2020 alone, 4.3 million acres burned in California, an area larger than the entire state of Connecticut and most of Rhode Island. Insurers are hiking rates in the state or pulling out of some areas completely; a state-run last-resort insurance plan is struggling. “If you lose your fire insurance, you can’t get a mortgage,” Landesberg says. “And if you can’t get a mortgage, what is going to happen to the American West? If we want to continue living in the American West, we absolutely have to figure out a way to live there without our communities being at risk of burning down.” It’s not just California. Texas experienced its largest fire in state history last year, covering a million acres. In the Great Plains, fires are happening more often than in the past, and covering more area. Places that previously weren’t as likely to burn, like Quebec and other parts of Canada, are increasingly catching fire. Last fall, as parts of the East Coast saw record drought, fires spread across New Jersey and Massachusetts. Globally, nearly a billion acres burned last year. Climate change will keep making the problem worse. “Once I started learning about this problem, I became obsessed with it,” Landesberg says. More than 100 million Americans are living at risk of fire, he explains: “It’s one of those things that until you really study it, you don’t quite realize just how big the problem is. . . . It costs the U.S. economy something like a trillion dollars a year.” A new type of fire response In early 2024, Landesberg dove into research. He rode along with firefighters, studied fire science, and began conversations with potential partners. He also looked at other tech under development. The world of fire tech is quickly growing: after Silicon Valley choked on smoke from the deadly Camp Fire in Paradise, California in 2018, and the sky in San Francisco turned orange from smoke in 2020, several other founders also began exploring how technology could help. Some of those solutions are in use now. Pano AI, which uses cameras and AI to detect smoke and alert firefighters, now has hundreds of cameras monitoring more than 50 million acres around the world. (In one example of its use, when lightning struck a remote mountain in Colorado last year, the system was the only source to report the fire. It gave firefighters coordinates in minutes, and helicopters and ground crews were able to stop the blaze.) BurnBot, another startup, helps safely burn dry vegetation to create fire breaks. Landesberg saw an opportunity for new tech to help with another part of the challenge—how to help firefighters quickly respond when a fire begins. “If you talk to many of the chiefs on the front lines in the most high-risk communities, they will tell you that it’s all about catching the fire when it’s small,” he says. In hard to reach areas like a steep California canyon, helicopters are often the fastest way to reach a fire. But because they’re very expensive, their numbers are limited. When conditions are at their worst and many fires are happening simultaneously, a helicopter might not be available. High winds and poor visibility at night can also stop helicopters from flying. In some cases, when trucks can’t reach a fire, fire crews have to hike to remote areas on foot. By the fall of 2024, Landesberg and his founding partners had decided to build drones that could autonomously navigate to fires and suppress them. (Some other startups are working on related solutions, like Dryad, which also makes technology to detect fires.) They started building prototypes. By early 2025, they were testing the drones with fire agencies. How the technology works The drones are designed to fly in strike teams of five aircraft, each carrying 100 pounds of fire suppressant. Fire agencies and utilities could station them in remote areas, so they’re ready to fly autonomously as soon as a fire is detected. The swarm of drones can spray a line of firefighting foam that’s around three feet wide and 1,280 feet long—enough to stop or meaningfully slow a fire. Then they can fly back to their base, reload, and return. One selling point of the drones is that they can fly closer to a fire than a helicopter or plane could, and target an exact position on the ground. “You kind of get one shot with a helicopter, whereas with drones, you can lay patterns and lines and just do that more precisely,” says Bill Clerico, founder of Convective Capital, a wildfire-focused VC firm that co-led the startup’s fundraising round. Drones are at the right stage in development for this type of application. “We’re at this interesting inflection point in drone technology where the batteries are getting much better, the motors are getting much better, they’re getting lighter, they can carry much more,” Clerico says. They’re also far less expensive than the helicopters that are currently used. The company hasn’t shared exact costs, but Landesberg says that a group of five drones will be in the high hundreds of thousands or low seven figures; operating a helicopter is also extremely expensive, whereas drones run at a marginal cost. “It’s totally clear that aerial suppression needs to be part of the solution and part of the future,” Landesberg says. “It’s also totally clear that the cost of today’s aerial suppression apparatus is incredibly high—so high that it means you can’t get enough of them. Our intention is to build something that can be low enough cost that you can station them remotely and dedicate them to fast response in a high-risk area.” In conditions where a