For all the advances in data science, artificial intelligence, and behavioral assessments, one hiring ritual remains stubbornly unchanged: the job interview, where candidates are still subjected to awkward brainteasers about golf balls in airplanes, forced to disclose their “biggest weaknesses” to amateur psychologists, asked whether they would keep working after winning the lottery, or made to present to silent panels who seem less interested in evidence of competence than in observing how gracefully applicants endure a mildly humiliating social experiment.

Greece is moving forward with a ban on under-15s using social media, becoming the latest country to restrict young teens from using the online platforms.

Wall Street surged in Wednesday premarket trading as oil prices plunged 16% after the U.S. and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire that includes the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.

Futures for the S&P 500 jumped 2.7% before the opening bell and futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 2.6%. Nasdaq futures soared 3.4%.

Benchmark U.S. crude sank $18.43 to $94.52 a barrel, a nearly 16% decline. Brent crude, the international standard dropped $15.54 to $93.73 a barrel. Natural gas futures declined close to 5%.

The drops reversed some of the rise in oil prices since the start of the war more than five weeks ago that had effectively blocked passage through the strait that’s a crucial route for global supplies.

“Yet the mood remains one of cautious optimism rather than outright celebration,” said Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade. “The ceasefire is only two weeks long, and markets will be watching closely to see whether shipping through the Strait of Hormuz normalizes as promised and whether the fragile truce can pave the way for a more durable peace agreement.”

Late Tuesday, Trump said he was holding off on his threatened attacks on Iranian bridges, power plants and other civilian targets. Iran’s foreign minister said passage through the strait would be allowed for the next two weeks under Iranian military management.

But analysts warned against too much optimism.

“There is a reason to be optimistic, but it is still too early to tell, because, as you know, after all, it is Trump,” said Takashi Hiroki, chief strategist at Monex.

In equities trading, major U.S. airline stocks soared on the steep drop in oil prices. Delta and United jump more than 12% in premarket while American rose 10%. Delta on Wednesday also reported first-quarter sales and profit that came in ahead of Wall Street forecasts and said that demand remained strong with the summer travel season just a few months away.

Elsewhere in Europe, France’s CAC 40 added 4.5% by midday, while the German DAX soared nearly 5%. Britain’s FTSE 100 gained 2.9%.

In Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 5.4% to finish at 56,308.42. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 jumped 2.6% to 8,951.80. South Korea’s Kospi soared 6.9% to 5,872.34. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng surged 3.1% to 25,893.02, while the Shanghai Composite added 2.7% to 3,995.00.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar fell to 158.39 Japanese yen, from 159.52 yen Wednesday. The euro cost $1.1701, up from $1.1597. The dollar usually becomes a safe haven during geopolitical uncertainty, so the ceasefire deal worked to lessen that appeal.

Iran, the United States and Israel agreed to a two-week ceasefire, an 11th-hour deal that allowed U.S. President Donald Trump to pull back from his threat to unleash a bombing campaign that would destroy the Iranian civilization. Hours after the announcement, Iran and Gulf Arab countries reported new attacks Wednesday.

It was not clear if the sporadic attacks would be enough to scuttle the deal, which U.S. Vice President JD Vance called “fragile.”

Even before the new strikes were reported, much about the deal was unclear as the sides presented vastly different visions of the terms.

Shares in Delta Air Lines, Inc. (NYSE: DAL) are on the rise this morning after the company reported its Q1 2026 results.

In the world of convenience stores, 7-Eleven is undoubtedly the cool kid.

The airport is chaos. Lines snake beyond the designated barriers and out the doors as frazzled travelers tug their luggage and scowl at their phones, their grimaced faces even more dramatic in the harsh lighting.

Over the past few days, new billboards have slowly been popping up along a 130-mile stretch of desert into Indio, California. One features a giant image of a crying face emoji; another is a picture of an unexplained blob; a third shows an edit of the Mona Lisa sipping out of a delicate tea cup. Each of these eye-catching visuals is an advertisement for a performance at this year’s Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.

David Gamage was out to dinner with his wife and was already a few drinks deep late last year when his phone buzzed. According to the name on the screen, the call was coming from California congressman Ro Khanna.

The American job market is now filled with so-called ghost jobs —listings for positions that don’t actually exist, from companies that have no intent to hire—wasting not only hours of your time, but also your money, too.

Facing stagnant sales, Panera Bread is aiming to become one of the restaurant industry’s rare comeback stories.

Loredana Crisan says her relationship with creativity started when she was 7 years old, sitting with her mother in her family’s kitchen in Bucharest, Romania. “The question she posed was, ‘Do you want to learn piano,’ and as a kid I was like, ‘Yes!’ –– probably because I was singing in the house.” From then on, says Crisan, she never stopped playing. In fact, she ended up as a student studying classical music in a conservatory. 

The cutting board may be the most used object in your kitchen, but its design hasn’t changed considerably since 3,000 BCE, when the ancient Egyptians began using slabs of wood for food preparation.

Entrepreneurs displaying narcissistic behavior are better able to convince investors to give them money when their grandiosity comes across as confidence as opposed to defensiveness or arrogance.

Below, Leanne ten Brinke shares five key insights from her new book, Poisonous People: How to Resist Them and Improve Your Life.

The National Capital Planning Commission has voted to approve President Donald Trump’s controversial White House ballroom plans, greenlighting the demolition of the historic East Wing to make way for a new neoclassical structure. 

It feels like a “hit-the-brakes” economy, with warning lights flashing everywhere: inflation pressures, AI disruptions, upside-down business models, and a persistent sense that some new market surprise or geopolitical tempest is waiting around the corner.

You know the expression, “If you want to get something done, ask a working mother?” Surprising as it may seem, the same holds true for cancer patients.

Conventional wisdom holds that cancer patients are too sick and fragile to work, at least not to their full ability. That can certainly be true in some cases, sometimes tragically. And I’m not suggesting that anyone should ever feel pressured to work if they don’t feel well enough to do so. But in many instances, the stereotype that cancer patients are too compromised to work is a myth. I know because I’ve been living—and working—with an incurable type of blood cancer for more than twenty-two years. 

We’re in the midst of a child care crisis in America, but when fathers want to take on more childcare to equal their partners’ efforts, they are being stymied by their employers.

Fox Corp. has announced plans to partner with Kalshi to integrate the prediction market’s data across the media giant’s various cable networks.