President Trump’s controversial plan to build an enormous ballroom adjacent to—and larger than—the White House just ground to a halt.

Wendy’s deals might be “biggie.” But it’s performance this year hasn’t been. 

A new survey shows employee morale is on the rise after hitting all-time lows.

Some U.S. adults are using artificial intelligence for financial guidance, but it’s far from the most trusted source of advice, according to a new Gallup survey conducted in partnership with Edward Jones, a financial services firm.

There has been no shortage of recalls linked to possible salmonella contamination recently, and unfortunately, consumers need to be aware of yet another one.

“Hold my beer” has become a catchphrase to signal that something important is about to go down. It implies that drinking a cold one is an everyday occurrence.

If you really want to reduce your transportation emissions, it would actually be better to scrap a brand new gas-powered car and switch to an electric vehicle instead of waiting until that gas car stopped working.

Gen Z gets a lot of flak for being endlessly connected online. But a new trend is proving that the digital natives are burned out from a life spent consuming content on social media: They’re carrying tech-free purses and totes, otherwise known as “analog bags.” 

We’ve got a new vision for the next great piece of AI hardware—and it (allegedly) is going to look a lot like a donut.

The brand name behind recent showstopping fashion moments isn’t quite as delicate as their romantic and otherworldly looks. When asked what an ethereal Zendaya was wearing for The Odyssey‘s premiere in New York, her stylist, Law Roach, responded: “Fecal Matter.”

Zendaya’s angelic strapless gown with feathered white wings was the work of Matières Fécales—yes, in English, Fecal Matter—the Paris-based, high-end fashion house founded in Montreal over a decade ago that’s, seemingly suddenly, everywhere.

In early May, Emma Mannino received a direct message on Etsy from someone she didn’t know. The woman, who said she worked for the platform, explained that Mannino had an opportunity through Etsy’s creator codesign program to work with an unspecified “talent” on some designs. The offer was so vague that Mannino, an artist and entrepreneur, thought to herself, “Oh, this is spam.”

To reach a deal with Iran that reopens the economically vital Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump may need to do something out of character—compromise.

Any concession would be tough for the Republican president, who has insisted there is no truth to his sagging poll numbers, the sluggish economy, and the U.S. military’s dwindling stockpiles of key weapons amid the Iran war he launched with Israel more than five months ago.

“He divides the world into winners and losers, and this would make him a loser,” said Eliot Cohen, who served as counselor of the State Department in the George W. Bush administration. “And the image of being a loser, I think, would be intolerable for him.”

The sticking point has been over control of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil normally flows. While both sides say a deal is close, the Trump administration has ruled out any arrangement that would cement Iran’s grip over the Persian Gulf waterway, including Tehran charging fees.

But Iran has insisted on some measure of control, saying the strait will not go back to being an open international waterway as it was before the war. Despite thousands of U.S. strikes, Iran can still fire drones and missiles at vessels, giving it a chokehold over commercial shipping.

Cohen said yielding ground to Iran would be difficult for the president, even if the conflict keeps gasoline prices elevated and poses problems for Republicans in November’s midterm elections.

But David Schenker, a former State Department official in the first Trump administration, said the increasing economic pressure may actually prompt Trump to compromise on the strait, even if it’s likely to have profound implications on global trade.

“There will be a lot of spin both ways, but my guess is that the president has tipped his hand as to the urgency for him of resolving the crisis,” said Schenker, now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “This is a concession he may very well be willing to make.”

U.S. employers unexpectedly cut 23,000 jobs last month, and Labor Department revisions shaved 103,000 jobs off payrolls in May and June. The unemployment rate dipped to 4.1% only because Americans left the job market.

The July jobs numbers from the Labor Department on Friday marked a sharp reversal for the American labor market and a setback for President Donald Trump less than three months before his Republican party seeks to keep full control of Congress in the midterm election.

Forecasters had expected job creation to approach 100,000 last month.

Local public schools cut 50,000 jobs in July, restaurants and bars 26,000, and retailers 19,000.