fire moves very quickly—like a hot, windy day after months of drought—reaching a fire even minutes earlier could help stop the spread. Drones could also be used to support fire crews during controlled burns. The company’s goal is audacious: to eliminate the risk of wildfire across 500 million acres in the U.S. and other countries by 2035. When I ask if that’s even possible in a world made so much more flammable by climate change, Landesberg says that it simply has to be done. “I think it has to be solved,” he says. “I think there’s two options: either we give up or we believe that we can do it. There is no middle ground.” Later, he adds that he believes society is at an inflection point where it can build the technology to create a resilient future. “I’m optimistic, perpetually, because I don’t think there’s any other way to be,” he says. “It’s not that I think the problem is going to get easier. I just think we have to acknowledge it’s going to get harder and we have to work.” Getting in the air As Seneca’s team worked on the design of the drones, they worked closely with fire agencies to vet the approach. “One of the really wonderful things about having been a consumer founder first is that I think Seneca has incredible ‘listen to your customer’ DNA,” Landesberg says. The team also includes former firefighters. After test flights with agencies in different states, they kept iterating. The foam pump, for example, was initially designed at an angle based on typical California fires. But after meeting with fire departments Montana and Wyoming, where fires from lightning strikes are more common, they realized that the nozzle needed to also be able to point downward at the base of a fire. Now it can adjust as needed. The drones have gone through extensive testing, including hundreds of missions on live fires, and now the company plans to test final edge cases before shipping the product next year. It “needs to be perfectly hardened before we hand it off to an operator that we fully expect to be using this in mission critical environments,” says Landesberg. Fire agencies are often slow to adopt new technology, but have been enthusiastic so far. “There’s a joke in the fire service that it’s 300 years of tradition unimpeded by progress,” says Clerico. “It’s a very traditional culture. That said, I think in wildland firefighting there’s a broad acknowledgment that the current tools we have are not working and we need to try new things. The crisis has reached a breaking point and people are willing to try new stuff. So it feels like the right time to build this company.” Because of the immense economic damage from wildfires—homes are losing value, insurance companies have lost hundreds of billions, the utility company PG&E went through bankruptcy, governments spend billions fighting fires—there’s also huge demand for solutions that could work. “This is a big bet—that these technologies will work well and be deployed at scale,” says Clerico. “There’s certainly risk in that. But if it works, it could be an absolutely enormous company. These Seneca stations could be at every utility substation and every fire station in the West.” View the full article

We may earn a commission from links on this page. Deal pricing and availability subject to change after time of publication. Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding Lifehacker as a preferred source for tech news. If you’ve been meaning to add a smart doorbell to your home setup, this might be the time to do it: The Arlo Video Doorbell 2K (2nd Gen) and Chime 2 bundle has dropped to $88.26 on Amazon. Arlo Video Doorbell 2K 2nd Generation & Chime 2 Bundle $88.26 at Amazon $116.69 Save $28.43 Get Deal Get Deal $88.26 at Amazon $116.69 Save $28.43 That’s a strong deal for a doorbell/camera combo that’s been highly praised by reviewers—PCMag named it the best video doorbell of 2024. It’s a smart, wireless setup that delivers a clear 2K video feed and works without a base station, making it easy to install. You can mount it on your front door, porch, or gate in minutes. It runs on a rechargeable battery that lasts up to four months, or you can hardwire it into your existing doorbell system for continuous trickle charging. When someone presses the doorbell button, your phone rings like a call instead of sending a silent push notification, which makes it harder to miss visitors or deliveries. And the built-in 2K camera captures a wide 180-degree field of view, giving you a full head-to-toe look at whoever’s outside. The motion detection kicks in even if no one presses the button, and the app lets you speak to visitors or play pre-recorded messages if you’re busy. Daytime video looks sharp, with balanced contrast and detail, while the black-and-white night vision holds up well for spotting people or packages after dark, notes this PCMag review. The bundle also includes the Arlo Chime 2, which plugs into any wall outlet and acts as an indoor alert system. You’ll get audible notifications whenever the doorbell rings or motion is detected, and you can even customize the chime sound, volume, or silence it completely if you prefer just app notifications. There’s also an 80-decibel siren built into the Chime 2 for extra deterrence. Arlo doesn’t lock basic features behind a paywall—you’ll get live video access for free, but if you want to store clips or get smarter alerts, you’ll need an Arlo Secure subscription (starting at $7.99/month). That unlocks cloud recording for up to 60 days, plus object detection for people, packages, and