For years, predictions about the future of commerce have often ended the same way: Credit cards eventually disappear. Digital wallets would replace them. Cryptocurrencies would replace them. Buy now, pay later services would replace them. More recently, artificial intelligence has been cast as the next disruptor, with AI agents expected to handle everything from product discovery to checkout. If an AI assistant can compare prices, find the best deal, and complete a purchase on your behalf, what role is left for a traditional payment network? Visa thinks the answer is simple: a very big one. At Visa Payments Forum 2026…
Author: Staff Writer
The pandemic-era home price explosion was especially pronounced for luxury homes, but more than five years later, most of that growth has fizzled out. In a new report, Realtor.com examined luxury listings around the country and found that outside of two unique markets, pandemic appreciation in the upper echelons of the housing market hasn’t been outdone in the years since. Only Minneapolis-St. Paul and Boise have seen recent prices best previous highs, with luxury homes now sitting at 5% and 4% above their pandemic peaks, respectively. While Minneapolis-St. Paul’s luxury home prices only ticked up by 17.6% during the home…
After a controversy-filled year, Cracker Barrel Old Country Store is getting a significant stock market boost on Wednesday following a positive earnings report for its 2026 fiscal third quarter. As of midday trading on Wednesday, shares were surging nearly 30%, hitting levels not seen since September 2025. The Southern country-themed restaurant chain reported a total revenue decrease of 2.9%, hitting $797.4 million. However, this topped a Wall Street consensus estimate of $776.7 million, as cited by Barron’s. Comparable store restaurant sales decreased 2.6%, and comparable store retail sales decreased 1.8%. Net income reached $42.8 million, tripling last year’s amount. While…
As companies slowed their DEI commitments over the last few years—at least publicly—many of them made noticeable cuts to one aspect of their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. A number of companies, among them Walmart and McDonald’s, dropped out of the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index, an annual ranking of workplace inclusion that employers once touted. Some employers also stopped sponsoring Pride events. In 2025, 39% of companies surveyed by the research insights firm Gravity Research said they intended to pull back on any engagements with Pride. Perhaps most notably, Target—which has long sold a wide variety of Pride…
In 2013, a new acronym transformed the way we talk about big tech. Mad Money host Jim Cramer identified the four companies he saw as “totally dominant in their markets,” being Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google. What does that spell? FANG, a catchy acronym that quickly became shorthand for some of the world’s biggest companies. In 2017, Cramer added another A, this time for Apple, taking the acronym from FANG to FAANG. But in the decade since, plenty of new players have staked a claim in the tech industry, especially given the rise of AI. It’s about time to give…
From meetings on beaches to working form home while the laundry is on spin cycle, technology and remote work policies have allowed anyone to work from anywhere—except maybe an Amtrak train. That’s the conclusion many users on social media have determined following a post from Amtrak’s X account, where the national railroad company tried co-opting the abbreviation for work from home (WFH). “[Why] WFH when you can WFTHETRAIN?” the post said. Social media users quickly offered a flurry of answers, although not necessarily positive ones. “Because a significant portion of the north east regional like has bad signal for my…
At a sprawling new plant near farm fields in Washington State, CO2 is now being turned into jet fuel—and passenger flights will likely begin using it later this month. The facility, called AirPlant One, officially opened today. It belongs to Twelve, a startup that has spent the last decade developing the tech to convert CO2 into useful products. Now that’s beginning to happen at commercial scale. “You have a CO2 molecule going in at one end of the plant, and it is getting transformed into on-spec jet fuel on the other side,” says CEO and cofounder Nicolas Flanders. A large…
After James Marsden landed the role of Cyclops in the 2000 blockbuster film X-Men, he toasted the then-biggest milestone of his career with the priciest whisky the actor could afford, Macallan 12 Year Old. “I wanted to commemorate that moment by having something very special,” Marsden recalled in an interview with Fast Company. “It’s not something I do often, toasting my achievements. But I felt very proud and wanted to remember the moment.” Marsden has played the mutant superhero role in three subsequent live-action Marvel films and is poised to do so again in Avengers:Doomsday, which is scheduled to be…
Hollywood directors on Tuesday reached a four-year tentative contract agreement with studios and streaming services.The deal struck between the Directors Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers came four weeks after talks began.The talks were the first under new DGA President Christopher Nolan, who took the job in September.Along with similar four-year deals — longer than the industry three — ratified in recent weeks by unions representing writers and actors, the DGA agreement adds to the likelihood of long-term labor peace despite many other industry upheavals.The collective bargaining agreement must still be approved by the…
Bill Gates will appear Wednesday before a congressional panel investigating the Jeffrey Epstein files, becoming the latest powerful figure linked to the disgraced financier to testify.Members of the House Oversight Committee are slated to interview the billionaire Microsoft co-founder behind closed doors, as they have done with other witnesses in the investigation. Transcripts are often released later.Republican U.S. Rep. James Comer, the committee chairman, formally requested that Gates testify after he appeared multiple times in a trove of documents released by the Justice Department as part of its Epstein probe.The files read like a who’s who of powerful men across…