The 4.1% unemployment rate was the lowest since June 2025—but it dropped for the wrong reasons: Fewer people were competing for work, as 264,000 dropped out of the labor market. The share of those working or looking for work fell to 61.4%, the lowest since February 2021.

Hiring had rebounded this year from a lackluster 2025 in the face of the conflict in the Persian Gulf that has sent energy prices surging and put a strain on family budgets. Job growth had been solid, if unspectacular. Some businesses are having trouble filling vacancies. Others are using technology to do the work humans used to do.

Americans who have jobs are enjoying unusual job security. Layoffs are low by historical standards. Companies, scarred by the surprise labor shortages that followed COVID-19 lockdowns a few years ago, don’t want to risk giving up the staff they have.

One week in July the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits dropped to the lowest level in more than 50 years. The jobless rate tumbled to 4.2% in June, the lowest in a year until the July figure came out.

But Americans who have lost their jobs—or are seeking to bust into the job market for the first time—are struggling to catch a break.

Economists have used the term “no hire, no fire” to describe the unusual job market conditions.

So far this year, employers are adding 61,000 jobs a month, up from 9,700 in 2025, the weakest outside a recession since 2002.

The United States doesn’t need as many jobs as it used to keep the unemployment rate from rising. Trump’s immigration crackdown and the retirement of baby boomers mean fewer people are competing for work. So the break-even rate of monthly hiring, 155,000 in 2023-2024, has dropped, perhaps to nearly zero, according to a Federal Reserve study.

“There are just fewer people available to hire,” said Sal Guatieri, senior economist at BMO Capital Markets. For some, labor shortages translate into higher wages. The payroll processor ADP reported Wednesday that people who changed jobs last month pocketed a 7% raise, the biggest year-over-year gain in almost a year and a premium over a 4.4% increase for workers who stayed where they were.

At the same time, companies have become more productive in recent years, using technology to do the work that humans used to do. “We are seeing companies produce more with their current staff,” Guatieri said. “So there’s less need to take on new workers.”

Shortages of available workers and rising productivity, he said, “will keep the lid on the rate of hiring and monthly job growth.”

In a report out this week, the researchers Ingrid Chen, Marianna Kudlyak, and Riva Mikhlin of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco found that landing a job has gotten tougher in the past couple of years—surprisingly so.

Normally, this deep into an economic expansion—it’s been more than six years since the last recession—employers would need workers so badly that they’d be taking chances on young people and on those with less education. Not this time. “Instead of being pulled in, the pipeline into employment is shrinking such that the recovery is no longer reaching workers at the margins,” Chen, Kudlyak, and Mikhlin write.

Moreover, the unemployed people who normally get back to work the fastest—those in their prime working years (25 to 54) and with college educations—are struggling to find new jobs. The San Francisco Fed researchers aren’t sure what’s making the job search so tough. They suspect it might have to do with the immigration crackdown, hiring slowdowns specifically at tech companies and government contractors, uncertainty over the direction of government policy, or “early signals of broader labor market deterioration.”

As the cyclosporiasis outbreak continues to rage across the United States, salad chains like Sweetgreen are preparing for a significant decline in sales.

August is only one week old, but the month has already seen layoffs at a number of high-profile tech companies.

In a corporate job, somebody else initiates your raise. There’s an annual review on the calendar, and you may or may not get an increase based on performance, cost of living or both.

This article is republished with permission from Wonder Tools, a newsletter that helps you discover the most useful sites and apps.

Low employee engagement is a widespread problem that is having a profound and costly impact on workplaces. According to Gallup, the analytics and advisory company, low engagement resulted in approximately $10 trillion in lost productivity last year. That’s the equivalent of 9% of GDP. Gallup also reported that in 2025 employee engagement was at its lowest level since 2020, and has been on a steady decline globally the last two years.

The last of New York City Transit’s MetroCard machines are being auctioned off to the highest bidders.

OpenAI, the artificial intelligence pioneer, is trying on a new public image: the scrappy underdog David defending itself from Apple’s creaky Goliath. It’s an understandable strategy, but making that image stick won’t be easy.