Because sometimes things just need to be said….
I dumped Marriott for Hyatt as my main hotel loyalty program, and the funniest part is that Marriott is the reason I know I was right. Here’s how that works. I still carry the Chase Marriott Bonvoy card, which hands me one free night certificate every year for a $95 annual fee. A free night …
It took a farmer with a camera, not a regulator, to catch a $17 billion Microsoft deal running dozens of gas generators without an air permit. Here’s the story. A company called DataOne is building a giant AI data center in Vineland, New Jersey, for the Dutch firm Nebius, which supplies computing power to Microsoft …
The Federal Reserve raised interest rates on September 16. Sixteen days later, the government told us employers added 29,000 jobs last month, when economists were expecting something closer to 85,000 or 90,000. That’s the timeline. Make of it what you will, but I’d make of it this: somebody pulled the brakes right before the car …
Until today, a used car buyer in California had no legal right to change his mind once the paperwork was signed. You could return a toaster, but a $30,000 car was yours the second you initialed the last page. That changed this morning. California’s CARS Act, SB 766, took effect October 1, and it gives …
A senior Ticketmaster executive wrote that the company would turn a “blind eye” to ticket brokers breaking its rules “as a matter of policy.” That email is now Exhibit A in a federal case, and on Monday a judge said the case can go ahead. Here’s the setup. The FTC and seven states sued Ticketmaster …
The government’s funding deadline is Wednesday, and nobody in Washington is sweating it. That’s the news. Congress got it done a month early. The Senate passed a stopgap bill 90-6, the House followed 370-48 on September 1, and Trump signed it September 2. Federal funding now runs through December 11, which happens to land well …
Here’s a fun fact about your electric company: the government promises it a profit. That’s a promise, not a chance. That’s how regulated utilities work. Nobody else is allowed to string wires to your house, so the state lets the monopoly earn a set return on what it invests, and a regulator signs off on …
Every player, captain, and assistant captain at this week’s Presidents Cup collected a $250,000 check before a single putt dropped. Add up both rosters and that’s $8.5 million handed out for an event that still bills itself as an exhibition played for pride, not pay. Nobody bothered updating the pitch. The money itself isn’t new. …
In August 2023, the Women’s World Cup final aired for free on Fox, and it drew the biggest U.S. television audience a Women’s World Cup final has ever pulled in. Four years from now, watching the next one will cost you a Netflix subscription. FIFA and Netflix just made it official. Netflix is now the …
In December, the Senate held a vote to keep the discount on your health insurance alive for three more years, and it lost by a margin that would embarrass a student council election. Nine votes short. Here’s the timeline, because it actually matters. The enhanced premium tax credits that have been subsidizing Affordable Care Act …
Oracle is building a $165 billion AI data center in the New Mexico desert. This week it sent out a legal notice covering itself in case that never actually happens. The project is called Project Jupiter, Oracle’s piece of the Stargate buildout with OpenAI and SoftBank. The plan is 2.45 gigawatts of power coming online …
Fat Bear Week started yesterday, and it might be the only contest left in this country that everybody actually trusts. Here’s how it works, if you somehow missed it. Katmai National Park in Alaska runs a bracket of brown bears who spend all summer and fall stuffing themselves with salmon before winter hibernation. Sixteen bears …