vehicles. Also, while it’s compatible with Alexa, Google Home, SmartThings, and IFTTT, it lacks Apple HomeKit support. Our Best Editor-Vetted Tech Deals Right Now Apple AirPods Pro 2 Noise Cancelling Wireless Earbuds — $169.99 (List Price $249.00) Samsung Galaxy S25 Edge 256GB Unlocked AI Phone (Titanium JetBlack) — $799.99 (List Price $799.99) Apple iPad 11" 128GB A16 WiFi Tablet (Blue, 2025) — $299.00 (List Price $349.00) Blink Mini 2 1080p Indoor Security Camera (2-Pack, White) — $69.99 (List Price $69.99) Ring Battery Doorbell Plus — $149.99 (List Price $149.99) Blink Video Doorbell Wireless (Newest Model) + Sync Module Core — $69.99 (List Price $69.99) Ring Indoor Cam (2nd Gen, 2-pack, White) — $79.99 (List Price $99.98) Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K (2nd Gen, 2023) — $49.99 (List Price $49.99) Shark AV2501S AI Ultra Robot Vacuum with HEPA Self-Empty Base — $359.89 (List Price $549.99) Amazon Fire HD 10 (2023) — (List Price $139.99) Deals are selected by our commerce team View the full article

Hi everyone, There’s one aspect of human life we prefer not to remember, mention, or, heaven forbid, celebrate. Yet October 13 is known as the International Day for Failure. Isn’t that an amazing concept? To celebrate failure: the unwanted result of our thoughts and labor, yet the essential companion of every beginner, learner, changemaker, and big dreamer. This issue is here to remind us of those oh-so-splendid failures that turned into great successes, and to encourage anyone who needs it to keep thriving, one failure at a time. – Maja Our Favorite Articles 💯Embracing Failure for Career Growth (Forbes)Learning how to fail: intentionally, reflectively, and repeatedly, can build the resilience and insight that long-term careers truly depend on. 👉 ​Read more​. Slack: The Accidental Success Story (Synergy Startup)What began as a failed multiplayer game pivoted into one of the fastest-growing workplace tools: proof that a collapse in one project can spark something far bigger. 👉 ​Learn more​. Mohamed Hassan/PixabayHow Athletes Turn Failure Into Fuel (Olympics.com)Elite athletes show us that failure isn’t just a misstep. It’s a training ground for greatness when you learn to welcome discomfort and adapt. 👉 ​Keep reading​. David Barber/PexelsSearching for Sugar ManOne of my favorite failure-to-success stories of all time. If you haven’t seen the Oscar-winning documentary yet, you can watch it through 👉 ​this link​. This Week's Sponsor 🙌Too many emails? Declutter your inbox with Meco, your home for reading newsletters. Try it for free ​Remotive​ Jobs 💼Let's get you hired! These teams are hiring now: 💻 Engineering 👉 ​Senior DevOps Engineer (AWS) at Proxify​ (CET +/- 3 hours) 👉 ​Senior Independent Software Developer at A.Team​ (Americas, Europe, Israel) 👉 ​Senior Independent AI Engineer / Architect at A.Team​ (Americas, Europe, Israel) 👉 ​iOS Developer at nooro​ (USA Only) 👉 ​Technical Architect at Tether​ (UK) 👉 ​Software Engineer, Trading & Portfolio Analytics at Nascent​ (Americas, Europe, UK) 🎨 Design 👉 ​Design Apprentice to Eccentric Millionaire at Fun Ecom Co | JLS Trading Co​ (Worldwide) Free Guides & Tools​Public Job Board​We curate 2,000 remote jobs so you don't have to! ​Find your remote job →​ ​Exclusive Webinar​3 Mistakes to Avoid When Looking For A Remote Startup Job (And What To Do Instead) ​Register for free →​ ​Job Search Tips​Looking for a remote job? Here are our tips to help you work remotely ​Check it out → Join the Remotive newsletter Subscribe to get our latest content by email. Success! Now check your email to confirm your subscription. There was an error submitting your subscription. Please try again. Email address Subscribe Powered by ConvertKit View the full article

Visit by US envoys comes day after series of attacks threatened to derail fragile accordView the full article

Americans are growing increasingly concerned about their ability to find a good job under President Donald The President, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll finds, in what is a potential warning sign for Republicans as a promised economic boom has given way to hiring freezes and elevated inflation. High prices for groceries, housing and health care persist as a fear for many households, while rising electricity bills and the cost of gas at the pump are also sources of anxiety, according to the survey. Some 47% of U.S. adults are “not very” or “not at all confident” they could find a good job if they wanted to, an increase from 37% when the question was last asked in October 2023. Electricity bills are a “major” source of stress for 36% of U.S. adults at a time when the expected build-out of data centers for artificial intelligence could further tax the power grid. Just more than one-half said the cost of groceries are a “major” source of financial stress, about 4 in 10 said the cost of housing and health care were a serious strain and about one-third said they were feeling high stress about gasoline prices. The survey suggests an ongoing vulnerability for The President, who returned to the White House in January with claims he could quickly tame the inflation that surged after the pandemic during Democratic President Joe Biden’s term. Instead, The President’s popularity on the economy has remained low amid a mix of tariffs, federal worker layoffs and partisan sniping that has culminated in a government shutdown. Linda Weavil, 76, voted for The President last year because he “seems like a smart businessman.” But she said in an interview that the