Week of July 20th, 2026

The U.S.-based chip maker reported sales jumped by 25% last quarter. Plus: business loans, buzzy beverages, and a 63-year-old intern.

Monica Petrucci, editor at Forbes, explains why the new category of functional beverages is growing so rapidly.

“When I rebooted after my layoff, I wrote to what I call world-famous conservators in the United States and said, ‘Hey, how would you like to hire a 63-year-old intern?’” said Douglas Distefano, founder of Monument Conservation Partners.

Section 122, 301, 3338 — there are a lot of tariff regimes moving through the economy. Are they starting to become background noise?

The same forces that have been pushing mortgage interest rates higher are likely to do the same to business loans.

Intel posted a 25% jump in sales in its latest earnings report. The federal government’s roughly 10% stake in the chipmaker is now worth around $40 billion.

You can pay as little as $55 or as much as $800, depending on which games you want to watch and how you want to watch them.

On this morning’s show: premature retirements, a new round of tariffs, and blockbuster earnings reports.

Converting unused office buildings into apartments or condos could ease the housing supply. But after a high-profile engineering failure, will people want to move in?

Companies downsize or go bust, partners get sick, kids need childcare help. And premature retirees end up without the bank balances they’d hoped for.

A new batch of tariffs went into effect overnight, and there’s more to come. We have an explainer.

Plus, France bans children under 15 from social media, and Apple could reportedly rollout a lease-to-own program through Klarna. Will Oremus, staff writer at The Atlantic, joins Marketplace's Meghan McCarty Carino for this week's "Tech Bytes: Week in Review."

Travel reporter Dobrina Zhekova talks about the boom in family travel and how luxury resorts are dealing with it.

But the number doesn’t reflect the broader employment situation. Plus: AI customer service chatbots, bond yields, luxury resorts, and Medicaid work requirements.

Companies are banking on AI to make their customer service more efficient and less costly. But customers are easily frustrated when they can’t talk to a human.

For Troy Cwynar, who moved out to Los Angeles after graduating college, quitting his retail job meant opening himself up to new opportunities

Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to the lowest level since 1969 — but there are disturbing trends below the surface.

States are challenging the Trump administration’s plan to require some Medicaid enrollees with serious health issues to submit additional paperwork to prove they’re exempt from work requirements.

The kinds of investors buying bonds these days may trade in and out of the market faster, and they may flee if something goes wrong, says Greg Ip of the Wall Street Journal.

If you can’t buy a physical copy of a video game, do you even really own it? Plus: too many private jets, too little hangar space.

Last year, counties with high flood risk lost more residents than they gained, for the second year in a row, according to a recent analysis from Redfin.

Sales of private and corporate aircraft have surged since the pandemic, and more than 80% of general aviation airports now have hangar waiting lists that extend years in many cases.

As the WNBA celebrates All-Star weekend, a landmark collective bargaining agreement is changing more than just players’ salaries.

PlayStation games will no longer be available to buy as physical discs starting in 2028. The backlash from customers has been swift.

This morning, how climate risks are changing communities. Plus: the new labor contract reshaping the WNBA.

Four months ago, Dillon Thompson ordered two e-bikes, but only one ever arrived. In search of the missing bike, Thompson travelled through customer service AI chatbot hell in hopes of getting his bike back.

And more of your workplace drama.

In a recent speech at the New York Association for Business Economics, Fed Board Governor Christopher Waller spoke about the importance of “anchoring” inflation expectations.

“Unprecedented is just too weak a word for this,” said Gretchen Blough, a customs brokerage manager at Logistics Plus.

“It's not just slowing,” said Adam Posen at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “It's slowing after being slow for quite some time.”

Yields have topped 5% for a couple weeks now, the longest since 2007. Plus: China’s flagging consumer economy, AT&T success with service bundles, and “anchored” inflation expectations.

High levels of U.S. debt and competition from tech companies issuing their own bonds are driving the high yields.

