Week of July 27th, 2026

Kevin Warsh and the Fed decided to keep rates steady. Will he continue to be noncommittal?

The Department of Transportation gave the green light to Amazon’s autonomous vehicle company, Zoox. Plus: the Fed’s decision on interest rates, rising health insurance costs, retirees returning to work, and how rental communities prepare for the Sundance Film Festival.

When the Sundance Film Festival comes to Boulder in January, scores of out-of-state visitors are expected to descend on the city. Many of those studio executives, actors, directors and fans will need somewhere to stay.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, many major companies formed after mergers opted for generic or universal names.

“My daughter-in-law had wanted to pursue a new opportunity,” said Irene Kesselman, who sold her previous toy store, Ali Cat Toys, in 2024. “We started talking, and she asked if I would mentor her, and I agreed to do so.”

There are now cases across 45 states.

Health insurance costs for employers have been growing at a high rate. To cope, experts said employers could raise costs, hold off hiring, or cut into employee raises.

The Trump administration recently agreed to allow Amazon’s driverless taxi company, Zoox, to start charging for rides.

The Office of Personnel Management has argued that nondisclosure agreements are necessary to prevent leaks.

Some argue the proposed rule, which would allow agencies to require that federal employees sign nondisclosure agreements, could have a chilling effect on whistleblowers.

People later in their careers who may have caretaker responsibilities for children or older parents tend to value the flexibility offered by remote work.

Ongoing wars, plus a “super El Niño” this year, could lead to sharp price hikes at the grocery store.

Prices for commodities like wheat, corn, and rice could jump 10% to 18% by next summer. We’ll explain why.

Plus, AI workers urge the U.S. government to create guardrails for the technology, and Peacock and YouTube announce a streaming partnership. Anita Ramaswamy, columnist at The Information, joins Marketplace’s Meghan McCarty Carino on this week’s “Tech Bytes: Week in Review.”

“Since 2021, we have seen in the U.S. about a 29% increase in chargebacks,” said Amanda Mull at Bloomberg Businessweek. “Globally, it's even higher. It's 46%.”

Last year, the organic marketplace grew three times faster than the total food marketplace. Plus: Sticky inflation, young Maine residents learn the art of lobstering, and the rise of (often fraudulent) chargebacks.

Global warfare has impacted the supply chain, pushing diesel prices close to the highest they have ever been.

Even though organic products generally cost more than conventional, sales of organic items have been rising at aggressive rates, leaving non-organic groceries behind.

A program in Maine is teaching young people with no previous connections to the lobster business how to get into an industry where the barriers to entry have historically been high.

The Atlanta Fed’s sticky price CPI makes a prediction about what inflation will be in the years ahead.

Today, we'll dig into some warning signs in the current long-term unemployment figures and learn why the government is updating how it calculates inflation.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis makes adjustments to inflation estimates regularly, but it comes at a time when the BEA is under budgetary stress.

By some measures, diamond prices have been cut in half since a peak during the pandemic.

You may have heard that a diamond is forever. Turns out, a diamond's value is not. We’ll dig in.

Shri Narayanan, professor of engineering, psychology, and linguistics at the University of Southern California, teaches his students to privilege humans when using AI for their research.

How to navigate a world of recurring monthly fees.

While drivers feel pain at the pump, some state budgets are experiencing a needed windfall. Plus: line dancing, Labubus, and the AI bubble.

A look back at what we can and can’t learn from the dot-com and housing bubbles of the past.

Tax revenues are coming in higher than expected in states like Alaska and New Mexico as oil prices remain elevated.

A chance encounter led Justin Lee Williams to a career as a line dancing instructor at a time when the hobby is seeing a surge in popularity.

From collectibles to puzzles, "kidulting" is fueling growth in the toy market.

A big sell-off of tech stock continued in Asian markets today amid questions over AI spending.

Recent college graduates are navigating a job market shaped by AI on both sides of the hiring process.

Grocery spending is down on average about 2%. Stores have very low profit margins, so they're selling data and advertising to fill the gap.

An interest rate announcement from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh this afternoon will come amid uncertainty in oil prices and inflation.

Gaurav Sukhatme, director of USC's Stevens School of Computing and Artificial Intelligence and interim dean of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, hopes his and other faculties' expertise in AI can help roll out a campuswide initiative where all students learn alongside the technology's capabilities.

Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh will take the podium Wednesday to answer questions on the Fed’s latest policy decisions. But will we get any signals about future meetings?

The U.S. is down 75,000 manufacturing jobs since January 2025. Plus: the trade deficit, AI insurance, mortgage rate acceptance, and an upcoming Fed presser.

President Trump touted his administration’s success in a visit to Michigan this week. The reality is a bit more nuanced.

UPS eliminated “approximately two million pieces per day of lower-quality Amazon volume,” said CEO Carol Tomé.

That's despite a raft of tariffs meant to bring the deficit down.

As AI systems get integrated across the economy, they’re creating new liabilities for businesses, and pushing new insurance offerings to cover them.

“People that have been on the sidelines, they realize that this is probably going to be a while,” said Vivian Gueler, a mortgage lender in LA. “So they're just jumping off the sidelines and starting to look around a little bit.”

New reporting finds that the high cost of elder care is wiping out the money some older adults had hoped to leave to their heirs.

Many Baby Boomers expected to leave wealth behind. New reporting suggests the cost of aging is rewriting that story.

Some investors are already diversifying away from the biggest names in tech.

Younger workers have different views of — and less experience in — the labor market than older workers.

Today: investors’ feelings about stocks and different generations’ feelings about this economy.

Amy Scott, host of Marketplace’s climate podcast “How We Survive,” explores whether “artificial Tums” could increase the ocean’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide.

Brattleboro, Vermont is home to about 12,000 people — and the New England Center for Circus Arts.

The Trump administration cut Temporary Protected Status for more than 330,000 Haitians. Plus: Fed expectations, wealth redistribution, and aircraft contrails.

A Marylander started an income redistribution club last year after a bunch of his friends who worked for the federal government lost their jobs.

Contrails, those white lines that form behind airplanes in certain atmospheric conditions, can have a significant climate impact. The good news? They can be avoided.

Fed Chair Kevin Warsh has eschewed forward guidance on interest rates. It won’t stop markets from predicting what’s to come.

According to a survey by the National Association for Business Economics, businesses have raised prices, become more efficient, and are no longer worried about an impending recession.

The U.S. labor market looks set to lose more than 200,000 workers at once.

The Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting Detroit and Windsor, Ontario, opened to traffic on Monday, offering a new crossing that an economic analysis estimates will save truck drivers 850,000 hours annually.

Fewer international students are applying to Ph.D. programs. What would it take for universities to bounce back?

That could weaken the doctoral pipeline — and spell trouble for the future of science and innovation in the U.S.

Today: the economic benefits of the Gordie Howe International Bridge amid rising trade tensions between the U.S. and Canada.

A recent report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue shows that AI nudify apps and sites are being promoted across mainstream social media platforms despite their policies against nonconsensual, intimate images, says ISD director of programs Sina Laubenstein.