Republican’s tariffs have worsened inflation, citing the chocolate-covered pecans sold for her church group fundraiser that now cost more. “I think he’s doing a great job on a lot of things, but I’m afraid our coffee and chocolate prices have gone up because of tariffs,” the retiree from Greensboro, North Carolina, said. “That’s a kick in the back of the American people.” Voters changed presidents, but they’re not feeling better about The President’s economy The poll found that 36% of U.S. adults approve of how The President is handling the economy, a figure that has held steady this year after he imposed tariffs that caused broad economic uncertainty. Among Republicans, 71% feel positive about his economic leadership. Yet that approval within The President’s own party is relatively low in ways that could be problematic for Republicans in next month’s races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, and perhaps even in the 2026 midterm elections. At roughly the same point in Biden’s term, in October 2021, an AP-NORC poll found that 41% of U.S. adults approved of how he was handling the economy, including about 73% of Democrats. That overall number was a little higher than The President’s, primarily because of independents — 29% approved of how Biden was handling the economy, compared with the 18% who currently support The President’s approach. The job market was meaningfully stronger in terms of hiring during Biden’s presidency as the United States was recovering from pandemic-related lockdowns. But hiring has slowed sharply under The President with monthly job gains averaging less than 27,000 after the April tariff announcements. People see that difference. Four years ago, 36% of those in the survey were “extremely” or “very” confident in their ability to get a good job, but that has fallen to 21% now. Biden’s approval on the economy steadily deteriorated through the middle of 2022 when inflation hit a four-decade high, creating an opening for The President’s political comeback. Electricity costs are an emerging worry In some ways, The President has made the inflation problems harder by choosing to cancel funding for renewable energy projects and imposing tariffs on the equipment needed for factories and power plants. Those added costs are coming before the anticipated construction of data centers for AI that could further push up prices without more construction. Even though 36% see electricity as a major concern, there are some who have yet to feel a serious financial squeeze. In the survey, 40% identified electricity costs as a “minor” stress, while 23% said their utility bills are “not a source” of stress. Kevin Halsey, 58, of Normal, Illinois, said his monthly electricity bills used to be $90 during the summer because he had solar panels, but have since jumped to $300. Halsey, who works in telecommunications, voted Democratic in last year’s presidential election and described the economy right now as “crap.” “I’ve got to be pessimistic,” he said. “I don’t see this as getting better.” At a fundamental level, The President finds himself in the same economic dilemma that bedeviled Biden. There are signs the economy remains relatively solid with a low unemployment rate, stock market gains and decent economic growth, yet the public continues to be skeptical about the economy’s health. Some 68% of U.S. adults describe the U.S. economy these days as “poor,” while 32% say it’s “good.” That’s largely consistent with assessments of the economy over the past year. In addition, 59%, say their family finances are “holding steady.” But only 12% say they’re “getting ahead,” and 28% say they are “falling behind.” People see plenty of expenses but few opportunities The sense of economic precarity is coming from many different directions, with indications that many think middle-class stability is falling out of reach. The vast majority of U.S. adults feel at least “minor” stress about the cost of groceries, health care, housing, the amount they pay in taxes, what they are paid at work and the cost of gas for their cars. In the survey, 47%, say they are “not very” or “not at all” confident they could pay an unexpected medical expense while 52% have low confidence they will have enough saved for their retirement. Also, 63%, are “not very” or “not at all” confident they could buy a new home if they wanted to. Young adults are much less confident about their ability to buy a house, though confidence is not especially high across the board. About 8 in 10 U.S. adults under age 30 say they are “not very confident” or “not at all confident” they would be able to buy a house, compared with about 6 in 10 adults 60 and older. For 54% of U.S. adults, the cost of groceries is a “major source” of stress in their life right now. Unique Hopkins, 36, of Youngstown, Ohio, said she is now working two jobs after her teenage daughter had a baby, leaving Hopkins with a sense that she can barely tread water as part of the “working poor.” She voted for The President in 2016, only to switch to Democrats after she felt his ego kept him from uniting the country and solving problems. “It’s his way or no way,” she said. “Nobody is going to unite with The President if it’s all about you, you, you.” The AP-NORC poll of 1,289 adults was conducted Oct. 9-13, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points. This story has been corrected to reflect that the name of the NORC Center is NORC Center for Public Research, not Public Affairs. —Josh Boak and Linley Sanders, Associated Press View the full article