AT&T beat earnings expectations with $31.6 billion in revenue and a record 646,000 new internet subscribers.

Heatwaves in Europe have been slowing trains, straining power grids, and making it harder for people to work. Today, we’ll discuss the costs.

After years of trying different strategies, one private equity backed company has decided its best, and maybe only, option is to turn its 11 hospitals back into nonprofits.

Heatwaves take a tougher toll on already vulnerable populations, like the elderly or people with pre-existing conditions, or people who work outdoors.

The sweeping new tariff would range from 10% to 12.5%.

The NIH's All of Us program could accelerate medical research — but its future depends on continued funding.

The Trump administration is poised to announce another round of sweeping tariffs, which would replace existing import duties expiring this Friday.

When interacting with AI chatbots, the large language model might reference something the user mentioned without relevance to the conversation. Janelle Shane, creator of the AI Weirdness blog, explains why LLMs' “memory” is different from human memory.

It’s the first big copyright decision for the AI industry, but not the last. Plus: trucking costs, lost media, and the sandwich economy.

A federal judge gave final approval to Anthropic's $1.5 billion settlement with authors whose books were used to train its AI chatbot Claude, with individual authors receiving roughly $3,000 per work after fees.

One big reason: GM specializes in big trucks and SUVs — and demand is high.

Trucking and other transportation costs are up, thanks in part to the war in the Middle East. As a result, business owners are strategizing on whether to absorb those higher costs or pass them on to their customers.

Jersey Mike's has been growing while Subway closes stores. Analysts say the chain has benefited from offering grilled sandwiches, operating its own stores, and rarely running discounts.

Becoming a Dark Sky certified community by replacing exterior lighting with shielded, downward-facing fixtures, can protect wildlife and draw in tourism. But the updates can be costly for businesses and homeowners.

Scharon Harding, senior tech reporter at Ars Technica, talks about how, with so many things going digital-only or subscription-based, we don't own the media we buy anymore.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer will travel to Mexico tomorrow for USMCA talks. Meanwhile, Canada is facing new U.S. tariffs.

What does it mean for candidates to push a "worker-first AI policy"? AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler discusses.

How the nation’s largest federation of labor unions is approaching AI ahead of the midterm elections.

Reuters reports that the FAA is close to recertifying the aircraft after a series of crashes and in-flight problems.

Top AI firms are issuing hundreds of billions in corporate bonds to get cash for their infrastructure buildout.

Every time humans try to “fix” nature, we tend to create a new mess that needs fixing.

Average U.S. gas prices passed $4 a gallon this week. Plus: living in a national park, logistics at the Port of Los Angeles, and starter homes.

After a slow start to 2026, U.S. shipping companies are filling up inventory before more suspected tariffs begin in 2027.

Oil prices could have been even higher, but, for now, investors expect Iran and the U.S. to come back to the negotiating table.

While big banks reported blockbuster quarters driven by trading revenue and investment fees, regional lenders — which focus on traditional deposit-taking and lending — are about to give a different read on the economy.

“It was just a matter of being there, realizing OK, I can't experience this place unless I'm here,” said Brian Evaul, a maintenance supervisor at Big Bend National Park in Texas.

The number of “starter homes” on the U.S. market hit a record low in 2022. The supply is starting to rise in some parts of the country, though sales are not.

Today, we hear a snippet of a conversation between Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams and Harvard’s Linda Hill about the use of AI in the workplace.

Nvidia briefly ceded its title as the world's most valuable company to Apple last week, not because Apple surged, but because investors are growing more cautious about AI-related stocks after two years of exuberance.

Linda Hill, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, talks about how leaders should approach AI and confront some of the biggest challenges that come with major technological change.

Today: climbing gas prices, an Nvidia stock sell-off, and changing conversations around AI.

A new report from the Future of Life Institute says top developers are moving the goalposts on existential risk.